Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/08/09
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I wanted to cover some of the facts of the measurement of intelligence within the confines of the most tested and studied facets of intelligence with that which comes by the title “general intelligence” via measurement in the “intelligence quotient” or “IQ” without the psychometry or the theory, but, rather, the generally accepted facts and the notion, creation, and re-imagining of the ‘listings.’ Sociologically, why is there a fascination with ranking the who’s who of the high-IQ?
Christian Sorensen: Although it is effective that there are fewer women than men on the right extreme of the curve, I think that the fascination for high-IQ, statistically speaking, occurs much more frequently in men than in women, since it is typically related to masculine behaviours that through comparative and over-compensatory mechanisms, associated with competitiveness, seek social acceptance and recognition with a constant effort to publicly attract attention, which in turn is sustained and drifted by a sensible exhibition of what is owned, in the sense of something endowed with dimensions. Therefore it could be said, that literally what matters over anything else related to high intelligence, has to do with how large is the IQ, as a sign that symbolizes power, and which ultimately in my opinion, what intends to cover up, is the need to demonstrate sexual potency, by repressing at the same time, the homosexual feelings of attraction towards other men, and of pleasure derived for being attractive to individuals of the same gender.
Jacobsen: What are some of the serious efforts at compiling real score identities?
Sorensen: I think that the efforts, made by certain societies such as Triple Nine, Mensa and WGD, for verifying the validity of the scores, and demanding in the case of the first two, that these should be exclusively associated with professional measurement instruments.
Jacobsen: What are some considerations in listing a who’s who of the high-IQ world?
Sorensen: I think that it is necessary to verify the veracity of the documents provided, and to exclusively accept as valid, the psychometric reports issued by qualified professionals.
Jacobsen: What are the ethical issues in having such a ranking?
Sorensen: I think that depends on the world, and of what the world expects or needs from someone who has such a ranking, therefore in this context, I believe that it is the necessity that creates the ethical value, and not the latter who regulates the former, in consequence the dead one, I endorse it to someone else.
Jacobsen: There are a ton of online sources via articles including “The 40 smartest people of all time,” “30 Smartest People Alive Today,” “8 People with Higher IQs Than Einstein,” “Here Is The Highest Possible IQ And The People Who Hold The World Record,” “25 Highest IQ’s Throughout History,” “The 50 Greatest Living Geniuses,” “21 Celebrities With Surprisingly High IQs,” “World’s Most Intelligent People 2010 – Intelligent People – Highest IQ,” “Feeling accomplished yet? Here is a list of people whose IQ levels have created records time and again,” “Who has the highest recorded IQ of all time?,” “Of All Things: Which president had the highest IQ?,” “Talk About Hidden Genius: These Are The Celebrities Boasting The Highest IQs,” “24 of the smartest people who ever lived,” “Famous Historical Genius IQs,” “The Smartest and Least Brainy Presidents, by IQ Scores,” “An 11-Year-Old Just Earned the Highest IQ Score Possible,” “What Is The Highest IQ Possible You Can Achieve?,” “What is the highest IQ ever measured in a human?,” “Dr Evangelos Katsioulis has the World’s Highest IQ,” “The Time Everyone “Corrected” the World’s Smartest Woman,” “The 13 Presidents with the Highest IQ Scores,” “Who Has the Highest IQ in the World? 35 People Who Are Even Smarter Than Einstein,” “TOP 10 PEOPLE HAVE HIGHEST IQ SCORES IN THE WORLD (P.2),” “Meet Marilyn Vos Savant, The Woman With The World’s Highest IQ,” “The World’s 50 Smartest Teenagers,” “These 26 Celebrities Have The Highest IQ In Hollywood… #17 Is Pretty Much A Genius!,” “10 People With The Highest IQ In The World,” “The Man With The Highest IQ In The World Doesn’t Think He’s Very Smart At All,” “Top 12 People with Highest IQ in the World,” “Top 10 Women with Highest IQ in the World,” “The Massive List of Genius – People With the Highest IQ,” “Highest IQ Scores in History,” “A 3-year-old boy has just become the youngest member of Mensa UK, the largest international high IQ society,” and others. It comes down to partial and questionable listings, individual profiles, children, celebrities, and American presidents. Then it’s a smattering of probably truly more obscure materials. Outside of the straight gossip-level journalism, there are a number of listings such as GENIUS High IQ Network, Gifted High IQ Network, Hall of IQ scores, HRIQ Ranking List, Mahir Wu Ranking List, VeNuS Ranking List, World Famous IQ Scores, World Genius Directory, World Highest IQ Scores, GFIS IQ List, WIQF Listing, and Real IQ Listing. GENIUS High IQ Network only had 3 mainstream intelligence test scores listed out of 38 entries:
IQ 173 sd15 W. M. Fightmaster USA WAIS-R 4.87 http://www.linkedin.com/in/william-fightmaster
IQ 166 sd15 Thomas Hally Mexico WAIS-III 4.40 http://www.facebook.com/thomas.hally
IQ 161 sd15 Kota Akishige Japan WISC-IV 4.07 http://www.facebook.com/kota.akishige
Gifted High IQ Network only had 4 mainstream intelligence test scores listed out of 106 entries:
IQ 173 sd15 W. M. Fightmaster USA WAIS-R 4.87 http://www.linkedin.com/in/william-fightmaster
IQ 166 sd15 Thomas Hally Mexico WAIS-III 4.40 http://www.facebook.com/thomas.hally
IQ 161 sd15 Kota Akishige Japan WISC-IV 4.07 http://www.facebook.com/kota.akishige
IQ 135 sd15 Dragan Mlakic B&H RAPM II 2.34 http://www.facebook.com/NoNamedReal
Hall of IQ Scores only had 2 mainstream intelligence test scores listed out of ~157 entries:
Juan Carlos Delgado, Venezuela, WAIS IV, 155+
David Gerardo Espinoza Aviles, Mexico, WAIS IV, 155+
HRIQ Ranking List only had 1 mainstream intelligence test score listed out of 215 entries:
Christian Sorensen Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Revised (1981) 185/185+
Mahir Wu Ranking List had 0 mainstream intelligence tests out of 35 entries. VeNuS Ranking List on a different metric than singular score submissions from alternative and mainstream intelligence tests. World Famous IQ Scores lists tests with more than 3 test takers:
Numerus Delight
Numiracle
Vermentary
Verllectual
Vercenthon
Daster
Einplex
Elementary
FREE Fall
FREE Fall
Part I
FREE Fall
Part II
HI-Qlass
Lipt
LSHR
LSHR Classic
LSHR Light
NSE
Numerus
Numerus Classic
Numerus Light
Numerus Light 2
Pert
Simtollect
SPEED
Triplex
Triplex Light
WIC 2014
—
9I6
AGLT
Algebrica
Asterix
Asteroid
Common Sense
ETHER
EZIQ
FIQURE
GENE Verbal I
GENE Verbal
II
GIFT Verbal I
GIFT Verbal
II
GIFT Verbal
III
GIFT Verbal
IV
Gigi Pro
Certified
Hieroglyphica
IO
LAW
LexiQ
L’Orange
LS 24
LS 36
Lux25
Mach
Mathema
NGT-B
NGT-F
NGT-X
NIT Abstract
NIT Numerical
NIT Spatial
NIT Verbal
NPRT
PerspectIQ
PerspectIQ
Light
prNt
SATURN
Sequentia
Numerica I
SLSE 48
SLSE I
SLSE II
SUN
Test For
Genius
TLMT
VISION
Warp
WIQ
WIQ-II
WITT
WordIQ
World
Intelligence Test
Then they list the tests with less than 3 test takers:
12345
AIR-16MC
AIT
Alchemix
Analogies #1
Alpha-Num 1
A Paranoiac’s Torture
ASIT
ASTER
BALZAC
bysl3x
Callidus
CFIT-S3
C.F.N.I.T
Comix
Concep-T
COSMIC
CUBE
E2H26
ESP
Female Intelligence Test
Flux
FRT-A
FRT-B
FSIA
GENE Numerical III
GENE Numerical IV
GENE Verbal III
GENE Verbal IV
GET Verbal
GIFT Numerical III
G Test
IQ-T
Logix
Mathodica 22
M-CSNA
MCST 32
NGT-F Short
Ninja
NIT Form I
NIT Form II
NIT Logical
NPRA 36
NUMDOT
PULSAR
Qoymans MC #4
RedBlue
Register
RIDDLES
ROTOR
S, T & H
SBM26
ScorPIonX I
ScorPIonX II
SEQS I
Spat -10
Star Cluster
TERO41
TETR-IQ
Vault
Verba 66
Verbatim
W.A.I
WIC 2016
WITTY
X Test
X&Y Test
Xpwmatrix
XV Lingua
Yjac
The World Genius Directory lists 27 mainstream intelligence test entries out of 383:
185+ Christian Sorensen, Belgium, WAIS, www.isi-s.iqsociety.org
185 Kirk Kirkpatrick, United States, Stanford-Binet, www.facebook.com/macrhino
180+ Dr Evangelos Katsioulis, Greece, WAIS, www.katsioulis.com
175 Takahiro Kitagawa, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/marubake.no.shiwaza
175 Susumu Ota, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/susumu.ota.5
166 Thomas Hally, Mexico, WAIS, www.booksofintelligence.com
164 Dr Manahel Thabet, Yemen, Stanford-Binet, www.smarttipsconsultants.com
164 Iakovos Koukas, Greece, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/iakovos.koukas
[Ed. Added on September 13, 2020, based on a personal email from Wagner-Damianowitsch:
163 Stephan Wagner-Damianowitsch, Serbia, WISC, www.facebook.com/s.m.wagner.damianowitsch.]
163 Dr Jason Betts, Australia, WAIS, www.emeraldalchemy.com
161 Geoff Hammond, United States, WAIS, www.csiinternational.com
160 Rudolf Trubba, Czech Republic, RAPM, http://www.facebook.com/rudolf.trubba
160 Tom Imondi, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/tommcimondi
160 Carlos Simões, Portugal, RAPM, http://www.cpsimoes.net
157 Michael Sumners, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/michael.sumners.31
155 Julio Machado, Brazil, WAIS, www.julio.machado.info
155 Patrick O’Shea, United States, WAIS, www.thethousand.com
152 Arturo Ruiz, Mexico, RAPM, http://www.about.me/jart
151 Constantí Cabestany, Spain, WAIS III, www.rizomatismos.tumblr.com
151 Jason Robért, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/jason.r.robert.7
150 Jonathan Som, France, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.som
150 Jeffery Ford, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/HighOnIQ
149 Stephen Murray, Australia, WAIS, www.taotiger.com
146 Denis Walch, Austria, WAIS, www.facebook.com/Denis.Walch92
141 Jakub Oblizajek, Poland, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jakub.oblizajek
135 Tony Sparacino, United States, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/tsparacino
135 Simon Rebsdorf, Denmark, RAPM, http://humanlifelab.wordpress.com
135 Dragan Mlakić, Bosnia & Hercegovina, RAPM, www.facebook.com/NoNamedReal
The World Highest IQ Scores lists some alternative tests:
Strict logic sequence examination I
GFIS IQ List has 0 mainstream intelligence tests out of 142 entries. WIQF Listing is defunct. Real IQ Listing uses a differential identity metric with “True IQ.” That is to demonstrate, in general, the ‘listings’ or the rankings of the highest measured IQ scores consist mostly or entirely of alternative intelligence test scores rather than mainstream intelligence test scores, i.e., reduced levels of reliability and validity, while the World Genius Directory demonstrates the highest number of mainstream intelligence tests with inclusion; even there, the vast majority of the intelligence test metrics taken for inclusion remain alternative tests. All “alternative tests” listed in some consist of lists of alternative tests and the relevant high scorers with some having less than 3 test takers per person. Thus, this provides one consistent image of the high-range testing environment in terms of the rankings or ‘listings.’ What does this state about the high-range testing environment to you?
Sorensen: I think that is a jungle with a rich multicolored flora and fauna, which although it is striking, due to the variety of exotic and chromatic species that are exhibited, is somewhat dizzying and saturating. In addition and concretely speaking, from a semantic methodological point of view, in my opinion the vast majority of the high-range testing environment scores, regardless of how spectacular they may seem, and despite that they can eventually represent the measurement of something else, they actually aren’t valid measurements of IQ.
Jacobsen: What does this state about the rankings to you?
Sorensen: That the only ranking that has objective validity, is the one above, and if it is expanded, it should be done based exclusively on the criteria that were followed to carry it out.
Jacobsen: If we take only the World Genius Directory and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, or the WAIS or the WAIS III, the listing, ranking really, becomes this:
185+ Christian Sorensen, Belgium, WAIS, www.isi-s.iqsociety.org
180+ Dr Evangelos Katsioulis, Greece, WAIS, www.katsioulis.com
175 Takahiro Kitagawa, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/marubake.no.shiwaza
175 Susumu Ota, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/susumu.ota.5
166 Thomas Hally, Mexico, WAIS, www.booksofintelligence.com
164 Iakovos Koukas, Greece, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/iakovos.koukas
163 Dr Jason Betts, Australia, WAIS, www.emeraldalchemy.com
[Ed. Added on September 13, 2020, based on a personal email from Wagner-Damianowitsch:
163 Stephan Wagner-Damianowitsch, Serbia, WISC, www.facebook.com/s.m.wagner.damianowitsch.]
161 Geoff Hammond, United States, WAIS, www.csiinternational.com
160 Tom Imondi, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/tommcimondi
157 Michael Sumners, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/michael.sumners.31
155 Julio Machado, Brazil, WAIS, www.julio.machado.info
155 Patrick O’Shea, United States, WAIS, www.thethousand.com
151 Constantí Cabestany, Spain, WAIS III, www.rizomatismos.tumblr.com
151 Jason Robért, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/jason.r.robert.7
150 Jonathan Som, France, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.som
150 Jeffery Ford, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/HighOnIQ
149 Stephen Murray, Australia, WAIS, www.taotiger.com
146 Denis Walch, Austria, WAIS, www.facebook.com/Denis.Walch92
141 Jakub Oblizajek, Poland, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jakub.oblizajek
135 Tony Sparacino, United States, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/tsparacino
(Source: World Genius Directory of Jason Betts.)
If we take only the Stanford-Binet or the SB from the World Genius Directory, we come to this two-part ranking:
185 Kirk Kirkpatrick, United States, Stanford-Binet, www.facebook.com/macrhino
164 Dr Manahel Thabet, Yemen, Stanford-Binet, www.smarttipsconsultants.com
(Source: World Genius Directory of Jason Betts.)
If we take only the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices, or the RAPM, from the World Genius Directory, we get the ranking:
160 Rudolf Trubba, Czech Republic, RAPM, http://www.facebook.com/rudolf.trubba
160 Carlos Simões, Portugal, RAPM, http://www.cpsimoes.net
152 Arturo Ruiz, Mexico, RAPM, http://www.about.me/jart
135 Simon Rebsdorf, Denmark, RAPM, http://humanlifelab.wordpress.com
135 Dragan Mlakić, Bosnia & Hercegovina, RAPM, www.facebook.com/NoNamedReal
(Source: World Genius Directory of Jason Betts.)
If we combine these for the most reliable and validated mainstream intelligence tests – the WAIS, the SB, and the RAPM, we create the following revised ranking:
185+ Christian Sorensen, Belgium, WAIS, www.isi-s.iqsociety.org
185 Kirk Kirkpatrick, United States, Stanford-Binet, www.facebook.com/macrhino
180+ Dr Evangelos Katsioulis, Greece, WAIS, www.katsioulis.com
175 Takahiro Kitagawa, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/marubake.no.shiwaza
175 Susumu Ota, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/susumu.ota.5
166 Thomas Hally, Mexico, WAIS, www.booksofintelligence.com
164 Dr Manahel Thabet, Yemen, Stanford-Binet, www.smarttipsconsultants.com
164 Iakovos Koukas, Greece, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/iakovos.koukas
163 Dr Jason Betts, Australia, WAIS, www.emeraldalchemy.com
[Ed. Added on September 13, 2020, based on a personal email from Wagner-Damianowitsch:
163 Stephan Wagner-Damianowitsch, Serbia, WISC, www.facebook.com/s.m.wagner.damianowitsch.]
161 Geoff Hammond, United States, WAIS, www.csiinternational.com
160 Rudolf Trubba, Czech Republic, RAPM, http://www.facebook.com/rudolf.trubba
160 Tom Imondi, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/tommcimondi
160 Carlos Simões, Portugal, RAPM, http://www.cpsimoes.net
157 Michael Sumners, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/michael.sumners.31
155 Julio Machado, Brazil, WAIS, www.julio.machado.info
155 Patrick O’Shea, United States, WAIS, www.thethousand.com
152 Arturo Ruiz, Mexico, RAPM, http://www.about.me/jart
151 Constantí Cabestany, Spain, WAIS III, www.rizomatismos.tumblr.com
151 Jason Robért, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/jason.r.robert.7
150 Jonathan Som, France, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.som
150 Jeffery Ford, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/HighOnIQ
149 Stephen Murray, Australia, WAIS, www.taotiger.com
146 Denis Walch, Austria, WAIS, www.facebook.com/Denis.Walch92
141 Jakub Oblizajek, Poland, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jakub.oblizajek
135 Tony Sparacino, United States, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/tsparacino
135 Simon Rebsdorf, Denmark, RAPM, http://humanlifelab.wordpress.com
135 Dragan Mlakić, Bosnia & Hercegovina, RAPM, www.facebook.com/NoNamedReal
(Source: World Genius Directory of Jason Betts.)
In fact, one could separate the alternative intelligence tests from the mainstream intelligence tests. If working from all of the aforementioned rankings, while assuming reliability of the approval of the validity of the individual and the identification of the score on the mainstream intelligence test, we can incorporate a hybrid, strategically truncated, and revised high-range intelligence test score listing with greater validity than any in modern existence because of the far stronger validity and reliability and scientific bases of the mainstream intelligence tests compared to the alternative intelligence tests, i.e., a combination, in tactical parts, of the GENIUS High IQ Network ranking, Gifted High IQ Network ranking, Hall of IQ Scores, HRIQ Ranking List, Mahir Wu Ranking List, and the World Genius Directory, as follows:
185+ Christian Sorensen, Belgium, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Revised (1981), www.isi-s.iqsociety.org
185 Kirk Kirkpatrick, United States, Stanford-Binet, www.facebook.com/macrhino
180+ Dr Evangelos Katsioulis, Greece, WAIS, www.katsioulis.com
175 Takahiro Kitagawa, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/marubake.no.shiwaza
175 Susumu Ota, Japan, WAIS, www.facebook.com/susumu.ota.5
173 W. M. Fightmaster, USA, WAIS-R, www.linkedin.com/in/william-fightmaster
166 Thomas Hally, Mexico, WAIS, www.booksofintelligence.com
164 Dr Manahel Thabet, Yemen, Stanford-Binet, www.smarttipsconsultants.com
164 Iakovos Koukas, Greece, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/iakovos.koukas
163 Dr Jason Betts, Australia, WAIS, www.emeraldalchemy.com
[Ed. Added on September 13, 2020, based on a personal email from Wagner-Damianowitsch:
163 Stephan Wagner-Damianowitsch, Serbia, WISC, www.facebook.com/s.m.wagner.damianowitsch.]
161 Geoff Hammond, United States, WAIS, www.csiinternational.com
161 Kota Akishige, Japan, WISC-IV, http://www.facebook.com/kota.akishige
160 Rudolf Trubba, Czech Republic, RAPM, http://www.facebook.com/rudolf.trubba
160 Tom Imondi, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/tommcimondi
160 Carlos Simões, Portugal, RAPM, http://www.cpsimoes.net
157 Michael Sumners, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/michael.sumners.31
155+ Juan Carlos Delgado, Venezuela, WAIS IV
155+ David Gerardo Espinoza Aviles, Mexico, WAIS IV
155 Julio Machado, Brazil, WAIS, www.julio.machado.info
155 Patrick O’Shea, United States, WAIS, www.thethousand.com
152 Arturo Ruiz, Mexico, RAPM, http://www.about.me/jart
151 Constantí Cabestany, Spain, WAIS III, www.rizomatismos.tumblr.com
151 Jason Robért, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/jason.r.robert.7
150 Jonathan Som, France, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.som
150 Jeffery Ford, United States, WAIS, www.facebook.com/HighOnIQ
149 Stephen Murray, Australia, WAIS, www.taotiger.com
146 Denis Walch, Austria, WAIS, www.facebook.com/Denis.Walch92
141 Jakub Oblizajek, Poland, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/jakub.oblizajek
135 Tony Sparacino, United States, WAIS, http://www.facebook.com/tsparacino
135 Simon Rebsdorf, Denmark, RAPM, http://humanlifelab.wordpress.com
135 Dragan Mlakić, Bosnia & Hercegovina, RAPM, www.facebook.com/NoNamedReal
Jacobsen: Does this reflect better the current robust standards of the mainstream intelligence tests more?
Sorensen: I think that it is not possible to sustain that the mainstream intelligence tests, reflect better the current robust standards, since for responding so, it would be necessary to establish a comparative relationship, which in this case is not factible, because what is intended to be compared, in one of the two variables cannot become the subject of comparison, therefore between both, there is nothing to compare. Said in other terms, the fact of alluding to alternative intelligence tests, is a counter-sense, since there aren’t enough evidence available, in order to scientifically establish, that what these instruments are trying to measure, is actually general intelligence and not something else, that their measurements are consistent and objective, and that mathematical positive correlations with professional intelligence tests may be proved. Therefore from my point of view, what is concretely conclusive, is that for nothing that has to do with general intelligence measures, high range tests are somehow any alternative.
Jacobsen: One limitation of this new list comes from the low number of individuals in such a list. Another is the need to utilize materials already in existence. A further limitation is the exclusion of honest efforts, limited though generally sincere, at the development of the high-range testing world. I could envision a two-part effort. One in the rankings of highest mainstream intelligence tests’ highest scorers for individuals who wish to become part of a rank and to further the efforts at the most accurate stipulations of the who’s who in the high-scorer world with a Highest Mainstream Intelligence Test Scores Ranking, where this could clear the air in the real misrepresentations of fact pervasive in most online articles written about this subject matter. Another in the rankings of the highest intelligence tests’ scorers on the alternative tests considered the most reliable and valid within the context of the alternative test world of the high-range with a Highest Alternative Intelligence Test Scores Ranking, where the former becomes represented in the “hybrid, strategically truncated, and revised high-range intelligence listing” above and the latter becomes implied via a combination of the aforementioned names, tests’ test-takers, and lists as well as the exclusion of the “Highest Mainstream Intelligence Test Scores Ranking” scores from the hypothetical “Highest Alternative Intelligence Test Scores Ranking” for distinct and mutually non-overlapping score sets without necessarily non-overlapping name sets. In this, we respect the difference in scientific reliability and validity of mainstream intelligence tests and alternative intelligence tests while incorporating more comprehensive and distinct efforts at the listings of both types of tests, test takers, and scores. Any thoughts on this?
Sorensen: We are not in an ethical sphere, therefore I think that to pretend to judge, whether the efforts of the test developers are honest or not, is irrelevant, since their good intentions may interest God, but in this context they matter little. I consider that these hybrid rankings, that mix test scores of different natures, are like a turkey in front of a dish of goulash, since although neither the components, nor the composition of these are clearly distinguishable, he just eats it, since is used to swallowing everything without chewing nothing when it is tasty.
Jacobsen: To further the development of the testing above 4-sigma, what would help entice individuals to submit alternative test scores and mainstream intelligence test scores to include in the future rankings with greater reliability and validity – power in accurate representation of the reality?
Sorensen: Reality.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/08/06
Third article of the 84 “active” high-IQ societies from the World Intelligence Network between sigmas 3.13 and 4.8. The presentation is cleaner or more polished than the first pass. As noted before, “Those with an interest in the more tedious stuff about various high-IQ societies may have a sliver of interest in this.” To those who may not know, or who have an interest and some knowledge while lacking information here, the President of the World Intelligence Network is Evangelos Katsioulis and the Vice President/Vice-President is Manahel Thabet. The publication for the World Intelligence Network is Phenomenon run by co-editors Lord Graham Powell/Graham Powell and Krystal Volney. The first pass covered the links provided on the listing between sigmas 1.33 and 3.07 (inclusive). Some were labelled “defunct” based on the “first pass” of the examination. The “second pass” examined more of the first pass “defunct” status societies while providing a round-up review of activity and functionality, or paralytic status of the societies. All footnote information from the respective societies’ web domains and publicly available records. The following is the first pass look, as the third article, at the 3.13 to 4.8 high-IQ societies – a reminder of this as a first pass analysis based on the links provided by the World Intelligence Network with a second pass coming in the fourth article:
At 3.13 sigma, the Ludomind Society of Albert Frank and Peter Bentley appears defunct. The SesquIQ Society appears defunct.
At 3.2 sigma, the ISI-Society of Jonathan Wai seems defunct. The Smart People Society seems defunct.
At 3.26 sigma, the Epida Society of Fernando Barbosa Neto seems functional and potentially active with President Andrew Aus, Member Officer Erdem Yilmaz, vice-membership officers Michael Baker and Phil Elauria.[1]
At 3.33 sigma, the sinApsa Society of Marin Filinic appears defunct.
At 3.66 sigma, the SPIQR Society of Marco Ripà appears functional while inactive or on an old platform.
At 3.73 sigma, the Coeus Society of Martin Tobias Lithner looks defunct. The Hall Of The Ancients (HOTA) of Brennan Martin looks defunct. The Vertex Society of Stevan M. Damjanovic appears defunct with a repurposing of the web domain to a more narrow and personal/professional purpose.
At 4 sigma, the Camp Archimedes Society of Fivos Drymiotis and Lestat seems defunct with a website disabled. The Epimetheus Society of Ronald K. Hoeflin appears functional and potentially active, though uncertain on the latter point.[2] The Ergo Society of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa seems defunct. The HELLIQ Society of Evangelos Katsioulis appears functional and active, though segmented from the World Intelligence Network web domain as a website.[3] Its presidents have been Marc-André Groulx, Thomas B., Stephan Wagner Damianowitsch, and Evangelos Katsioulis. Its vice-presidents have been Wayne Zhang, Evangelos Katsioulis, Djordje Rancic, D.T., Ph.D., and Thomas B. Its web officers have been Evangelos Katsioulis, Stephan Wagner Damianowitsch, and David Bergman. Its membership officers have been Evangelos Katsioulis, Bruno Alpi, and Tan Kaijie. The Prometheus Society of Ronald K. Hoeflin looks functional, active, and longstanding. Its current President is Maco Stewart. Its current Editor position is vacant. Its current Membership Officer is Maco Stewart. Its current Treasurer is Brian Schwartz. Its current Internet Officer is Karyn Huntting Peters. Its current Ombudsman(/woman/person) is Shannon Hasenfratz Gardner.[4] The Sigma IV Society of Hindemburg Melão appears to have members, though seems inactive at this time, i.e., paralytic.[5] The Tetra Society of Mislav Predavec looks active and functional with uncertainty as to the level or degree of activity. Its “functionaries” are membership officer Frandix Chun Him Chan and the founder & president Mislav Predavec.[6]
At 4.01 sigma, The Platinum Society of Hindemburg Melão seems defunct.
At 4.27 sigma, the Eximia Society of Patrick Kreander seems defunct. The UltraNet Society of Gina Losasso and Christopher Langan appears defunct.
Interestingly, there exists a large leap in the sigmas from 2.27 to 2.8. The only similarly large leap of the sigmas on the World Intelligence Network listing happens between 5.33 sigma and 6 sigma.
At 4.8 sigma, the GenerIQ Society of Mislav Predavec seems defunct. The Incognia Society of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa appears defunct. The Mega Society of Ronald K. Hoeflin looks active, functional, and longstanding.[7] Its officers include Administrator Emeritus: Jeff Ward, Administrator: Brian Wiksell, Editors: Richard May and Ken Shea, and Internet Officer Daniel Shea. The Omega Society of Ronald K. Hoeflin seems functional and longstanding with unknown activity level.[8] The Pi Society of Nikos Lygeros is active and functional.
[1] The stipulated members from the website as follows: President: Andrew Aus (ENG), Membership Officer: Erdem Yilmaz (TUR), Vice-Membership Officers: Michael Baker (USA) and Phil Elauria (USA), Honorary Members: Martin Tobias Lithner (SWE), Brennan Martin (NZE), Mislav Predavec (CRO), Marco Ripà (ITA), and Evangelos Katsioulis (GRE), Full Members: Fernando Barbosa Neto (BRA), Adam Kisby (USA), Paul J. Edgeworth (USA), Michael Baker (USA), Nikhil Dhamapurkar (IND), Zachary Timmons (CAN), Gerasimos Politis (GRE), Pamela Staschik-Neumann (GER), Joshua Sparks (USA), José González Molinero (SPA), Deron K. Holmes (USA), Jonatas Müller (BRA), Brendan Harris (CAN), Thiago Cruz Silva (BRA), Giulio Zambon (ITA), Leif E. Agesen (NOR), Giorgio Milani (ITA), Phil Elauria (USA), Armin Becker (GER), Marios Prodromou (CYP), Yusaku Hori (HKG), Rudolf Trubba (CZR), Edmund James Koundakjian (USA), Jon Scott Scharer (USA), Francisco Rodriguez (HON), Yoshiyuki Shimizu (JAP), Gary Song (CAN), Alexander Herkner (GER), Paul Laurent Miranda (SPA), Guillaume Chanteloup (FRA), George Stoios (GRE), Lim Surya Tjahyadi (INA), Juan Gonzalez Liebana (SPA), Erdem Yilmaz (TUR), Hever Horacio Arreola Gutierrez (MEX), Ron Winrick (USA), Torbjorn Brenna (NOR), Ken Jarlen Olsen (NOR), Aaron Ellison (USA), Hidden Member, Kyodou Lee (CHN), Gaetano Morelli (ITA), Sunder Rangarajan (IND), Bowen Wang (CHN), James Richard Lorrimore (UNK), Willian Talvane Arestides Ferreira da Silva (BRA), Yu Lin Lu (TWN), Jarl Victor Bjorgan (NOR), Vjeran Misic (B&H), Joseph Anthony Tomlinson (USA), Christine Van Ngoc Ty (FRA), Ryoji Honda (JAP), Jadesom Leonardo Haenich (BRA), Igor Dorfman (ISR), Graham Powell (ITA), Ting Fu (CHN), Solomos Nikolaos (GRE), Beau Clemmons (FRA), Barry Beanland (DUB), John Argenti (USA), Nicolò Pezzuti (ITA), George J. Walendowski (USA), Nuno Norte de Sousa Silva (POR), Ole Mose (DEN), Martijn Tromm (NLD), and Jorge Del Fresno Viejo (SPA), Prospective Members: Aman Bagaria (IND), Constantí Cabestany (SPA), Nomar Alexander Norono Rodríguez (VEN), Andrea Toffoli (ITA), Lena Carlota Ruiz (CAN), Julia Zuber (GER), Subscribers: Nuno Jorge Mesquita Baptista (POR), and Nathália Geraldo (BRA).
[2] Its membership listing as follows: Don Stoner, Genius Society, The Mind Society, alliqtests.com, Guilherme M. S. Silva, Chris Eichenberger, Enigmadness.com, Stevan Damjanovic, Victor Lestat, Richard May, Kevin Langdon, Dallayce Bright, John C. Fila, Ph.D., Patrick J. Maitland, Thomas R. Caulfield, Jr., Terry Stickels, Adam Kisby, Dany Provost, Jyrki Leskelä, Richard M Riss, Bruno Alpi, Andreas Albihn, Jan Antusch, Kenneth E. Ferrell, Dan Hogan, Jeff Christopher Leonard, Brennan Martin, Ron Padova, Martin Tobias Lithner, and Thomas Imondi.
[3] Its members listing as follows: 01. Dr Evangelos Katsioulis, MD, MA, MSc, PhD, 02. Bart Miles, 03. Laura N. Kochen, 04. Andy Wininger, 05. Jean-Eric Pacaud, 06. Thomas A. Smith Jr., 07. L. K., 08. Thomas B., 09. Andrzej Figurski, 10. André Valentic, 11. J. W., 12. M. T., 13. Ira Gibson, 14. George Ch. Petasis, 15. Alexandre Prata Maluf R.I.P., 16. Stephan Wagner Damianowitsch, 17. Mateusz Kurcewicz, 18. Tan Kaijie, 19. Alberto Matera, 20. Marcus Voyer, 21. D. X. J., 22. Anonymous H22, 23. Jason Young, 24. Joseph Tomlinson, 25. Michael Rönnlund, 26. Muhammad Faisal Tajir (prospective member), 27. Jonas Högberg, 28. Djordje Rancic, 29. Marc-André Groulx, 30. Robert Brizel, 31. F. S., 32. Henrik Eriksson, 33. Marc Heremans, 34. David Bergman, 35. Arne Blak, 36. Steve Schuessler, 37. Thomas Hallgren, 38. Maria Casillas, 39. A. F., 40. Jan Willem Versluis, 41. D.T., Ph.D., 42. Bruno Alpi, 43. Francisco Javier Guerra Prieto, 44. Dr Jason Betts, 45. Rudolf Trubba, 46. Hever Horacio Arrreola Gutierrez, 47. Wayne Zhang, 48. Chris Harding, 49. Santanu Sengupta, 50. Brendan Harris, 51. Didier Jacquet, 52. Martin Tobias Lithner, 53. G. U. L., 54. Jean-Loup Agache, 55. Marios Prodromou, 56. Yoshiyuki Shimizu, 57. Rodrigo Erazo Hermosilla, 58. Miguel Angel Soto-Miranda, M.D., 59. Anonymous H59, 60. Dong Khac Cuong, 61. Eduardo C. da Costa, 62. Jan Antusch, 63. Eva, 64. Wang Peng, 65. Bertrand Frederic Evertz, 66. Bernhard Junker, 67. Yan Detao, 68. Anonymous 30, 69. Minjae Kwon,70. Ruediger Ebendt, 71. Afsin Saltik, 72. Liu Jiapeng, 73. Satoki Takeichi, 74. Tadayuki Konno, 75. John Argenti, 76. Jiseong Kim, 77. Xu Hanwen, 78. Kila Lau, 79. Chen Jingjing, 80. Anonymous 34, 81. Erik Hæreid, 82. Thomas W. Chittenden, PhD, DPhil, 83. Dr Manahel Thabet, PhD, 84. Zhongzhen Wu, 85. Sherwyn Sarabi, 86. Noriyuki Sakurai, 87. Jaime, 88. Erikson dos Santos, 89. Anonymous H89, 90. Sandro Zanin, 91. Dario C, 92. Jung-su Yi, 93. Anonymous H93, 94. Anonymous H94, 95. Youngjin Kim, 96. S. B., 97. William Michael Fightmaster, 98. Jinsung Kim, 99. Yi Junho, 100. JooYoung Kim, 101. Gabriele Tessaro, 102. Frederick Goertz, 103. Gabriel Garofalo, 104. Nikolaos Katevas MDs, BSc, MSc, PhDc, 105. Naoya Kitano, 106. Gaetano Morelli, 107. WenGao Ye, 108. Wittawas Ratchatajai, 109. Anonymous H109, 110. Cho Sanghyun, 111. Bae Gibeom, 112. Seung-Su Lee, 113. YoungHoon Bryan Kim (김영훈), 114. Hiroki Tsubooka, 115. Haakon Mathias Dedic, 116. Anonymous H116, 117. Anonymous H117, 118. Lu Junhong (卢俊宏), 119. Moto Kobayashi, 120. Waichiro Horiuchi, 121. Anonymous H.121, 122. Xie Yanxi, 123. Anonymous H123, 124. Masahiro Nishimura, 125. Ryo Taniguchi, 126. Koyo Yoshihara, 127. Anonymous H127, 128. Dao Thanh Chung, 129. Tetsukimi Brian Beppu, 130. Ryo Matsui, 131. Motohiro Goto, 132. Zhong Jinshuo, 133. Qin Bin, 134. Nobuo Yamashita, 135. Jeongtae Kim (김정태), 136. Robin Spivey, 137. Yoshitake Yamamoto (山本 祥武), 138. Mario Angelelli, 139. Yu Wakabayashi (若林友), 140. Sawayanagi Yosirou, 141. Yoon Dong Yeo, 142. Sam Thompson, 143. Sadateru Tokumaru, 144. Makoto Takenaka (竹中 誠), 145. Daichi Hashimoto, 146. Yuxiang Dai (戴宇翔）, 147. Mikihiko Fukunaga (福永幹彦), 148. Eri, 149. Hiroki Yoshizawa, 150. Keita Nakano (中野 恵太）, 151. Roger Dagostin, 152. Hua Weixiang (华为翔), 153. Edison Yin, 154. Anonymous H154, 155. Gouichi Motoyoshi, 156. Shiroyuki Hori, 157. Onishi Yozo, 158. Morita Shiga （志賀 盛太）, 159. Akihito Tanaka, 160. Liu Xin (刘欣), 161. Koichi Omura （大村 光一）, 162. Weiming Xie, 163. Haoran Zhang, 164. Danfei Gu (顾单飞), 165. Anonymous H165, 166. Masanao Otaka, 167. Hiroshi Araki, 168. Dr. Soumei Baba, Ph.D., 169. Hiroaki Hatano, 170. Susumu Ota, 171. Kihiro Inno （印野 希宏）, 172. Yuta Yamamoto, 173. Tomohito Yamada, 174. Takahiko Kei, 175. Koichiro Kimura, 176. Kanae Matsumoto（松本 香苗）, 177. Naoki Kawabe （川辺直樹）, 178. Yoshihisa Kimura, 179. Tomo Hirasawa (平澤 朝), 180. Gheorghe Alin Petre, 181. Naoto Tani, 182. Tatsuya Maruyama, 183. Marina Inamoto, 184. Kyoichi Yamanaka, 185. Takamitsu Endo (遠藤貴光), 186. Yuta Miyamoto, 187. Makoto Takahashi (高橋 誠), 188. Snježana Štefanić Hoefel, 189. Tomohiko Nakamura (中村 友彦), 190. Yukino Asayama (ユキノ アサヤマ), 191. Kuniho Takahashi, 192. Weida Feng (冯威达), 193. Keishi Ishii （石井啓嗣）, 194. Andrea C., 195. Anonymous H195, 196. Rickard Sagirbey, 197. Shintaro Michi （道 慎太郎）, 198. Ryota Yuasa, 199. Shino Sawai, 200. Kazuma Takaishi, 201. Shinji Morihiro, 202. Ryunosuke Nakamura, 203. Flaviano Cardella, 204. Christopher Garcia, 205. Yoshihiro Maki, 206. Hiroko Tanaka （田中裕子）, 207. Takumi Kitajima, 208. Yuna Fumioka (文岡佑奈), 209. Yusuke Hayashi, 210. Naofumi Ohmura (おおむら なおふみ), 211. Lunavidere Yuki Tsukimi (月見裕貴), 212. Yohei Terashima, 213. Satoshi Aoki, MD, 214. Yoshihiro Seki ( 関 佳裕 ), 215. Kento Masuno, 216. Anonymous H.216, 217. Daiki Shuto (首藤 大貴), 218. Junlong Li （李俊龙）, 219. Michio Oyama, 220. Hirofumi Ohta (大田 浩史), 221. Yohei Furutono, 222. Kohnoshin Miyajima, 223. HaYoung Jeong, 224. Shouchen Wang (王首辰), 225. Entemake Aman (阿曼）, 226. Takashi Egawano, 227. Hiroyuki Kataoka, 228. Ogawa Yoshiyuki, 229. Shoya Taguchi （田口 将也）, 230. Anonymous H230, 231. Masaharu Kurino, 232. Hayato Kusuno, 233. Naoki Tanaka, 234. Arata Osaki (尾﨑 新), 235. Kyung Min Kim, 236. Masao Shimada (島田マサオ), 237. Masahiko Kudo (工藤 昌彦), 238. Yosuke Ito, 239. Yuta Suzuki, 240. Satoshi Sakuma, 241. Yuki Suzuki, 242. Daniel Persson, 243. Adrian Wójcik, 244. Makoto Nishi, 245. Mitsutoshi Kiyono, 246. Shohei Nagayama, 247. Ngoc Minh Nguyen, 248. Hong Jin, 249. Kotaro Narita (成田 幸太郎), 250. Kazuya Maeda (前田 一弥), 251. Takashi Imahiro, 252. Tiberiu Nicolas Sammak, 253. Anonymous H.253, 254. Cristian Birlea, 255. Noah (のあち), 256. Ryota Abe (阿部 涼太), 257. Takayuki Okazaki, MD, PhD, 258. Ayaka (朱花), 259. C. D., 260. Watcharaphol Chitvattanawong (วัชรพล ชิตวัฒนวงษ์), 261. M. S., 262. Anonymous H.262, 263. Saori.Y, 264. Ryuichi Sameshima (隆一 鮫島), 265. Yuze Chen, 266. Vikramdip SIngh Chauhan, 267. Naoki Kouda, 268. Serge Korovitsyn, 269. Tetsuhito Karasumaru, 270. Huiquan Liu (刘慧泉), 271. Mitsumasa Okamoto, 272. Dr Yatima Kagurazaka, MD (やちま), 273. Aki Okabayashi M.D., 274. Michael Lunardini, 275. Yukihiro Takahashi (Lotta), 276. Anthony Brown, 277. Shinichiro Ishii, 278. Y Hamaguchi, 279. Yusaku Matsuda, 280. Kodai Minami, 281. Stian Eiesland, 282. Nozomu Kimura, 283. Katsumi Takahashi, 284. ZhiHang Li, 285. K. Suto, 286. Suyeong Lee (이수영), 287. Kamil Tront, 288. Ivan Yovev, 289. Kohei Tsutsumi (堤 昂平), 290. Hiroki Onodera, 291. Kazusa Shobu, 292. Kevin Wang (王凯文), 293. Chan-Young Hong (홍찬영), 294. Nicola Di Bona, 295. Toshizou Horii, 296. Anonymous H.296, 297. Anonymous H.297, 298. Leszek Mazurek, 299. Takao Shiotsuki (塩月崇雄), 300. Jin Nozawa, 301. Kounosuke Oisaki (生長 幸之助), 302. Anonymous H.302, 303. Jewoong Moon, 304. Yukun Wang (王宇坤), 305. Wu Siqian, 306. Mizuki Ejiri (エジリミズキ), 307. Go Tanuma (田沼 豪), 308. Shuichi Watanabe, 309. Narise Saara, 310. Kazuma Matsudo, 311. Kota Akishige, 312. Makoto Hida, 313. Moe Uchiike, 314. Kento Yaoita, 315. Ryoji Tanaka (田中 良治), 316. Takayuki Inada (稲田 喬之), 317. Tin Chun Bun (田俊彬), 318. Zhang Wenxuan(章文暄), 319. Benoit D., 320. Satoki Sugiyama (杉山怜希), 321. Dae Galjangguun, 322. Chihiro Nishiyama (西山 千尋), 323. Kohei Kikuchi, 324. Masakaze Mizutani (水谷 優風), and 325. Håkon Rosén.
Its subscribers: 01. Torbjoern Brenna, 02. Anonymous H.S.002, 03. Iakovos Koukas, 04. Altug Alkan, 05. Dr. phil. Eick Sternhagen, 06. Anonymous H.S.006, 07. Yuval Cohen, 08. Anonymous H.S.008, 09. Hiroyuki Iwane, and 10. Eirini Skliva, MDs.
[4] Its listed past presidents, past editors, past internet officers, past treasurers, past membership officers, past ombudsmen, and appointed positions as follows:
Past Presidents
RONALD K. HOEFLIN, PHD (Founder) | May 84 – Jul 84
JEFFREY WARD | Jul 84 – Aug 87
PATRICK HILL | Aug 87 – Feb 88
DAVID WYMAN | Feb 88 – Feb 90
GRADY TOWERS | Feb 90 – Apr 90
RICHARD MAY | Apr 90 – Oct 98
FRED VAUGHAN | Oct 98 – Feb 99
FREDRIK ULLEN, PHD | Feb 99 – Apr 01
STEVE SCHUESSLER | Apr 01 – Mar 03
FRED BRITTON | Mar 03 – Oct 17 *
KARYN HUNTTING PETERS | Sep 16 – Oct 17 **
KARYN HUNTTING PETERS | Oct 17 – Mar 18 **
WALLACE RHODES | MAR 18 – NOV 19 ***
* Britton on sabbatical Sep 2016 – Oct 2017; resigned Oct 2017
** Acting while Britton on sabbatical Sep 2016 – Oct 2017
*** Resigned without completing term in Nov 2019
Past Editors
RICHARD MAY | May 84 – Jul 84
GREGORY SCOTT | Jul 84 – Apr 85
ANTON ANDERSSEN, JD | Apr 85 – Apr 89
ROBERT DICK | May 89 – Jan 90
GRADY M. TOWERS | Jan 90 – Apr 91
ROBERT DICK | Apr 91 – Jun 91
MONTY C. WALKER | Jun 91 – May 93
ROBERT DICK & DAN BARKER | May 93 – Sep 94
ROBERT DICK | Sep 94 – Aug 96
FRED VAUGHAN | Aug 96 – Jun 99
JAMES C. HARBECK | Jun 99 – Apr 01
MICHAEL CORRADO | Apr 01 – Mar 02
FRED VAUGHAN | Mar 02 | Feb 05
VACANT | Feb 05 – Oct 06
STEVAN DAMJANOVIC | Oct 06 – Sep 08 (Guest Editor) *
VACANT | Sep 08 – Jan 09
GREG DECUBELLIS | Jan 09 – May 11
VACANT | May 11 – Aug 12
DAN HOGAN | Aug 12 – Jun 14
KARYN HUNTTING PETERS | Jun 14 – Oct 17 **
ANDREW CLARK | Oct 16 – Mar 18 (Acting) ***
ANDREW CLARK | Mar 18 – Apr 19 ****
* Indicates a non-Member holding the position of Editor/Officer
** Appointed by Britton to fill vacant position
*** On becoming Acting President, Peters appointed Clark as Acting Editor
**** Resigned without completing term in Apr 2019
Past Internet Officers
FRED VAUGHAN | Nov 96 – Nov 99
FREDRIK ULLEN, PHD | Jan 99 – Mar 99
STEVE SCHUESSLER | Mar 99 – Apr 01
Past Treasurers
GREGORY SCOTT | May 84 – Aug 84
GARY R. BRYANT | Aug 84 – Jan 86
RICHARD ADAMS | Jan 86 – Nov 87
JALON LEACH | Nov 87 – Aug 96
BARRY KINGTON | Aug 96 – Oct 97
FRED BRITTON | Oct 97 – Mar 03
Past Membership Officers
ROBERT DICK, PHD | May 84 – Feb 99
GINA LOSASSO, PHD | Feb 99 – Nov 99
BILL MCGAUGH | Nov 99 – Apr 01
ALFRED SIMPSON | Apr 01 – Mar 18
Past Ombudsmen
RICHARD MAY | Aug 84 – Dec 94
HAROLD NICKEL | Dec 94 – Nov 97
GUY FOGLEMAN | Nov 97 – Dec 99
VACANT | Dec 99 – Jan 00
JOHN D. MARTINEZ | Jan 00 – Jan 01
JEFF PLEW, MD | Jan 01 – Mar 03
JOHN C. FILA, PHD | Mar 03 – Jun 14
MACO STEWART | Jun 14 – Mar 18
Appointed Positions
MACO STEWART & THOMAS BAUMER | Co-chairs, Membership Committee
[5] Its membership list as follows: Hindemburg Melão Jr., Petri Widsten, Alexandre Prata Maluf, Rauno Lindström, Peter David Bentley, Bart Lindekens, Joachim Lahav, Marc Heremans, Staffan Svensson, Will Fletcher, Marko Korkea-Aho, Kevin Yip, Kristian Heide, Patrick Allain, Muhamed Veletanlic, Albert Frank, Enrico di Bari, Richard Crago, José Antonio Francisco, Brian Daniel Appelbe, Reinhard Matuschka, Emilio López Aliaga, Donald A. Martin Jr., Gustavo Marcel Borges Monzon, Daniel Lapointe, Herbert Kimura, Tetsuji Nishikura, Mikael Andersson, Marc Fauvel, Christian Hohenstein, Anton Dilo, Dieter Wolfgang Matuschek, Darko Djurdjic, Guilherme Marques dos Santos Silva, Lloyd King, Juha Varis, Ulf Westerlund, and Marcelo Penido Ferreira da Silva.
[6] Its 80 members listed as follows: Glenn Alden (NOR), Takeshi Amagi (JPN), John Argenti (USA), Andrew Aus (UK), Gi Beom Bae (KOR), Michael Baker (USA), Cedric Bernadac (FRA), Jérôme-Olivier Billet (FRA), Li Bingming (CHN), Torbjörn Brenna (NOR), Tomasz Bucki (POL), Dario C. (ITA), Frandix Chun Him Chan (HKG), Christoffer Collin (SWE), Eduardo Correa da Costa (BRA), Eugenio Correnti (FRA), Milan Čebedžić (SRB), Jesmond Debono (MLT), Giuseppe Di Nunzio (ITA), Vincenzo D´Onofrio (ITA), Ladislav Dubravský (SVK), Rüdiger Ebendt (GER), Paul J. Edgeworth (USA), John Fahy (USA), Kenneth E. Ferrell (USA), Marin Filiniæ (CRO), Frederick Goertz (USA), James Huntley Gordon (USA), Erik Hæreid (NOR), Heo Hoon (KOR), Yusaku Hori (HKG), Leon Hostetler (USA), Ivan Ivec (CRO), Liu Jiapeng (CHN), Yi Junho (KOR), Bernhard Junker (GER), Adam Kisby (USA), Iakovos Koukas (GRE), Vasyl Kovalchuk (UKR), Domagoj Kutle (CRO), Tomas Lagerberg (SWE), Jeff Christopher Leonard (USA), Jim Lorrimore (UK), Johan T Lindén (SWE), Patrick J. Maitland (AUS), Stefan Majoran (SWE), Dalibor Marinèiæ (BIH), Paul Laurent Miranda (ESP), Jose Gonzalez Molinero (ESP), Tomohiko Nakamura (JPN), Caspar Nijhuis (NED), Gaetano Morelli (ITA), Marc Andre Nydegger (SUI), Jakub Nowak (POL), Konstantinos Ntalachanis (GRE), Shinji Okazaki (JPN), Papageorgiou Pantelis (GRE), Thalis Papakonstantinou (GRE), Chris Park (USA), Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa (MEX), Nicoló Pezzuti (ITA), Nikola Poljak (CRO), Mislav Predavec (CRO), Marios Prodromou (GRE), Theodosis Prousalis (GRE), Denis Queno (FRA), Caner SaKar (GER), David James Smith (USA), Moon Seong Soo (KOR), Dong-Su Ryu (KOR), Franco Sent (MLT), Charles Schatz (SUI), Santanu Sengupta (IND), Jorge Antonio Sosa Huapaya (PER), Satoki Takeichi (JPN), Gabriele Tessaro (ITA), Joseph Tomlinson (USA), George Walendowski (USA), Yui Yamaguchi (JPN), and Wayne Zhang (CHN).
[7] Some of its listed members and qualifiers, and/or contributors (running back to early 2000s) to Noesis in the past several years include Werner Couwenbergh, Marcel Feenstra, YoungHoon Kim, Kevin Langdon, Richard May or “May Tzu,” Daniel Shea, Jeff Ward, Rick Rosner, Ken Shea, Mark Kantrowitz, Chris Cole, Marilyn vos Savant, Jeff Ward, John H. Sununu, (the late) Solomon W. Golomb, Brian Wiksell, Chuck Sher, David Seaborg, Kevin Kihn, Jeffrey Matucha, James Kulacz, Jadzia Bashir, Tal Brooke, Rex Hubbard, Ray Faraday Nelson, Andrew Beckwith, Sam Thompson, Ruediger Ebendt, Carl Masthay, David Minster, Miriam Berg, Darien De Lu, Howard Schwartz, Jay Wiseman, Marcel Feenstra, Ron Yannone/Ronald M. Yannone, Wallace (Dusty) Rhodes/Wallace Rhodes, Bob Griffths, Richard Badke, Cedric Stratton, Tal Brooke, Richard Ruquist, Charles Schwartz, Garth Zietsman, Michael Edward McNeil, R. Fred Vaughan, Patt Wilson McDaniel, Brian Schwartz, Chris Harding, Joseph Chieffo, Albert Clawson, Dale Adams, Tom Hutton, Rev. Dr. George Byron Koch, Ian Williams Goddard/Ian Goddard, Frank Nemec, Daniel Heyer, Robert Dick, Karyn Huntting Peters, A.W. Beckwith, Valerie Zukowski, Michael C. Price, Glenn Morrison, Glen Wooten, Edward O. Thorp, Lenore Langdon, Nicholas C. Hlobeczy, John Ostendorf, Dean Inada, and others, probably – with some as co-authors or article submitters to Noesis (working with the resources available).
[8] Its listed members as follows: Adam Kisby, Angell O. de la Sierra, Brian M. Schwartz, Brian Wiksell, Dany Provost, David Michael Fabian, David Smith, John Fahy, Kemin Tsung, Patrick J. Maitland, Richard May, a.k.a. May-Tzu, Robert S. Munday, and Ken Shea.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/08/06
This amounts to the second pass of the listed 84 “active” high-IQ societies from the World Intelligence Network between sigmas 1.33 and 3.07, as the second article. The presentation is cleaner or more polished than the first pass. As noted before, “Those with an interest in the more tedious stuff about various high-IQ societies may have a sliver of interest in this.” To those who may not know, or who have an interest and some knowledge while lacking information here, the President of the World Intelligence Network is Evangelos Katsioulis and the Vice President/Vice-President is Manahel Thabet. Their publication was WIN ONE and became Phenomenon in the last couple of issues with editors Lord Graham Powell/Graham Powell and Krystal Volney. The first pass covered the links provided on the listing. Some were labelled “defunct” based on the “first pass” of the examination. This “second pass” will look further into the potential “defunct” status merely equating to a ‘defunct’ status, as in the links failed to work on the listing while the high-IQ society appears functional and active. All footnote information from the respective societies’ web domains and publicly available records. As it stands, the first pass information shows active, functional, and/or longstanding high-IQ societies in the following manner between sigmas 1.33 and 3.07:
The Cogito Society contains 56 members while existing entirely online as a Yahoo! private group…
…The International High IQ Society of the late Nathan Haselbauer appears functional with approximately “30% of our members… from Europe, 30% from North America, 15% Asia, 10% South America, 10% Australia and 5% from Africa”…
…The Deep Brain Society of Anna Maria Santoro and Vincenzo D’Onofrio has members Gianni Golfera, Felice Vinci, Jürgen Koller, Hernan Chang, Heidi Ursula Wallon Pizarro, Nicole Schneider, Haider Hussein Ali, Vincenzo Alfano, and Christian Sorensen…
…Mensa Society of Lancelot Ware and Roland Berrill seems highly functional and active under Björn Liljeqvist with 134,000+ members – far more than any other society known to me…
…The High Potentials Society of Max Tiefenbacher seems functional with a large list of members…
…Intertel of Ralph Haines seems functional and active…
…The Top One Percent Society (TOPS) of Ronald K. Hoeflin appears longstanding and operational, potentially paralytic…
…the Colloquy Society of Julia Cachia seems functional, old, and presented relatively cleanly in spite of the age. The Poetic Genius Society (PGS) of Greg A. Grove with membership manager Maurice Champagne appears functional and alive…
…The CIVIQ Society of Evangelos Katsioulis looks functional while merged with the main World Intelligence Network web domain. Its presidents have been Androniki Dalkavouki, Marc-André Groulx, Julie T., Irene Alexandra Taboada, Thomas B., Evangelos Katsioulis. Its vice presidents have been Marc-André Groulx, Evangelos Katsioulis, Isaac Ifrach, Étienne Forsström, Julie T., and Maria Claudia Faverio. Its web officers have been Evangelos Katsioulis, Chris Chsioufis, and Mári Donkers. Its membership officers have been Evangelos Katsioulis, Marc-André Groulx, Djordje Rancic, Karin Lindgren, and Michael Dempsey…
…The Glia Society of Paul Cooijmans looks functional with several hundred claimed members. The International Society for Philosophical Enquiries (ISPE) of Christopher Harding looks functional, longstanding, and active…
… The Triple Nine Society (TNS) of Richard Canty, Ronald Hoeflin, Ronald Penner, Edgar Van Vleck, and Kevin Langdon looks functional, longstanding, and active.
The defunct societies at 1.33 to 3.07 sigma of the World Intelligence Network based on the first pass, as follows:
…the UberMens Society appears defunct…
…AtlantIQ of Beatrice Rescazzi and Moreno Casalegno appears defunct on an old site…
…The OmIQamiSociety of Andrea Toffoli appears defunct…
…The VinCI Society of Lloyd King appears defunct…
…Alta Capacidad Hispana (ACH) of Vicente Lopez Pena appears defunct…
…the AtheistIQ Society of Robert Dawson seems defunct…
…The BPIQ Society of Kelly Dorsett seems defunct…
…The Encefálica Society of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa seems either defunct, paralytic, or reconfigured for another organization…
…The Gifted Artists Circle of Martin Tobias Lithner seems defunct…
…The IQUAL Society of Gerasimos Papaleventis seems defunct…
…the Chorium Society of Paul Freeman seems defunct with a disabled website. The Elataneos Society of Andrés Gómez Emilsson seems defunct…
…The UNIQ Society of Martin Tobias Lithner seems defunct…
…the HispanIQ International Society (HIS) of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa seems defunct…
…the Cerebrals Society of Xavier Jouve appears defunct…
…the EpIQ Society of Chris Chsioufis looks defunct. The ExactIQ Society of Patrick Kreander seems defunct. Neurocubo of Pedro Lσpez, Thomas Hally, Cisar Tomi, and Paul Laurent appears defunct…
…Artifex Mens Congregatio of Robert Mestre, Walter VanHuissteden, and Fivos Drymiotis looks defunct…
…the Genius Society of Hernan R. Chang looks defunct. The IQuadrivium Society of Karyn S. Huntting looks defunct. The LogIQ Society of Martin Tobias Lithner seems defunct.
The ambiguous, upcoming, or paralytic status societies at 1.33 to 3.07 sigma of the World Intelligence Network based on the first pass, as follows:
…The Society for Intellectually Gifted Individuals with Disabilities of Nathaniel David Durham/Nate Durham with assistant Lyla Durham and members appears stagnant…
…The Encefálica Society of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa seems either defunct, paralytic, or reconfigured for another organization…
…The Greatest Minds Society of Roberto A. Rodriguez Cruz seems newer and upcoming without formal status online. The Ingenium Society of Martin Tobias Lithner seems newer and upcoming with a statement about the website coming online soon…
…The Mysterium Society of Greg A. Grove seems functional, though old, potentially paralytic…
…The Sigma II Society of Hindemburg Melão seems paralytic…
…The Mind Society of Hernan R. Chang seems online while ambiguously functional, potentially paralytic…
…the Infinity International Society (IIS) of Jeffrey Osgood appears, at its minimum, online with Adobe Flash…
…The Sigma III Society of Hindemburg Melão looks functional online with sufficient membership while, potentially, paralytic (uncertain)…
…The Milenija Society of Ivan Ivec and Mislav Predavec may be defunct, though ambiguously.
All footnotes contained in the first pass article on the 1.33 to 3.07 sigma societies. Here, some further exploration on the defunct societies to examine if these societies suffice for “defunct” status or not. These include the UberMens Society, AtlantIQ, the OmIQamiSociety, the VinCI Society, Alta Capacidad Hispana (ACH), the AtheistIQ Society, the BPIQ Society, the Encefálica Society, the Gifted Artists Circle, the IQUAL Society, the Chorium Society, the Elataneos Society, the UNIQ Society, the HispanIQ International Society (HIS), the Cerebrals Society, the EpIQ Society, the ExactIQ Society, Neurocubo, Artifex Mens Congregatio, the Genius Society, the IQuadrivium Society, and the LogIQ Society.
On the UberMens Society, in a search, the two main resources in reference to the UberMens Society are the World Intelligence Network and the first article entitled “A Review of the World Intelligence Network Sigma 1.33-3.07 Societies.”
On AtlantIQ, it appears to have a Facebook page named after it. It does, in fact, have a functional site with several thousand web domain visits. It self-describes, “AtlantIQ Society was founded with the purpose of bringing together high IQ people (in the top 5% – minimum of 125 IQ, SD 15), who show special skills in the field of art and science, and have an interest in pursuing intellectual challenges.” It has a number of tests accepted for membership. They have LEONARDO Magazine and AtlantIQ for UNICEF, and some other internal resources. AtlantIQ can be considered first pass defunct and second pass functional.
On OmIQamiSociety, it is listed on the World Intelligence Network with a further search with the descriptor:
The omIQami is an international online no-profit “Knowledge & high IQ” society founded on May.10.2010 by Andrea Toffoli with the aim of giving informations about Japanese culture and gathering two kind of people:
* Qualified people with an high IQ (intelligence quotient) involved or interested in Japanese studies and culture.
* Japanese people with an high IQ (intelligence quotient) and connoisseur of their culture.
The society name is a word play making use of the Japanese word Omikami (great God), generally used to qualify the Shintoist Goddess Amaterasu (patron of Yamato clan), and the acronym IQ (intelligence quotient).
Unfortunately, the website appears the same and the defunct status seems consistent across searches for it. OmIQamiSociety can be considered first pass and second pass defunct.
On the VinCI Society, it appears to have a number of links containing its name while the links appear to indicate, upon further investigation, a defunct status. Thus, the VinCI Society seems first pass defunct and second pass defunct.
On Alta Capacidad Hispana (ACH), it appears to have a second statement or webpage within the web domain of the World Intelligence Network. However, upon further review of the page and its further links, the Alta Capacidad Hispana is defunct. Therefore, the Alta Capacidad Hispana seems first pass and second pass defunct.
On the AtheistIQ Society, upon further examination of the links and descriptors available on websites, it seems defunct. Hence, the AtheistIQ Society is first pass and second pass defunct.
On the BPIQ Society, it exists on an individuated webpage on the World Intelligence Network web domain. It states:
The name of the society is derived from “BiPolar IQ”, and the logo is a partial ambigram of the four letters BPIQ.
BPIQ was founded on July 21st 2005 and there are currently 22 active members.
To become a member of the society, you must have a serious psychological condition, plus be able to provide proof of an IQ at the required level, either via a supervised test, or via one of the approved on-line tests. This society is also open to high IQers who have family members with psychological complications, or family members that are involved in the field of psychology.
BPIQ was designed to support people with a high IQ who have BiPolar, Schizophrenic and other major psychological conditions. We discuss art, writing, music, ideas and aide one another. We are here to educate, relate and provide unimpeded feedback. It is a somewhat private group because we do not list our members’ names. There is no fee for membership.
However, the listing appears to indicate a dead status with deceased links. Thus, the BPIQ Society seems first pass and second pass defunct.
On the Encefálica Society, it comes to one main link leftover on the World Intelligence Network website with the statement, “Spanish speaking international High IQ society founded by Louis Enrique Pérez Ostoa in 2006.” On first pass and second pass, Encefálica Society appears defunct.
On the Gifted Artists Circle, with further research, it appears on first pass and second pass defunct without doubt.
On the IQUAL Society, on first pass and second pass, it appears defunct.
On the Chorium Society, it has a webpage on the World Intelligence Network web domain separated for it. The page describes:
Chorium was founded to promote intellectual engagement among musicians. Members come from all fields of work and study to contribute to an egalitarian atmosphere of meaningful debate on musical ideas.
Membership Requirements:
Standard
I.Q. Test on website
Musical I.Q. Test on website
Membership of any other high I.Q. society at 99 percentile and above.
Evidence of musical ability and/or affiliation to any music
school/conservatoire
Unfortunately, with the links and other searches, on first pass and second pass, the IQUAL Society seems defunct.
On the Elataneos Society, on the first pass and second pass, it appears defunct.
On the UNIQ Society, it has one page available on the World Intelligence Network web domain. It states:
Uniq Society was founded in 2009 and went online on 1/1/10. Uniq is looking for the truly creative genius, the composer, the scientist, the writer. UNIQ society was founded with the aim of bringing intelligent individuals together to express creativity, share ideas and to be able to discuss openly various topics without any restrictions. Uniq Society has its own magazine, Charta Ingeniosus, which is created by the members. The magazine is also for the members of Ingenium HIQS and Logiq Society.
To become a member of Uniq, you must provide evidence of an IQ at or above the 99th percentile, this corresponds to an IQ of 135 (SD=15) / 137 (SD=16), Sigma 2.31. Uniq accepts standardized and high-range IQ tests.
On other considerations apart from this descriptor, the UNIQ Society appears defunct on the first pass and the second pass.
On the HispanIQ International Society (HIS), it has some listing information on the web, e.g., the AtlantIQ Society provides a listing of its own considerations of defunct societies. The World Intelligence Network statement, as follows, “Spanish speaking international High IQ society founded by Louis Enrique Pérez Ostoa in 2007.” On first pass and second pass, the HispanIQ International Society appears defunct.
On the Cerebrals Society, in its day, it looked like a highly active and functional society. Now, it appears defunct on the first pass and the second pass.
On the EpIQ Society, it appears on the first pass defunct. However, there does appear a functional website. Its website states, “Welcome to the ePiq IQ society whose main goal is to bring together intelligent people from all around the globe. It is widely known that there are many web based IQ societies on the internet and that many of them require money for membership. Becoming a member in our society is free. We accept anyone who has a score at or above the 99.8th percentile on one or more of our accepted tests.” The World Intelligence Network provides another statement on its individuated web page within the web domain for the World Intelligence Network. It states, “ePiq Society was founded in 2003 and is an IQ society which has, as its main purpose, the idea of bringing together intelligent people from all around the globe.” On the second pass, the EpIQ Society appears non-defunct or functional and active.
On the ExactIQ Society, as with the others, the links express a defunct status, while the individual pages of the World Intelligence Network provide another descriptor. These apparent contradictory statuses need correction within the World Intelligence Network. Its statement:
The exactiq society is for people who share a passion for spatial puzzles and IQ tests; exactiq does not put so much emphasis on percentiles or normings, but a basic understanding of spatial logic is needed in order to join. Its main purpose is to gather people who enjoy spatial IQ tests, so that they can become acquainted with other people’s tests, and challenge their buddies via new, up-and-coming puzzles.
The exactiq society values creativity and design, as well as strict, but abstract, logic. In exactiq you will get to know many spatial puzzle designers who will give you a helping hand if you decide to create some puzzles of your own. If you like friendly competition and spending a good time with spatial logic, exactiq is for you.
Qualifying tests can be those spatial tests which
have had at least 50 submissions. Currently we accept:
Logima
Strictica 36 (1st raw score: 14 and 2nd raw score:16)
Logicaus
Strictimanus 24 (1st raw score: 5 and 2nd raw score:7)
Simplex (1st
balanced score: 5 and 2nd balanced score: 6)
Unfortunately, as with the mass of the others, in the midst of the war with time, it appears defunct on both the first pass and the second pass.
On Neurocubo, it acquires some references in websites without much status otherwise. The first pass and second pass seem to indicate defunct status of Neurocubo.
On Artifex Mens Congregatio, it is listed on an individuated page on the World Intelligence Network. It states:
The Artifex Mens Congregatio (Artistic Minds Society) was founded in 2006 by Robert Mestre, Walter VanHuissteden and Fivos Drymiotis in an effort to create a forum bringing together in friendship and community artistic individuals from all over the globe. We would like to attract members interested in philosophy, science, poetry, art and puzzle design. There is no fee to join the society. To become a member you must have a score at or above the 99.87 % (IQ 145 SD 15, 148 SD 16 or 172 SD 24), on at least one of our accepted tests.
Artifex Mens Congregatio appears defunct or stagnant on the first pass and the second pass, as a website exists merely listing the logo and site statistics.
On the Genius Society, no clear listing appears present. Thus, the first pass and second pass seem to note a defunct status.
On the IQuadrivium Society, the World Intelligence Network contains an individual web page with the following description:
IQuadrivium is a high-IQ society, similar in a way to Mensa. However, where Mensa’s entry level requirement is a score on a standardized intelligence test at or above the 98th percentile (1 in 50) of the general population, ours is a score at or above the 99.9th percentile (1 in 1,000).
The IQuadrivium Society was founded in February, 1994 by Karyn S. Huntting. At the time, she was the youngest person in history to found a High IQ Society, as well as the world’s only female High IQ Society founder.
The first official member of the IQuadrivium Society was Dr. Ronald K. Hoeflin, author, philosopher, and founder of the Prometheus and Mega Societies.
It appears to have paralytic Twitter account, Facebook page, and Facebook group. It may have moved to social media presence only, where this would mean active. Whereas, if not, it would be defunct. However, given a number of members stated on the Facebook group and some online presence, the first pass is defunct and the second pass is either defunct or paralytic with a smaller possibility of activity.
On the LogIQ Society, the World Intelligence Network individual web page states:
LOGIQ society was founded in January 2010. LOGIQ Society is a high IQ society open to individuals with an IQ score at or above the 99.9th percentile (IQ 146 sd15, IQ 149 sd16) on a standardized or high-range test. The main goal of the Logiq Society is to bring together highly intelligent people to discuss various topics and to take part in tests, puzzles, art and poetry. Logiq Society has a variety of tests that can be taken for free inside the society.
Logiq Society members can also contribute to the society magazine Charta Ingeniosus by sending in articles, artwork etc. All the content is created by the Ingenium HIQS, Uniq and Logiq Society members.
Outside of this, no references appear clear. The LogIQ Society appears first pass and second pass defunct.
With this, the societies with an apparent online presence and some marginal to highly active functionality are the following societies based on a first pass and second pass evaluation of the World Intelligence Network 1.33 to 3.07 sigma societies:
- The Cogito Society[1]
- The International High IQ Society[2]
- The Deep Brain Society[3]
- Mensa Society[4]
- The High Potentials Society[5]
- Intertel[6]
- The Top One Percent Society (TOPS)[7]
- The Colloquy Society[8]
- The CIVIQ Society[9]
- The Glia Society[10]
- International Society for Philosophical Enquiry (ISPE)[11]
- The Triple Nine Society (TNS)[12]
- The AtlantIQ Society[13]
- The EpIQ Society[14]
- The IQuadrivium Society[15]
15 societies from sigma 1.33 to 3.07 based on the World Intelligence Network listing appear active. Other considerations can change the degree and the listing here. However, these 15 appear active or worth some exploration as an individual effort of prospective society searchers, where this “individual effort” can be considered the third pass. The original number, to be clear, from the 1.33 to 3.07 sigma societies was 45 societies, i.e., 15 out of 45 made the cut/30 out of 45 did not make it. In other words, the tendency in the high-IQ communities in this preliminary analysis is a significant trend towards the creation of graveyards. This is a self-made reckoning of the high-IQ societies ranging from 1.33 to 3.07 sigma. This may or may not replicate at the higher sigmas.
The other societies noted at the outset with ambiguous status may come online as newer societies or may resurrect from apparent paralytic status:
- The Society for Intellectually Gifted Individuals with Disabilities of Nathaniel David Durham/Nate Durham with assistant Lyla Durham.
- The Encefálica Society of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa.
- The Greatest Minds Society of Roberto A. Rodriguez Cruz.
- The Mysterium Society of Greg A. Grove.
- The Sigma II Society of Hindemburg Melão.
- The Mind Society of Hernan R. Chang.
- the Infinity International Society (IIS) of Jeffrey Osgood.
- The Sigma III Society of Hindemburg Melão.
- The Milenija Society of Ivan Ivec and Mislav Predavec.
Thus, we can consider first pass defunct and second pass defunct 21 societies of 45 between sigmas 1.33 and 3.07 of the World Intelligence Network with 9 of 45 in an apparent paralytic state, while 15 have a range of functionality, activity, i.e., non-defunct status based on first pass and second pass review. Even with those 15, some may, in fact, have an online listing while being truly defunct if a more robust and comprehensive third pass analysis went forth. The next articles will review sigmas 3.17 to 4.08 of the World Intelligence Network listing of “84” active high-IQ societies.
[1] 57 members stated without public listing.
[2] Unknown membership numbers and listing.
[3] Membership listing of Anna Maria Santoro (Executive Editor, and Vice President and Founder) and Vincenzo D’Onofrio (President and Founder) has members Gianni Golfera (Honorary Member), Felice Vinci (Honorary Member), Jürgen Koller, Hernan Chang, Heidi Ursula Wallon Pizarro, Nicole Schneider, Haider Hussein Ali, Vincenzo Alfano, and Christian Sorensen. A scientific board of Dr. Rocco Santarelli, M.D. psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and Dr. Mirella Tenaglia psychologist and psychotherapist. Listed in memory of: Carlo D’Onofrio, Andrea Golfera, and Piergiorgio Data.
[4] More than 134,000 members. Krs Escobar, Elissa Rudolph, Bibiána Balanyi have been president; and Björn Liljeqvist is president.
[5] The website members as stated 06/2016: Dr. Max Tiefenbacher, Stephanie Erhard, Vicente Lopez Pena, Nate Durham, Kevin James Daley, Paul F. Kisak, Michael Rönnlund, Walid Sowaidan, Jesmond Debono, Simon Beugekian, Kris Natarajan, Louise Des Bois, Gerasomos Politis, Maria Claudia Faverio, Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis, MsMariel, Joao Rodrigo Coimbra, Sergio Silva, Javi Corres, Leonardo Gomes, Stefan Lindberg, Mateusz Kurcewicz, Kelly Dorsett, Alberto Matera, Michael D. Wolok, David Udbjorg, Mateusz Matysiak, Frank Albert, Baran Yönter, James Joseph Butters, Hubert Wee, Jan Antusch, Melanie Egetenmeier, David Giltinan, Mari Donkers, Jukka Mannonen, Herbert Kimura, Jan Erik Gausdal, Prof. Dr. Hans-Gert Bernstein, Brennan Martin, Christopher Westall, Mike Hess, Nileon Dimalaluan, Jr., Guner Rodop, Danny Milgram, Shane Scott, M.D., Robert Brizel, Paul Burman, Armin Becker, Randall Closson, Dylan Taylor, Kaj Forsell, Patrick Maitland, Athanasios Nikolakopoulos, Stefano Radovanovich, J., B., John D. Harrison, Dr. Greg A. Grove, Jan Snauwaert, Laurent Dubois, Daniel Schuler, Ryan Sloan, John M. Johnson, Jeff Prokop, Michael J. Humenny, Eduardo Fonseca, Thomas Riepe, Dr. Christian Hohenstein, Dr. Nishaut Sadana, Christoph Freiharr von Gersdorff, Dr. Michael Hensley, Henrik Raaberg, Karin Lindberg, Tommy Smith, Tetsuji Nishikura, Christopher J. Freeman, Shade H. Sanford, Bart Lindekens, Putong Ariel R./Ariel R. Putong, Larry J. McCollum, Sr., Egert Anslan, Norman Cruise, Marc Carter, Masaki Yaegashi, Jeremy Whitley, Romain Simoni, Zenaida Lima Barreiro, Isaak Ifrach, Dr. Eick Sternhagen, Pawel Bulacik, Bruno Alpi, Keith Harmer, Gilad Skyte, Avraam C. Gounaris, Namit Gaur, William T. Clark, Millicent Curtis, Michael Fassbender, Victor Hingsberg, Larson Walton, Lucas Thung, Julie Ferguson, Kenneth Myers, Andrew Zukoski, David Offenwanger, Brian R. Johnson, Miguel Castro, Mick Dempsey, Bruno Alessi, Thomas Naether, Kirk R. Butt, William Handyside, Michael Abrams, Reinhard Matuschka, Stefan Majoran, Stefan Baumer, Christos Spiromitros, Edin Andelic, Wen Bin Jaw, Chris Ksioufis, Russell Kirkland, Dan Heibult, Alan Rich, S B, Jens Nittel, Masaaki Yamauchi, David Holler, Xavier Estrada, Andreas Wold, Geoffrey Wayne Roach, Etienne Forsström, Christopher J.F. Galiardo, Monte C. Washburn, Dieter Wolfgang Matuschek, Jackson Itikawa, Ashish Vaswani, Frederic Lion, John Gwinn, Jean Philipp Paquin, Matthew Campbell, Glenn Talbot, Allan Christensen, Mike Gilkinson, Dr. Ralph Halder, Warren Tang, Christos Apostolidis, Clemens Gut, Christopher Michael Mejo, Raul Godoy Mayoral, B.R., Adam William Kisby/Adam Kisby, Mattias Törnquist, Irene Alexandra Taboada Estrada, Vincenzo Iozzo, James Parkhurst, Robert Mestre, Achim de Vivie, Robert Blais, Pamela Staschik Neumann, Brendon Thomas, Sharon Wong, Paul Tighe, Felipe C. Abala, Shaun Patrick Sullivan, ‘johnnyvirtual,’ Anders Hellström, Robert B. Dale, Jason Boyens, Andres Gomez Emilsson, Alex Camperlino (Magnus), Robbi Mounce, Issa Ali Atoum, Alexandra Patricio, Quinn Malory, Mike Ridpath, Alexis Petit, Frederick Goertz, Kim Nygren, David H. Wilson, Raymond Plischke, Ioannis Chondrobilas, Walter van Huissteden, Fivos Drymiotis, Stergios Chatzikyriakidis, Elizabeth Anne Scott, Susan Nigro Gelsomino, Etta Dunn, Kathrine E. Linebaugh, Mads Holm Andersen, Zakariya Belal, Clyde H. Hedgcoth, Serge (?), Gautham Sekar, Edward S. Nacua, Wes Curry, John Payawal, Romi Khanna, Charlotte Jensen, Gregor Brand, Albert Lee, James Dorsey, Liu Rijing, Konstantinos Dalachanis, Ivan Suarez Gomez, Afsin Saltik, Admund Tay, Gustavo Bellon, Javier Riu Santos, Shailendu Shroff, Jeffery Lincoln, Gautam Balaram, Didier Desse, Cesar Lobo Perez, Jesse Buckley, Luke Harbaugh, Thomas Ossel, Martin Jacobsen, Christian Kissling, Felix Melber, Oscar Östlin, Andreas Albihn, Andre R., David Lubkin, Andrew Frye, Matias Exequiel Perez Artuso, Owen Cosby, Michael Tokayer, Andreas Edwin Juarso, Richard Welch, George Walendowski, Christos Arvanitis, Angelica Partida, Norm Chesler, Osama Basta, Christian Sohl, Damiano Belluci, Daniel Solis, Mauro Antonielli, Amanda Rogers, Bram van Kaathoven, Hermann Michael Scherder, Peter S. Kim, Julia Zuber, Miguel Angel Gonzalez Rodrigo, Sebastian Grijalva, Igor Jeremic, Lisa Meesomboon, Patrick Münzinger, Christopher James Garcia, Paul Laurent Miranda, Luis Enrique Perez Ostoa, Anthony Lawson, Joshua Jurgen Weber, Shinji Okazaki, Cedric Johnson, Henning Droege, Ming Zhang, Hans Göran Anas, Okay Karakas, Rolland Vilar, Davide Piffer, Wing Chi Chan, Marios Prodromou, Joseph Gama, Caroline Walter, Mohd Faeiz Pauzi, John McGilvra, John Martinez, Marin Filinic, Robert Andersson, Allan Markovic, Henrik Hjort, Gonzalo Sanchez Pia, Ernie Marasigan, Jason Munn, Gerry Marasigan, Burak Yulug, Peter Lisowski, Sunder Rangarajan, Justin M. Cruz, Jose Gutierrez Saez, Dennis Roldan A. Castillo, James Marshall, Ricardo Borges, Tayo Sandono, Adil Suhail Rehman Butt, Leif E. Agesen, Nomar Norono, Dave Hacht, Sage Kuhens, Stefano Zanero, Justin William Ziljstra, Mus Murium, Jacek Lewkowicz, Mus Murium, Jacek Lewkowicz, Christoffer Collin, Gonzalo Pena Fernandez, German Gonzalez, Perry Choi, Dany Provost, Antonio Rada, Anastasios Chatziargiriou, Yusaku Hori, Alexis Petit, David Hunter, Mateusz, Zukowski, David Barsky, Jesse Wilkens, John Kaspo, Mae Ann de Leon, Ahsan Zaheer Shaikh, Alexandre Costa, Stephen Maule, Asais Ashfaq, Tapio Kortesaari, Eduardo Rangel, Flor Argenti, Pedro Oliveira, Whayne Zhang, Sanzio Ambrosini, Joseph Anthony Tomlinson, Alex Brown, Dr. Amit Mahesh Shelat, Thuy-Vi Ton That, Torbjörn Brenna, Jose Raul Alava, Luca Banic, Alan Lee, Jose Gonzalez Molinero, Adam Farmer, Patrick J. McShea, Viorel, Silvana Paredes, Carlos Oliver Alvarez Gonzalez, Marcelo Eyer Fernandes, Sunil Maitla Josh Mills, Tom States, Varun Rawat, Ken Olsen, Flo Pressi, Subir Bakshi, Nancy Vanstone, Jay Aubrey Jackson, Sebastian Stolze, Tiago Santos, Ignacio Barraza, Juho Kärenlampi, Leon M. Hostetler, Victor Odtuhan, Tommi P. Laiho, Eugenio Correnti, Virginia Marasigan, Jorden Rex Olson, Lulu Sukhabut, Necie Gamo, Jarl Victor Björgan, Santanu Sengupta, Daniel Eriksson, David Horvat, Bill Kruse, Tony Lee Magee, Philip Heffington, Fernando Sanchez Serrano, Kripanshu Pant, Harris Senin, ‘royfancoolguy,’ Jan Flour, Suman Gaurab Das, Panagioitis Bertes, Erikos Liberatos, Ali Ouattou, Yoshiyuki Shimizu, Dr. Jürgen Koller, Paul E. Thompson, Eileen Reitmaier, Nuno Baptista, Robert Birnbaum, Alberto Bedmar Montano, Juha Starck, Vincente Fernandez Sanchez, Joseph M. Ferraro, Andrei Zaharescu, Karl Manthey, Jennifer Solomon, Graham Powell, Fernando Barbosa Neto, Devon Surian, Simon Mezgec, Caleb van Duinen, Paul Freeman, Shantanu Gadkari, Baransel, Saginda, Olaf Bühler, Kirsten M. Cruz, Jhonata Ramos, Dawn Towensend, Lauri Katainen, Karl G. Reitmaier, Adams Rosales, Birgit Scholz, Nicolas Bodereau, Murat Hancer, Marco Ripa, Guohua Gao, Mario Marella, Bo Ostergaard Nielsen, Beatrice Rescazzi, Deron K. Holmes, Phil Elauria, Gerasimos Papaleventis, Christel Grieten, Srika Darisetty, Michael Baker, Vedran Glisic, Paz Marasigan, Nikhil Dhamapurkar, Richard Szary, Marty Karpinski, Moreno Casalegno, Paul Davies, Pascale E. Qureshi, Harry Blazer, Kamil Hendzel, Tobias Martin Lithner, Jose Antonio Polo Hernandez Michael Thrasher, Chenwenjin AlenEinstjin, Zachary Edward Timmons, Duc Hong LE, Michelle Anne Bullas Unit Soygenis, Rudolf Trubba, Andrea Toffoli, Yvonne Brown, Gustavo Fabbroni, Jipa Vlad, Alex Beyer, Etienne Laurin, Cameron Hopkins-Harrington, Gary Song, Giorgio Milani, AMANDA Cudnohosky, Alexander Herkner, Roberto Rodriguez, Landon T. Bennett, Barry Beanland, Stephen Getzinger, Lim Surya Tjahyadi, Juri Tovar, Joseph Andrews, Cary Sheremet, Aman Bagaria, Beau Clemens, Omar l. Hamade, Morie Janine Hutchens, Akshay Goel, Gwyneth Wesley Rolph, Dr. Tahawar Ali Khan, Kathryn McLean, Goran Ahlander, Darb, Yao Xu, James Lorrimore, Jakub Oblizajek, Willian Talvane da Silva, Joao Aleixo, Tom Högström, Gordon Little, Khy Donovan Logan, Akshay Quadir, Gaetano Morelli, Kimmo Kostamo, Lu Yu Lin, P.R., Tilman Danker, Harold Ford, Osrox Fabella, Silvio Di Fabio, Rafal Sycinski, Gudrun Röpke, Jeremy Buras, Jefferson Lee Humphrey, Anthony Daniel Pisano, Jorge R. Martinez, Bulmaro Jimenez, Frank Aiello, Rüdiger Ebendt, Slava Lanush, Dr. Claus-Dieter Volko, Nicolo Pezzuti, David Testerini, and Bisson.
[6] More than 1,300 members.
[7] The listed members’ links include the following: The Mind Society, OATHS, Albert Frank, Bill Bultas, Donna Blasor-Bernhardt, Frank M. Lopez, Susan L. Nigro, Ludomind Society, Genius Society, Don Stoner, Omega Society, Epimetheus Society, Chris Eichenberger, Divine Madness, Morgan Hansen, Sage Kuhens, Marzena A. Broel-Plater, Brennan Martin, and Martin T. Lithner.
[8] Its member webpages as follows: Julia (JCC), Andrea (ALP), Kevin, TimeLord (KB), William: African-American resource pages (WRJ), Eric: Tales of the Mine Country (EM), Laura (LDL), Kevin‘s Domain (TM), Ulf‘s Artwork … Read about the Greatest Geniuses of history, Ed‘s Radio Resume (ES), Frank presents the Pragmatism of C. S. Peirce (FPP), Video Mike (ME), Bill: Website Kafejo (WPP), Alex (TsC), Derrick (DPG), Juan (JRG), Frank (FT), Mick (MoR), Carl (CRS), David (DGH), T.M. Lukas Hughes (TLH), Kate (KJ), Dan (DLT), Jeff (J2K), Ken (KCB), Yuri‘s photo (YuM), Olivier (OCG), James (JLL), Wyman (JWB), Christopher (SeeWy), Dana (DM), and Steve (KSH).
[9] Its founder is Dr. Evangelos Katsioulis. Its subscribers as follows: Anonymous C.S.001, Ashraya Ananthanarayanan, and Tor Arne Jørgensen. Its current members sit at 367. Officers have been present. Its presidents have been Androniki Dalkavouki, Marc-André Groulx, Julie T., Irene Alexandra Taboada, Thomas B., and Evangelos Katsioulis. Its vice presidents have been Marc-André Groulx, Evangelos Katsioulis, Isaac Ifrach, Étienne Forsström, Julie T., and Maria Claudia Faverio. Its web officers have been Evangelos Katsioulis, Chris Chsioufis, and Mári Donkers. Its membership officers have been Evangelos Katsioulis, Marc-André Groulx, Djordje Rancic, Karin Lindgren, and Michael Dempsey.
[10] Founded by Paul Cooijmans, it hosts several hundred members at a reasonable cognitive rarity.
[11] Its website states:
ISPE Board of Trustees
- Daniel J. Schultz, Ph.D., Chair of the Trustees, Diplomate and Philosopher of the Society
- William L. Hoon, D.M.D. (Pennsylvania), Diplomate
- Pierre A. Rioux, MD (Minnesota), Diplomate
- Robert J. Skinner, D.Min., MSOM, CIW, CWP (Tennessee), Diplomate
ISPE Founder (1974)
- Christopher Harding (Australia), Diplomate and Philosopher of the Society
Elected Officers and Key Appointed Volunteer Officers
President
Stephen Levin, Esquire (Pennsylvania)
Vice President
Roger Brown (Georgia)
Treasurer
Scott Harrigan (New York)
Auditor
Mark van Vuuren (South Africa)
Comptroller
(vacant)
Advancement Officer
Dr. Robert Campbell (Kingdom of the Netherlands)
Harstenhoekweg 184
2587 RS Den Haag
NETHERLANDS
Director of Admissions
Roger Brown (Georgia)
1020 Rockingham St
Alpharetta GA 30022
USA
Telicom (the official Journal of ISPE)
Kathy Kendrick (South Dakota), Telicom Editor-in-Chief editor@thousanders.com
Kate Jones, Telicom Sr. Proofreader (Maryland)
Harish Vallury, Telicom Proofreader (New York)
Immediate Past President
Dr. Patrick M. O’Shea
Psychometrician
Vernon Neppe, MD, Ph.D, FRSSAf (Washington)
Global Strategic Initiatives and Planning Committee
Roger Brown, Chair (Georgia)
Thomas W. Chittenden (Massachusetts)
Lalaine Durand (California)
Shannon D. Hasenfratz Gardner (Kentucky)
David J. Levin (Pennsylvania)
Goran Pettersson (Sweden)
Erryca Robicheaux (Louisiana)
Joerg Steinhaus (Germany)
Stephen Levin, ex officio (Pennsylvania)
Chief Statistical Sciences Advisor
Thomas W. Chittenden, PhD., DPhil, PStat (Massachusetts)
Committee on Ethics
Thomas W. Chittenden, PhD., DPhil, PStat (Massachusetts)
Simon Olling Rebsdorf (Denmark)
Dr. Patrick M. O’Shea (Minnesota)
Kathy Kendrick (South Dakota), ex officio
Bill Smith, Deputy General Counsel (South Carolina), ex officio
Recruiting Officer
Cindy Smith (Georgia)
Database Manager
Changes to any member’s database entry is accessed by each member online at http://www.thethousand.com.
Elections Officer
Vernon Neppe, MD, Ph.D, FRSSAf (Washington)
Educational Consultant
Dr. Greg A. Grove (Oregon)
Historian/Back Issues of Telicom
Patrick M. O’Shea, D.M.A. (Minnesota)
Special Projects Officer
Darrell L. McLaughlin, PMP (Illinois)
General Counsel
Stephen Levin, Esquire (Pennsylvania)
Bill Smith, Esquire, Deputy General Counsel (South Carolina)
Public Relations and Media Representative
Erryca Robicheaux (Louisiana)
New Member Welcome Program Manager
Dr. Norman Pillsbury (Florida)
736 Westminster Drive
Orange Park, FL 32073
Social Network Administrator
Simon Olling Rebsdorf (Denmark)
IT Team
Brendan Bardy (Michigan)
Michele Lovaas (Michigan)
Julia Vaughn (Michigan)
Webmaster
Stephan Wagner Damianowitsch (Serbia)
Mentors of the Society
Aaron D. Gitler, Ph.D. (California, Stanford University)
Alexandra York (Pennsylvania)
[12] It has 2,000, potentially more, members with the current Regent/Chairman as Thorsten Heitzmann, Ombudsman David Auernheimer, Member-at-Large Tess Stanhaus, Member-at-Large Tom Chantler, Member-at-Large Werner Konik, and Member-at-Large Ina Bendis.
[13] Their listed members as follows: President (Beatrice Rescazzi), Vice President (Graham Powell), and members and honorary members including Moreno Casalegno (Co-Founder), Maria C. Faverio, Paul Freeman, Greg. A. Grove, Gaetano Morelli, Stan Riha, Vincenzo D’Onofrio, Giulio Zambon, Fernando Barbosa Neto, Alan J. Lee, Robert Birnbaum, Jacqueline Slade, Richard Stock, Greg Collins, Torbjørn Brenna, Noriyuki Sakurai, Zachary Timmons, Phil Elauria, Andrea Toffoli, Marios Prodromou, Duc Hong Le, Gianmarco Bartellone, Tommi Petteri Laiho, Michael Thrasher, José Gonzàles Molinero, Mick Pletcher, Richard Szary, José Serrano, Pamela Staschik-Neumann, Nuno Baptista, Adam Kisby, Andrea Gelmetti, Faisal Alfagham فيصل الفغم, Gustavo Fabbroni, Shaun Sullivan, Gerasimos Politis, Gavan Cushnan, Pietro Bonfigli, Djordje Rancic, Jon Scott Scharer, Roberto A. Rodriguez, Jesse Wilkins, Rajiv Kutty, Nomar Alexander Noroño Rodríguez, Scott Poh, Miroslaw Zajdel, Stephen Getzinger, Nancy Vanstone, Guillaume Chanteloup, Karin Lindgren, Gary Song, Lim Surya Tjahyadi, Paul Laurent, Eric Anthony Trowbridge, Niels Christoffers, Michelle Anne Bullas, Jeffrey Lee Graham, Tahawar Ali Khan, Yuri Tovar, Jason Oliver, Jarl Victor Bjørgan, Bradley Hutchinson, Donald M. Fell, Gwyneth Wesley Rolph, Vicente Lopez Pena, Rudolf Trubba, Barry Beanland, Morie Janine Hutchens, Keegan Ray McLoughlin, Hever Horacio Arreola Gutierrez, Michael Backer, Jr, Aman Bagaria, Selim Şumlu. David Gordon Little, Victor Hingsberg, Anthony Lawson, Beau D. Clemmons, R. K., Alberto Bedmar Montaño, Paul Stuart Nachbar, Jim Lorrimore, Jakub Oblizajek, Gabriel Sambarino, Tony Lee Magee, Dorian Forget, Tom Högström, Elizabeth Anne Scott, Michael Donoho, Ernest Williamson III, Nicole Mathisen, Katarina Vestin, Christine Van Ngoc Ty, Jason Betts, Yu-Lin Lu, Nikolaos Solomos, Gracia Cornet, Richard Painter, Wyman Brantley, Yao Xu, Kevin James Daley, Stephen Maule, Birgit Scholz, Leif E. Ågesen, Mohammed Al Sahaf, Martin Murphy, Samuel Mack-Poole, Vuk Mircetic, Peter Radi, Marcin Kulik, Harold Ford, Thomas G. Hadley, Miguel Soto, Göran Åhlander, Evangelos Katsioulis, Anja Jaenicke, Roy Morris, Slava Lanush, Frank J. Ajello, Nicolò Pezzuti, James Dorsey, Massimo Caliaro, Michael Tedja, John Argenti, Therese Waneck, Bo Østergaard Nielsen, Sudarshan Murthy, Daniel Roca, Glikerios Soteriou, Kristina Thygesen, Miguel Jorge Castro Pinho, Tim G. Griffith, Claus Volko, Diego Iuliano, Elcon Fleur, Evan Tan, Dalibor Marinčić, Konstantinos Ntalachanis, Candy Chilton, Diego Fortunati, WeiJie Wang, Alessia Iancarelli, Cristian Vaccarella, Iakovos Koukas, Filippo De Donatis, Richard Ball, Zhida Iiu, R. Kent Ouimette, Marina Belli, Karim Serraj, Kim Sung-jin, Juman Lee, CHIANG LI CHING, Zhibin Zhang 张志彬, Andre Gangvik, Nikos Papadopoulos Παπαδόπουλος Νίκος, Jo Christopher M. Resquites, Ricky Chaggar, Félix Veilleux-Juillet, Michael Franklin, Michela Fadini, Fabrizio Fadini, Fabrizio Bertini, Cosimo Palma, Nobuo Yamashita 山下 伸男, Cristian Combusti, Mostafa Moradi, Xiao-ming CAI 蔡晓明, Fabio Castagna, Robert Hodosi, Francisco Morais dos Santos, Cynthia L. Miller, Hongzhe Zhang 张鸿哲, Serena Ramos, Nguyen Tran Hoai Thuong Nguyễn Trần Hoài Thương, Giuseppe Corrente, Sergey Dundanov, Andrea Casolari, Anthony Brown, Veronica Palladino, Yohei Furutono, Francesco Carlomagno, Emanuele Gianmaria Possevini, Joseph Leslie Jennings, Robin Lucas, Rosario Alessio Ronca, Oliver Dammel, Javier Rio Santos, Sebastiao Borges Machado Junior, Agasi Pietro, Taddeucci Nicholas, Andre Massaro, Mika Korkeamäki, Tor Arne Jørgensen, Dario Casola, Federico Statiglio, Vincent Li 李宗泽, Jewoong Moon 문제웅, Annelie Oliver, Nitish Joshi, Christian Sorensen, Simon Olling Rebsdorf, Marzio Mezzanotte, Paolino Francesco Santaniello, Edwin P. Christmann, and Nicos Gerasimou.
[14] Not all members are listed publicly. Its listed Founder: Chris Chsioufis, President: Vice President: Stanislav Riha, Test Officer: Djordje Rancic, Test Officer: Michael Chew, Membership Officer: Gavan Cushnahan, Membership Officer: Torbjørn Brenna, Honorary members: Baran Yonter D’Arcy Desabrais Evangelos G. Katsioulis Luis E. Pérez Ostoa Paul Freeman Grand Dr. (Prof.) Niranjan C. Bhat, and then the listed 18 hidden members in addition to the following members: Achim de Vivie, Deron K. Holmes, Jorge Antonio Sosa Huapaya, Michael Paul Burman, Sean Silverman Akram Janzi, Dieter Matuschek, José Antonio Polo Hernández, Miguel Angel Soto Miranda, Sebastian Grijalva Alan O’Donnell, Djordje Rancic, Jose Gonzalez Molinero, Miguel de Sa Sotomaior, Sebastian Stolz, Ales Milosavljevic, Douglas Thorpe, José María Pinto Canto, Muhamed Veletanlic, Serge Miserez, Alex Brown, Douglas O, Joseph Gama, Namit Gaur, Sharon Wong, Alexander Herkner, Dr. Jason D. Baron, MD, Josh Sparks, Nikolai von Boetticher, Shaun Sullivan, Alexander Melnick, Drew Sanner, Juan A. Pinera, Nikhil Dhamapurkar, Shawn Clinton, Alexandre Costa, DROSSOS DROSSOS, Juan Gonzalez Liebana, Nileon Dimalaluan, Jr., Shi-hyung Lee, Alexandros Katranidis, Duc Hong LE, Jürgen Koller, Noriyuki Sakurai, Shinji Okazaki, Anders Berglund, Dylan Taylor, Karin Lindgren, Ola Obrant, Silvio Di Fabio, Anders Orback, Eddy D. Maillot, Karl Wilhelmson, Olav Nilsen, Sindre Aarsaether, Andrea Abramucci, Eduardo Costa, Katie Cesaro, Oliver Kant, Song In-Chang, Andrea Toffoli, Einar Zettergren, Kenneth Heaton, Owen Cosby, Stan Riha, Andreas Sjostrand, Eleftherios Spiromitros, Kerstin Palo, Pamela Staschik-Neumann, Stefan Langemalm, Andrew Aus Elizabeth Anne Scott Kim Vaughan Pantelis Papageorgiou Stefan Majoran, Andrew E. Reineberg, Emiel Verlinden, Iakovos Koukas, Patrick Maitland, Stefano Casali, Angel Dure, Eric Anthony Trowbridge, Lauren Bylsma, Paul Edgeworth, Sunder Rangarajan, Antonio Rada, Eric Stillwachs, Leif E. Ågesen, Paul Laurent, Takeshi Amagi, Antonis Polykratis, Ernesto Marasigan, Hideharu Kobayashi, Leo Borek, Pedro Lopez, Tapio Kortesaari, Armin Becker, Espen Andersen , Hugo Gutierrez, Leon Goldberg, Pedro Motta Carneiro, Terry Strong, Bernhard Junker, Espen Bernton, Ilias Iliadis, Lion Frederic, Pedro Pablo Andreu, Theodosis Prousalis, Bo Østergaard Nielsen, Etienne Forsstrom, Ioannis Chondrobilas, Lorenzo Buschi, Peter Briscoe, Thomas B., Bo Ramqvist, Eugenio Correnti, Isaac Ifrach, Luis Miguel López Martínez, Peter Fredholm, Thomas Faulkner, Bo Xu, Fernando José Kirschbaum, Ivan Ivec, Luke Harbaugh, Peter Heymans, Thomas G. Hadley, Bourret Thierry, Fernando Barbosa Neto, Ivo Rubic, Maciej Tomczak , Peter Rossotti, Thomas H McFadden, Jr., Bram van Kaathoven, Francisco Rodriguez, Jackson Itikawa, Magnus Carlson, Petros Rafailidis, Thorsten Wuest, Brent Seeley, Fivos Drymiotis, Jacqueline Slade, Magnus Johansson, Pirvu Steluta, Tim Ginstfeldt, Brian Thomson, Fredrik Fagersten, James Boland, Magnus Segersten, Queno Denis, Tobias Lindberg, Bruno Alessi, Frederik Floether, James David Dunn, Manfred Zuber, Rachel Velazquez, Tomasz Bucki, Bruno Alpi, Gautham Sekar, James Keating, Marc Roman Remulla, Reinhard Matuschka, Tommy Upshaw, Bryan Morwood, Gavan Cushnahan, Jan Markborg, Marc-Andre Groulx, Richard Ambler, Tommy Smith, Burak Yulug, Georg Werner Kohlmeyer, Jan Snauwaert, Marcin Dukaczewski, Richard E. Cadle, Toni Espinosa Largo, Carey Lah, Gerasimos Politis, Jari Hyvönen, Marcus Gemeinder, Richard Sharp, Torbjørn Brenna, Caspar Nijhuis, Gerry Gore, Jari-Matti Lintala, Marco Ripà, Robert Andersson, Tuukka Paikkari, Cesar Tome-Lopez, Gi Beom Bae, Jason Munn, Mari Donkers, Robert Blias, Van Ngoc Ty Christine, Christian Crona, Gianmarco Bartellone, Jason Parker, Maria Claudia Faverio, Robert Brizel, Victor Hingsberg, Christine Van Ngocty, Giulio Zambon, Jean Loup Agache, Marin Filinic, Robert Roy, Vincent Darras, Christoffer Collin, Gonzalo Pena Fernandez, Jeff Leonard, Marios Prodromou, Rodrigo Garcia Kosinski, Vincenzo Iozzo, Christoph Gersdorff, Gosta Mellberg, Jeffery Lee Humphrey, Masaaki Yamauchi, Roger Kircher, Wayne Zhang, Christos Apostolidis, Greg Holland, Jens Frid, Martin Brooks, Rolland Vilar, Will Weatherly, Claudiu Saftoiu, Guillem Mata Valligny, Jesmond Debono, Martin Stromberg, Romain Simoni, Willem Bosma, Costas Skordilis, Gustav Knutsson, Jo Christopher M. Resquites, Merlin Carl, Ronald Boonstra, William Handyside, Dan Robert Milstone, Gwyneth Wesley Rolph, Joe Bolognese, Michael Baker, Jr., Ronnie Bjorklund, William Munsil, Daniel Krizek, Hakan Johansson, John Argenti, Michael Bois, Rudolf Trubba, Yoshiyuki Shimizu, Daniel Schuler, Han Kyung Lee, John M. Boyer, Michael Chew, Russell Schap, Y-U-R-I, Danny Mertens, Hans Anas, John Michael Hailey, Michael D Mehlman, Ryan Sloan, Yusaku Hori, David Burns, Harry Hollum, John Thomas McGuire, Michael Dempsey, Ryon F. Adams, Zenaida lima Barreiro, David Quint, Henrik Hjort, Jonas Haas, Michael Ernst, Sandra Schlick, Zheng Cai, David Wellendorf, Henry Patterson , Jonatas Muller, Michael Fagre, Sang jun Choi, Dennis Kovich, Heo Hoon, Jonathon Griffin, Michael Fassbender, and Sanzio Ambrosini.
[15] Its Facebook group affirms 226 members.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/08/03
Alex Kofi Donkor is the Director of LGBT+ Rights Ghana & Programs Manager of Priorities on Rights and Sexual Health.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, May 17th was the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. We have done an extensive interview before. You are a reasonably major figure in terms of being outspoken for the LGBTI community in Ghana. From a Ghanaian perspective, as a relatively progressive country, what are some of the cultural manifestations of homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia? Why is awareness and commemoration, as per May 17th, important when it comes to that – especially in light of the fact of discrimination people can face disproportionately?
Alex Kofi Donkor: Thank you, Ghana is a progressive country but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done especially in the area of human rights. I feel like it is very religious. The majority of people believe in certain morals and beliefs. A significant proportion of Ghanaians are Christians, about 72%. There is Islam or Muslims, about 17% and also traditional worshipers taking other parts of the percentage and a few people none religious.
These beliefs especially Christianity and Islam happens to condemn LGBTQ. This impacts so many areas of life, e.g., political, social, economic, law, history etc. 90% of the population believe in a form of religion. These are the same people who occupy all the sectors of this country. public, private, the media, the presidency, parliament, judiciary, police, service providers, businesses, you name it. Almost all of these individuals in the population are religious.
When these religions have a particular stance on LGBTQ, and like we have always experienced, negative, it clearly reflects in the way their believers behave towards the community. They show hate to the community. The media constantly offers its platform for such behaviour to thrive. You realize the high possibility of LGBT persons being abused in the country as a result of these rhetorics.
So, I believe it is important to mark a day like this, an international day, that we speak up and challenge the oppression the community goes through in this country. Ghana is not an island, Ghana is part of the world and soo is its people. It is essential for LGBTQ Ghana to be safe wherever they find themselves in the county and challenge views, behaviours and laws that do not allow them to live to their full potential as citizens.
Whatever perspective one holds about other people in the country, the bottom line is that those people have equal rights as Ghanaians. Nobody is more Ghanaian than the other. Even if it is one lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender, that individual has the same rights as any other Ghanaian. And it is important to raise such awareness.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/28
The following looks at the listing of the 84 “active” high-IQ societies listed by the World Intelligence Network. Those with an interest in the more tedious stuff about various high-IQ societies may have a sliver of interest in this. So, it’s a “for what it’s worth” deal. The President of the World Intelligence Network is Evangelos Katsioulis and the Vice President/Vice-President is Manahel Thabet. Their publication was WIN ONE and became Phenomenon in the last couple of issues with editors Lord Graham Powell/Graham Powell and Krystal Volney. I will run through sigmas 1.33 to 4.8 in the listing in four articles, as some of the others were presented before at the proposed higher sigmas in a conversation with Christian Sorensen. Any stipulation of “defunct” comes from a search via the listings or open advertisements from the World Intelligence Network. That is to say, these amount to first passes on them. Please see the subsequent complementing articles for the second passes with the dominant search engine “[Society Name]” search, or a Google internet engine search. The first article will cover the first pass – this article – of 1.33 to 3.07 sigma with the second article covering the second pass of 1.33 to 3.07, and then the third and fourth articles covering the first and second passes of 3.07 to 4.8 sigma. All footnote information from the respective societies’ web domains and publicly available records.
Let’s begin:
At 1.33 sigma, UberMens Society appears defunct.
At 1.66 sigma, AtlantIQ of Beatrice Rescazzi and Moreno Casalegno appears defunct on an old site.[1],[2] The Cogito Society contains 56 members while existing entirely online as a Yahoo! private group. The International High IQ Society of the late Nathan Haselbauer appears functional with approximately “30% of our members… from Europe, 30% from North America, 15% Asia, 10% South America, 10% Australia and 5% from Africa.” Haselbauer committed suicide. The OmIQamiSociety of Andrea Toffoli appears defunct. The Society for Intellectually Gifted Individuals with Disabilities of Nathaniel David Durham/Nate Durham with assistant Lyla Durham and members appears stagnant.[3] The VinCI Society of Lloyd King appears defunct.
At 1.87 sigma, Alta Capacidad Hispana (ACH) of Vicente Lopez Pena appears defunct [4]. The Deep Brain Society of Anna Maria Santoro and Vincenzo D’Onofrio has members Gianni Golfera, Felice Vinci, Jürgen Koller, Hernan Chang, Heidi Ursula Wallon Pizarro, Nicole Schneider, Haider Hussein Ali, Vincenzo Alfano, and Christian Sorensen.
At 2 sigma, the AtheistIQ Society of Robert Dawson seems defunct. The BPIQ Society of Kelly Dorsett seems defunct. The Encefálica Society of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa seems either defunct, paralytic, or reconfigured for another organization. The Gifted Artists Circle of Martin Tobias Lithner seems defunct. The Greatest Minds Society of Roberto A. Rodriguez Cruz seems newer and upcoming without formal status online. The High Potentials Society of Max Tiefenbacher seems functional with a large list of members.[5] The Ingenium Society of Martin Tobias Lithner seems newer and upcoming with a statement about the website coming online soon. The IQUAL Society of Gerasimos Papaleventis seems defunct. Mensa Society of Lancelot Ware and Roland Berrill seems highly functional and active under Björn Liljeqvist with 134,000+ members – far more than any other society known to me. The Mysterium Society of Greg A. Grove seems functional, though old, potentially paralytic. The Sigma II Society of Hindemburg Melão seems paralytic.
At 2.33 sigma, the Chorium Society of Paul Freeman seems defunct with a disabled website. The Elataneos Society of Andrés Gómez Emilsson seems defunct. Intertel of Ralph Haines seems functional and active. The Mind Society of Hernan R. Chang seems online while ambiguously functional, potentially paralytic.[6] The Top One Percent Society (TOPS) of Ronald K. Hoeflin appears longstanding and operational, potentially paralytic.[7] The UNIQ Society of Martin Tobias Lithner seems defunct.
At 2.6 sigma, the Colloquy Society of Julia Cachia seems functional, old, and presented relatively cleanly in spite of the age.[8] The Poetic Genius Society (PGS) of Greg A. Grove with membership manager Maurice Champagne appears functional and alive.[9]
At 2.66 sigma, the HispanIQ International Society (HIS) of Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa seems defunct. At 2.66 sigma, the Infinity International Society (IIS) of Jeffrey Osgood appears, at its minimum, online with Adobe Flash.
At 2.73 sigma, the Cerebrals Society of Xavier Jouve appears defunct.
At 2.87 sigma, the EpIQ Society of Chris Chsioufis looks defunct. The ExactIQ Society of Patrick Kreander seems defunct. Neurocubo of Pedro Lσpez, Thomas Hally, Cisar Tomi, and Paul Laurent appears defunct.
At 3 sigma, Artifex Mens Congregatio of Robert Mestre, Walter VanHuissteden, and Fivos Drymiotis looks defunct. The CIVIQ Society of Evangelos Katsioulis looks functional while merged with the main World Intelligence Network web domain.[10] Its presidents have been Androniki Dalkavouki, Marc-André Groulx, Julie T., Irene Alexandra Taboada, Thomas B., Evangelos Katsioulis. Its vice presidents have been Marc-André Groulx, Evangelos Katsioulis, Isaac Ifrach, Étienne Forsström, Julie T., and Maria Claudia Faverio. Its web officers has been Evangelos Katsioulis, Chris Chsioufis, and Mári Donkers. Its membership officers has been Evangelos Katsioulis, Marc-André Groulx, Djordje Rancic, Karin Lindgren, and Michael Dempsey. the Sigma III Society of Hindemburg Melão looks functional online with sufficient membership while, potentially, paralytic (uncertain).[11]
At 3.07 sigma, the Genius Society of Hernan R. Chang looks defunct. The Glia Society of Paul Cooijmans looks functional with several hundred claimed members. The International Society for Philosophical Enquiries (ISPE) of Christopher Harding looks functional, longstanding, and active. The IQuadrivium Society of Karyn S. Huntting looks defunct. The LogIQ Society of Martin Tobias Lithner seems defunct. The Milenija Society of Ivan Ivec and Mislav Predavec may be defunct, though ambiguously. The One in A Thousand (OATH) of Ronald K. Hoeflin seems functional, potentially inactive.[12] The Triple Nine Society (TNS) of Richard Canty, Ronald Hoeflin, Ronald Penner, Edgar Van Vleck, and Kevin Langdon looks functional, longstanding, and active.
[1] Interestingly, the AtlantIQ group lists dead societies as follows:
- Alta Capacidad Hispana
- Elateneo/s
- BPIQ Society
- Epida Society
- Colloquy
- ExactIQ
- Tenth Society
- Bright Minds Society
- Greatest Minds Society
- Vinci Society
- Sigma
- Sigma III
- Sigma Society V
- Hellenicus
- UberIQ
- IIS
- OATHS
- Ludomind
- Pi Society
- Platinum Society
- Cerebrals
- High Potentials Society
- Mysterium Society
- GLIA
- Ingenium Society
- LogIQ
- Iquadrivium Society
- Pars Society
- UnIQ
- HispanIQ International Society
- Encefalica
- OMIQAMI
- Artistic Minds
- MIQRO
- GOTHIQ
- EVANGELIQ Society
- Episteme Club
- PolitIQal Society
- Secret High IQ Society
- Chorium Society
- Nano Society
- IQual Society
- PolymathIQ
- Incognia
- UltimaIQ
- Neurocubo
- Order of Imhotep
- SophIQa
- EliteIQ
- Neutrino high IQ Society
- Atheistiq Society
- Noetiqus Society
- Evolutioniq Society
- EPL Society
- The Athenian Society
- Supernova Society
- Intellectually Gifted with Disabilities
- Orison-B High IQ Society
- Icon High IQ Society
- Thinkiq
- Hypatian Society
- Chaos IQ Society
*Or in an apparent coma for more than 5 years.
[2] Their listed members as follows:
President and Vice
President
Beatrice Rescazzi, Graham Powell
HONORARY MEMBERS & MEMBERS
Moreno Casalegno (Co-Founder)
Maria C. Faverio
Paul Freeman
Greg. A. Grove
Gaetano Morelli
Stan Riha
Vincenzo D’Onofrio
Giulio Zambon
Fernando Barbosa Neto
Alan J. Lee
Robert Birnbaum
Jacqueline Slade
Richard Stock
Greg Collins
Torbjørn Brenna
Noriyuki Sakurai
Zachary Timmons
Phil Elauria
Andrea Toffoli
Marios Prodromou
Duc Hong Le
Gianmarco Bartellone
Tommi Petteri Laiho
Michael Thrasher
José Gonzàles Molinero
Mick Pletcher
Richard Szary
José Serrano
Pamela Staschik-Neumann
Nuno Baptista
Adam Kisby
Andrea Gelmetti
Faisal Alfagham فيصل الفغم
Gustavo Fabbroni
Shaun Sullivan
Gerasimos Politis
Gavan Cushnan
Pietro Bonfigli
Djordje Rancic
Jon Scott Scharer
Roberto A. Rodriguez
Jesse Wilkins
Rajiv Kutty
Nomar Alexander Noroño Rodríguez
Scott Poh
Miroslaw Zajdel
Stephen Getzinger
Nancy Vanstone
Guillaume Chanteloup
Karin Lindgren
Gary Song
Lim Surya Tjahyadi
Paul Laurent
Eric Anthony Trowbridge
Niels Christoffers
Michelle Anne Bullas
Jeffrey Lee Graham
Tahawar Ali Khan
Yuri Tovar
Jason Oliver
Jarl Victor Bjørgan
Bradley Hutchinson
Donald M. Fell
Gwyneth Wesley Rolph
Vicente Lopez Pena
Rudolf Trubba
Barry Beanland
Morie Janine Hutchens
Keegan Ray McLoughlin
Hever Horacio Arreola Gutierrez
Michael Backer, Jr
Aman Bagaria
Selim Şumlu
David Gordon Little
Victor Hingsberg
Anthony Lawson
Beau D. Clemmons
R. K.
Alberto Bedmar Montaño
Paul Stuart Nachbar
Jim Lorrimore
Jakub Oblizajek
Gabriel Sambarino
Tony Lee Magee
Dorian Forget
Tom Högström
Elizabeth Anne Scott
Michael Donoho
Ernest Williamson III
Nicole Mathisen
Katarina Vestin
Christine Van Ngoc Ty
Jason Betts
Yu-Lin Lu
Nikolaos Solomos
Gracia Cornet
Richard Painter
Wyman Brantley
Yao Xu
Kevin James Daley
Stephen Maule
Birgit Scholz
Leif E. Ågesen
Mohammed Al Sahaf
Martin Murphy
Samuel Mack-Poole
Vuk Mircetic
Peter Radi
Marcin Kulik
Harold Ford
Thomas G. Hadley
Miguel Soto
Göran Åhlander
Evangelos Katsioulis
Anja Jaenicke
Roy Morris
Slava Lanush
Frank J. Ajello
Nicolò Pezzuti
James Dorsey
Massimo Caliaro
Michael Tedja
John Argenti
Therese Waneck
Bo Østergaard Nielsen
Sudarshan Murthy
Daniel Roca
Glikerios Soteriou
Kristina Thygesen
Miguel Jorge Castro Pinho
Tim G. Griffith
Claus Volko
Diego Iuliano
Elcon Fleur
Evan Tan
Dalibor Marinčić
Konstantinos Ntalachanis
Candy Chilton
Diego Fortunati
WeiJie Wang
Alessia Iancarelli
Cristian Vaccarella
Iakovos Koukas
Filippo De Donatis
Richard Ball
Zhida Iiu
R. Kent Ouimette
Marina Belli
Karim Serraj
Kim Sung-jin
Juman Lee
CHIANG LI CHING
Zhibin Zhang 张志彬
Andre Gangvik
Nikos Papadopoulos Παπαδόπουλος Νίκος
Jo Christopher M. Resquites
Ricky Chaggar
Félix Veilleux-Juillet
Michael Franklin
Michela Fadini
Fabrizio Fadini
Fabrizio Bertini
Cosimo Palma
Nobuo Yamashita 山下 伸男
Cristian Combusti
Mostafa Moradi
Xiao-ming CAI 蔡晓明
Fabio Castagna
Robert Hodosi
Francisco Morais dos Santos
Cynthia L. Miller
Hongzhe Zhang 张鸿哲
Serena Ramos
Nguyen Tran Hoai Thuong Nguyễn Trần Hoài Thương
Giuseppe Corrente
Sergey Dundanov
Andrea Casolari
Anthony Brown
Veronica Palladino
Yohei Furutono
Francesco Carlomagno
Emanuele Gianmaria Possevini
Joseph Leslie Jennings
Robin Lucas
Rosario Alessio Ronca
Oliver Dammel
Javier Rio Santos
Sebastiao Borges Machado Junior
Agasi Pietro
Taddeucci Nicholas
Andre Massaro
Mika Korkeamäki
Tor Arne Jørgensen
Dario Casola
Federico Statiglio
Vincent Li 李宗泽
Jewoong Moon 문제웅
Annelie Oliver
Nitish Joshi
Christian Sorensen
Simon Olling Rebsdorf
Marzio Mezzanotte
Paolino Francesco Santaniello
Edwin P. Christmann
Nicos Gerasimou
[3] Greg A. Grove, Shaughna Murphy, Annie Durham, Stanislav Hatala, John Russeell Sweeney, Millivent Y. Curtis, Maria Claudia Faveri, John Daniel Harrison, Robert Moore, Bruno Sampaio Alessi, Brian R. Johnson, Mary Britton, Masaki Yamauchi, Jeffery A. Mansfield, Peter Tyliszczak, Angela Johnson, Chris Mejo, Robert Dawson, Colin Aye, Bryan Sholtis, Cleo Love, Anders G. Hellstrom, Tracey Ward, Robbi Mounce, David Coldwell, Thomas Ossei, Issa Atoum, Clayton Michal Soucie, Katherine Linebaugh Elizabeth, Michael Rogers, Shaun Sullivan, Thomas J. Hally, Elizabeth Anne Scott, and Paul Nachbar.
[4] The members list included:
1.Vicente Lopez Pena(fundador y miembro)
2.John D. Harrison
3.Tomas Hally
4.Paulo Cancio
5.Hernan Chang
6.Juan Manuel Garcia
7.Angelica Partida
8.Michael F. Hensley
9.Javier Rio Santos
10.Pedro Lopez
11.Mark Taylor
12.Kevin Daley
13.Ujiwal Dey
14.Robert Mestre
15.Eduardo Gonzalez Ramirez
16.Miguel A. Gonzalez Rodrigo
17.Mauro Antonielli
18.Sergio Duarte da Silva
19.Angel Leonardo Dure
20.Antonio Rada
21.Luis Enrique Perez Ostoa
22.Masaaki Yamauchi
23.Maria Perez
24.Jose Benito Novoa
25.Arturo
26.Arnold richenberger
27.Juan G. Navarro
28.Dario Maurizzio
29.Shinji Okazaki
30.Jose Gutierrez Saez de Castillo
31.Konstantinos Ntalachanis
32.Roxana de Leon
33.Efren
34.Maria Claudia Faveiro
35.Marios Prodromou
36.Gonzalo Sánchez Pla
37.Yollug
38.Ryu Dong-Su
39.Alvaro Herrero
40.Min Kyung-Suk
41.Patricio A. Fort
42.A-Reum Park
43.Tayo Sandono
44.Afsin Saltik
45.David
46.Lia Rodbau
47.Álvaro Peral
48.Irene
49.Nomar A. Norono R.
[5] The website members as stated 06/2016:
| Tiefenbacher, Dr. Max |
| Erhard, Stephanie |
| Pena, Vicente Lopez |
| Durham, Nate |
| Daley, Kevin James |
| Kisak, Paul F. |
| Rönnlund, Michael |
| Sowaidan, Walid |
| Debono, Jesmond |
| Beugekian, Simon |
| Natarajan, Kris |
| Des Bois, Louise |
| Politis, Gerasomos |
| Faverio, Maria Claudia |
| Katsioulis, Dr. Evangelos |
| MsMariel |
| Coimbra, Joao Rodrigo |
| Silva, Sergio |
| Corres, Javi |
| Gomes, Leonardo |
| Lindberg, Stefan |
| Kurcewicz, Mateusz |
| Dorsett, Kelly |
| Matera, Alberto |
| Wolok, Michael D. |
| Udbjorg, David |
| Matysiak, Mateusz |
| Albert, Frank |
| Yönter, Baran |
| Butters, James Joseph |
| Wee, Hubert |
| Antusch, Jan |
| Egetenmeier, Melanie |
| Giltinan, David |
| Donkers, Mari |
| Mannonen, Jukka |
| Kimura, Herbert |
| Gausdal, Jan Erik |
| Bernstein, Prof. Dr. Hans-Gert |
| Martin, Brennan |
| Westall, Christopher |
| Hess, Mike |
| Dimalaluan, Nileon Jr. |
| Rodop, Guner |
| Milgram, Danny |
| Scott, Shane M.D. |
| Brizel, Robert |
| Burman, Paul |
| Becker, Armin |
| Closson, Randall |
| Taylor, Dylan |
| Forsell, Kaj |
| Maitland, Patrick |
| Nikolakopoulos, Athanasios |
| Radovanovich, Stefan |
| J., B. |
| Harrison, John D. |
| Grove, Dr. Greg A. |
| Snauwaert, Jan |
| Dubois, Laurent |
| Schuler, Daniel |
| Sloan, Ryan |
| Johnson, John M. |
| Prokop, Jeff |
| Humenny, Michael J. |
| Fonseca, Eduardo |
| Riepe, Thomas |
| Hohenstein, Dr. Christian |
| Sadana, Dr. Nishant |
| Gersdorff, Christoph Freiherr von |
| Hensley, Dr. Michael |
| Raaberg, Henrik |
| Lindgren, Karin |
| Smith, Tommy |
| Nishikura, Tetsuji |
| Freeman, Christopher J. |
| Sanford, Shade H. |
| Lindekens, Bart |
| Putong Ariel R |
| McCollum, Larry J. Sr. |
| Anslan, Egert |
| Cruise, Norman |
| Carter, Marc |
| Yaegashi, Masaki |
| Whitley, Jeremy |
| Simoni, Romain |
| Barreiro, Zenaida Lima |
| Ifrach, Isaak |
| Sternhagen, Dr. Eick |
| Bulacik, Pawel |
| Alpi, Bruno |
| Harmer, Keith |
| Skyte, Gilad |
| Gounaris, Avraam C. |
| Gaur, Namit |
| Clark, William T. |
| Curtis, Millicent |
| Fassbender, Michael |
| Hingsberg, Victor |
| Walton, Larson |
| Thung, Lucas |
| Ferguson, Julie |
| Myers, Kenneth |
| Zukoski, Andrew |
| Offenwanger, David |
| Johnson, Brian R. |
| Castro, Miguel |
| Dempsey, Mick |
| Alessi, Bruno |
| Naether, Thomas |
| Butt, Kirk R. |
| Handyside, William |
| Abrams, Michael |
| Matuschka, Reinhard |
| Majoran, Stefan |
| Baumer, Stefan |
| Spiromitros, Christos |
| Andelic, Edin |
| Jaw, Wen Bin |
| Ksioufis, Chris |
| Kirkland, Russell |
| Heibult, Dan |
| Rich, Alan |
| S, B |
| Nittel, Jens |
| Yamauchi, Masaaki |
| Holler, David |
| Estrada, Xavier |
| Wolf, Andreas |
| Roach, Geoffrey Wayne |
| Forsström, Etienne |
| Galiardo, Christopher J. F. |
| Washburn, Monte C. |
| Matuschek, Dieter Wolfgang |
| Itikawa, Jackson |
| Vaswani, Ashish |
| Lion, Frederic |
| Gwinn, John |
| Paquin, Jean Philipp |
| Campbell, Mathew |
| Talbot, Glenn |
| Christensen, Allan |
| Gilkinson, Mike |
| Halder, Dr. Ralph |
| Tang, Warren |
| Apostolidis, Christos |
| Gut, Clemens |
| Mejo, Christopher Michael |
| Mayoral, Raul Godoy |
| B.R. |
| Kisby, Adam William |
| Törnquist, Mattias |
| Estrada, Irene Alexandra Taboada |
| Iozzo, Vincenzo |
| Parkhurst, James |
| Mestre, Robert |
| de Vivie, Achim |
| Blais, Robert |
| Staschik Neumann, Pamela |
| Thomas, Brendon |
| Wong, Sharon |
| Tighe, Paul |
| Abala, Felipe C. |
| Sullivan, Shaun Patrick |
| johnnyvirtual |
| Hellström, Anders |
| Dale, Robert B. |
| Boyens, Jason |
| Emilsson, Andres Gomez |
| Camperlino (Magnus), Alex |
| Mounce, Robbi |
| Atoum, Issa Ali |
| Patricio, Alexandra |
| Malory, Quinn |
| Ridpath, Mike |
| Petit, Alexis |
| Goertz, Frederick |
| Nygren, Kim |
| Wilson, David H. |
| Plischke, Raymond |
| Chondrobilas, Ioannis |
| van Huissteden, Walter |
| Drymiotis, Fivos |
| Chatzikyriakidis, Stergios |
| Scott, Elizabeth Anne |
| Gelsomino, Susan Nigro |
| Dunn, Etta |
| Linebaugh, Katherine E. |
| Andersen, Mads Holm |
| Belal, Zakariya |
| Hedgcoth, Clyde H. |
| ?, Serge |
| Sekar, Gautham |
| Nacua, Edward S. |
| Curry, Wes |
| Payawal, John |
| Khanna, Romi |
| Jensen, Charlotte |
| Brand, Gregor |
| Lee, Albert |
| Dorsey, James |
| Rijing, Liu |
| Dalachanis, Konstantinos |
| Gomez, Ivan Suarez |
| Saltik, Afsin |
| Tay, Admund |
| Bellon, Gustavo |
| Santos, Javier Riu |
| Shroff, Shailendu |
| Lincoln, Jeffery |
| Balaram, Gautam |
| Desse, Didier |
| Perez, Cesar Lobo |
| Buckley, Jesse |
| Harbaugh, Luke |
| Ossel, Thomas |
| Jacobsen, Martin |
| Kissling, Christian |
| Melber, Felix |
| Östlin, Oscar |
| Albihn, Andreas |
| R., Andre |
| Lubkin, David |
| Frye, Andrew |
| Perez Artuso, Matias Exequiel |
| Cosby, Owen |
| Tokayer, Michael |
| Juarso, Andreas Edwin |
| Welch, Richard |
| Walendowski, George |
| Arvanitis, Christos |
| Partida, Angelica |
| Chesler, Norm |
| Basta, Osama |
| Sohl, Christian |
| Belluci, Damiano |
| Solis, Daniel |
| Antonielli, Mauro |
| Rogers, Amanda |
| van Kaathoven, Bram |
| Scherder, Hermann Michael |
| Kim, Peter S. |
| Zuber, Julia |
| Rodrigo, Miguel Angel Gonzalez |
| Grijalva, Sebastian |
| Jeremic, Igor |
| Meesomboon, Lisa |
| Münzinger, Patrick |
| Garcia, Christopher James |
| Miranda, Paul Laurent |
| Perez Ostoa, Luis Enrique |
| Lawson, Anthony |
| Weber, Joshua Jurgen |
| Okazaki, Shinji |
| Johnson, Cedric |
| Droege, Henning |
| Zhang, Ming |
| Anas, Hans Göran |
| Karakas, Okay |
| Vilar, Rolland |
| Piffer, Davide |
| Chan, Wing Chi |
| Prodromou, Marios |
| Gama, Joseph |
| Walter, Caroline |
| Pauzi, Mohd Faeiz |
| McGilvra, John |
| Martinez, John |
| Filinic, Marin |
| Andersson, Robert |
| Markovic, Allan |
| Hjort, Henrik |
| Pia, Gonzalo Sanchez |
| Marasigan, Ernie |
| Munn, Jason |
| Marasigan, Gerry |
| Yulug, Burak |
| Lisowski, Peter |
| Rangarajan, Sunder |
| Cruz, Justin M. |
| Saez, Jose Gutierrez |
| Castillo, Dennis Roldan A. |
| Marshall, James |
| Borges, Ricardo |
| Sandono, Tayo |
| Butt, Adil Suhail Rehman |
| Agesen, Leif E. |
| Norono, Nomar |
| Hacht, Dave |
| Kuhens, Sage |
| Zanero, Stefano |
| Zijlstra, Justin William |
| Murium, Mus |
| Lewkowicz, Jacek |
| Collin, Christoffer |
| Fernandez, Gonzalo Pena |
| Gonzalez, German |
| Choi, Perry |
| Provost, Dany |
| Rada, Antonio |
| Chatziargiriou, Anastasios |
| Hori, Yusaku |
| Petit, Alexis |
| Hunter, David |
| Zukowski, Mateusz |
| Barsky, David |
| Wilkens, Jesse |
| Kaspo, John |
| de Leon, Mae Ann |
| Shaikh, Ahsan Zaheer |
| Costa, Alexandre |
| Maule, Stephen |
| Ashfaq, Asais |
| Kortesaari, Tapio |
| Rangel, Eduardo |
| Argenti, Flor |
| Oliveira, Pedro |
| Zhang, Whayne |
| Ambrosini, Sanzio |
| Tomlinson, Joseph Anthony |
| Brown, Alex |
| Shelat, Dr. Amit Mahesh |
| Ton That, Thuy-Vi |
| Brenna, Torbjörn |
| Intriago, Jose Raul Alava |
| Banic, Luca |
| Lee, Alan |
| Molinero, Jose Gonzalez |
| Farmer, Adam |
| McShea, Patrick J. |
| Viorel |
| Paredes, Silvana |
| Gonzalez, Carlos Oliver Alvarez |
| Fernandes, Marcelo Eyer |
| Maitla, Sunil |
| Mills, Josh |
| States, Tom |
| Rawat, Varun |
| Olsen, Ken |
| Pressi, Flo |
| Bakshi, Subir |
| Vanstone, Nancy |
| Jackson, Jay Aubrey |
| Stolze, Sebastian |
| Santos, Tiago |
| Barraza, Ignacio |
| Kärenlampi, Juho |
| Hostetler, Leon N. |
| Odtuhan, Victor |
| Laiho, Tommi P. |
| Correnti, Eugenio |
| Marasigan, Virginia |
| Olson, Jorgen Rex |
| Sukhabut, Lulu |
| Gamo, Necie |
| Björgan, Jarl Victor |
| Sengupta, Santanu |
| Eriksson, Daniel |
| Horvat, David |
| Kruse, Bill |
| Magee, Tony Lee |
| Heffington, Philip |
| Serrano, Fernando Sanchez |
| Pant, Kripanshu |
| Senin, Harris |
| royfancoolguy |
| Flour, Jan |
| Das, Suman Gaurab |
| Bertes, Panagioitis |
| Liberatos, Erikos |
| Ouattou, Ali |
| Shimizu, Yoshiyuki |
| Koller, Dr. Jürgen |
| Thompson, Paul E. |
| Reitmaier, Eileen |
| Baptista, Nuno |
| Birnbaum, Robert |
| Montano, Alberto Bedmar |
| Starck, Juha |
| Sanchez, Vincente Fernandez |
| Ferraro, Joseph M. |
| Zaharescu, Andrei |
| Manthey, Karl |
| Solomon, Jennifer |
| Powell, Graham |
| Neto, Fernando Barbosa |
| Surian, Devon |
| Mezgec, Simon |
| van Duinen, Caleb |
| Freeman, Paul |
| Gadkari, Shantanu |
| Saginda, Baransel |
| Bühler, Olaf |
| Cruz, Kirsten M. |
| Ramos, Jhonata |
| Towensend, Dawn |
| Katainen, Lauri |
| Reitmaier, Karl G. |
| Rosales, Adams |
| Scholz, Birgit |
| Bodereau, Nicolas |
| Hancer, Murat |
| Ripa, Marco |
| Gao, Guohua |
| Marella, Mario |
| Ostergaard Nielsen, Bo |
| Rescazzi, Beatrice |
| Holmes, Deron K. |
| Elauria, Phil |
| Papaleventis, Gerasimos |
| Grieten, Christel |
| Darisetty, Srika |
| Baker, Michael |
| Glisic, Vedran |
| Marasigan, Paz |
| Dhamapurkar, Nikhil |
| Szary, Richard |
| Karpinski, Marty |
| Casalegno, Moreno |
| Davies, Paul |
| Qureshi, Pascale E. |
| Blazer, Harry |
| Hendzel, Kamil |
| Lithner, Tobias Martin |
| Polo Hernandez, Jose Antonio |
| Thrasher, Michael |
| AlenEinstjin, Chenwenjin |
| Timmons, Zachary Edward |
| LE, Duc Hong |
| Michelle Anne Bullas |
| Soygenis, Umit |
| Trubba, Rudolf |
| Toffoli, Andrea |
| Brown, Yvonne |
| Fabbroni, Gustavo |
| Vlad, Jipa |
| Beyer, Alex |
| Laurin, Etienne |
| Hopkins-Harrington, Cameron |
| Song, Gary |
| Milani, Giorgio |
| Cudnohosky, Amanda |
| Herkner, Alexander |
| Rodriguez, Roberto |
| Bennett, Landon T. |
| Beanland, Barry |
| Getzinger, Stephen |
| Tjahyadi, Lim Surya |
| Tovar, Juri |
| Andrews, Joseph |
| Sheremet, Cary |
| Bagaria, Aman |
| Clemmons, Beau |
| Hamade, Omar L. |
| Hutchens, Morie Janine |
| Goel, Akshay |
| Rolph, Gwyneth Wesley |
| Khan, Dr. Tahawar Ali |
| McLean, Kathryn |
| Ahlander, Goran |
| Darb |
| Xu, Yao |
| Lorrimore, James |
| Oblizajek, Jakub |
| Talvane da Silva, Willian |
| Aleixo, Joao |
| Högström, Tom |
| Little, Gordon |
| Logan, Khy Donovan |
| Quadir, Akshay |
| Morelli, Gaetano |
| Kostamo, Kimmo |
| Yu Lin, Lu |
| P. R. |
| Danker, Tilman |
| Ford, Harold |
| Fabella, Osrox |
| Di Fabio, Silvio |
| Sycinski, Rafal |
| Röpke, Gudrun |
| Buras, Jeremy |
| Humphrey, Jefferson Lee |
| Pisano, Anthony Daniel |
| Martinez, Jorge R. |
| Jimenez, Bulmaro |
| Aiello, Frank |
| Ebendt, Rüdiger |
| Lanush, Slava |
| Volko, Dr. Claus-Dieter |
| Pezzuti, Nicolo |
| Testerini, David |
| Bissonnette, Brett |
| Tedja, Michael |
| Reaves, Andrea |
| Sellen, Tonny |
| Murthy, Sudarshan |
| Lissner, Jonah |
| Torinus, Gregor |
| Ball, Richard |
| Wang, HongYan |
| Mwansa, Alex Bwalya |
| David, Anand |
| Kostrzewa, Dr. Frank |
| de Donatis, Filippo |
| Ouimette, Kent |
| Großmann, Klemens |
[6] The members at present:
Renaissance Society of Scholars
Chris Eichenberger
Martin M. Jacobsen, Ph.D.
Marios Prodromou
Morgan Hansen
Luis Enrique Pérez Ostoa
Pantelis
Papageorgiou
Sage
Kuhens
Robert
Alan Riley
Katie Cesaro
Danny W. Corwin
Allan
Derum
James Dorsey
Angel Duré
Thomas Hally
Luke Harbaugh
Charlotte D. Jensen
Okay Karakas
Pika Kofol
Ernie T.
Marasigan
Chris Nielsen
Dwight
Payne
Sunder Rangarajan
Don Robinson
Robert Rose-Coutre
Tayo Sandono
Drew Sanner
Mark Taylor
Godfrey Turnbull
Reuben
Villanueva
Nomar A. Noroño R.
Leif E. Agesen
Brett Bissonnette
Tapio Kortesaari
Brennan Martin
Evangelos
Katsioulis
[7] The listed members’ links include the following:
Chris Eichenberger
Marzena A. Broel-Plater
[8] Its member webpages as follows:
Julia (JCC)
Andrea (ALP)
Kevin, TimeLord (KB)
William: African-American resource pages (WRJ)
Eric: Tales of the Mine Country (EM)
Laura (LDL)
Kevin‘s Domain (TM)
Ulf‘s Artwork … Read about the Greatest Geniuses of history.
Ed‘s Radio Resume (ES)
Frank presents the Pragmatism of C. S. Peirce (FPP)
Video Mike (ME)
Bill: Website Kafejo (WPP)
Alex (TsC)
Derrick (DPG)
Juan (JRG)
Frank (FT)
Mick (MoR)
Carl (CRS)
David (DGH)
T.M. Lukas Hughes (TLH)
Kate (KJ)
Dan (DLT)
Jeff (J2K)
Ken (KCB)
Yuri‘s photo (YuM)
Olivier (OCG)
James (JLL)
Wyman (JWB)
Christopher (SeeWy)
Dana (DM)
Steve (KSH)
[9] Its member listing states:
Abbey Ebesu
Adam William Kisby
Albert Frank
Alex Burke
Alexander Herkner
Aline Richard Nagasawa
Allen Blocker
Andrew Ridge
Angela Hamilton
Anja Jaenicke
Ann Franklin
Anoohya Panidapu
Apoorva Panidapu
April Mae Berza
A.R. LaBaere
Barry Howard
Beatrice
Rescazzi
Beau Clemmons
Brennan Martin
Brian R. Johnson
Brian Wengler
Bruce Wright
Bryan Sholtis
C.L Frost
Carole Fragoza
Chaim Horovits
Cheri Ramberg
Chew Kwee Tat
Chris Chsioufis
Chris Eichenberger
Christian Sohl
Christopher–Andrew Dzialo
Chukwuma Mbaeyi
Craig Harvey
Daniel Johnson
Daniel Phillips
Daniele Pinna
Darryl Goode
David Ellis
David Luedtke
David Udbjørg
Dawn Prince-Hughes
Derick Au
Don Ridgway
Don Rodrigues
Dr. Greg Grove
Dr. Hirsch Silverman
Dr. Jay Albrecht
Dr. John Dwyer
Dr. John L. Turner
Dr. Joseph Shaara
Dr. Martin M. Jacobsen
Dr. Maurice Champagne
Dr. Simon Olling Rebsdorf
Dusk Wilson-Weaver
Dylan Taylor
Eddie H. Meade
Edward Glomski
Edward K. Rydwelski, Jr., CFA
Elaine May Smith
Elizabeth Sagey
Elliot Siemon
Enigma Valdez
Erik Richardson
Etta Dunn
Evangelos Katsioulis
Fang Yuan
Fernando Sánchez Serrano
Fivos Drymiotis
Gary Tillery
George Kohlmeyer
George Petasis
George S.L. Bause, M.D
Gerald Bosacker
Gerald Creel
Gilad Skyte
Gina Page
Grant Fisher
Greg Roberts
Haakon Rian Ueland
Heather Ceana
Heidi-Maria
Steinback Sørensen
Hernan R. Chang, M.D.
Ina Bendis
Ira Gibson
Irene Alexandra
Irene Theocharis
Isabel Saad
Issa Ali Atoum
J. Burke Bascom
J. David Mason, M.Eng.
Jack Orwant
Jacquelyn Naquin
James A Nichols
James DiVietri
James Harris
James Lemaman
James Rutherford
Jamie Gorsso
Javier Rio Santos
Javier Rios Santos
Jean-Marie Mathues
Jeff Leonard
Jeffery Alan Ford
Jeffery R. Simons
Jenifer Ann Zito
Jennifer Bochenek
Jesmond Debono
Jessica Spence
Jo Christopher Resquites, Engr.
Joel Gehrke
Joel Willis
Johan Kennebjörk
John Kormes
John Mossbacher
John Schiano
John Sweeney
Jonathan Berman
Jonathan Marin
Jonathan Shelly Baskin
Jorge González López
Jörgen Lornudd
José Manuel Aznar Baigorri
Joseph Byrne
Joseph Fitzgerald
Joshua Furnell
Julian Moore
Julie Ferguson
Julie Tai
Justin Stuart
Jyrki Leskelä
Kamil Hendzel
Karin Henderson
Karin Lindgren
Karl Lykken
Katherine Wetz
Kathleen Cesaro
Katrin McMullen
Keith Robertson
Kenneth Heaton II
Kevin Bullock
Kevin Greco
Kevin Skehan
Kimberly Halliday
Krysta Sutterfield
Laurence David
Sumner
Lawrence Kent, Ph.D.
Lee Price
Limor Ostrowski
Lisa Carlin
Luca Poli
Lucas Thung
Manuel Cavazos
March Alpine
Marco Ripà
Maria C. Faverio
Mark Fusco
Mark Norman
Marko Ripá
Martha Mozingo
Martin Boutte
Martin Tobias Litner
Marybeth Mitcham
Mateusz Kurcewicz
Matthew Rees
Mayank Makhija
Melinda Frye
Merlin Carl
Meta Marie Griffin
Michael Zerger
Miguel Jorge Castro Pinho
Miguel Sánchez
Mike August
Monte C. Washburn
Muhamed Veletanlic
Neeraj Shaw
Neeshee Pandit
Neil Z. Miller
Ngoc Nguyen
Nipun Kumar
Nisheeth Srivastava
Noriyuki
Sakurai
Oliver Alvarez
Patricia Ferguson
Patrick J McShea |||
Patrick Joseph O’Connor
Paul Kisak
Paul Maxim
Paul Nachbar
Paul Payton
Paul Roe
Peter Donald Rodgers
Peter Ingestad
Peter Michalak
Peter Roy
Philip Bateman
Philip Heffington
Philip Huffington
Pierre-Alex.
Rachel Raleigh
Rebecca Hall
Richard Barrett
Richard M. Riss
Rikin Shah
RoAnna Mitchell
Robbi Mounce
Robert A. Riley
Robert Dawson
Robert John Mestre
Robert Thompson
Roberta Mendelson
Robin Hammer
Russell Wright
Ryan Jackson
Ryan Sloan
Ryan T. Mullen
Ryan Vaughn
S.L. MacNiven
Sahil Moza
Santanu Sengupta
Sean Clark
Shankar Ananth
Shannon Smith
Scary Quinn
Sriram Balasubramanian
Stefan Lindberg
Stephen Allan Murray
Stephen Buhner
Stevan
Damjanovic
Suraj Shinde
Surendra Bansal
Susan Chen
Susan Nigro Gelsomino
Therese Waneck
Thom Hadley
Thomas B.
Thomas Hally
Dr. Tine Wilde
Tommy Smith
Tommy Upshaw
Torbjoern Brenna
Trent Cross
Tricia Ferguson
Trivik Bhavnani
Tuuli Jokivartio
Tyler Jackson
Uros Petrovic
Wallace W. Rhodes, Ph.D.,P.E.
Wayne Guy Butterfield
Wei Liu
Will Weatherly
William Clark
Xinyao Liu
Yechiel Mann
Zack Timmons
Zakariya Belal
[10] Its subscribers as follows:
[11] Its membership listing states the following:
001 Hindemburg Melão Jr.
002 Petri Widsten
003 Alexandre Prata Maluf
004 Peter David Bentley
005 Rauno Lindström
006 Bart Lindekens
007 Joachim Lahav
008 Marc Heremans
009 Staffan Svensson
010 Will Fletcher
011 Marko Korkea-Aho
012 Kevin Yip
013 Kristian Heide
014 Patrick Allain
015 Muhamed Veletanlic
016 Albert Frank
017 Enrico di Bari
018 Richard Crago
019 José Antonio Francisco
020 Brian Daniel Appelbe
021 Reinhard Matuschka
022 Emilio López Aliaga
023 Donald A. Martin Jr.
024 Gustavo Marcel Borges Monzon
025 Daniel Lapointe
026 Herbert Kimura
027 Tetsuji Nishikura
028 Mikael Andersson
029 Marc Fauvel
030 Christian Hohenstein
031 Anton Nadilo
032 Dieter Wolfgang Matuschek
033 Michael F. Hensley
034 Dylan Taylor
035 William T. Clark
036 Esko Härkönen
037 Matthew James Reginald Wright
038 Evangelos Georgios Katsioulis
039 David Udbjorg
040 Tuija Kervinen
041 Rafael Zakowicz
042 Geoff Rabeau
043 Francisco Javier Corres Achaga
044 Darko Djurdjic
045 Guilherme Marques dos Santos Silva
046 Lloyd King
047 Juha Varis
048 Ulf Westerlund
049 Marcelo Penido Ferreira da Silva
[12] Members’ links listed as follows:
Introspective High IQ Society
Chris Eichenberger
Divine Madness
Greg
Holland
Sage
Kuhens
Jeff Christopher Leonard
Brennan Martin
Robert
Rose-Coutré
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen(w/ Jeff McBrine)
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/28
‘Nathaniel Mccassey’ is a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Here he discusses some facets of life in and out of the community, the faith.
*Due credit to Jeff McBrine for the push and organizational skills here.*
*Interview conducted July 22, 2020.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In terms of entering into the Jehovah’s Witnesses at a later period or birth into the Jehovah’s Witnesses communities, what are the early parts of the personal story in the Jehovah’s Witnesses for you?
Nathaniel Mccassey: I was born into the religion, my mother fell into depression when she was pregnant with me after my father left. The Witnesses targeted her vulnerability and made her feel welcome in her time of distress, so naturally as one does when you seek the support you join that support group. Being raised by a single mum was difficult not only for her, but for me, I didn’t have that father figure in my life.
I wasn’t the easiest child in the world. From the ages of about 6-13, I truly believed that what I was being taught about Jehovah was true. I was bullied in school because of it and not understanding why nobody believed me. I asked my mother for advice and the only answer she would give me is from their bible.
It was at that moment that I realized something wasn’t right and when I began to question it; I was overcome with fear of being destroyed at Armageddon for simply thinking, “Maybe there is something wrong with this religion.” That’s when I jumped headfirst further into the religion to essentially cleanse my thoughts of there being something wrong about the religion.
Jacobsen: Within community, hierarchs or leaders exist who have more authority than others. Members of the community respect them or fear them, or both, and can report grievances or concerns to them. Can you relate any experiences in which personal life was brought to the congregation or members, even hierarchs/leaders, within the Jehovah’s Witnesses in which you felt demeaned or as if personal privacy was violated?
Mccassey: The elders of the congregation have oversight of what goes on within that particular congregation, much like a committee they have one elder who is the head elder of that congregation and the others are essentially his advisers who get to weigh in on matters that are brought forward to them. Above them, you have the travelling overseers, who go from congregation to congregation who then report to the Governing Body.
There was actually an incident I caused in school that led to my suspension for three days, the biggest regret of my life actually, I was trying to fit in with other students by saying I had sexual intercourse with another student and filmed it when I actually didn’t. Not knowing that kind of behaviour is actually not only damaging to the victim but also sexual harassment, because we were never allowed to attend sexual education, I told people I had sex with her and filmed it.
Although this never actually took place the damage I did to her and the possible life long damage I caused went unpunished within the congregation. The school did more to punish me by getting the police involved, making me apologize to her and her family and suspending me for three days than what the elders would have done if it occurred in the congregation, the elders sat me down and quoted verses from the bible and basically slapped me on the wrist and sent me on my way, so anything brought to their attention is dealt by slapping the perpetrator on the wrist and sending them on their way. It’s disgusting how they handle serious situations.
Jacobsen: As a social species, social links matter deeply to us. What were some of the communal or social positives while in the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Those good things that came with the community of faith.
Mccassey: Making friends within the congregation with other children, when the assembly hall was renovated that was probably the most enjoyable as a child, I got to do physical work not just aimlessly walking every day witnessing to people who didn’t want to hear it. That was probably the only good thing that came out of it were the friends at the time.
Jacobsen: Many individuals have been expulsed, kicked out, from the Jehovah’s Witnesses for a variety of reasons. Others have been scared or pressured/coerced into staying in it. Were social ostracism and threat of expulsion real threats for others or yourself when questioned on matters of a highly private nature if refusing to respond to the questioning?
Mccassey: I didn’t experience any of this.
Jacobsen: In terms of individual and community behaviour towards you, what Jehovah’s Witnesses policies seem fair and humane within ordinary legal and sociocultural contexts? Please provide examples as you feel comfortable.
Mccassey: From memory, I don’t really think there were any, the only real thing I can think of is not beating people for sinning that’s about it, to be honest.
Jacobsen: In terms of individual and community behaviour towards you, what Jehovah’s Witnesses policies seem unfair and inhumane within ordinary legal and sociocultural contexts? Please provide examples as you feel comfortable.
Mccassey: I mean when I look it, announcing to the entire congregation someone is disfellowshipped isn’t law-breaking but it isn’t humane. That’s possibly one of the worst experiences someone could go through. I remember one woman who was disfellowshipped; from memory, I think she cheated on her husband.
I remember the announcement going out that she was disfellowshipped and the whole congregation just looked in her direction. Later at meetings, she would sit in this separate room behind a glass window. I recall going up to her because she looked so sad and depressed and asking her if everything was okay. She just said, “I’m fine. You shouldn’t be talking to me, though. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
So, disfellowshipping someone isn’t against the law like most things they do, but it isn’t humane. Another policy with their handling on sexual abuse. That’s number one. It is the worst management I could possibly think of. You are making the victim confront the abuser and allowing them to go unpunished? I can’t imagine that happening to me. That would probably make me want to end my life if that ever happened to me.
So, I can’t imagine how some people have managed to cope with experiencing that. Some haven’t even seen any abuse cases reach the elders because of the disgusting and ridiculous two witness rule. I look at the two witness rule. I think they may as well just put a sign out front saying, “Pedophiles welcome.” It makes me so angry they willfully allow this to happen in their religion.
Jacobsen: If any examples, have you ever been coerced by the community or the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to relinquish individual civil rights and human rights for the sake of the Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Mccassey: Personally? No.
Jacobsen: Many people, as per the “social species” example before, can suffer from mental anguish or even mental illness (if prolonged stressors) as a result of coercion from the community, expulsion from the community, even banishment from family, friends, and community all-at-once. Sometimes, this can lead to the extremes of suicidal ideation, even suicide attempts (often as a cry for help). If I may ask, what were some mental health issues and unhealthy, towards the self, behaviours as a result of the process of leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, i.e., as a result of the loss of community, threats of shunning, removal of friends and family, and other forms of coercive attempts at control?
Mccassey: Have you got a few hours to read this? Yes, being cast out was a pretty horrific experience for me. By 15, I said to my mother I’m not going to the meetings. Of course, she had to make some snide comment to my niece whenever she stayed over about me not going, I tried.
I really tried to believe the religion. At the point where I was confused about my sexuality and questioning what was going on in my head about me having an attraction to men, I tried so hard to banish those thoughts from my head and dive deep into the religion.
I approached one of the elders and said I wanted to become an unbaptized publisher, which requires you to go out and actively preach door to door, but his response was, “Jehovah will tell us when you’re ready to become an unbaptized publisher.” For those who don’t know the difference, as a baptized publisher, you need to fulfill a certain amount of hours in a week or month of witnessing.
An unbaptized publisher is basically the qualifying round before you get baptized. I think that was the moment when I realized that the religion… sorry… cult was a sham. I knew then that I needed out and I was going to lose everything I had. My plan was to get a job and wait until I was 18 to get my own house and then just make a break for it, but, unfortunately, my mother found out I was gay and kicked me to the curb.
After leaving, I still wanted to be friends with my old friends in the faith, but, of course, I was an outcast. I was an “apostate.” The feeling was cold. I ended up being homeless at one stage and contemplating suicide, but I could never return to the faith for being who I am. I don’t think the witnesses were causing my depression, but they played a part in it. Other factors were the main causes of it, but they definitely played a role in it. When you leave the cult, especially if your family are still witnesses, no words can describe the feeling of having this cloud over your head constantly thinking you’re going to be destroyed at Armageddon because “you left Jehovah.”
When I left, for years after, it was cemented in my brain; I was going to die because I left the organization. Any major breaking news that happened was like, “Shit what they said this is the end” When the 2008 crisis hit the world that was the height of my anxiety about Armageddon happening.
I can’t imagine how someone feels who recently left the organization and is experiencing the same emotion of fear I did, especially with the current pandemic that is gripping the world. After some time, that fear subsided, but there were occasions that it jumped me and was like, “YOU’RE GONNA DIE AT ARMAGEDDON!”
But I can now say those fears are gone for good. Science played a huge role in detoxing myself from what I was raised to believe and really helped erase that fear from my head. Science is my bible now because it tries to prove itself wrong; religion always tries to prove itself right. That’s the big difference in the two. Unfortunately, I still live with depression in part due to the organization, but I’m much better than I was.
I have medication that allows me to have a productive and positive outlook. No, it’s not ideal. I’d rather not have to take anti-depressants, but I’m better with them than without them. Detoxing takes a long time and it is an uphill battle, it is by no means an easy climb, but when you get to the top a weight just comes off your shoulders. You do feel happier. You have a purpose in life. That’s to live it like a normal everyday person not being dictated on what to think, what to say, what to do. It’s freedom.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the time and opportunity to tell your story here today.
Jeff McBrine: Thank you Scott for those questions. I’d like to add one too….
Do you feel Jehovah’s Witnesses that stop believing are forced to suffer a way of life that they find unacceptable or can’t find any true enjoyment in because they fear leaving the religion and then having all of their social structure taken away? Basically, do you feel any are trapped in the religion and are suffering psychological damage or violations of their personal freedom and rights? Do you know anyone that fits this description? Explain if you want.
Mccassey: Oh absolutely, without any doubt, there are people that are trapped. I’ve had some friends that I met in the religion who also left but later returned because the Witnesses stripped them of their social structure, when you’re cast out; that’s it. You’re finished in their eyes.
I remember being taught in the religion that Satan was a serpent in the garden of Eden. I didn’t realize it until later that the religion is actually the serpent. I’m reminded of the cobra-headed sceptre owned by Jafar in the Disney movie Aladdin how it hypnotizes the Sultan whenever Jafar wants his own way. The religion is that cobra-headed sceptre in my eyes and everyone in it is in a hypnotic state they can’t break.
So, when someone does break free the religion and everyone in it is turned against them not leaving the person much of a choice but to return, there’s no support structure. If you’ve never had a job, then you have no financial assistance with getting yourself on your feet and, in some cases, people do have employment, but it is run by the family. So, it is a constant cycle designed to keep you in; if you leave, that’s it. You’re on your own.
McBrine: Thanks everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to do this.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen (w/ Jeff McBrine)
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/28
Tyler is a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Here he discusses some facets of life in and out of the community, the faith.
*Due credit to Jeff McBrine for the push and organizational skills here.*
*Interview conducted July 22, 2020.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In terms of entering into the Jehovah’s Witnesses at a later period or birth into the Jehovah’s Witnesses communities, what are the early parts of the personal story in the Jehovah’s Witnesses for you?
Tyler: I was born-in in 1982. My parents converted in the early 1970s, getting baptized in 1974. I have two older brothers (one in, one disfellowshipped) and one younger sister (disfellowshipped).
Jacobsen: Within community, hierarchs or leaders exist who have more authority than others. Members of the community respect them or fear them, or both, and can report grievances or concerns to them. Can you relate any experiences in which personal life was brought to the congregation or members, even hierarchs/leaders, within the Jehovah’s Witnesses in which you felt demeaned or as if personal privacy was violated?
Tyler: My oldest brother schemed with two elders (father and son) to get “revenge” against myself and several others, for things that they deemed sinful or disrespectful. He wrote approximately 10 pages of complaints, that I was forced to go through with four elders. The four main topics discussed ranged from “speaking disrespectfully” of an elder (I exposed the father stealing from the congregation), to sharing inappropriate things on social media (the three other elders laughed at their “examples”), to being accused of trying to force myself on my sister-in-law (18 months after the “fact”?), to the sexual activities of myself and my wife.
Jacobsen: As a social species, social links matter deeply to us. What were some of the communal or social positives while in the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Those good things that came with the community of faith.
Tyler: It’s hard to deny the sense of community that comes with being a believing JW. However, once you no longer believe, you learn that this community is conditional. Up to that point, it’s a nice feeling to be able to approach a witness anywhere in the world, and find a “friend.”
Jacobsen: Many individuals have been expulsed, kicked out, from the Jehovah’s Witnesses for a variety of reasons. Others have been scared or pressured/coerced into staying in it. Were social ostracism and threat of expulsion real threats for others or yourself when questioned on matters of a highly private nature if refusing to respond to the questioning?
Tyler: I have been avoiding speaking to the congregation elders for about 9 months, because there is a judicial committee waiting for me. Now that I no longer believe, I also have to fear disfellowshipping simply for that.
Jacobsen: In terms of individual and community behaviour towards you, what Jehovah’s Witnesses policies seem fair and humane within ordinary legal and sociocultural contexts? Please provide examples as you feel comfortable.
Tyler: I actually struggle to find any policies exclusive to the religion that are beneficial to the community, or individuals. (Please see the next response.)
Jacobsen: In terms of individual and community behaviour towards you, what Jehovah’s Witnesses policies seem unfair and inhumane within ordinary legal and sociocultural contexts? Please provide examples as you feel comfortable.
Tyler: The only policies they employ are based on unsubstantiated claims to authority. And even seemingly benign practices, like their policies on preaching put undue stress on followers. Meeting attendance puts children at an unfair advantage, because they are not able to perform to the full potential at school, nor encouraged to learn critical thinking skills. Elderly ones are left pinching pennies, after sacrificing their time and money for decades, because they are unable to save, due to constant propaganda to donate financially. My father went to work in Puerto Rico for two months on his own dime, and the kingdom halls they rebuilt have since been sold by the organization, after collecting the free laboir, materials, and often insurance checks.
Jacobsen: If any examples, have you ever been coerced by the community or the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to relinquish individual civil rights and human rights for the sake of the Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Tyler: I can’t think of any examples of this in my life.
Jacobsen: Many people, as per the “social species” example before, can suffer from mental anguish or even mental illness (if prolonged stressors) as a result of coercion from the community, expulsion from the community, even banishment from family, friends, and community all-at-once. Sometimes, this can lead to the extremes of suicidal ideation, even suicide attempts (often as a cry for help). If I may ask, what were some mental health issues and unhealthy, towards the self, behaviours as a result of the process of leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, i.e., as a result of the loss of community, threats of shunning, removal of friends and family, and other forms of coercive attempts at control?
Tyler: Each type of example provided has been used against me. In addition, I’ve been told that I’m a failure and a loser, and that I don’t love my children. These control methods have led to serious mental health problems, suicidal ideation/planning, anxiety and depression. I have since started seeing a therapist, which I would recommend for any former witnesses.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the time and opportunity to tell your story here today.
Jeff McBrine: Thank you Scott for those questions. I’d like to add one too…
Do you feel Jehovah’s Witnesses that stop believing are forced to suffer a way of life that they find unacceptable or can’t find any true enjoyment in because they fear leaving the religion and then having all of their social structure taken away? Basically, do you feel any are trapped in the religion and are suffering psychological damage or violations of their personal freedom and rights? Do you know anyone that fits this description? Explain if you want.
Tyler: Up to this point in time, I would say I fit that description, as well as countless others. While I haven’t attended any meetings since last year, and would consider myself POMO, I still receive constant pressure from my wife to get me to return. This constant pressure has trapped me within my own home, in a sense. Additionally, my sister told our mother that she didn’t believe when she was 15 or 16, and was forced to go to meetings until she moved out the day she turned 18.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/26
Canada has garnered a reputation as a women’s rights, a gender egalitarian, juggernaut, which, with due respect, seems like only a partial truth. In that, many of the changes merely put a different face on the same problems, change the word of an issue so as to reduce the apparency of the problem, or take on board some fundamentally flawed ideas of systemic change with enforced placement without a structural pathway change for more women to enter into the areas for intergenerational equality.
In these senses, whether conservative or liberal feminists, the ideas of gender egalitarianism remain naïve in Canadian society, including politics and policy – often as a political maneuver rather than a primary focus on the human rights focused on women in particular. As noted in the previous article, there are a number of organizations devoted to women’s rights in Canada.
There are a number of organizations dealing with the foundational women’s rights work: Nobel Women’s Initiative, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and Pauktuutit, Canadian Women’s Press Club, Vancouver Women’s Caucus, Local Council of Women of Halifax, Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, CARE Canada, REAL Women of Canada, Fédération des femmes du Québec, Almas Jiwani Foundation, National Council of Women of Canada, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Oxfam Canada, The MATCH International Women’s Fund, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, Equal Voice, LEAF, Canadian Women’s Foundation, Manitoba Political Equality League, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter, Department for Women and Gender Equality.
Another important (1977) document is the Canadian Human Rights Act. This document speaks to the equality of the rights of the sexes and based on sexual orientation. Its values are equality of opportunity, fair treatment, and non-discrimination. It deals with employment and services. So, both ends of the business line of things, whether a First Nations government, the federal government, or regulated by the federal government private companies. This tightknit operationalism on rights is a basis of strength in Canada.
No one is entitled to things unnecessarily, except in that which costs zero dollars, i.e., dignity and respect regardless of sex, sexual orientation, marital status, or family status. These are considered some of the modern values of Canadian culture and society.
One can see this international organizational news and press statements. Any of the above organizations, probably, sticks to some of these ideas to some degree or other. No matter the government, no matter the end of the business transaction, the equality shall be guaranteed in law, as it states in writing in legal documents – as it should be.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/26
Canada has been known as an augury incarnate of the future state of the world regarding the international rights of women. This seems like largely a transitionally true statement and a mostly false statement, as the fortunes for the rights of women trend towards between egalitarian standards while in the noted aims rather than the current status. We’re heading there, but we’re stiltedly doing so. It seems akin to the failure to win a UN Security Council seat for Canada.
As we saw with the loss of the United Nations Security Council seat bid for the Canadian government, we state the right things on many issues, while actively undermining some of the same statements with the actions, via outcomes of the policies, of the country. It’s the same on the rights front in a number of regards.
In my own country, there are a number of organizations dealing with the foundational women’s rights work: Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, CARE Canada, REAL Women of Canada, Canadian Women’s Foundation, Manitoba Political Equality League, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter, Canadian Women’s Press Club, Vancouver Women’s Caucus, Local Council of Women of Halifax, Fédération des femmes du Québec, Almas Jiwani Foundation, National Council of Women of Canada, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, Equal Voice, LEAF, Department for Women and Gender Equality, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, Oxfam Canada, The MATCH International Women’s Fund, Nobel Women’s Initiative, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and Pauktuutit.
In some of the upcoming articles, there will be some short coverage on the history of women’s rights in Canada. The values of Canadian society have been marked by racist policies and statements by leadership within government, and carrying out of some of the most egregious atrocities by formal religions. “Formal religions” held sincerely and dearly by many, most in fact, Canadians throughout the country.
When we look at this history, and as I have witnessed, there can be an open dismissal and denial of the obvious crimes of government, formal religion, faith leaders, and the like. These were Canadian values by the metrics considered to formulate “Canadian values” now, i.e., the laws, policies, and cultural ideas of proper ethics of the time. In that, here, modern Canadian values seem more akin to policies of the Liberal Party of Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a feminist man, Margaret Atwood in feminist literary works, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms with open statements for equality.
At the same time, I have witnessed a board member of a feminist or women’s rights organizations be smeared and then kicked out of the organizations or coerced into resignation by fiat and lies without a formal vote of the Board and mere ‘waving of the wand’ and deliberate lies of the leader of the organization. Hence, the linkage or association with the UN Security Council seat from before. The public statements of equality, fairness, and justice, on the one hand; while, on the other hand, the smearing and illegitimate showing of the door in authoritarian rather than democratic manners. Shameful stuff, this is Canada.
Indeed, I have witnessed elder Canadian religious people lie about the history of the Residential School system in this society with the atrocities carried out by the dominant faith sects in the country, by and large, with the sanction of the Government of Canada, i.e., stating this is only the government rather than approval and endorsement of government and implementation by the Christian religion. This raises many questions.
How did Canada get its reputation as a world leader in gender equality? Like many of the above, it got this through an understanding of much truth in the statements, while having a checkered history in many of the appropriate contexts here. Men and women who worked hard to fight for equality while others did the opposite.
The history told to the public presents the rosier, happier side of the story, which is necessary too. Some of the fundamental contributions to women’s equality with men in society emerged from the ability to formal democratic participation at provincial and federal levels through the ability to vote. These sorts of political moves for equality within the country. Not as bad as the contexts for many in American society dealing with fundamentalist Christians, especially Dominionists or Reconstructionists.
Dominionists or Reconstructionists harbour the following theology, as exemplified in the words of George Grant, “Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ—to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. … But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. … Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land—of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.” It is a politically potent admixture with fundamentalist faith and the Christian religion.
Furthermore, we have made great strides in the more egalitarian values assumed as the nature of Canadian society; where, in fact, these could be temporary and must be defended vigorously in order for maintenance and upholding. One has been a cultural recognition of the right for women to vote, as noted, but, also, the status of women’s rights as something to strive for and, more subtly, as human rights – as part and parcel of the same overall aim.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been a boon to the Canadian landscape of rights implementation as a legal instrument, where this means individual rights become constitutionally protected. Its two core sections for the equality of women and men are sections 15 and 28. Section 15 deals with equal protection and between of the law. Section 28 deals with the equal application of the rights in the Charter for men and women.
So, Section 15 is working more within the legalistic prevention of discrimination; whereas, Section 28 is dealing more with the rights applications or implementations with the Charter itself. A generalized legal and constitutional instrument for the protection of equality of women in this country. What is the subtext?
As before, women were not equal. Men had equality insofar as they were white and the rights became considered between men. Now, the contexts change because the generalized ethical precept was presented, rooted, displaced the old, and grew roots to the legal environments of the provinces and the territories of the nation.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/25
“My Home is a Suitcase” is a play by Rzgar Hama about individuals who sought new lives as immigrants. It is based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. These are real stories. The next few interviews will be from some of the individual readers of their stories of beginning new lives in Canadian society. Hama is known for several plays, including “Soldierland” with some professional commentary by Dr. Marvin Westwood and Dr. George Belliveau of The University of British Columbia in “Dr. Marvin Westwood & Dr. George Belliveau on SOLDIERLAND a play Written and Directed by Rzgar Hama.” Here I speak with Shaima on “My Home is a Suitcase.”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become involved with “My Home is a Suitcase”?
Shaima Jaff: I was trying to recruit for “My Home is a Suitcase.” Then asked a lot of questions about the project, Rzgar explained to me. I asked, “Can I attend?” Because I came here as a refugee telling my story to others.
Jacobsen: What was the experience of telling the story – without telling your story – to some of the public and peers who made a new life for themselves?
Jaff: In the first part of the project, we told our story, directly. I felt good talking about my struggles before coming to my new home, Canada, and what I achieved here. Also, my goals for the future.
Jacobsen: What was working with a seasoned, veteran playwright and director like for you?
Jaff: Writing was not new to me. I was a journalist back home, writing a short story and poems. Writing about my real life, it was different and difficult. Because of my emotions and feelings, it was just for me, in this project, by sharing it with others; it opened a new door for me. In my culture, we keep most of the things in secret. We do not talk about our life in public. During the practice, by writing and acting, I was thinking, “What should I share? Should I tell the truth?” I wasn’t comfortable telling my story.
Jacobsen: What are you hoping some of the audience takes home with them when the final production comes out?
Jaff: Good question 🙂 How strong I am, to understand our struggles. Sometimes, I hear bad and harmful comments here in Canada about refugees and where I came from. As if I have a choice where I want to be born, what name and colour I might want, life was different.
I have a second chance to have a country to be proud of: Canada let me live my dream. As a Kurdish, I don’t belong to anywhere. We are everywhere.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Shaima.
Jaff: I really appreciate your great support. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my experiences about “My Home is a Suitcase.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/22
“My Home is a Suitcase” is a play by Rzgar Hama about individuals who sought new lives as immigrants. It is based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. These are real stories. The next few interviews will be from some of the individual readers of their stories of beginning new lives in Canadian society. Hama is known for several plays, including “Soldierland” with some professional commentary by Dr. Marvin Westwood and Dr. George Belliveau of The University of British Columbia in “Dr. Marvin Westwood & Dr. George Belliveau on SOLDIERLAND a play Written and Directed by Rzgar Hama.” Here I speak with Georgete on “My Home is a Suitcase.”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you find the Sky Theatre Group?
Georgete: A friend of mine saw a note at the public library and thought I would want to try it.
Jacobsen: How did you become involved with “My Home is a Suitcase”?
Georgete: I submitted an application to Rzgar, but did not expect a response. Surprisingly, a few weeks later, I received an email from Rzgar, inviting me to join for the first meeting. I went to the meeting, met a few other members of the group. Rzgar explained what the project would be about and what it would require from us.
I became very interested as I do like to write. I thought it would be good for me to write my own story and share it with others.
Jacobsen: What was the experience of telling the story – without telling your story – to some of the public and peers who made a new life for themselves?
Georgete: At first, I thought it would be too much telling my story to strangers, but as I practiced over and over again; I became very confident and comfortable. The organizers decided that I would be the first in line to tell my story. I got nervous. I saw the audience coming in, and I kept practicing. when I started telling my story, I felt like I was just talking to a group of friends. I saw all of them paying attention to my story and I felt supported by them. In the end, I felt accomplished and relieved at the same time.
Jacobsen: What was working with a seasoned, veteran playwright and director like for you?
Georgete: I am so lucky to have met Rzgar. What a professional, talented, confident man, he creates a scene right on spot and gets us to do the acting part. I loved working with him during the writing of my story and telling my story. I will continue taking acting lessons from him and will be available for the final part of this project.
Jacobsen: What are you hoping some of the audience takes home with them when the final production comes out?
Georgete: I am hoping that the audience takes a different view of what immigrants are and what they had to go through before they made a decision to move to a foreign Country.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Georgete.
Georgete: Thank you so much for this valuable and important interview, Scott.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/25
“My Home is a Suitcase” is a play by Rzgar Hama about individuals who sought new lives as immigrants. It is based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. These are real stories. The next few interviews will be from some of the individual readers of their stories of beginning new lives in Canadian society. Hama is known for several plays, including “Soldierland” with some professional commentary by Dr. Marvin Westwood and Dr. George Belliveau of The University of British Columbia in “Dr. Marvin Westwood & Dr. George Belliveau on SOLDIERLAND a play Written and Directed by Rzgar Hama.” Here I speak with Mida on “My Home is a Suitcase.”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’ll keep this focused on an initiative by Sky Theatre Group under Rzgar, “My Home is a Suitcase.” How did you find the Sky Theatre Group?
Parmida Maleki: I actually heard about the Sky Theatre Group from Rzgar himself through the “My Home is a Suitcase” project. It has been amazing to work with the group.
Jacobsen: How did you become involved with “My Home is a Suitcase”?
Maleki: Hila Graf, who was the Assistant Director on the project let me know about this opportunity to tell my story and I jumped on it. My story has seen many ups and downs, and I was very excited about having a chance to talk about it and bring it to life for others to see.
Jacobsen: What was the experience of telling the story – without telling your story – to some of the public and peers who made a new life for themselves?
Maleki: It was so inspiring to hear about other people’s journeys, and humbling to talk about my own. I believe it’s very important for the world to know these stories, put a face on the “Immigrant” and the “Refugee.” Many have no clue as to what exactly is happening to people around the globe, and knowing we were able to get the word out, about our truth, is just amazing.
Jacobsen: What was working with a seasoned, veteran playwright and director like for you?
Maleki: Oh absolutely great. It was amazing to sort through my own life events, bring them on paper and have someone else’s perspective on it. The process of fitting the story in 10 minutes, without dropping the ball on what is actually important, was brilliant.
Jacobsen: What are you hoping some of the audience takes home with them when the final production comes out?
Maleki: Perspective and context. I believe that is the most important thing in our world today. We are so used to having our perspectives being shaped by the media, seeing and realizing that people’s lives shouldn’t be a propaganda, and that everyone has the right to seek a better environment to live in.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Parmida.
Maleki: Of course. Thank you for your time.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen (w/ Jeff McBrine)
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/22
‘Jacqueline’ is a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Here she discusses some facets of life in and out of the community, the faith.
*Due credit to Jeff McBrine for the push and organizational skills here.*
*Interview conducted July 21, 2020.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In terms of entering into the Jehovah’s Witnesses at a later period or birth into the Jehovah’s Witnesses communities, what are the early parts of the personal story in the Jehovah’s Witnesses for you?
‘Jacqueline’: I was born into the religion, my mom came into the religion when she was a kid because of her mom, and my dad found it through his sister (who is now disfellowshipped) when he was in his mid/late 20s. My parents were always heavily devoted to it, though we did go through a few years in my childhood when we were “inactive” which basically meant that we weren’t attending the weekly meetings and bible studies, just our multi-day conventions and the memorial of Christ’s death which both happened every year. Even with this though, my family always followed the rules to the letter, no holidays, not too much interaction with my “worldly” family, no birthdays, praying before every meal, etc. and after those few years between the ages of about 4-8 we started to become regular at the meetings again, and I remember always trying to come up with excuses for me not to go; like “falling asleep” before we had to leave, pretending to be sick, and purposefully taking too much time figuring out what to wear. Sometimes these excuses worked, but most of the time I had to go anyway. This continued for several years, I hated going to meetings, I thought they were really boring and I enjoyed hanging out with my dad’s side of the family way more than anyone on my mom’s side or in our congregation, plus I despised wearing dresses so I really gained nothing from going, I just went because my parents did. It wasn’t until I was somewhere around 12 that I started to feel the pressure to listen and participate more, and I slowly became more “involved” with the congregation; giving comments, going out in service, bible reading, participating in talks, and other things. However, I still never really wanted to do that stuff, I did it because I was expected to and I knew I’d make my parents happy and get praise from others for doing it. For the next several years I kept in that pattern, “progressing” in the congregation, although I was suffering from depression and anxiety due in part to the religion, something that I kept quiet about. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I had no choice and couldn’t leave or I’d be doomed to painful death, so I reluctantly decided to get baptized when I was 18 (worst decision of my life). On the surface, nobody was pressuring me to do anything I didn’t want to do, my parents never negatively commented on me not being baptized and participating in meetings wasn’t mandatory or enforced, but there was this unspoken stigma that if you didn’t do those things you should feel guilty that you don’t love Jehovah as much as you should. Along with that, during the years we were inactive I constantly saw my parents berating and beating themselves down for being such “disappointments” to Jehovah, because in their (and everyone else’s) minds simply believing wasn’t enough, you had to “prove” your love by going to meetings, participating in talks, and going out in service.
Jacobsen: Within community, hierarchs or leaders exist who have more authority than others. Members of the community respect them or fear them, or both, and can report grievances or concerns to them. Can you relate any experiences in which personal life was brought to the congregation or members, even hierarchs/leaders, within the Jehovah’s Witnesses in which you felt demeaned or as if personal privacy was violated?
‘Jacqueline’: I personally haven’t experienced anything that was a direct violation of my privacy, however it always felt like as soon as you have an issue in your family the Elders are there, asking to come over and discuss things with you, even if you haven’t asked for help. My personal experience with this is when I first mentioned to my parents that I had doubts and at the very next meeting, only a few days afterward, the Elders had pulled my family into the back room to discuss these (quite frankly, tiny) doubts that I had. It’s hammered into our minds that if there’s any type of issue within your family you should tell the Elders so they could get involved, no matter how personal it is. Something else that isn’t a direct violation of privacy but I remember always thinking was weird was how they always announced when someone got disfellowshipped or left the congregation. I never heard them explicitly state why that person did, just that they had, but it always sparked these rumors in the congregation and gossip would start about what happened. Unrelated, but another strange thing is that whenever they announced that someone had left or been disfellowshipped everyone would start acting as if that person died; somber, morose, talking about them in the past tense, “I’m going to miss them, they were so fun to be around”.
Jacobsen: As a social species, social links matter deeply to us. What were some of the communal or social positives while in the Jehovah’s Witnesses? Those good things that came with the community of faith.
‘Jacqueline’: The major positive I loved and still love about the community is the sense of hospitality members have: if they hear someone lost their job they’ll help them find a new one, if someone is sick in the hospital they constantly have a stream of visitors bringing cards and flowers, and if someone is low on money they can expect multiple deliveries of groceries and meals to their house. Although their sense of “community” is skewed to just those in the religion, you can bet they’ll take care of each other and support one another.
Jacobsen: Many individuals have been expulsed, kicked out, from the Jehovah’s Witnesses for a variety of reasons. Others have been scared or pressured/coerced into staying in it. Were social ostracism and threat of expulsion real threats for others or yourself when questioned on matters of a highly private nature if refusing to respond to the questioning?
‘Jacqueline’: In general expulsion, shunning, and ostracizing are engrained into this religion as one of its base beliefs, nobody can deny that. However, many of the bad things that happen in this religion are unspoken rules and norms: you aren’t guaranteed to be kicked out if you don’t answer a question, but pressure from the Elders for the full story could make you feel trapped and in danger of being judged and ostracized if you don’t answer it (though depending on the answer you could be shunned anyway). Everyone in this religion is expected to be 100% transparent with the Elders, telling them every detail of every decision you have made, which makes them suspect you of doing something bad if you refuse to disclose personal information.
Jacobsen: In terms of individual and community behaviour towards you, what Jehovah’s Witnesses policies seem fair and humane within ordinary legal and sociocultural contexts? Please provide examples as you feel comfortable.
‘Jacqueline’: In general, nothing this religion asks of you is unlawful or inhumane, however, it does ask a lot of you. You have to dedicate a lot of your time, energy, resources, and money to it, you aren’t expected to pursue higher education or career advancements (and your priorities can sometimes be questioned if you do), and you’re generally supposed to put God above everything in your life, including yourself. However, like I stated, none of these things are cruel or unlawful, in fact some teachings are good morals to follow; such as being kind to people and not being greedy.
Jacobsen: In terms of individual and community behaviour towards you, what Jehovah’s Witnesses policies seem unfair and inhumane within ordinary legal and sociocultural contexts? Please provide examples as you feel comfortable.
‘Jacqueline’: However, the pressure of adhering to some of the more “serious” rules can sometimes seem inhumane. If you celebrate your birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, or any other holiday you can expect to be reprimanded and even disfellowshipped (shunned and kicked out). You can have no tattoos, no revealing clothing, no swearing, no anything that is deemed “bad” by the religion otherwise you will, once again, face reprimanding and possibly shunning. This control over the member’s identities might be considered cruel and a violation of self-expression to some.
Jacobsen: If any examples, have you ever been coerced by the community or the leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to relinquish individual civil rights and human rights for the sake of the Jehovah’s Witnesses?
‘Jacqueline’: My entire life has been relinquishing my human rights. From the time I was born I was taught to dress, act, and think a certain way otherwise I risked tearing apart my family, breaking their hearts, and ending up alone. This religion controls every aspect of your identity, turning its members into copies of each other, more or less. We have the same pattern of speaking, the same morals, the same fashion sense, and the same goals with only small differences; and if you fall somewhere outside this category you will definitely be judged and questioned and even shunned if you stray too far. You aren’t allowed to be involved in politics or develop your own opinions on matters, you aren’t allowed to express yourself in a bold way, and you aren’t allowed to even associate with those outside the religion. The leaders of this organization and the members of it constantly boast how “diverse” it is, but it really isn’t. You’re allowed to express yourself, sure, but only within the small confines the religion has established. There are certain things you absolutely do not and should not want to do otherwise you “bring reproach to Jehovah’s name”.
Jacobsen: Many people, as per the “social species” example before, can suffer from mental anguish or even mental illness (if prolonged stressors) as a result of coercion from the community, expulsion from the community, even banishment from family, friends, and community all-at-once. Sometimes, this can lead to the extremes of suicidal ideation, even suicide attempts (often as a cry for help). If I may ask, what were some mental health issues and unhealthy, towards the self, behaviours as a result of the process of leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, i.e., as a result of the loss of community, threats of shunning, removal of friends and family, and other forms of coercive attempts at control?
‘Jacqueline’: At around age 14-15 I became severely depressed and anxious. I self-harmed, had multiple anxiety and panic attacks every week, and thought that killing myself would be the only way out of my situation. I lied and told my parents this was due to my schooling and that I couldn’t keep up with the workload anymore, which was true, but the reason I couldn’t keep up with it was due to mental issues connected to the religion. Around that time I had a realization that this wasn’t what I wanted with my life, and consequently had to deal with the realization that I would be “turning my back to God” which meant I would die an awful death and never be resurrected (like we believed). This fear paralyzed me, I knew I wasn’t happy in this religion and never would be, but I thought it would be even worse if I left and went to “Satan’s side”. So my options were basically to spend my entire life miserable, lying to myself and pretending to be happy, or I could live out my life with Satan in the “world”, happy and satisfied, but never be resurrected and never see my dead family again. My mind had been so twisted and distorted by listening to years and years of propaganda that I honestly thought that being miserable my whole life or killing myself were better options than leaving the religion. Since killing yourself also meant you wouldn’t be resurrected, at 18 I had been so beaten down and was so tired of this battle in my mind that I settled with the former option and ended up getting baptized, knowingly condemning myself to a life of lies and mental torture (I was actually sobbing in my room the night before I was going to do it). Now at 20, I realize that was the worst decision I’ve made in my life. Now that I’m more mature and have figured out that this religion actually isn’t “the truth” I’ve subsequently condemned myself to never speaking to my family again, losing all my friends, and being left all alone when I decide to officially leave. I’m still attending meetings with my parents (over Zoom) and outwardly appear to be faithful, however mentally I’ve already distanced myself from this life. Even with that, the constant preaching that this is the “end of times” that I hear twice a week is slowly trying to pull me back in by using fear and emotional manipulation which has caused a milder relapse of what I went through a few years ago. And I know that even after I leave I will forever be plagued by those thoughts, the fear and manipulation I had drilled into me for 20 years will always make me question my choices and opinions.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the time and opportunity to tell your story here today.
Jeff McBrine: Do you feel Jehovah’s Witnesses that stop believing are forced to suffer a way of life that they find unacceptable or can’t find any true enjoyment in because they fear leaving the religion and then having all of their social structure taken away? Basically, do you feel any are trapped in the religion and are suffering psychological damage or violations of their personal freedom and rights? Do you know anyone that fits this description? Explain if you want.
‘Jacqueline’: In reference to my previous answer: yes, absolutely. From my own personal experience and also the experiences of others that I’ve seen, this religion makes leaving it so difficult. Like I said, once I leave I’m going to lose all of my social structure, all my family and friends, as well as be forever haunted by the “what if” question. This religion thrives and survives by scaring people into staying and making members feel guilty for leaving. I highly recommend listening to “Mother Knows Best” from Tangled because that song fully encapsulates what it’s like to be in this religion (honestly Gothel and Rapunzel’s whole relationship does). Gothel relies on fearmongering, isolating Rapunzel from the outside world and feeding her stories about how awful and scary it is out there so Rapunzel never wants to leave. And after she does leave, Gothel still tries to convince her that life in the tower is so much better than life outside and that she has so much more in her tower than she could ever have “out there”. This is exactly what it’s like. A toxic, manipulative relationship where the authority makes it seem as though they’re only trying to help the victim “be safe” and that if the victim leaves they’re the bad person for not accepting the help and staying.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/20
“My Home is a Suitcase” is a play by Rzgar Hama about individuals who sought new lives as immigrants. It is based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. These are real stories. The next few interviews will be from some of the individual readers of their stories of beginning new lives in Canadian society. Hama is known for several plays, including “Soldierland” with some professional commentary by Dr. Marvin Westwood and Dr. George Belliveau of The University of British Columbia in “Dr. Marvin Westwood & Dr. George Belliveau on SOLDIERLAND a play Written and Directed by Rzgar Hama.” Here I speak with Himanshi Upadhyay on “My Home is a Suitcase.”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’ll keep this focused on an initiative by Sky Theatre Group under Rzgar, “My Home is a Suitcase.” How did you find the Sky Theatre Group?
Himanshi Upadhyay: I saw an advertisement on Facebook.
Jacobsen: How did you become involved with “My Home is a Suitcase”?
Upadhyay: When I first contacted Rzgar, frankly speaking, I didn’t know what it was going to be. I attended the meeting with other participants. Everything he said was so interesting for me because I always wanted to be a part of something creative and meaningful. So, at first, we started to write something about our lives and shared with each other. Then we wrote some of the key moments of our lives. After that, whole stories like when, why, and how we migrated to Canada and how our lives were before that decision to immigrate, etc. During all those meetings Rzgar, Hila, and Lenora also taught us some acting exercises and some writing skills. Overall, it was a long journey that we all did together and developed a bond with each other and the project “My Home is a Suitcase.”
Jacobsen: What was the experience of telling the story – without telling your story – to some of the public and peers who made a new life for themselves?
Upadhyay: At first, it was scary :). Everybody was a complete stranger to me. I didn’t want those unknown people to judge me. But then, I realized that everybody has something to say here. I saw that no one is judging anyone. Everyone had their own set of problems or struggles in their lives, but there was a mutual respect for each other. So with time, I became comfortable sharing the story, in sharing my life, with all the participants.
But again, the moment came when I was in front of the public to share my story with no control about how they were going to judge me or think about me, I got goosebumps. Then I just imagined that the whole room is filled with my friends and they are curious about my life and after that, it was an amazing experience. People were so good. After the reading, two of the ladies came to me said, “We can totally relate to your story. We are so proud that you made a decision for yourself.”
Jacobsen: What was working with a seasoned, veteran playwright and director like for you?
Upadhyay: It is really a learning experience. I am using “is” because the project is still going on. I have learnt so many things so far about theatre and public reading. Rzgar gave some acting classes before Covid-19 hit and that time I thought, “Wow, acting is not so easy. It’s exhausting,” but, yet, you have to show what you are doing is effortless. One more thing I liked about Rzgar. He imagines the whole play so well that you are just left amazed by his creativity.
Jacobsen: What are you hoping some of the audience takes home with them when the final production comes out?
Upadhyay: Respect for their lives. Because that’s what happened to me. I just realized after listening to others’ stories that we should respect what God is giving us because many people are seeing us as the lucky ones. Also, they will see that “immigrant” is not just a word. It has a whole story of a living soul behind it.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Himanshi.
Upadhyay: Thank you so much, Scott, I am glad we are taking “My Home is a Suitcase” to the next level.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/19
Dying With Dignity Canada (DWDC), with its 40th anniversary celebrated, has been on a successful streak in its fundraising efforts with the question arising about the need to make calls for more funding.
On the one hand, many secular organizations need finances more because of the tighter purses with the coronavirus pandemic ongoing. On the other hand, it becomes an issue having to ask for more money as an organization.
The issue with secular organizations is that they do not necessarily have the formalized infrastructure of zakat or tithing, which makes donations, grants, etc., important for closing the secular and religious organizational financial gap.
With such gaps, many of the secular organizations are forced into precarious situations of requesting funding while having to double down on said requests in times of organizational or cultural crisis. C-19 is one such time.
Nonetheless, many organizations have happily, been pulling through for improved functionality in regard to the fundraising. With DWDC, it is one of those organizations.
The organization has reported several positive and encouraging messages in spite of the pandemic. They have been met with “best wishes and congratulations” for the 40 years of service as an organization.
There were some in reference to specific great successes of the organizations including the Carter v. Canada Supreme Court of Canada decision influencing the right to die movement in Canadian society.
The supporters who were giving the aforementioned best wishes and congratulations were providing some personal stories based on the decision of the highest court in Canadian jurisprudence.
“Throughout the last two weeks, these communications have fueled me and my team — and so clearly confirmed that we have an incredibly generous community who is willing to go the extra mile when asked,” Helen Long, CEO of DWDC stated, “But before I say anything else, I must say: thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to engage with our blog posts, petitions, social media posts, webinars — and, yes, donation requests.”
In particular, she was greatful for members and others utilizing the resources, educational and otherwise, online, as well as the Advance Care Planning Kits of DWDC. As Long reported to the community, they reached the total fundraising goal of $40,000 with an anonymous donor matching the funds for a total $80,000 in additional finances for them.
For the rest of the Summer and the Fall, DWDC, based on the new funding, will be working on the following projects, as reported by Long:
- Coordinate with federal legislators to make sure Bill C-7 is passed into law;
- Engage Canadians across the country as part of Canada’s five-year legislative review process for our medical assistance in death law;
- Connect patients, independent witnesses and clinicians to improve access to assisted dying, particularly in more remote regions;
- Promote our Advance Care Planning Kits and other educational resources to new supporters across the country; and
- Hold a range of webinars and other virtual engagement opportunities to share stories, experiences and actions that further our growing movement.
This fundraising and the projects ongoing for 2020 in the midst of the pandemic remain a win for the secular movements on the right to die movement.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/19
California State is known as one of the more science-friendly and technologically savvy states in the union. One bill, Assembly Bill 1922, passed away in its slumber on June 19 of 2010, according to Glenn Branch of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). This was the last day possible for Assembly Bill 1922 to pass within the legislative session.
With acceptance or approval of the bill, Californa would have adopted its coursework from grades 1 through 12 for an addition on the “causes and effects of climate change.” Unfortunately, since it was not ‘accepted,’ but, rather, rejected, this defeated the possibility of this bill becoming a reality.
Glenn Branch, deputy director of the NCSE, reported, “Additionally, at least one of the two courses required for graduation from high school would have had to include such material.”
There were 18 active bills in ten state legislations in 2020 seeking to promote a change in the educational curricula of the states for the inclusion of climate change from kindergarten through to grade 12. None have been passed.
”… two bills in New Jersey (Assembly Bill 2767 and Senate Bill 1970) and five bills in New York (Assembly Bills 9831 and 9886 and Senate Bills 6837, 6877, and 7341) are apparently still active, while the remainder have died,” Branch concluded.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/18
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released a report on regulations of religion and an anti-cult movement ongoing. The Soviet Union era lives with us. Its impact, more precisely, lives on within the lives and communities of today’s Russians because of the impacts on the freedom of religion
As has been reported before, there is a dual-issue implicated here. There is internal repression of the Jehovah’s Witness membership by the Watchtower. While, at the same time, the freedom of religion would stipulate a freedom to practice religion, which the Russian and other governments violate via not respecting this, because of the various forms of legislative restrictions and governmental authorities’ crackdowns on these various groups.
The report from the USCIRF proposes some means by which to combat the violations to the rights of the Jehovah’s Witnesses to practice religion freely. One was recommending that the United States government state “Russia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan as ‘countries of particular concern’ for their ongoing, systematic, and egregious religious freedom violations, and include Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on its Special Watch List.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/18
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s focus a tad on some of the most exclusive high-IQ groups known: The Giga Society, the Mega Society, the OLYMPIQ Society, etc. The Giga Society known membership of Thomas R. A. Wolf, Matthew Scillitani, Andreas Gunnarsson, Scott Ben Durgin, Dany Provost, Rolf Mifflin, Paul Johns, Evangelos G. Katsioulis, and Rick Rosner. The Mega Society membership listing semi-known. The OLYMPIQ Society membership to date: Dr. Evangelos G. Katsioulis, MD, MSc, PhD, Bart Miles, Laura N. Kochen, D.X.J., Christophe Dodos, Steve Schuessler, George Ch. Petasis, A.F., Jonas Högberg, Mari Takishita, J. W., Thomas B., Jan Willem Versluis, Alexander Prata Maluf, Dr. Christopher Philip Harding, Oliver Q., Wayne Zhang, Martin Tobias Lithner, Miguel Angel Soto-Miranda, M.D., Hever Horacio Arreola Gutierrez, Wang Peng, Takahiro Kitagawa, Andreas Andersson, Lee HanKyung, M.D., Julio Machado, Misaki Ota, Erik Hæreid, Santanu Sengupta, Qiao Hansheng, Dr. Benoit Desjardins, MD, PhD, Wen-Chin Sui, Yaron Mirelman, JMoriarty, Fan Yiwen, Zhibin Zhang (张智彬), Chen Anping, Dr. Yasunobu Egawa, Ph.D., Raymond Walbrecq, Junlong Li（李俊龙, Prof. Vernon M. Neppe MD, PhD, Nth Bar-Fields, Susumu Ota, Li Shimin, Marios Prodromou, Rickard Sagirbay, Dan Liu (刘丹), YoungHoon Bryan Kim (김영훈), W. C., Jo Christopher Montalban Resquites, and Entemake Aman. Some were simply listed as anonymous, but these come from straight from the website for OLYMPIQ. Pars Society of Baran Yönter looks defunct. PolymathIQ Society seems defunct. Sigma V seems functional while old in its setup with 12 open members, including Hindemburg Melão Jr., Petri Widsten, Alexandre Prata Maluf, Rauno Lindström, Peter David Bentley, Bart Lindekens, Joachim Lahav, Marc Heremans, Staffan Svensson, Will Fletcher, Guilherme Marques dos Santos Silva, and Lloyd King. Sigma V seems functional while old in its setup with 12 open members, including Hindemburg Melon Jr., Petri Widsten, Alexandre Prata Maluf (Prospective member), and Peter David Bentley (Prospective member). The Unicorn Society seems like or merged with the Sigma Society (one of them), and largely paralyzed if not defunct. Ultima Society seems functional while mainly based on the personality, tests, and opinions of Ivan Ivec. Ivec lists Steve Fell’s artwork, World Famous IQ scores, etc. Nano Society seems defunct. One in Five Society of Huck Nembelton appears defunct. PolymathIQ Society of Ron Altmann looks defunct. Universal Genius Society of Brennan Martin seems defunct. Omega seems to have some members with Adam Kisby, Angell O. de la Sierra, Brian M. Schwartz, Brian Wiksell, Dany Provost, David Michael Fabian, David Smith, John Fahy, Kemin Tsung, Patrick J. Maitland, Richard May, a.k.a. May-Tzu, Robert S. Munday, and Ken Shea. Grail Society of Paul Cooijmans appears functional, but open to applicants so to speak. GenerIQ of Mislav Predavec appears functional. Pi Society of Nikos Lygeros appears open and active. Maybe, in another article, I can provide comprehensive research on the various societies for those with an interest, but I see this as tedious even with this minor presentation of the research. How accurate are measurements at the 1 in a 1,000,000 level or more?
Christian Sorensen: In my opinion it is possible to achieve accurate, reliable and valid measurements, up to a certain limit, below as well as above this rarity. The latest, as long as the utilized tests are applied by professionals, since they are the only ones, that besides being normalized, and standardized, actually have a solid scientific support. Under this perspective, at least the Wechsler Scale of Intelligence for Adults, in its R form, and because it integrates a concept denominated deterioration coefficient, regarding the age range of 75 years or more, is able to measures an IQ score up to 179 with 15 standard deviations, which would be equivalent to a rarity of 1 in 14,000,000.
Jacobsen: Also, there are test creators: Mislav Predavec, Robert Lato, Ivan Ivec, Pablo Fernández González, Ladislav Dubravský, Christoffer Collin, Jérôme-Olivier Billet, Bill Bultas, ‘Rottus,’ Nik Lygeros, Peter Schmies, Tommy Smith, Nicolas-Elena, Michael Dickheiser, Laurent Dubois, Dillon, Jason Betts, Kevin Langdon, Jeff Leonard, LiangTian, Ronald Hoeflin, Ivan Ivec, Paul Cooijmans, Iakovos Koukas, Xavier Jouve, Jonathan Wai, Zoran Bijac, Theodosis Prousalis, Gianluigi Lombardi, Brennan Martin, Miroslav Radojević, Andre Gangvik, Dawid Skyrzos, Gabriel Garofalo, Nitish Joshi, Gaetano Morelli, Beatrice Rescazzi, Jim Lorrimore, T. Hobstrom, Naoki Kouda, Christopher Harding, Leela Pappadioti, Anthony Lawson, Christian Backlund, James Dorsey, Tonny Sellen, Julien Arpen, Nikolaos U. Soulious, Paul Laurent, Andre Gangvik, Jonathan Wai, Yukun Wang, Benjamin Noh, Guillermo Alejandro Escarcega Pliego, Marc-Andre Nydegger, Randy Myers, Tor Arne Jorgenson, John Culkin, Valeria Lanari, Alexi Edin, Lunardini, Prettini, Sjoberg, Logan Smith, Gordon, Lunardini, Prettini, and many others. Any test creators who stand out here?
Sorensen: Actually no, because beyond the names mentioned within this list, and though there may be professional psychometrists such as Xavier Jouve, mathematicians like Ivan Ivec and Marco Ripa, or members of the high-IQ community, who try to work seriously as James Dorsey and Jason Betts indeed do… It may be sustained, that all the aforementioned qualifications, even if they’re taken together, they are not enough, since for a psychometric instrument, to really measure what it intends to measure, and not something else, or in other words, for being consistent and accurate with their measurements, when these must be repeated over time, inevitably a scientific refutation and empirical-experimental criticism is going to be contingently demanded. The latest, implies among other factors, a prolonged process of permanent revisions, as has occurred for example with Wechsler and Stanford-Binet scales, who have had more than 70 years of periodic updates. Therefore, in my opinion, and based on this context, none of those who are or is not here enlisted, seems to actually stand out, due to the fact, that I believe according to the parameters before indicated, that they lack the most fundamental methodological and experimental means, in order to be capable to hold demonstratively any of their jobs.
Jacobsen: What are some of the important considerations in reflection of the highest levels of ability?
Sorensen: I think that when speaking of IQ scores, which ultimately what they purport, is to be objective indicators of intelligence, what is essential, under any point of view, is that they manage to measure validly and reliably, its three main areas, that is to say the numeric, verbal and spatial ones, and in turn that IQ scores could be differential representatives, depending if whether they partially refer to one or another, or to the sum of these, in order to ultimately objectify a partial or general intelligence index. Likewise, as the infinitesimal percentage extreme of the general population is reached, along the highest capacity measurements, and therefore the probability of error increases, it is plausible to conclude since the probability of error is less, that if quantitative ranges of IQs with qualitative distinctions, instead of scores associated with discrete characteristics, are accurately defined, that then exceptionally high IQ measurements can be alluded and inferable with a reasonably acceptable level of reliability.
Jacobsen: What high scorers really impress you?
Sorensen: Mine.
Jacobsen: What are the various aspects of the WAIS deserving serious scrutiny and replication in alternative intelligence tests in the future to make them more robust?
Sorensen: On the one hand, to sustain a strict empirical methodology, that follows their developments and reviews, in order to give them enough predictive capacity. The fact that they should be reliably covering, the main areas of general intelligence, by being able to provide not only general IQ scores, but also partial calculations regarding each type of intelligence. And ultimately, to successfully and consistently approve the empirical refutations, through which science will surely confront them extensively over time.
Jacobsen: What subtest of the WAIS is the most predictive as a singular metric of general intelligence?
Sorensen: I think that the cubes subtest, since it is not interfered by cultural conditionings, and measures abstraction, analysis and synthesis capacities, which in my opinion, are the more reliable indicators, and therefore the best predictors of general intelligence.
Jacobsen: Mr. Sorensen, thank you for the chance to delve further into this topic much more, your experience and intelligence are much appreciated.
Sorensen: Thank you for this opportunity, and I hope that my citronic criticism, will serve to develop other professional tests, that can be more than mere games to hypertrophy the egos.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/18
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is an interesting person, and a friend and colleague. He founded Ideas Beyond Borders, which is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Its purpose is to empower and improve the initiatives in the Middle East devoted to dispelling various forms of misinformation in the region.
One of the major barriers for the Middle East and North Africa region has to do with language. There simply and purely is a gap in international literacy because much of the West is grounded in the English language and much of the Middle East and North Africa region is in Arabic. This can create a barrier for international entry for the minds of the non-bilingual or non-English speaking in the Middle East and North Africa. Other works of Ideas Beyond Borders are humanitarian efforts.
Lisa Pirovano, Communications Director at Ideas Beyond Borders, on one recent effort, stated, “This effort includes working with local distribution partners to deliver 15,000 N95 masks to public hospitals facing dire PPE shortages, as well as 100,000 surgical masks and more than 50,000 meals to communities in need.”
Many areas are in poverty, lack education, and are wracked with sectarian violence. This is the context of life for other human beings throughout the Middle East and North Africa region. While these areas are dealing with life and death issues, a compound on top of these aforementioned, potentially a multiplier, is the issue of proper information and then the coronavirus.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is being exploited by extremists and authoritarians alike, both digitally and offline. I’ve seen it before when my own community was taken over by extremist groups; they hand out blankets, they give water bottles on severely hot days in Baghdad, and in the case of COVID-19, they hand out masks and food to build trust,” Ideas Beyond Borders Founder, Faisal Saeed Al Mutar, stated, “When the pandemic is over, that’s what people remember, and it makes them even more vulnerable to believing extremist ideas. Ideas Beyond Borders is beating extremists to it. We’re handing out food and masks simply because it’s the right thing to do, and we ask nothing in return.”
The name of this new effort is the Stop the Spread (of coronavirus and misinformation) campaign, so as to provide a counter push from the rather large amounts of public health misinformation available in the region. This effort can provide a means by which the public can develop a healthier possibility of survival as communities and peoples in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Not only misinformation, but there are also deliberate spreading of bad information, disinformation, via the common means of conspiracy theories. Many in North America are familiar with the common sources including Alex Jones, Breitbart, Louis Farrakhan, and others. The program or intiative launched in March with distribution to 4.5 million Middle East and North Africa region youth.
Ideas Beyond Borders stated, “It… includes dozens of videos, infographics, and articles on the virus. The recent campaign expansion also expands these efforts, including translation of mental health resources, as well as a significant increase in video production.”
This is one among a large number fo efforts by Ideas Beyond Borders to provide “a positive alternative to the extremism, authoritarianism, censorship, and violence that plagues the Middle East.” Many of their efforts are for translation from English into Arabic and the sharing around the world with the intent to foster some critical thought, as well as the advancement of civil and human rights, pluralism, and science, in the Middle East, primarily, and the Middle East and North Africa region in general.
Some provide to the populations for the development of the critical communities by the local populations.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/12
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you become the editor of THINK?
Dr. Stephen Law: The Royal Institute of Philosophy decided it wanted a journal that would be aimed at laypeople some time ago and advertised for an editor. I was appointed. There were early difficulties, though – Cambridge University Press didn’t want to publish it (they publish the RIP’s other journal Philosophy) and so it looked like it might have to be online only – but then The Philosopher’s Magazine very kindly offered to publish it, which they did, very successfully. Some wanted to call it a journal; ‘for schools’ which would have been the kiss of death, I think. I asked Simon Blackburn if he’d mind us using ‘THINK’ as the title (he has a book of that name) and he agreed so we went with that. The Strapline is ‘Philosophy for Everyone’.
Jacobsen: You are searching for philosophers with an emphasis on women philosophers. Why the search for women philosophers in particular?
Law: Unfortunately we don’t get nearly enough unsolicited submissions from women to achieve a decent gender balance. So I specifically approach women philosophers. This has had some effect, but still not enough so I am really pushing very hard on trying to achieve a healthy gender balance now. There’s a forthcoming themed issue on women and philosophy too.
Jacobsen: How will these submitted pieces be used by RS teachers and students?
Law: The idea is that they will be useful resources helping teachers of RS better understand the material;, and they will be accessible enough to be read by pupils. However, I want to stress that these are all fascinating topics anyway, and will be of interest to a lot of people. I recently put together a themed issue on naturalism and theism which, while of interest to schools, has proved extremely popular with all sorts of people – theists, philosophers, skeptics, etc.
Jacobsen: You have proposed a number of possible topics including the “application of virtue ethics to embryo research and designer babies, abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, capital punishment, lying, theft, use of animals as food and intensive farming, xenotransplantation, vivisection, and blood sports,” and more. If any, what are the guiding themes behind the topics?
Law: In that case, the RS syllabi. However, they’re also fun topics. I am really looking forward to reading the pieces.
Jacobsen: Have any of these topics been particularly overdone or underdone?
Law: I don’t think so.
Jacobsen: How can people submit pieces or submit proposals for consideration of articles?
Law: They just email them to me: think@royalinstitutephilosophy.org
Jacobsen: What are you hoping will be the big takeaway from this issue of THINK?
Law: Well, these pieces won’t all be in the same issue – I will spread them out. But I think they will help make it clear how relevant philosophy is to a lot of practical questions – about our treatment of animals, assisted suicide, etc.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/08
Humanists International publishes some of the best international coverage on the rights violations and abuses of the humanist population in the world. The main or flagship report is the Freedom of Thought Report each year. Another put out this year is the Humanists at Risk: Action Report 2020 covering some of the gaps in the secularism principle for governments, or the separation of religion and government.
Nations highlighted in the reportage on the Humanists at Risk: Action Report 2020 were Colombia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Humanists International covered a wide range of tactics used by start actors to restrict freedom of conscience, religion, and thought, or association, assembly, and expression of atheists, humanists, and non-religious people.
Some of the privileges for the religious or limits on rights for the humanists included various legal provisions in the form of blasphemy and apostasy laws, a variety of injuries, attacks, and killings based on social reprisals, the discrimination by the state to limit access to certain public services and positions, and the well-known and thoroughly documented bullying, discrimination, social isolation, and ostracism.
Even in online spaces, many humanists and atheists fear arrest, intimidation, prosecution, and threats based on posts to various social media. The protection of the lives, the attainment of respect and acknowledgment, and the change of legislation for more equitable status for the secular around the world are some of the main items needing doing now – for the sake of generations of humanists and atheists after us.
Humanists international stated, “Stories from India portray the most brutal form for violence humanists and rationalists face. Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, M.M. Kalburgi and H Farook were all shot and killed for opposing superstition, criticizing idol worship or religion (read about more cases on page 24 to 26). Failures in the investigation and prosecution of such cases leads to a climate of fear, which may stifle the voices of otherwise outspoken individuals.”
With an assessment of the eight target countries, Humanists International, they have put (Humanists International) have put forward a series of recommendations for each country regarding the things that they can do to improve the situation and the contexts for “humanists and non-religious people.” Tied to this, they aim for the furtherance of the protection of the freedom of conscience, religion, and thought, or association, assembly, and expression.
Based on the assessment made on the eight target countries, Humanists International has put forward recommendations for each country intending to improve the situation for humanists and non-religious people and to protect the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and the right to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
“For too long humanists and other non-religious people have been invisible in the eyes of their own governments and international organizations,” Chief Executive of Humanists International, Gary McLelland, stated, “This report shines a light on the targeted violence, continued harassment and social discrimination faced by humanists in many countries and opens the door to conversations on how best to protect humanists worldwide. What is clear is that all laws and policies which criminalize ‘blasphemy’ should be repealed.”
Full report: https://humanists.international/get-involved/campaigns/humanists-at-risk-report/.
With files from Humanists International.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Humanists International emphasized the importance of OSCE states to repeal laws criminalizing the proliferation of ‘fake news’ and misinformation and to respect the fundamental right to the freedom of expression.
They made the call at the OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting II (SHDM) on Freedom of Expression, Media and Information held online from June 22 to 23. Advocacy Officer for Humanists International, Lillie Ashworth, took the time to explain the importance of freedom of expression in moments of crisis and extremity in which governments should, as Humanists International reported, “ensure transparency and access to quality, diverse and independent sources of information as a precondition to protecting public health.”
Repressive laws criminalizing the spread of fake news have been used to arbitrarily detain, arrest, and harass critics of governments, health professionals, and journalists. All this is in violation of the fundamental right to freedom of expression on the part of state forces who should be the first forces to protect and enshrine the rights rather than oppress individual citizens using them.
Most of the cases have been false accusations of individuals accused of “spreading panic” while, in fact, they were at the forefront of reporting on the failures to contain the spread of the coronavirus by state actors or heads of government. They could point out a lack of ventilators, or PPE and intensive care beds.
Within the OSCE region, Armenia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and other state actors have been rather oppressive in these domains, for these reasons, in restriction of the fundamental human right to freedom of expression. Humanists International released a statement on the issue covering the idea that criminal law is not an appropriate manner in which to combat “rumours and misinformation,” while these merely serve to revoke the freedom of speech rights from individual speakers (akin to the aforementioned); thus, this keeps the wider population in a struggle to maintain verbal autonomy and expression of popular and unpopular opinions equally.
“Only by upholding an environment free from punitive censorship laws are individuals empowered to think critically and practice safe self-governance in a manner consistent with public health,” Humanists International stated, “When it comes to fighting fake news and misinformation narratives during the Covid-19 crisis, Humanists International’s approach has consistently been to emphasise access to clear and accurate information, and to encourage critical thinking and a healthy degree of scepticism when encountering information online.”
Indeed, at the Closing Session for the SHDM, Humanists International’s call was taken up, as a discussion on the construction of OSCE guidelines was put forward for tackling disinformation with concomitant respect for the freedom of expression.
Full Humanists International statement here.
With files from Humanists International.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The Cultural and Secular Jewish Organizations reported on the news coming out of the Supreme Court.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited workplace discrimination and then protected the rights of lesbian, gay, and transgender workers. Justice Gorsuch wrote for a majority 6 to 3 ruling.
“Today, we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear,” Gorsuch stated. The language from the 1964 law banned any discrimination in employment on the following factors: national origin, race, religion, and/or sex.
There are protections for American citizens based on the advancement in these domains of identification. The ruling protects them in an important livelihood context in which discrimination negatively impacts life prospects and income. Indeed, there is discrimination and harassment in the areas of education, hours, and healthcare too. The Equality Act from 2019 codified civil rights protections for the LGBTQ citizens of the United States.
The Senate has not acted on this so far.
With files from Cultural and Secular Jewish Organizations.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Dying With Dignity Canada has been celebrating its 40th anniversary as one of the premier secular and human rights organizations in Canada. It’s premised on the idea of the right to choose when and how we die in a dignified manner, e.g., in the cases of some incurable or inoperable disease.
As a mostly secular oriented organization, its premise differs from some in the religious communities founded on different principles and ideas. One of those is the idea of the god owning the body of the individual, i.e., the individual does not own their own body.
Within this, the idea of a suicide, or, rather, a rational suicide, becomes anathema to the states of faith in much of the country. To take one’s own life in its end into one’s own hand is to take that which, ultimately, does not belong to you, the individual, your life belongs to the deity.
On its 40th anniversary or in the wake of its celebration, Dying With Dignity Canada had a fundraising goal and is celebrating reaching over the $20,000 target for the raising of funds. Based on an anonymous donor, it is going to be matched dollar for dollar.
The donor will be matching, now, up to $40,000 until July 8. The Dying With Dignity Canada community of supporters is stated to span as far as 65,000 supporters in Canada.
The Dying With Dignity Canada CEO, Helen Long, stated, “Actually, our team had been in conversation about cutting back on some of our plans for 2020, since COVID-19 related disruptions have unfortunately had a negative impact on our recent fundraising. But this overwhelming response from supporters like you means we can be even more ambitious in the next six months.”
They want to utilize this boost in what was expected to be a fundraising downturn for “province-specific Advance Care Planning Kits.” The funding would permit the kits to be used more widely. The informational kits can give factual information to Canadians to ensure their knowledge of the rights and the end of life options for them.
“Additional funding would also make it possible to share our message about fairer access to assisted dying with new supporters, and advance some of our urgent campaigns that seek to break down barriers and fix flaws in the current legislation,” Long stated, “Even after 40 years, and some very significant advancements, I know we can — and must — have even more impact on expanding the right to a peaceful death. We are confident that these additional funds will enable us to go even further, faster.”
With files from Dying With Dignity Canada.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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According to the National Center for Science Education, Idaho’s state science education standards are going to be revised again. They report this from Idaho Education News. As with other educational curricula updates noted by the NCSE, there has been a focus on a singular topic of the time in climate change.
There are counter moves to the proper education of the public. Some include the Intelligent Design movement. Others involve constructions including the Ark Encounter of young-earth creationists found in the likes of Ken Ham and others.
The Idaho House of Representatives between 2016 and 2018 had some legislators who “attempted to block the adoption” of updates to the science standards, based on the treatment of climate change. They failed.
In 2020, there were further efforts to try this, as reported by the NCSE. With the failure, yet again, there was another call for a revision to the standards in which there would be a “balance in standards” that became “politicized” when discussing “positive and negative aspects” of the various energy sources. This is based on documentation from Idaho Education News.
A legislator of the revision committee, Dorothy Moon (R-District 8), opposed the science standards because these placed the businesses of Idaho in a negative light. The standards came from a recognition and concern over anthropogenic climate change.
The NCSE concluded, “A revised version of the standards is expected to be evaluated by the state board of education in October 2021. If the board votes to adopt the new standards, they will still be submitted to the legislature for its approval in 2022.”
With files from the National Center for Science Education.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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The Center for Inquiry is a leading skeptic and secular humanist organization in the world based out of the United States. One of the troubling court cases coming out of America, recently, was the Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue case in which American taxpayers, generally, would foot the bill for forms of religious indoctrination, whether religious or secular Americans – clear asymmetry in the application of funding and a violation of a longstanding principle of separation of church and state in the United States of America.
This was a Supreme Court decision that forces American taxpayers to pay this. There is a gutting of protections provided by both the American Constitution and the No Aid Provisions of 3/4ers of state constitutions forbidding the taxpayer monies to use for any religious purpose.
Nick Little, Vice President and Legal Director of the Center for Inquiry, stated, “This Court has been opening a hole up in Thomas Jefferson’s Wall of Separation between church and state… Now they’ve built a two-lane highway through that hole, inviting churches to raid the public treasury and drive gleefully away with taxpayer money.”
Starting, at least, in 2015, Montana began a tax credit voucher program for taxpayers to get credit if they gave monies to Student Scholarship Organizations. These funded scholarships for private school students.
Most of the private schools in Montana are religious. This is the same across the country. In other words, the funding is for religion. Via Article X, Section 6 of the Montana Constitution, though, there are explicit bans for the use of taxpayer dollars for “religious education.”
“… the Montana Department of Revenue adopted Rule 1, stating that the vouchers could not be used to pay for religious education provided by religious schools. Parents at religious schools sued,” CFI reported.
Based on a 2018 Montana Supreme Court decision, the support for the religious schools violated the Montana Constitution. Thusly, the program was “struck down; thereby “preventing the vouches being used at any private school, religious or not,” now, “the program no longer exists.” However, “the Supreme Court nonetheless agreed to review the ruling.”
Robyn Blumner, CFI’s President and CEO, stated, “Let’s be clear about what just happened: The Supreme Court has decided that atheist taxpayers are now required to fund religious schools… Members of non-Christian faiths are now required to fund Christian education. The religious right has gotten exactly what it wanted from Trump’s justices: the erasure of a fundamental principle of American law, that no person shall be forced to participate in religious expression by subsidizing religious education.”
Little continued to state the theocratic path this potentially sets forth for the United States in which this exists in contradistinction to the orientation of the Founders or the Framers of the United States Constitution, where religious activities, including education, shall not be supported by the public purse. Nonetheless, with the Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue case, there can be funding not only by choice but by compulsion.
Previously, in November of 2019, in an amicus brief by CFI supporting the Montana Department of Revenue the organization (CFI) support the constitutional separation of religion and government. in upholding Montana’s constitutional separation of church and state.
CFI concluded, “CFI is also a proud member of the National Coalition for Public Education, which vocally opposes all forms of private school voucher legislation in the U.S. Congress. In June 2020, CFI joined a diverse coalition urging congressional leadership to strike language in COVID-19 relief legislation that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had used to divert emergency education funds to a private voucher scheme.”
With files from the Center for Inquiry.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Dennis Christensen is a Jehovah’s Witnesses prisoner of conscience imprisoned in Russia. As per some recent reportage on the violation of the rights of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the human rights to freedom of religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses are being violated.
Christensen was granted parole on June 23 while USCIRF, or The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (Washington, D.C.) expressed concern for the health and wellbeing of him. Prosecutor Aleksei Shatunov appealed the decision. Christian remains in prison and will stay there until the next hearing. This could take several weeks.
He – Christensen – is eligible for release in early 2021 based on pre-trial detention time served. However, his health has deteriorated while in custody, which is the reason for the reportage and the concern coming from the USCIRF. He had contracted pneumonia while his scheduled time to remain in prison is until May 25, 2022.
USCIRF Chair Gayle Manchin stated, “USCIRF urges the Russian government to show clemency. The ongoing imprisonment of Dennis Christensen is truly unconscionable. This man has already forfeited his freedom for exercising his peaceful religious beliefs; it would be an atrocity for him to forfeit his life. Russia must free Mr. Christensen immediately.”
The Jehovah’s Witnesses reported 24 are under house arrest, 24 are in pretrial detention, and 10 are imprisoned in Russia. The USCIRF in its annual report stipulated that Russia is a country of particular concern based on violations of religious freedom.
With files from The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Based on a new poll on climate change and political views, the National Center for Science Education or the NCSE reported on the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication new data on the registered American voters’ attitudes and beliefs towards climate change and political views. Political views can imply particular identifications on scientific lines.
This has been substantially true in the United States where some political views can be seen as catastrophically bad for the informed policymaking of the public. When political views impede scientific education, are bound to scientific illiteracy, or belie a scientifically informed public, we come to the issue of an appropriately informed public.
A scientifically informed public in a majoritarian or democratic state is catastrophic for policymaking and voting of the public. In terms of thinking global warming is happening, 75% responded in the affirmed with only 11% in the negative. This is good news.
NCSE, among those answering in the affirmative, stated, “98% of liberal Democrats, 92% of moderate/conservative Democrats, and 69% of liberal/moderate Republicans. Fewer conservative Republicans (47%) think that global warming is happening.”
In short, this is a politically divisive issue. On this particular issue, the rights are far less scientifically informed than the leftists, i.e., this aspect of reality leans liberal or is biased towards the liberal in a manner of speaking.
Surprisingly in contrast to the colloquial notions about American citizenry, there are some interesting aspects to some parts of the data. Not in terms of if global warming is happening, but how or by which means global warming is occurring, 61% of the respondents consider global warming is “Caused mostly by human activities” while 29% believe it is “Caused mostly by natural changes in the environment.” 5% ventured both of the aforementioned as the causes and only 4% selecting neither. These are encouraging numbers. It is not the citizenry; it is the leadership not applying this will of the people to the development of scientifically appropriate and fully-informed policies.
“Opinion was politically divided, with a large majority of Democrats but a minority of Republicans accepting human responsibility,” the NCSE stated, “The data were ‘based on a nationally representative survey of 1,029 American adults, aged 18 and older, 911 of whom are registered to vote. The survey was conducted April 7-17, 2020. All questionnaires were self-administered by respondents in a web-based environment.’”
With files from the National Center for Science Education.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Pastor Ramón Rigal was released in Cuba based on reportage from The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). On April 16, 2019, Rigal and his wife, Ayda Expósito, were detained. The reason: homeschooling their children over the Cuban schools’ atheism and socialism promotion, apparently.
The proposed crimes were doing things in opposition to the normal development of a minor. Now, Expósito was released in April of 2020. James Carr, USCIRF Commissioner, stated, “While we welcome the release of Pastor Rigal and are thrilled that he is reunited with his family, this was not the first time that Pastor Rigal and his wife were arrested in relation to their religious beliefs… The Cuban government must immediately cease harassing this couple and allow all Cuban parents, including the Rigals, to raise their children pursuant to their own faith.”
While the pastor and wife, Expósito and Rigal, case can be considered safer than not, journalist Roberto Jesus Quinones Haces is still in jail. He wanted to cover the trial of the couple and, subsequently, went to prison. The reason was the coverage and Expósito and Rigal. The crime: “disobedience” – can’t make this stuff up.
There has been harassment of other independent journalists in Cuba by the authorities based on attempts to report on religious freedom, e.g., Yoe Suárez, and this came with threats of criminal charges and fines under Decree Law 370. It limits internet online freedom of expression and privacy.
USCIRF Vice Chair Anurima Bhargava said, “USCIRF once again calls for the immediate release of Jesus Quinones Haces and the end to harassment of independent journalists who report on religious freedom.”
With files from The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The Foundation Beyond Belief for the Kasese Humanist School (KHS) reported on the closing of the fundraiser for the Kasese Humanist School in Uganda. Its purpose was to help the community recover from the floods that had come through its community. With some permission from the authorities in Kasese, the KHS used funds to support the families in need affected by the disaster.
In June, KHS had rationed food to 35 families in Kahendoro, 45 families in Muhokya, and 40 families in Rukoki. 110 families were helped given the numbers reported by the Foundation Beyond Belief. The exchange rate is pretty terrible for a Ugandan shilling to an American dollar with 1 dollar in American currency coming to 3,728 Ugandan shillings. However, KHS has made each shilling count.
The purchases included “large quantities of matoke (a banana used for cooking), cassava flour, bar soap, cooking oil, salt, masks, and packets of biscuits. They also dispensed 150 free masks to all the parents who came for the relief items.”
The KHS Director, Bwambale Robert, has been doing outreach work to the relevant officials at the governments of Kahendoro and Muhokya. The purpose is to give food to a contingent of orphans. Robert has been a humanist at the forefront of activism in Kasese.
He has been providing monetary assistance to the educators who are struggling with the floods and COVID-19 coming into Uganda.
KHS’s Director Bwambale Robert has also been reaching out with government officials to the Muhokya and Kahendero areas of Kasese to give food to a large population of orphans, and has been providing financial support to teachers facing financial hardship due to the floods and COVID-19.
Members and contributors to the flood fundraiser were able to raise $6,000 to help individuals in need in Kasese.
With files from the Foundation Beyond Belief.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom or the USCIRF commended the $356.2 million commitment to Sudan for “development aid and democratic transition programs.”
It was a pledged announced on June 25, 2020 at the Berlin Donor Conference. The purpose of the convening at the conference was to ensure the economic situation in Sudan does not harm its democratic aims.
“We are encouraged by the United States’ decision to provide such robust financial support to a government that is committed to reforming its political system and ensuring all Sudanese people are free to practice their faiths,” a Vice Chair of the USCIRF, Tony Perkins, said, “USCIRF urges the U.S. government to allocate a portion of this funding to programs that support comprehensive curricular improvements, legal and constitutional reform, and other transitional justice measures.”
With such a pledge, one can note the increase in the development assistance compared to Sudan from 2019 based on reportage by the USCIRF about the USAID administrator, as the source, John Barsa.
From a visit to Washington, D.C., in December of 2019, Abdalla Hamdok, Prime Minister of Sudan, emphasized the international support as completely important for the ‘advancement of civil liberties and political freedoms.
The USCIRF Vice Chair, Anurima Bhargava, explained the importance of international partnership alongside the support of the United States for a democratic transition. The funds are expected to “institutional, legal, and educational reforms to enhance religious freedom, and the processes necessary to ensure proper implementation of these (and earlier) reforms in every region of the country.”
Both vice chairs travelled to Sudan in February, 2020, to see the conditions for religious freedom in Sudan. Even with the significant progress of the Sudanese government, there was still work needing doing to appropriately attend to the religious freedom abuses of the former regime.
The USCIRF concluded, “USCIRF recommended in its 2020 Annual Report that the Department of State maintain Sudan on its Special Watch List (SWL). This was the first time since 2000 that USCIRF had not recommended Sudan for designation as a ‘country of particular concern’ for systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
With files from the USCIRF.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did the 185+ (S.D. 15) get calculated for the IQ score for you, as most will assume only reliable scores on mainstream IQ tests sitting between 40 and 160 (S.D. 15)?
Christian Sorensen: It was calculated “in the same way,” and with the same test: “WAIS-R,” as it was calculated the IQ score of “Evangelos Katsioulis,” when he earned “180+ (S.D. 15).” With the only difference, that I earned “at least” five points higher than him. Therefore, on account “of pears and apples,” of justice, and according to “one of the two” most reliable tests, for measurements of general intelligence in the world, the one who should be at “the first place,” on the list of World Genius Directory, “is me and not him.”
Since the question is on the mat, and for responding to “eventual ripping of clothes.” I want to take advantage, and to be clear, that I do not need to justify my IQ with any “silly games,” within the “almost infinite” that are in circulation, as if they were “candy businesses,” pretending to be high range IQ test, nor with the mainstream test that measures general intelligence. First of all, because I find them “silly, pedantic, absurd and misleading,” since at least the former ones, sell “false intelligence,” for making people believe, that they have an “IQ that is not real” or that does not belong to them, so ultimately they only serve to “inflate their ego,” as if they were “aero-static balloon.” And additionally, due to the fact, that my numerous interviews with you Scott, show actually and clearly, as a “fact of evidence,” who is who, since besides not being Wikipedia’s responses, they don’t have any support of bibliography. “Who ever likes it or bothers,” they have been elaborated, arisen and flowed naturally from my own “black box,” which lastly, is an issue that has brought me more displeasure than anything else… In synthesis, and to conclude, the point and “obvious fact” here, is that my general intelligence, is well above 185 (S.D.15), and “period.”
At the same time, I take the opportunity, to communicate that this is the last time I respond to something of this nature, since I feel that has “neither feet nor head,” and to which I have been forced to respond dizzily, throughout my life.
Jacobsen: Speaking of intellectual competitions, but in the realm of history rather than the present, what do you think of the case of Bill Sidis, in general terms?
Sorensen: Apart from the fact, that Sidis fulfills, what I will denominate as the “golden rule of three,” I think that regarding its capacities, is clearly represented “the universality” of these, which ultimately should be expected in relation to us, the unmeasurable geniuses, in other words, the fact that these abilities are “multifocally prodigious.”
Jacobsen: Of all of the people who have been mentioned with a sense of awe to some, semi-mystery to others, tragedy and pity to others, worship to still others, wonder and curiosity to yet another group, etc., what emotions or thoughts come to mind about the overarching narrative of the life of Sidis for you?
Sorensen: That of a man “committed to noble causes,” who was able to make his extraordinary capacities, available to the “most disadvantaged” and “for peace.”
Jacobsen: Any particular points of interest in his life for you, personally?
Sorensen: Sidis’s “atheism and communism.”
Jacobsen: Any points of appreciation and/or general commentary on the historical work on the Americas, on the intelligence level claims, on his ethical principles, or on his cosmology?
Sorensen: I agree with Sidis’s “cosmological” point of view, in relation to that the universe is “infinite and eternal,” and also with its application of “the first thermodynamics” law, which means that energy within the universe, is “neither created nor destroyed.” I personally would add, to its “cosmology,” and regarding “universe energy,” that this energy “does transform” as such.
Jacobsen: Any thoughts on Dr. Boris Sidis’s ideas about upbringing and making an experiment, more or less, of young Billy?
Sorensen: Sidis’s father, implicitly sought to experiment with his son, since he put into practice his knowledge of “abnormal psychology,” and also combined three elements, “affection, knowledge and precocity,” respectively, within the upbringing, which in his time and also currently, arouses “much controversy,” especially regarding the third of them.
Jacobsen: Why do so many in the gifted community look to the Sidis story?
Sorensen: I suppose that because Sidis, is seen as a sort “of oracle,” that arouses “ambivalent feelings” of admiration, in the sense of pretending to identify with him, as well of envy.
Jacobsen: Any lessons that can be drawn from this Sidis narrative?
Sorensen: The capacity of Sidis’s mind, despite its enormous “amplitude and variability,” to “be structured” in an orderly way, and without getting confused. In other words, its ability to mentally organize everything, by “napoleonically placing” each thing in its correct box, without mixing these last between each other.
Jacobsen: Who seems comparable in history to him?
Sorensen: From the point of view of its universalism and extraordinary capacity, “Leonardo Da Vinci.”
Jacobsen: Personally, what parts of the story seem, more or less, factual and extraordinary to you?
Sorensen: Sidis’s extraordinary “earliness,” “humanism,” and regardless of the fact that there is no documented evidence of its intelligence evaluations, the presence of objective facts, that give proof of his unmeasurable genius.
Jacobsen: If he lived longer than 46, what do you think he would have done with his gifts and talents?
Sorensen: I think Sidis would have formed, a “philanthropic intellectual society.”
Jacobsen: If he lived longer than 46, what do you think he would have done with his personal and professional life outside of general uses of gifts and talents?
Sorensen: Probably would have continued to live with his parents or sister, and would have been professionally associated with a university for academic and research purposes.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorensen: Thank you for the opportunity, Scott.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Center for Inquiry has been a consistent and powerful bulwark against pseudoscience and supernatural powers claims in the history of the United States in particular and some other parts of the world in general. Many in the humanist, generally, and the secular humanist, particularly, community owe them a great debt and, in fact, are a part of the organizations in its orbit if not directly with it.
One extended grouping of the Center for Inquiry is the Center for Inquiry Investigations Group. An interesting cash prize proposal building off the legacy of the James Randi Educational Foundation. The prize comes to an astonishing $250,000. I believe in USD. The prize money, previously, was $100,000. So, certainly, this ups the ante on the entire endeavour.
It is a financial backing to a challenge to prove occult, paranormal, and supernatural abilities or powers. Based on the reportage of the Center for Inquiry Investigations Group, akin to the findings of the James Randi Educational Foundation, zero challengers have succeeded in passing the challenge of the group. Yet, we find an astonishing number continuing to proclaim superpowers, special powers, supernatural powers, and the like. Others have never been properly tested in a modern scientific setting to provide sufficient proof of the concept. No empirical evidence on this level.
James Underdown, the Executive Director and the Founder of the Center for Inquiry West (Los Angeles) stated, “We’ve been waiting for twenty years now for someone to come along and blow our minds, and while many have tried, no one has proven they can actually do what they say they can do… Maybe all the real superpowered folks were just waiting for us to raise the stakes. Hopefully a quarter million bucks will do it.”
Granted, it is a lot of money. It can raise some questions a to why so few takers/testers to earn such money. In addition to the quarter of a million dollars for an individual who can provide evidence of the paranormal or supernatural claims, there is, as well, a $5,000 prize money for the individual who can make the referral of an individual who can show the magical powers. (I believe “magical” is the appropriate colloquial term here.)
With files from Center for Inquiry.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/07/01
Evolution via natural selection remains the singular foundation for the biological sciences and, presumably, the medical sciences by extension. Without an appropriate education in these matters and full comprehension and complete acceptance of its implications, a pupil or an aspiring biology or medical sciences student will be left worse off than educational peers.
With an NCSE/Penn State national survey, they have been looking into the “pedagogically appropriate treatment of evolution in state science standards,” according to the National Center for Science Education’s (NCSE) Glenn Branch, deputy director.
With the want of improvement in the standards of education across the United States of America, as we speak, three states are beginning to revise the state science standards: Texas, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina.
Branch stated, “More than half a million students take a biology course in the public schools of Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas every year, to say nothing of the millions of students across the country whose textbooks might be affected by the content of the Texas standards.”
In “Teaching evolution in U.S. public schools: A continuing challenge,” by Eric Plutzer, Glenn Branch, and Ann Reid, one can find further details on the particular survey in question. With the low rates of adherence to the foundations of the life sciences, the United States will continue to punch below its weight and remain a powerful while less than possible nation in terms of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
With files from the National Center for Science Education.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Some more positive work coming out of the National Center for Science Education or the NCSE with its Deputy Director, Glenn Branch, pointing out the situation in New Jersey.
With some of the issues in a poverty of critical thinking, at times, within the United States, some good events are more than welcome. The state board of education of New Jersey adopted the revisions of some education standards for the entire state.
These will be incorporating climate change in “a systematic and coordinated way.” Branch explained how every teacher within the public school system of New Jersey would be “encouraged” to discuss climate change in a proper context, educational environment.
Branch said, “…New Jersey’s climate is already changing… and it is to the state’s credit that its education standards are changing in response. But it will be necessary for the state to ensure that these latter changes have their intended effect by funding education appropriately: meeting the greenhouse effect with the greenback dollar.”
These kinds of educational advances can help work on the unfortunate scientific illiteracy in the United States as a leading scientific nation, as with other nations harbour large swathes of scientific illiteracy.
Whether consequential knowledge such as evolution via natural selection for biological sciences and medical sciences, or climate change for actionables on an urgent problem, or not, scientific illiteracy is an ongoing issue and state-by-state changes to educational curricula as a service to the next generations is greatly appreciated.
With files from the National Center for Science Education.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/29
A mandatory declaration of religion is being challenged by the National Secular Society as a breach of human rights.
In Greece, there is a claimed requirement for parents having to declare religion on the child’s birth certificate. This has been challenged by the National Secular Society (NSS) at the European Court of Human Rights.
NSS reported, “In Papanikolaou v Greece, the ECHR is considering whether the obligation violates article nine of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to freedom of religion and belief.”
Based on the submission to the ECHR, it has been argued by the NSS the obligation goes against Article 8 and Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. They deal with the right to respect for private and family life and the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and state:
ARTICLE 8
Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
ARTICLE 9
Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.
2. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
The NSS submission complained the obligation stands as contrary to the convention and unnecessarily divulges sensitive personal data in violation of the rights of the child and of the rights of the parent.
The complaint continued to remark on the nature of treating members of a particular faith as somehow a bloc or a “cohesive group”; whereas, the reality with every belief or social attitudinal group remains statistical and distributed more than anything. People differ.
With the freedom of religion or belief, as per the European Convention on Human Rights and the complaint from the NSS, it is an individual right, not a group right and, therefore, cannot be treated as a singular right of a group.
“The [NSS] argued that the requirement goes against both the plain words of the relevant articles of the ECHR and relevant case law. In previous cases the ECHR has ruled that requiring individuals to reveal their personal beliefs violates article nine,” the NSS reported, “It has also established that disclosure of information about personal religious and philosophical convictions may engage article eight, as such convictions concern some of the most intimate aspects of private life.”
Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor “greatly appreciated” the efforts of intervention of the NSS at the ECHR. The issues raised by the NSS will be ‘adding crucial arguments’ to the points raised by the Greek Helsinki Monitor too.
NSS chief executive Stephen Evans stated:
We’ve intervened in this case to uphold the principle that nobody should be required to reveal their personal beliefs, which can often be a very sensitive issue, without very good reason.
There’s no good reason why the Greek state should need to know the religion of a newborn child’s parents, so the court should ensure it upholds the right to freedom of belief and the right to privacy.
With files from the National Secular Society.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/24
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the responsibility of intellectuals?
Christian Sorensen: “None.” That question presupposess that “intellectuals” should have a “greater responsibility degree” or a “particular type” of it in relation to “non-intellectuals,” which in turn implies to believe that “intelligence’s degree” would determine “act’s moral assessment” and therefore the fact of accepting “intellectual’s superiority,” since if “moral non-imputability” and therefore its “responsibility absence or decrease” are determined by “diminished intelligence,” then the aforementioned, is equivalent to express that this “determination,” is given by “reason’s absence,” and in consequence this last would imply to “be almost a beast” or straightly said “to be a beast.”
Jacobsen: How do public intellectuals fail and succeed at this?
Sorensen: “Public intellectuals,” fail insofar as they “self-argue” with “dead superiority,” utilizing for “discriminatory purposes,” contributions that somehow generally are “self-centered,” and by losing any kind of sight regarding “equality sense,” in relation to what should be an “expected awareness” of “fundamental rights.” As a counterpart if “intelligentsia,” provides them with a “differential factor,” which in itself is neither “better nor worse,” but that nevertheless, if it is assumed as a “social duty role” that should visualize a “synergistic achievement” towards what for me is an “enthalpic social integration,” and then if the last becomes a tangible outcome, it can “be inferred,” that “public intellectuals” as such, have been successful in “their task.”
Jacobsen: What public intellectuals and intellectuals impress you?
Sorensen: Stephen Hawking, Albert Camus, and Luc Montagnier.
Jacobsen: Why do they impress you?
Sorensen: “S. Hawking” for not having contributed with anything, “A. Camus” because he learned all morality playing soccer, and “L. Montagnier” for considering that the COVID-19 virus has genetic traces of HIV virus.
Jacobsen: How does a better life decrease god belief?
Sorensen: Because when there “is a need,” god “is resorted,” since “it feels” that it “is not possible” to be satisfied naturally, and due to the fact that “for asking,” god first has “to be believed,” due to the reason that it “is not possible” to ask something of someone, who “does not exist,” and because god “is not going” to grant something to anyone who “does not believes,” nor “venerates” and “does not makes” any merit, so when “a better life” arrives, needs “are fewer” and therefore as it is necessary “to ask for less,” and to “not deserve,” then “god’s belief” doesn’t make much sense anymore.
Jacobsen: Will Africa extricate itself from its bondage of superstition and colonial history? If so, how? If not, why not?
Sorensen: It depends because “Africa” has always found itself in a “systemic vicious circle” that I will denominate as “helplessness-misery’s positive feedback” between “misery and colonialism” on the one hand, and “superstition” on the other, where the first two have “historically determined” the latter, at the same time that while the formers “further intensify,” then the last one on its part, gets “even stronger.” Therefore it would be possible “to get out” of “this circularity,” as long as this Continent manages to go from “being a closed” to “being an open system,” necessarily through the intervention of what for me an “external non-iatrogenic” agent, that allows to modify “independent variables” and in consequence its “deterministic chains,” in order to finally “make permeable” the access to “dependent variables,” by in this case “replacing it,” with what I will name as a “non-entropic ecosystemic” outcome within “Africa.”
Jacobsen: What makes a virtuous person? What makes a non-virtuous person?
Sorensen: A “virtuous person,” is one who is able to maintain the “right homeostatic balance between two extremes,” while a “non-virtuous” one is the one who actually “does not have good and evil notions” sufficiently well “introjected,” and besides is unable to recognize any “dynamic dimension and balance” between “two polarities.”
Jacobsen: What are the trends active in less developed parts of the world, e.g., Africa, that public intellectuals should focus more on?
Sorensen: If I could summarize it in one sentence, I would say that it is the fact of recognizing, that places such as “Africa,” are “the backyard” and “the garbage dump” of the rest of the world.
Jacobsen: Will Africa decrease in its overwhelming religiosity over time if so?
Sorensen: I am sure of this, since that “overwhelming religiosity” is somehow closely linked to a “need and meaning,” that I will denominate as “over-compensatory sense,” which in turn fulfills “a function” as “defence mechanism” because if this is simply “removed,” they will remain “completely defenceless,” in other words analogously speaking, is what occurs with “phobic dynamic,” since if “phobic object” is abruptly withdrawn, that is to say if this is done with what produces an “irrational fear,” then a huge “anguish and anxiety” wave will be triggered until “surpassing” completely them.
Jacobsen: What are the virtues in behaviour and thought required for African societies? How will good governance assist in guiding and inculcating such virtues?
Sorensen: If I could summarize in one word what are “the virtues” in behaviours and thoughts that “African societies” require, I would say…”Resilience.” Before “governments” assist societies, by guiding and inculcating “these virtues” on them, it is first of all necessary, to “reach good” ones, and due to this purpose, “democracy” values must be put in advance, which in turn leads to require within these societies “quality and accessible education” as “pre-position” for everyone, that in consequence lastly “will promote” this sort of “virtues,” since if both “citizens and the political class” are pushed to, in my opinion towards what should be an “intersection central point,” then an “encounter” between them might be reached, and therefore by the fact “of sharing” a “meaningful universe,” development is going to be driven “in behalf” of “desirables virtues.”
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian, as usual.
Sorensen: Thanks to you.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Sam Vaknin is Visiting Professor of Psychology, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia and Professor of Finance and Psychology in SIAS-CIAPS (Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies), as well as a writer and the author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. Christian Sorensen is an independent philosopher from Belgium. Both have scored profoundly high on the most reliable general intelligence tests, i.e., mainstream tests. In both cases, they have devoted themselves to wide-ranging and deep foci of study throughout life. Vaknin on narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Sorensen on philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics. Here they talk about the central focus for Vaknin, narcissism.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Within the DSM-V, of those criteria for formal diagnosis of an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), what ones seem the most reliable, valid, and powerful as predictors of NPD to each of you?
Sam Vaknin: The DSM V is a vast improvement over the DSM IV-TR in that it includes an alternate model with criteria which are dimensional, not categorical; dynamic, not static; and descriptive rather than taxonomic (concerned with lists of symptoms).
The DSM V re-defines personality disorders thus:
Moderate or greater impairment in personality functioning in either identity, or self-direction (should be: in both.)
The narcissist keeps referring to others excessively in order to regulate his self-esteem (really, sense of self-worth) and for “self-definition” (to define his identity.) His self-appraisal is exaggerated, whether it is inflated, deflated, or fluctuating between these two poles and his emotional regulation reflects these vacillations.
(Finally, the DSM V accepted what I have been saying for decades: that narcissists can have an “inferiority complex” and feel worthless and bad; that they go through cycles of ups and downs in their self-evaluation; and that this cycling influences their mood and affect).
The narcissist sets goals in order to gain approval from others (narcissistic supply; the DSM V ignores the fact that the narcissist finds disapproval equally rewarding as long as it places him firmly in the limelight.) The narcissist lacks self-awareness as far as his motivation goes (and as far as everything else besides.)
Impairments in interpersonal functioning in either empathy or intimacy (should be: in both.)
The narcissist finds it difficult to identify with the emotions and needs of others, but is very attuned to their reactions when they are relevant to himself (cold empathy.) Consequently, he overestimates the effect he has on others or underestimates it (the classic narcissist never underestimates the effect he has on others – but the inverted narcissist does.)
The narcissist’s relationships are self-serving and, therefore shallow and superficial. They are centred around and geared at the regulation of his self-esteem (obtaining narcissistic supply for the regulation of his labile sense of self-worth.)
The narcissist is not “genuinely” interested in his intimate partner’s experiences (implying that he does fake such interest convincingly.) The narcissist emphasizes his need for personal gain (by using the word “need”, the DSM V acknowledges the compulsive and addictive nature of narcissistic supply). These twin fixtures of the narcissist’s relationships render them one-sided: no mutuality or reciprocity (no intimacy).
Pathological personality traits
Antagonism characterized by grandiosity and attention-seeking
The narcissist puts inordinate effort, time, and resources into attracting others (sources of narcissistic supply) and placing himself at the focus and centre of attention. He seeks admiration (the DSM V gets it completely wrong here: the narcissist does prefer to be admired and adulated, but, failing that, any kind of attention would do, even if it is negative.)
The diagnostic criteria end with disclaimers and differential diagnoses, which reflect years of accumulated research and newly-gained knowledge:
The above enumerated impairments should be “stable across time and consistent across situations … not better understood as normative for the individual’s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment … are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma).”
Christian Sorensen: I will do so briefly, and in relation to Sam’s expansive responses, its expertise on Narcissistic Personality Disorder, its labor for helping people who are victims of individuals with this disorder, or individuals who suffer from it, and regarding to part of the responses provided by me on this interview. For doing so, I am going to based my explanation on psychodynamically and psychoanalytically oriented psychiatry, and on Otto Kernberg’s contributions that respectively from a historical and etymological point of view, have developed the concepts of personality disorder, and narcissistic and narcissistic malignant personality disorders.
If Sam, has a confirmed diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and this type of disorder is in turn associated with primitive defense mechanisms, and a low personality structure… Then from a clinical and logical perspective, and following a formal reasoning, he would not be able not even ethically, to offer any kind of guidance or therapeutic aid, nor could he claims to possess an expertise in relation to this topic. This last, since its theorizations, excepting those that may be bibliographically referred to other authors, are strictly and synthetically speaking invalids.
The predominant defense mechanism of this type of personality disorders is projective identification, which from a clinical sight, needs to be detected and analyzed, through countertransference by the therapist and therapeutic assistant, in order to offer an effective aid in this context, and in other words to avoid any counterproductive or harmful outcomes. At the same time, to achieve this objective, the person who offers or pretends to offer such help, needs imperatively to possess advanced defense mechanisms, and therefore, a high structure of personality. With respect to Sam’s supposed expertise to refer theoretically on such a subject, it is essential to have a sufficient capacity of insight, in order to be able to actually arrive at meaningful conceptual deductions, and to original contributions, which in consequence could be considered as logically valid, nevertheless individuals diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, due to their secondary narcissism, lack such skill, and for that reason can hardly be denominated as, or invested with any theoretical authority to speak on this matter.
On to the main question, it is the feelings of greatness and superiority, lack of empathy and exploitation of interpersonal relationships.
Jacobsen: There’s a whole mythology built into the idea of narcissism, NPD, etc. One idea is the story of Narcissus. What are some of the mythologies in history and in folk psychology related to or building towards the idea of a more formal psychological diagnosis of NPD or the observation, at least, of someone appearing on the narcissism spectrum?
Sorensen: From the historical point of view, there are some less recent examples such as Hitler, although there was a cocktail of other pathologies within him, and historically current could be Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un and Nicolas Maduro. From a popular perspective, in my opinion, it is very well represented in movies like “The Silence of the Lambs”.
Jacobsen: In correspondence, Christian, you noted three fundamental axes of identity self-concept, defense mechanisms, and type of object relationship. Christian, can you elaborate on these three axes, please? Sam, can you reflect on these proposed axes from within the professional literature and as a leading expert on NPD?
Vaknin: Pathological narcissism is a reaction to prolonged abuse and trauma in early childhood or early adolescence. The source of the abuse or trauma is immaterial – the perpetrators could be parents, teachers, other adults, or peers. Pampering, smothering, spoiling, and “engulfing” the child are also forms of abuse.
Pathological narcissism has been conceptualized successively as an infantile defense mechanism and a disturbance in object relations. Later, it metamorphosed into a personality disorder. I regard it as a post-traumatic condition coupled with arrested development (puer aeternus, Peter pan). Inevitably, such early childhood traumas render attachment in later adult life very dysfunctional, of course. It also gives rise to cognitive deficits such as grandiosity and to the overuse of defense mechanisms such as fantasy. But these are secondary features and not universal.
Sorensen: It is important to point out that these three axes, are given from a perspective of what means psychic structure. In relation to the self-concept, it refers to a phenomenon that I will denominate as diffusion of identity, that’s caused by difficulties in maintaining an objectal constancy. Regarding defense mechanisms, it is relevant since there is a preponderant presence of what is called projective identification. Concerning object relation, alludes to the fact that bonding relationships that should be significant are not really, because they lack of deep and stable feelings, are viewed for utilitarian and profitable purposes, and are constantly loaded with feelings of idealization and devaluation.
Jacobsen: Christian, also, you remarked on psychiatry and the phenomenological approach, existentialism, and vitalism. So, Christian, what are the reasons for these intersections with respect to a philosophical approach to analyzing narcissism? Sam, how does philosophy play a fundamental role, or simply a role if at all, in orienting and defining the diagnosis of NPD or simply narcissism with psychology?
Vaknin: It doesn’t. The members of the DSM Committee have no training in philosophy. Psychology pretends counterfactually to be an exact science, at least as much as medicine is. Philosophers are not welcome. Freud was a neurologist and tried to create a physics of the mind (“analysis”). The tradition of experimental psychology now dominates and lab coats are everywhere. There is a very strong strand of anti-intellectualism and anti-philosophy in psychology.
Sorensen: Due to the fact that existentialist philosophical point of view, contributes to psychiatry by introducing the ability to achieve a descriptive observation of phenomenon, while the vitalism allows that psychiatry reaches a deeper understanding, in the sense of going beyond a purely biological approach in regards to the problematics of mental disorders or illnesses.
Jacobsen: Some still view mental disorders as some otherworldly phenomenon, as in something spiritual grounded in sin or a disorder of the soul. Why do these supernaturalistic propositions and (non-)explanations continue to persist over time?
Vaknin: Because people are ignorant and feeble-minded, befuddled and fearful, disoriented and at the mercy of psychopathic con artist masquerading as religious leaders, public intellectuals, gurus, mystics, and life coaches with the definitive answers to all their questions immersed in the syrups of love and universal harmony, whatever this nonsense may mean.
Sorensen: Since for some reason, the notion of evil and inclination towards it, is at the base of everything, and therefore the necessary consequence of fear, guilt and punishment.
Jacobsen: Gentlemen, thanks so much for your time.
Sorensen: You are very welcome.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/22
One of the dumbest possible ways to conduct oneself as a group in a society, or as the leadership or a collective within a culture, is to start problems or act insensibly where no problems exist or sense would reason otherwise; within the context of the young life and times of Mubarak, this has happened precisely two major times against him. One time in 2014 with even the idiotic grandstanding psychopathy of Abubakar Shekau making open statements against Bala. This is an individual so far beyond the horror of the contexts described and the inequitable difficulties delineated around the world, by Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson, Bridgett Crutchfield/Bria Crutchfield, Mandisa Thomas, Liz Ross, Candace Gorham, Deanna Adams, Cecilia Pagan, Ingrid Mitchell, Lilandra Ra, Marquita Tucker, Mashariki Lawson-Cook, Rajani Gudlavaletti, Sonjiah Davis, and Sadia Hameed, and a number of other exceptional secular women deserving far more media coverage, interviews, references to professional work, and republication of materials (in part or whole) making their individual marks. Many who have supported him in international efforts.
Here’s Abubakar Shekau’s rap sheet: Through Boko Haram, he has displaced more than 2,000,000 people, killed 1,000s, while hundreds have been raped under the ideological banner of fundamentalist, militant Islam of Shekau, or Abu Mohammed Abubakar bin Mohammad al-Sheikawi. This excludes the massive decline from the Nigerian economy based on the transfer of resources to combat the militant group, the lives destroyed in the process through joining, being raped, killed, or displaced, or as dross in the midst of war, mayhem, and hiring for fighting religious fundamentalist lunatics (an extremely foolish or eccentric person).
The second time for Bala was in 2020. He and I were communicating on April 27, and were supposed to conducted several interviews on April 28, as we were talking on April 28. Then the communication went dead on the morning of the 28th. Obviously, he had been apprehended at that time. I went through the relevant documentation. It was clear. They had concocted a crock reason and then to make a lesson and a show of Bala gathered him and dragged him to Kaduna. Why? Probably, it is to appease religious fundamentalists in various parts of northern Nigeria with some emphasis on Kano.
We still don’t know the whereabouts of Bala; we still do not understand the formal process for the reasoning; we do not see the reason for apprehension by two non-uniformed police officers, dragging away to jail in under 24 hours, jailed in Kaduna, and then presumably jailed in Kano to an unknown location without a formal ability to see a lawyer. This was between April 28 and 29 for the ‘apprehension’ and jailing followed by the transfer to Kano. Bala could be dead or alive. Because, the Nigerian authorities and to some extent the media have been silent on these issues. Even when not silent, they’ve been conspicuously silent on the truth on these matters.
In that, they’ve simply lied. It makes one wonder. Why lie? On the religious proclaimed ethics, it is a sin to lie. On the journalism side, it is unethical to lie. In both contexts, it is a quotidian of untruth, falsity, every time Bala is not provided freedom or a fair, secular trial. Why not give him a fair trial? Why not let the public know the truth about his whereabouts and case? Why keep silent on this most important of issues of the life of a modern pillar of Humanism in Africa? If they wanted a fight (the one we didn’t want), they’ve got it; and, we’re not going to give up.
It has been 55 days since the illegitimate and unconstitutional (in Nigeria) apprehension of Bala. 55 days of a human rights violation for a prominent and known person in Nigeria and made notorious in 2014 because of atheist status, former Muslim, and humanist status. Why is this injustice being permitted in the hallowed halls of the police authorities, the coverage of the Nigerian media, and the legal and human rights mechanisms of Nigeria? Because he is prominent and rejects the common superstitions, denies the veracity of the storybooks in most Nigerian homes, and, the most recognizable social crime, being open about the lack of belief in them, even cutting and direct with the language. That’s why? It’s the reason for the charges against him by S.S. Umar & Co. It was the reason for the Change.Org campaign looking for 25,000 signatures. It was the reason for apprehension to make an example of him. And it could be the difference that makes or breaks the story of him here, because he believed, differently.
I ask Nigerian the faithful. If this is the context in which Nigerians live and remain willing to be silent and complicit on this matter, then the identical charge and actions could be made against Muslims in Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Osun, Ilorin and Sokoto or Christians in Abuja, Benin City, Calabar, Ibadan, Jos, Kaduna, Lagos, Onitsha, Owerri. If not for the sake of another human being endowed with the same human rights as everyone else, then why not for the sake of others throughout Nigeria who believe differently than you, or even the same as you? Bala’s case could become a long-term and large-scale precedent because of his prominence as a non-believer. What if this became the case for every single prominent believer who said something offensive to another believer from a different religion? What would happen to these individuals?
That’s the context in which Bala found himself. It is the environs in which the international humanist community finds itself in regards to the life or death, freedom or imprisonment, situation for Bala. It’s unfair, ungrounded, and a total violation of the Nigerian constitution and of the international human rights of Bala. We have support from ordinary, moderate believers of all stripes – just read social media – and from the international freethought collectives, including the national and local ones in Nigeria. Even in believers’ homes, there will be dissenters, just ask any parent. The fundamental issue is the freedom for Bala, as in the justice for Bala, and some recompense for him, too, because of the travails endured for almost two months of illegitimate, illegal actions and blatant human rights violations in the face of the pressure of religious fundamentalists in spite of the protestations of non-believers around the world and ordinary believers all over Nigeria.
Free Mubarak Bala.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/21
Secularism seems rife with popularizers, dilettantes, ‘keyboard warriors,’ and scientists. However, regarding formal researchers into the world of secularism and the divides and two-storey buildings of seculars and the religious, Dr. Phil Zuckerman is a rare individual who takes part in some extensive research into the worldviews and worlds of the “seculars,” the “Nones,” or those without a formal religious affiliation, which can be amorphous – gooey and vague – definitions of the non-religious. When he examined some of the results of the research, something noted within the research was the degrees to which, during a pandemic, faith-based belief systems and, thus, responses utterly failed to deliver on the divine promises. In fact, they worsened the circumstances.
“Back in mid-March, nearly 40 percent of congregants who attended services at a small church in rural Arkansas came down with COVID-19, and a few subsequently died. In April,” Zuckerman stated, “at least 70 people who attended a church in Sacramento caught the virus, and a pastor in Virginia who piously defied social distancing orders within his flock died from COVID-19.”
Amazing – God did not help the most dependent upon his succour. (Many turn out as suckers.) The most devoted, most devout, most dedicated, and the most likely to demise based on a formal belief in the saving grace of God Almighty and the power of prayer. Zuckerman went from Idaho Falls to Frankfurt to Cameroon to South Korea to Cameroon to Israel speaking on the devastation of religion and its ill-equipped worldviews in response to a once-in-a-century pandemic, especially in an era of high-tide science relative to prior history and the tools – and knowledge of in general terms – of the reasons for the disease and death: a virus; not demonic possession, for example.
“While most religious people, communities, and congregations have taken COVID-19 seriously and have followed recommended social distancing practices, many of those pushing hardest to denounce or limit social distancing are strongly religious,” Zuckerman explained, “The fact is, this pandemic has brought into stark relief the underlying differences between a staunchly secular worldview and a fundamentally religious worldview.”
A god who helps those who help themselves is a god who either does not exist or cares not to help those most giving in worship to this god, i.e., the god is either a sadist or an insensate. Your pick. In this, the naturally naturalists, or those who adhere to Naturalism – as in natural events following from prior natural events (on the macro scale), deny the supernatural and the ideas of the religious. The religions claim and the religious believe in a supernatural, otherworldly, order to the constituent portions of life, the universe, and everything.
If a pandemic happens, then the, almost, natural follow-through from a naturalist perspective is to look for functional, scientific procedures and empirically-informed policies to mobilizer actions against the proliferation of a, for instance, virus. In a supernaturalist framework, one can pray for help; angels may assist one; and, God may intervene in the affairs of the believer for the protection, for example, one’s flock and oneself, though this didn’t happen in rural Arkansas.
Zuckerman said, “The results of these different orientations can, sometimes, literally be matters of life and death. We see this in terms of the current COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the strongly secular are more likely to accept the findings and dictates of science while the strongly religious are more likely to ignore or distrust such empiricism, favoring instead faith”
He referenced by Brett Pelham, where, as per an obvious prediction from the data on religion & faith-based thinking versus secularism & scientific-based thinking, the highly religious parts of the United States were “markedly less likely to look up scientific advice regarding best-practices for staying safe…” Religious people aren’t stupid; religion enforces or motivates a worldview of ignorance, motivated not-knowing. The correlation held with education, so the mediating factor is religion.
“According to a recent report, those states that are providing the best support systems to protect their at-risk populations from COVID-19 tend to be the more secular states with lower rates of church attendance and faith in God—states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Maine—while those states with the worst support systems are nearly all states with highly religious cultures, such as Tennessee, Mississippi, and South Carolina,” Zuckerman said.
And yes, religious exemptions for social distancing furthered the poor outcomes of public health too. It held internationally too. Those more “secular populations and secular leaders” were more likely to “on average” perform better in terms of public health of their respective populations. This is not to deny the positive benefits of community and mental wellness coming from religion in the guise of community involvement and a feeling of solidarity and love with those around oneself. However, why do we need supernaturalism for this?
“To be sure, being religiously-involved has been correlated with many health benefits, especially in societies lacking a well-functioning welfare state that provides free and excellent health care to all citizens,” Zuckerman said, “For example, here in the U.S., people who attend church regularly tend to live longer and report lower stress levels. But what we see today is that the strongly religious appear to not be faring as well as the strongly secular in the face of this global pandemic.”
So, the real culprit is religion in general with hyper-religiosity, specifically; the issue is the extremes of religious belief leading to a denial of the obvious aspects of reality and hoping for some magical cure.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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A Roman Catholic Church bishop in Brooklyn, New York has been under investigation for allegations of sexual abuse. A second man has come forward with an allegation of abuse from the 1970s, where the priest, at the time in the 70s, was a parish priest in New Jersey.
Samier Tadros claims bishop Nicholas DiMarzio “repeatedly sexually abused” Tadros when he was 6-years-old, approximately. A March 9 letter from the lawyer for Tadros claimed this when sent to the attorney representative of the Archbishop of Newark.
The Associated Press reported, “DiMarzio has previously denied the accusations made by the first accuser. In a statement to The Associated Press, he also denied the accusation leveled by Tadros. ‘There is absolutely no truth to this allegation,’ he said. ‘This is clearly another attempt to destroy my name and discredit what I have accomplished in my service to God and His people.’
The attorney for DiMarzio is Joseph Hayden. Hayden, in an email, stated that they have uncovered “conclusive evidence” of the innocence of DiMarzio. However, The Associated Press was not permitted to see the evidence declared by Hayden, which leaves this as a strong claim without definite confirmation by independent journalists.
Pope Francis set forth new procedural guidelines in dealing with some cases under church law since last June, which has brought this particular case to the fore of the conversation around child sexual abuse and the Roman Catholic Church.
This is a powerful context for Americans. Because Roman Catholicism is the religion of Mel Gibson, Alexis Bledel, George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Al Pacino, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese, Mickey Rourke, Michael Moore, Bono, Alfred Hitchcock, Mark Wahlberg, Elijah Wood, Ennio Morricone, Abel Ferrara, Jessica Rey, Andy Warhol, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Adolphe Menjou, and so many others in Hollywood and other areas of prominence and influence in the United States of America.
“The procedures — known in Latin as Vos Estis Lux Mundi, or You are the Light of the World — were issued in an apostolic letter that addresses how the church will handle claims against bishops and other ranking church officials accused of abuse or covering it up,” The Associated Press stated, “The rules direct archbishops to lead the investigation of an accused bishop in his jurisdiction. In this case the archbishop of New York is Cardinal Timothy Dolan.”
One of the attorneys for the accusers of DiMarzio, Mitchell Garabedian, stated that Tadros decided to step forward and make his case after another now-57-year-old man named Mark Matzek came forward. Matzek made the same claim of sexual abuse as a youngster in the middle of the 1970s.
As of June 4, DiMarzio has denied the accusations against him. Now, the two men who are making the accusations, Matzek and Tadros, live in separate states and have never met, which can strengthen the claims against the bishop because of the independence of the evidence and the claims. Tadros is requesting $20 million in compensation with DiMarzio, according to Hayden, being firm of never accepting a settlement of the claims.
“Dolan has retained New York attorney John O’Donnell and the law firm of Herbert Smith Freehills to conduct the investigation. The firm in turn has hired a risk management company founded by former FBI director Louis Freeh to assist in the inquiry. Freeh was named in 2011 to lead an investigation into Pennsylvania State University and its handling of sex abuse claims against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, which led to a report critical of university officials,” The Associated Press reported.
With the new procedures of the Vatican, the investigation of Dolan will be submitted for review of the evidence and then there will be a recommendation to the current leader, Pope Francis. Dolan will not conduct the investigation himself, but will submit the investigation plus a vote in accordance with the new Vatican procedures. No conflicts of interest and impartial acting are required for the archbishop.
Dolan said, “Bishop DiMarzio, I mean, I love the guy. He’s a good friend… He’s never had an accusation against him in his whole life. But in November, somebody made an accusation from way, way, way, way, way, way back, 48 years or so ago. And as much as Bishop DiMarzio said, ‘This is preposterous, this is ridiculous, this is unjust,’ darn it, we have to take it seriously.”
With files from The Associated Press.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Mozart or Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart was a prolific composer of music. You love him, or the performances of the music. You mentioned Die Zauberflöte or “The Magic Flute.” Any further commentary on it?
Christian Sorenson: In my opinion, it is a musical composition loaded with “esoteric symbolism,” about which much can be speculated, but can hardly be deciphered.
Jacobsen: Now, there was some Freemasonic influence on the music. Is there any freemasonry background for you? I cannot shake the hand to be sure with the peculiar handshakes.
Sorenson: Depends on who asks…
Jacobsen: Are there any particularly trashy Mozart pieces? He couldn’t have made everything perfect with the music.
Sorenson: I estimate Mozart “did nothing perfect,” and in that sense it is necessary to distinguish between “mediocrity and perfection,” since “not being mediocre,” does not means unconditionally “something less perfect.” In relation to “Requiem,” which is its last composition, and to “Allegro Molto,” I feel there’s “something lacking.” Regarding the former, the reason was evident since it was left unfinished due to his death, but in relation to the last one, in my opinion there’s “a talent lack,” because both, the “musical notes wealth,” and “musical harmony,” are not evident as well as in the rest of the body of its musical work.
Jacobsen: Love and romance go hand-in-hand with music. We’re an auditory species for many emotions. Mozart, in fact, had trouble finding himself a partner, even Constanze was clumsily courted. As Seinfeld would say, “What’s the deal?” Why did he suck at this? It is one of those baffling aspects of highly intelligent people, even geniuses. There can be an attainment of the height of creative productions and the devilish failures in amour. It is as if the gods made a Faustian bargain with most of the great geniuses of ye olde worlde order. I could list a long scroll of names who admit to utter failures in romance while being amongst the most highly intelligent.
Sorenson: Indeed, “love and romanticism” go hand in hand with music, since these “are emotions,” and this last can “ignite and feed” them. Nevertheless, I believe that “romanticism and love” usually “don’t go hand in hand,” as occurred to Mozart and generally happens to geniuses, due to the fact that many times, though they are people “in love with love,” they instead “approach awkwardly” towards “the beloved” one, perhaps because they lack emotional and social skills, and therefore “fail in their attempt.” From my point of view, “romanticism is risky” in reason that “exacerbates love desire,” and this last brings as consequence the “evidence sign” of “love object non-existence.” If I could summarize it in one simple sentence, I would say that “to find love you better not talk about it.”
Jacobsen: Mozart’s music, it is almost a synesthetic experience. Why?
Sorenson: Because Mozart was a genius, and as geniuses we are able “to experience synesthetic experience,” and to produce in others that kind “of experiences,” since “our perceptions” are not always “fixed,” regarding to “perceptual organs” and to “supposed sensible objects” related to these.
Jacobsen: If we take music, live classical music, as a form of art, let’s say of Mozart, it’s a mix of three things. One of them is sound in minute ways in the manipulation of waves in air. Another is the visual presentation of the community of experts who play instruments – almost miraculous a primate species has been adapted to this purpose for the species enjoyment qua species enjoyment. A last is the, if close enough to the stage, the second acoustic resonance; the powerful resonance from the reverberations of the instruments on one’s body – truly remarkable. It is visual. It is auditory, primary and secondary forms. It is triggering for emotions. Emotions triggering certain memories, as keys unlocking feelings for emoting’s sake or for bringing forth, calling forward, buried moments of awareness. What are some other elements of the musical experience? How do the live performance and the recorded experience differ from one another?
Sorenson: The difference between both kinds of music, is similar to what occurs “when sucking a candy with or without its paper,” due to the way of approaching to it, and though it’s the same object, it leads to sensations that rather “oppose each other.” By listening to live music, what is lived is an “experience of real experience,” while doing it with recorded one, what arrives is the “experience of an inexistent experience.” In consequence, strictly speaking within the last “nothing is there” and our conscience is aware of it, meanwhile the former unlike this, possesses the “unpredictable and unexpected,” through which “uncertainty” of outcome is faced, in order to “increase emotionality” and to “trigger a pleasure chain,” associated with the “sensible experience” of “feeling nothingness.”
Jacobsen: For the unmeasurably gifted, such as yourself, what is the importance of intense emotionality to balance out the intense cognitive life?
Sorenson: “Emotional intensity” is an “intrinsic constitutive condition,” of being an “unmeasurable genius,” linked to the fact of possessing a very low “stimulus threshold” that leads in turn to be “hyperreactive” and “emotionally susceptible.” Therefore, this last “is necessary” as part of our life, but it “is not enough,” in itself for allowing us to achieve an adequate personal balance. Indeed, the latter will depend on the consequence fundamentally on the “quality and connotation” that “intensity within emotion” and “nature of emotions” adopt in order to achieve a “harmonic” and “stable balance.” Anyhow, we “are not balanced” precisely because everything “is balanced.”
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorenson: Thanks to you, and I hope I have “silenced the noise of the stones carried by the river.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Mubarak Bala is one of the most articulate and intelligent humanists in the world today. Not heard of much in the mainstream of some of the secular discourses for several reasons, as Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson has been noting for years, Humanism remains Euro-centric, as in Caucasian and Western culture; nothing wrong with either the ethnic groupings or the culture, but the over-emphasis can exclude other voices deserving a platform, due respect and dignity, and a presentation of a different side of problems, experiences, and, thus, manifestations of Humanism in order to make Humanism true to the universalist visions and aims of Humanism and humanists. Here’s the catch if you’re not aware: Bala is in jail.
Or so we think, he could be dead. We really don’t know. And that’s another reason for considering this a crime and a human right injustice (violation). As the innovator and freethinking leader of Nigeria, Dr. Leo Igwe, has noted repeatedly, there is a long-term trend of persecution of atheists and humanists throughout Nigerian society with one of the biggest manifestations in the northern parts of Nigeria, especially places like Kano because of the strong adherence to fundamentalist versions of Islam. Igwe and Bala are brilliant people. They’re extremely well-known and articulate, in life and word, humanists. There’s no doubt some fundamentalist believers are relishing this persecution of Bala. Many humanists, around the world mind you, are not enjoying this one bit.
As this is part of an ongoing series of opinion pieces, as with Igwe and several others, we won’t stop until there is justice for Bala. We’ve won the media war on a number of fronts. Don’t doubt international humanists’ resolve in this matter, the religious fundamentalist have messed up on all fronts in handling this case; if they want even a semblance of ass-covering, then one way in which to do this would be the release or fair trial in a secular court of Bala. Even in those cases, there would be failure on their parts. There’s only damage control left for this fundamental mistake on the part religious fundamentalists to try to subvert proper law and order, and international human rights, and the rights due to the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria as stipulated in the Nigerian constitution.
We didn’t want this campaign; we didn’t want this fight. It was thrust on the community based on the bigotry, fear, prejudice, and superiority complex inherent in some religious minds, usually fundamentalist, about the non-religious. For this post, I want to focus the penal code of Kano in brief. Because this was part of the longer article the day of the arrest of Bala, unjustly. S.S. Umar & Co. were the ones filing the complaint to the police from Kano about a Facebook post by Bala in Kaduna. Bala was dragged out of his own place of residence by two out of uniform cops and then placed in jail. This entire situation is unfair and should be openly condemned from the outset. I know moderate and ordinary Christians in southern Nigeria and moderate and ordinary Muslims in northern Nigeria know the justice due to Bala because of the outrageous acts being demanded in order to appease religious fundamentalists in northern Nigeria.
We have international humanist support. We have ordinary religious believers’ support. It is only a small minority of religious fundamentalist believers who have proclaimed themselves the arbiters of the faith for all Muslims, which, in and of itself, should be seen as, and probably is perceived as, a blasphemous act or behaviour within the conceptualization of the ordinary Muslims and Christians in northern Nigeria and southern Nigeria, respectively. Nigeria, technically, has a secular constitution; as a fundamental tenet of Humanism, in some regards, is a separation between religion and state, or faith and governance.
The Penal Code of Kano State has a subtext of being a Sharia law-based legal code in which religion becomes imposed on the entirety of the population of Kano while within a larger context of Nigeria’s secular or humanistic constitution. How is this not wrong? How is this not unfair and unjust, and illegal in some manner? Because it has a larger secular law for all and then a secondary religious law precisely for the religious only; a religious or faith-based law that many want to impose on Mubarak Bala in which a humanist, an atheist, and a former Muslim would be subject to the death penalty because of the religious zealots who a) cannot handle open criticism, b) cannot handle an open and extremely intelligent and articulate humanist, c) cannot handle a prominent leader within the humanist communities, and d) cannot handle a individual who uses freedom of expression guaranteed within the constitutional setup of Nigeria. This is, fundamentally, unjust and shall be challenged by humanists, whether Humanists International, or the Humanist Association of Nigeria, or individual activists like Dr. Sikivu Hutchison, Mandisa Thomas, and others.
There are towering figures like the aforementioned and Professor Anthony Pinn who have provided an in-depth and rich intellectual analysis and contextualization for comprehension of the issues facing us as humanists. It is useful here. And to all humanists young and old, how ever much they may make you feel unwelcome and as if you’re not deserving of and granted the same human rights as them, these are your societies and your global community and, therefore, your identical rights too.
As per the complaint from S.S. Umar & Co., they stated, Bala “publically [insulted] Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on his Facebook page contrary to Section 210 of the Penal Code of Kano State ad Section 26(1)(c) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibitions, Prevention, Etc.) Act of 2015.”
Cybercrimes (Prohibitions, Prevention, Etc.) Act of 2015 Section 26(1)(c) states:
26. (1) Any person who with intent –
(c) insults publicly through a computer system or network–
(i) persons for the reason that they belong to a group distinguished by race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion, if used as a pretext for any of these factors; or
(ii) a group of persons which is distinguished by any of these characteristics;
What does this complaint mean? It implies a dead man, a man six feet under (or purportedly in heaven), has been insulted. How can someone know this? By principle of parsimony, a more pragmatic interpretation is a select group of Muslims claiming to speak for all Muslims feel insulted over a Facebook post and, thus, declare this an insult to a dead man – leaving aside the idea of a religion being insulted.
I have seen on social media numerous death threats against Bala because he is an atheist (or a humanist and a former Muslim). In this, the real crime radar should be utilized to focus more rightly on real individuals making more than insulting claims and, in fact, declarations of public intent to murder against an individual because of a set of beliefs and a particular rejection of a systematized religious series of beliefs. Who is this justice system kidding? Bala should be released without question or given a fair trial in a secular court; otherwise, the logical implication, by the penal code and the cybercrimes bill would imply a far more grievous and larger set of open charges, by their own stipulations, of the need to jail and potentially charge numerous individuals proclaiming open harm against a living individual, Mubarak Bala.
Free Mubarak Bala.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (ISCIRF), akin to one supportive of Jehovah’s Witnesses argument in “Rights and Science: Persecution of and by Jehovah’s Witnesses” on the rights violations against the Jehovah’s Witnesses by the Russian Federation, “condemned” the increase in harsh prison sentences handed to the members of the “Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia.” The USCIRF is a bipartisan, independent federal government entity. It was established by the Congress in the United States for the analyzing, monitoring, and reporting of threats to religious freedom outside of the United States.
This does not negate the issues of the rejection of some medical treatments grounded in non-science or theological reasoning and premises, i.e., quoting scripture as the basis for rejection of a series of medical treatments, or the cover-up of child abuse for decades as in many other religious sects or denominations. It’s a mixed bag, as with many religions and religious groups. I know believers and non-believers alike realize this based on correspondence. However, one side wants only to condemn the religious believers’ poor blood transfusion policy and cover-up of child abuse; while, another only wants to focus on rights violations against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Both matter and reflect the complicated nature of many of these affairs.
To the right to freedom of belief, freedom of religion, and freedom of expression, Jehovah’s Witnesses have full rights to these, as with other Christians, or Hindus, Muslims, Jewish peoples, Native American spiritualists, and atheist, agnostics, Unitarian Universalists, and the like. Thus, the violation of the human rights of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is an important thing to stop in order for the free practice of religion for them.
The USCIRF focused on the harsh prison sentences, but this follows a long series of negative impacts on Jehovah’s Witnesses all over the Russian Federation. Take the case of Artem Gerasimov, who is a resident of occupied Crimea, he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment based on personal faith. Is this not unjust and unfair? It is based on fundamental rights to freedom of religion and belief. Yet, he is imprisoned because of it.
A few days after the last one on June 4 with Gerasimov; there was the June 9 case of a 61-year-old man named Gennady Shpakovsky to even more time at 6.5 years based on religious views and sharing religious views of others. Could this be applied to other religions, say the Russian Orthodox Church? It is unjust and unfair in and of itself. It should stop, as it should stop for others all around the world.
Commissioner Gary Bauer said, “Russia’s vicious targeting of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, guilty only of practicing their peaceful religious beliefs, clearly illustrates the government’s contempt for the international human rights treaties to which it is a party.”
The 2020 Annual Report from the USCIRF listed a recommendation to the State Department of the United States for the Russian Federation as a country of concern based on the repression – rights violations – of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other minority religious belief systems’ adherents.
Vice Chair Gayle Manchin stated, “The ongoing campaign against the peaceful Jehovah’s Witnesses is one of the many reasons why USCIRF considers Russia worthy of being designated a ‘country of particular concern’ for systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations… We sincerely hope that the State Department will reach the same conclusion later this year.”
With files from the USCIRF
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/15
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With some of the preliminary thoughts setting the groundwork, let’s delve into transgenderism and transsexuality, how would transssexuality be a fourth category in itself?
Christian Sorenson: Since in my opinion “transsexuals” have a “fe-male sexual orientation” regarding their “sexual self-identification outcomes,” and in relation to their “secondary sexual characteristics” that are “completely feminine-masculine,” as well as to their “sexual object elections” that are “markedly one or the other.” By analyzing them “comprehensively,” it is possible to sustain “functionally” speaking, that they are “exactly identical” to “men or women,” except for the fact that in their “primary sexual characteristics,” and “sexual karyotype” are “inverted.” If we place the “sexual characteristics set” on “a balance,” encompassing both, “biological and physical,” as well as “psychological” aspects, it’s possible “to deduce” and clearly “demonstrate,” in my opinion that “they definitely lean towards the opposite,” though strictly speaking “they are not what they seem to be.” Nevertheless, by “identifying transsexuality” to “man-woman categories” as “original genders,” “an absolute injustice” and “complete reality denial” are induced.
Jacobsen: How would transsexuality become part of transgenderism?
Sorenson: Through “a conversion factor” analogous to that used for “transgenders,” that is to say as these last in my opinion become a gender of “special woman” and of “special man,” more commonly known as “transgender women” and “transgender men,” since they are “transformed” through “an externally intervened” process, it could be possible to “extrapolate” that logic regarding “transsexuals,” due to the reason that with them it would occurred exactly the same, except for the fact that their “conversion process” does not regards “to any external intervention” which could consist of “cutting something over their bodies.”
Jacobsen: Why do some religious traditions mentioned – Christianity and Islam – impose concepts so strongly on community?
Sorenson: Because they are “so sexually attracted” and “tempted” by transsexuals and transgenders that “they can’t hold back.”
Jacobsen: What is a man?
Sorenson: From my point of view, is somebody who “always” carries “an Y chromosome,” and who regarding its “sexual orientation,” and its “sexual object election,” is “behaviorally” speaking at some point along “a continuum” between two “extreme tendencies” that I will denominate respectively as “absolutely heterosexual pole” and “absolutely homosexual pole.” Additionally in my opinion, due to “its simplistic nature,” it could be said that excepting “sexual functions,” usually man tends “not to be able” to relate with “woman.”
Jacobsen: What is a woman?
Sorenson: Is someone who “never” carries “an Y chromosome,” and that “behaviorally” speaking, in relation to “sexual orientation” and “sexual object election,” is somewhere between two “extreme tendencies” that I will denominate respectively as “absolutely homosexual pole” and “absolutely heterosexual pole.” From my point of view, due to “its complex nature” and to the fact that woman is similar to “a paper sheet, since use to tolerates everything,” it could be said that excepting “reproductive functions,” generally its relationship with “man,” tends to “be incompatible.”
Jacobsen: What is a “pseudo-man”?
Sorenson: It is a “genetically biploid” man in relation to “chromosome X,” and its “primary and secondary sexual” characteristics are “feminine” in appearance.
Jacobsen: What is a “pseudo-woman”?
Sorenson: It is a “genetically monoploid” woman in relation to “chromosome X,” who does not have its “primary and secondary sexual” characteristics well developed, and therefore has “a childlike” appearance.
Jacobsen: What integrates the primary sex characteristics, secondary sex characteristics, and “psychological sexual orientation”?
Sorenson: In my opinion, the “sexual appetite intensity,” associated with the “unconscious sexual object election,” and “its triggering function,” as “a sexual desire object.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/13
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Speaking of acoustic tolerance, or, rather, acoustics, if we’re looking at the output of human beings, we’re auditory in terms of direct communication, more so in terms of, hopefully, conscious intent. Whereas, there can be a first-level superficial non-verbal language with the body, probably. But at the level of the spoken word, there is a sense in which the quality of speech is a great indicator of the quality of the mind. Not in all cases, but it’s a good heuristic, I’ve found. Have you found the same?
Christian Sorenson: In fact, I would distinguish “three levels” of communication in relation to language, respectively one “non-verbal or corporal,” and two others that I will denominate as “analog and digital verbal.” In my opinion, although the three of them will be given simultaneously, the “non-verbal and analog” ones, would provide an “implicit formal symbolic” message regarding to the latter, while the “digital” is going to contribute with a content that at the same time, is “symbolically explicit” in its “significativity” and “symbolically implicit” within its “significativeness.”
Jacobsen: Back to acoustics, a good mind is often referred to as a sound mind, as in, “He is of sound mind.” It is the use of an auditory term to describe a balanced intelligence. If anything, the world needs far more balanced intelligence and, as Evangelos Katsioulis correctly notes in an interview with also another smart person, Erik Haereid, humility. My sensibility is such that the world appears off-kilter with exaggerations in both some narrow applications of intelligence and in the ego. A sort of pseudo-Asperger’s Syndrome unhealthily combined with borderline narcissism (not formal NPD) en masse. What do you think the world needs?
Sorenson: First of all I believe that it is necessary to refer “more precisely” to “narcissistic personality disorder,” since this is a “diagnostic category” that as such, exists in the “Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM-IV) of the “American Psychiatric Society,” which requires the “objective presence” of at least five symptoms within a series of other ten, in order to determine “its effective clinical existence.” In this sense, one of these would be the appearance of “overrated ideas about oneself,” which alone in itself is not a sufficient element to establish categorically this “diagnosis.” What follows from the above, therefore is that when speaking of “narcissism,” it must be distinguished beforehand what “are traits” from what is actually a true “personality disorder” of this nature. In relation to Katsioulis premise regarding “balanced intelligences,” it seems to me that it’s an “attractive and apollonian” proposal, though at the same time it is “not sensibly grounded” to reality, due to the fact that in its deep meaning it is an “absolutely fallacious explanation” in relation to what “exceptionally high intelligences” should be. Indeed, the vast majority of problems in the world lay on some kind “of imbalance,” but this has little to do with what “intelligence” is, because in itself “exists no function regarding any balance.” In other words, its “only and exclusive” property has to do with “knowing objectives” and behalf to “beings reality.” Then “homeostatic resources,” must be sought somewhere else, as for example may occur within “personality and characterological” factors. Another is the situation related to “correlations,” between “intelligence” and the two aforementioned, since in that case is possible to talk about the so-called “harmful imbalances.” In reason of this last, it’s factible to found an almost “perfect correspondence,” but “inversely proportional” due that its value is minus one. Using other terms, “When higher is the balance lack, then lower is the degree of intelligence found.” By this way, within “extremely high intelligences,” there is in fact an “implicit prevalence imbalance,” yet has to do with an “opposite co-valence” in its value, because “geniuses” in their most “original and proper essence,” are “rupturist” and therefore “misunderstood” socially speaking, cause they usually “live out of canons” and “ahead of their time.” Consequently and even though the latter leads to what I will name as an “auto-hetero mis-comprehension,” which is obviously linked to “disagreement arising” within themselves and with society, as ultimately “destabilization” also arrives, in some manner “anyway and anyhow,” they always reach “valuable results,” which “sooner or later” in time, will be “socially rescued” as “unique and necessary contributions,” since lastly “nobody, but except themselves” have been capable to arrive there, to that point. In another sense, it could also be said that “geniuses” unlike the rest of humanity, “acoustically speaking,” not only “are able to hear,” but besides also “are skillful for listening” other “registers of reality” that shouldn’t be accessible not even for highly intelligent ones. In my opinion, by striving to understand this last, and perhaps by trying “to socially harmonize” each other, yet nevertheless without “de-profiling” or “turning-off” their “alma mater,” we may arrive to something “substantially” speaking more relevant, and less absurd for the world. That is instead of pushing efforts towards “to fit them” into “Gaussian Bells,” in function of “self-complacency” and “self-recognition” complexes of some, in which they “sell cough syrups without being aware that they are made of herbs.”
Jacobsen: You mentioned Mozart in another interview. He simply sounds joyful to hear, often. What do you think is behind that phenomenon?
Sorenson: I would say that at the base of Mozarts compositions, there is a “free and creative spontaneity” that “goes beyond all establishments,” and leads to “harmonious melodies,” since when they’re transmitted into “musical scores,” they produce afterwards a “joyful and pleasant” circulation of energy.
Jacobsen: What do you believe is behind Mozart as a genius?
Sorenson: I feel there is an “irreverent and vitalist spirit” that ironizes with “canons status quo maxims,” and “mocks of enlightened minds.”
Jacobsen: If Mozart lived on into old age and died of more slow natural causes, what do you think would be a culmination of the works for him? In other words, what do you think that we missed out?
Sorenson: I “do not believe” that “he or his work,” would have been very different, and therefore I feel that “rather than having lack of something” that we did not see, what we actually lost “was the continuity of what he showed and taught.” In this sense, it could be said that Mozart always lived like “an eternal child,” who played and enjoyed “turning the world upside down.”
Jacobsen: When dealing with someone “evil” or “bad,” etc., we can feel a sense of disharmony, of something not quite right. Do you think there could be an analogous application of auditory metaphors to the forms of disunity of mind and behaviour leading to bad people in addition to the sense that we have about hose people?
Sorenson: I will denominate that sensation of “dis-harmony” and “dis-unity” as “evils aesthetic defects.” The “metaphor” of when listened would be similar to “rape feelings” as if it was “an imaginary phallus,” that in turn is “invested” by some kind of “implicit aggressive knowledge,” since in its meaning “does not distinguish” “the border” that exists between “knowledge and truth,” due to the fact that both “appear identified,” within the message. Therefore also, “unlike someone else” or rather said “better than anyone else,” “leaves no room for reasonable or methodological doubts,” and in consequence by being the only one “who knows that knows,” and “actually is knowing what is truly good for somebody,” uses language as a “seduction tool” for its own benefits, and with the sole purpose “of perverting through conviction,” as if it was “a “flipping” or somehow as if “a tapestry was put on its back.”
Jacobsen: Maybe, this is a general sentiment. When things exist autonomously through time, progress as if by nature herself, it’s a signal of things being set right rather than being built to fail. I suppose this could be a survival advantage. In fact, there might be some clues. Most people who have formal Narcissistic Personality Disorder a) leave a trail destruction behind them and b) tend to live life alone or end up alone if they haven’t ended up that way already. And people feel something is off about them (rightly). This seems like an embodied consciousness thing. Do you think this will make reconstruction in an artificial intelligence more difficult when it comes to intuition, sensibilities, and sentiments about disharmonies in all sorts of ways?
Sorenson: I believe that such forms “of consciousness” certainly are going to be more difficult to be reconstructed as “artificial intelligence.” At the same time, however I feel that by this it would be an excellent way to test if whether human beings actually “possess any spirit or not,” since strictly speaking almost everything, including “consciousness,” could theoretically be “symbolically encoded” and eventually “translated” into “artificial intelligence,” that yes, except if this “insight capacity” is of “a spiritual nature.”
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorenson: You are welcome, and I hope that “the spirit of time” continues accompanying us.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/09
As has been happening at a concerning and increasing rate over the last several years, the Russian Federation continues with its persecution and crackdown on Jehovah’s Witnesses. This can take the form of raids as happened in 2019, as reported by Human Rights Watch in “Persecution Against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia Escalates.”
It happens in home searches, interrogations, and harassment, as covered in “Russia: Sweeping Arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses” by Human Rights Watch once more. Kudos to their efforts in covering human rights violations.
According to the Moscow Times reportage in “Russia ‘Escalating’ Jehovah’s Witnesses Crackdown – HRW” on some of the persecution of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with the labeling by the Russian Supreme Court of the Jehovah’s Witnesses as an “extremist” organization in 2017, 313 people had been estimated, by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, to have been charged or convicted (circa January 10, 2020). There are a lot of stories of persecution and damage to lives coming out now, whether towards the Jehovah’s Witnesses from crackdowns, or from the Jehovah’s Witnesses towards child abuse survivors from members followed by cover-ups or deaths following from theological policies on blood transfusions.
In late June of 2018, Rachel Denber, deputy Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said, “The Jehovah’s Witnesses are simply peacefully exercising their right to freedom of religion… The Jehovah’s Witness faith is not an extremist organization, and authorities should stop this religious persecution of its worshipers now.”
Denber is right; the Jehovah’s Witnesses are correct to practice religion freely. The moral sentiment seems just now. In that the human rights of Jehovah’s Witnesses are violated as a community of belief and practice, one largely keeping enclosed, though with some proselytizing, when Russian authorities come and raid worshippers, harass believers, and label them as an “extremist” group carte blanche.
As per the international rights frameworks of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have the right to freedom of religion and freedom of belief. The crackdowns coming from the Russian authorities during peaceful gatherings for worship violate these rights. At the same time, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have garnered a mixed reputation. Internally, many hopefuls wish for Armageddon. For others who have left, there is a different view, whether a more modern scientific and rationalistic viewpoint or another ancient supernaturalistic religious take on reality. Those different views can come in a variety of forms, including prominent voices.
As seen in some of the anti-Watchtower writings of former Jehovah’s Witness Mark O’Donnell, also known by the pseudonym John Redwood (who left the faith at the age of 46), at JWSurvey who has covered some of the child abuse examples and sexual abuse instances within court cases [Ed. “Jehovah’s Witnesses Reject Plasma Injections for COVID-19” updated with the source, author, article title, and hyperlink to relevant quotation on June 8.]. Or the general cases of blood transfusion leading to the deaths of thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses (see “Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood – Tens of Thousands Dead in Hidden Tragedy” by Lee Elder”), or in the exposure work of Douglas Quenqua in The Atlantic article entitled “A Secret Database of Child Abuse” (Kimberly O’Donnell/Kimmy O’Donnell & Mark O’Donnell are covered here, too), the complaints have been numerous from a wide range of actors on the issues within the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
As with any religious group with supernatural beliefs, the behaviours within the community and with the natural world can be eccentric, e.g., belief in the supernatural or the coming of an Armageddon, and, sometimes, damaging to the health of community members, e.g., rejection, by and large, of blood transfusions. Although, there are some groups such as Advocates for Jehovah’s Witness Reform on Blood (AJWRB) led by Lee Elder (Director) who work towards reform, which, probably, comes with significant backlash and condemnation against him and the AJWRB.
With blood transfusions, one can see some of the statements on the Jehovah’s Witnesses website under the article entitled “Why Don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses Accept Blood Transfusions?” The article points to what they deem myths and facts. One of those stipulated as a myth is not believing in medicine or medical treatments. However, within the frame of the article on blood transfusions themselves, the denial of blood transfusions is a denial of a medical treatment, not all, obviously. Thus, it is a self-defeating article (once again, grounded in theology).
The justifications given are not scientific or medical. They are religious. This is posed as a medical issue, at root, rather than the reality of the presentation of biblical quotes making this really posed as a religious issue. Thus, the denial of a medical treatment, which is a denial of medicine in part, emerges out of a theological or a religious doctrine, or background, with quotations from a religious series of storybooks, i.e., no better than air on matters of empirics and science, especially in the modern world.
“Both the Old and New Testaments clearly command us to abstain from blood,” the website states, “(Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:10; Deuteronomy 12:23; Acts 15:28, 29) Also, God views blood as representing life. (Leviticus 17:14) So we avoid taking blood not only in obedience to God but also out of respect for him as the Giver of life.”
Even in the article “What Does the Bible Say About Blood Transfusions?“, the medical orientation on the blood transfusions of the Jehovah’s Witnesses becomes theological once more, i.e., theological posed as scientific or as medical science, which isn’t how medicine or science work. As they state:
Genesis 9:4. God allowed Noah and his family to add animal flesh to their diet after the Flood but commanded them not to eat the blood. God told Noah: “Only flesh with its soul—its blood—you must not eat.” This command applies to all mankind from that time on because all are descendants of Noah.
Leviticus 17:14. ”You must not eat the blood of any sort of flesh, because the soul of every sort of flesh is its blood. Anyone eating it will be cut off.” God viewed the soul, or life, as being in the blood and belonging to him. Although this law was given only to the nation of Israel, it shows how seriously God viewed the law against eating blood.
Acts 15:20. ”Abstain . . . from blood.” God gave Christians the same command that he had given to Noah. History shows that early Christians refused to consume whole blood or even to use it for medical reasons.
…God commands that we abstain from blood because what it represents is sacred to him.—Leviticus 17:11; Colossians 1:20.
If we quoted books from Mormons or the Scientologists, would this make the practice any more substantiated? Even on the issues of simple medical treatments, the references in “Can a Christian Accept Medical Treatment?” come back to a series of sacred texts or storybooks comprised of miracles and tall tales, which was written and re-written in a truly pre-scientific era without the proper comprehension and application of medicine and medical technology seen in the modern day. The collection of books is, at a minimum, outdated and, thus, completely ill-equipped to provide medical and scientific recommendations.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses in “Why Don’t Jehovah’s Witnesses Accept Blood Transfusions?” assert the following myth and fact dichotomy:
Myth: Many Witnesses, including children, die each year as a result of refusing blood transfusions.
Fact: This statement is totally unfounded. Surgeons regularly perform such complex procedures as heart operations, orthopedic surgery, and organ transplants without the use of blood transfusions. * Patients, including children, who do not receive transfusions usually fare as well as or better than those who do accept transfusions. * In any case, no one can say for certain that a patient will die because of refusing blood or will live because of accepting it.
One can ignore the general biblical prescriptions or interpretation of the Bible asserted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses from before in this myth and fact presentation. In that, there can be the application of some of the rigorous scientific examinations of the health or mortality outcomes of individuals who function in accordance with the medical (theological) recommendations of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is, at least, better because it is on more substantive grounds than simply quoting the Bible.
AJWRB Science Adviser Marvin Shilmer and Dr. Osamu Muramoto, M.D. (AJWRB Medical Adviser) examined some of the medical evidence. It was presented in “Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood – Tens of Thousands Dead in Hidden Tragedy” by Lee Elder. He looked at the deaths caused as a result of the blood policies of the Jehovah’s Witnesses based on the expert analysis of Shilmer and Muramoto (Numbers below.)
Elder, in response to the same “myth and fact dichotomy” note, stated, “What evidence does the Watchtower point to in support of this claim? Beyond some studies about bloodless surgery, none that we could find.”
So, the major issue is not simply the dramatic life-and-death circumstances of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in medical circumstances. Those dramatic moments of medical peril. Rather, the issues come from “severe trauma, childbirth complications, and chronic diseases of the blood for which no effective substitutes for a blood transfusion exist,” as Elder described, “…the major killer of Jehovah’s Witnesses who are observing Watchtower’s blood policy is anemia. It is an inescapable fact that when the cells of the body fail to receive oxygen for more than just a few minutes, cell death begins to occur. Jehovah’s Witnesses are very misinformed about this, with most believing that blood and blood products amount to dangerous, even reckless medical treatment.”
People could get blood transfusions, do not, and then, because of some who adhere strictly to the theological tenets on blood, die. While Elder notes the Watchtower Society considers the position on blood transfusions as biblical, we should admit the obvious and glaring fact of the matter: These issues would not arise if we simply chalked the Bible up to storybooks rather than the holy scripture of the Lord of Lords, King of Kings.
The best medical treatments – completely unknown and unavailable at the times of the biblical authors – would simply be brought into a more comprehensive series of considerations. “Do no harm” could be more adequately applied in these circumstances, because biblical justifications would not impede the potential for consideration of the full arsenal of medical science to save lives over decades (How many? See below.).
Indeed, if we did not have to contend with some forms of selective religious fundamentalism, many patients in desperate need with some of the aforementioned chronic cases would be alive today. But they aren’t; they’re dead. The Watchtower position is based on air or a series of quotations from an ancient collection of interesting books asserted as God’s truth. Duly note, there can be a significant element of coercion within fundamentalist religious communities, too. (Also, if one wishes to see some more research on destructive cults, they can investigate the work of Steven Hassan, Robert Jay Lifton, Rick Alan Ross, and the late Margaret Singer.)
As Elder stated:
… they offer nothing substantive to support their partial ban on blood beyond vague scriptural references to not eating blood. Members are required to support whatever the current policy is, and JW children are also taught the importance of compliance from a very young age. Even non JW family members may be compelled into following Watchtower’s policy, and indoctrination is so complete, there is often significant levels of compliance among former JW’s.
Additionally, failure to comply will result in extreme shunning by other JW members, and lifelong friends who will be prohibited from eating a meal or even speaking to the non-compliant JW who does not follow the policy, or even questions it for that matter. This intrusion into the personal lives of members amounts to coercive control or undue influence, and makes free and informed consent practically impossible… Well meaning physicians and hospitals often fail to comprehend these complex issues, and unwittingly participate in JW’s martyring themselves, and their adolescent children.
Even in spite of the deserved empathy for Jehovah’s Witnesses for the non-sense committed against them by the Russian Federation authorities following from the decision of the Russian Supreme Court, and their right to exercise freedom of religion and freedom of belief based on secular international rights frameworks, there are justifiable condemnations based on the long-term cover-up of child abuse, including child sexual abuse, for decades as represented in the work of Douglas Quenqua and Mark O’Donnell (including survivors like Kimmy O’Donnell), and the staggering number of deaths following from purported prescriptions or normative biblical principles of God.
Elder, once more, in “Jehovah’s Witnesses and Blood – Tens of Thousands Dead in Hidden Tragedy,” stated, “As noted above, Dr. Muramoto rounded down the actual increase in mortality from 1.4% to 1%. If we use the 1.4% mortality rate (the actual conclusion reached by Kitchens) this results in casualties that are 40% higher: 1708 deaths caused by Watchtower’s blood policy in 2016, and a total of 46,544 deaths between 1961-2016.”
46,544 people needlessly dying (more, in fact, since it’s middle of 2020). 313 needlessly charged and convicted based on Russian crackdowns – more harassed, raided, and so on. Numerous child abuse survivors without justice for decades.
State autocracy crushes religious freedom while theology trumps medicine, again. Both should be reversed in substantive ways, i.e., respecting international secular human rights, in the former, and leaving science and medicine to science and medicine rather than vague scriptural references and theology, in the latter.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/08
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In the last session, we covered some of the basic definitions and metrics of intelligence. Let’s touch some more on some of these things, also, for those who do not know, as of only a 2 or 3 years ago, you score 185+ S.D. 15 on one of the two most reliable and valid mainstream general intelligence tests in the world. First, what was the test? Only one other person on a mainstream test with a listed score at 185 S.D. 15 on the World Genius Directory is Kirk Kirkpatrick. So, alternative tests are the norm rather than the exception, which should raise caution for the general public too. Never believe a claim as to the highest IQ score in the world; however, certainly, one can keep in mind the highest measured on this or that test, or among the highest at some cut-off. The Titan Test of Dr. Ronald Hoeflin has been considered the or among the most rigorous high-range tests in existence. Kevin Langdon is respected by Dr. Hoeflin based on statements to me, in a public interview. Rick Rosner earned a perfect score on it. However, there are far more other real-world proxies for high-intelligence with more practical or pragmatic use, of course.
Christian Sorenson: I have never been interested in intelligence measurements since I feel that I have more important things to spend my time on, nor do I need to prove something to myself, neither anything to anyone else. Besides, I have heard enough from my childhood regarding that “I am great genius.” In fact this last, “is a phrase” that my mother was very scared of, because she was already told about it, from the pediatrician and my nursery school teachers, onwards. Indeed, I was tested a couple of years ago, for circumstantial reasons, with David Wechsler’s Intelligence Scale of General Intelligence for Adults Form R (WAIS-R). For example, Evangelos Katsioulis was also tested with exactly the same test (WAIS-R), and earned on it 180+ sd15 [Ed. This is true, thus two names with Katsioulis and Kirkpatrick. I have interviewed both.]. Regarding me, I earned “a perfect score,” of 185+ sd15, which means that my IQ in function to this standard deviation is above 185, that’s to say without knowing exactly “how much above” of it, it is.
Jacobsen: What was the context of prior test scores and this test score?
Sorenson: Prior, it was in school during 3rd grade, and also with Wechsler’s Scale, but for children (WISC). I earned also “a perfect score” with 180 sd15. The context at that time, was because the school headmaster talked with my parents, since they wanted that I finish high school before being ten years old. Regarding my last evaluation a couple of years ago, it was because my wife asked me to.
Jacobsen: What is the statistical rarity of this score?
Sorenson: For over 185 sd15, is at least about one each two hundred three million persons.
Jacobsen: What are some comparable statistical rarities for such a score?
Sorenson: For example, profound mental retardation with an IQ score less than 20 sd15.
Jacobsen: If we take into account this rarity, we can add a plus (“+”) sign after it, as you hit the ceiling of the test, i.e., any reliable measurement beyond that point is mere extrapolative uncertainty about the general intelligence score for you. However, with this sense of outlier in the extreme nature on a mainstream test, what has this meant in academic and personal life for you? Also, the coming to terms with the world, which will think slower and less comprehensively and, more often, come to incorrect conclusions about the nature of the world within relevant expertise. While, at the same time, high-IQ can lead to particular forms of irrationality based on some more recent research, which can come with more robust or elaborate justifications for bizarre theoretical frameworks. Based on personal observation, one can see this in some Jesuit intellectuals with abstract theological hypothesizing based on ancient storybooks called The Bible.
Sorenson: Being straight with my “personal appreciation,” what I would first of all dare to say, is that “academic and intellectualoid” environments or settings, are not pleasant to me, since “I get bored with them,” and “they give me a big headache,” with “their simpleton mental approaches” to the world of knowledge, and with “their bragging and childish competitiveness,” for trying to show off “academic degrees and clumsy levels of basic brilliant intelligence.” In life in general, my extreme intelligence, has brought me more problems than anything else, among other reasons, because usually others perceive me as someone strange, and my supposed “scathing and ironic attitudes” makes them pissed off. Jesuit intellectuals actually don’t surprise me at all, since I believe that “instead of writing something reasonable,” they are more concerned to write things “for not being understood by anyone.”
Jacobsen: There is a longstanding tradition of wanting to catalogue and mark out genius and high intelligence in history and in the present. There are many, dead and alive, individuals acknowledged as highly bright if not unassailably brilliant, including the late technology giant Paul Allen, the late hybrid and perseverant cripple Stephen Hawking, the late forced prodigy John Stuart Mill, the late Francis Galton, the eccentric Rick Rosner/Richard Rosner, Judit Polgar or the Polgar sisters altogether, model-chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen or his teacher the great Garry Kasparov, the practical and reasonable advice-giving greatest living philosopher of the everyday Marilyn vos Savant, the Greek former wunderkind with the formerly super long hair Evangelos Katsioulis, the isolationist mathematician Andrew Wiles, the former prodigy Edith Stern, the heir to Einstein Edward Witten, the scientific skeptic Tim Roberts, the prodigy Jacob Barnett, the titan – so to speak – of the high-range test creator world Ron Hoeflin/Ronald Hoeflin or another person who earned respect with tests Kevin Langdon, the tragically anti-Semitic Bobby Fischer, the high-range high-scorer Mislav Predavec, the dual-Nobel Prize-winning Marie Curie, the only other mainstream 185 S.D. score on the World Genius Directory American Kirk Kirkpatrick, the Republican Mega Society member John H. Sununu, Kevin Langdon, the polymath Steven Pinker, the brilliant author Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, the late ancient heavy-hitter critic of religion Hypatia, the awkward and ultra-bright mainstream physicist Christopher Hirata, the late polymath Leonardo da Vinci, the great potentially arrogant composer Mozart, the greatest architect of sound (Glenn Gould assessment) Bach, the degree-based prodigy Michael Kearney, the tragic William James Sidis, the late Solomon Golomb, the multi-certified former prodigy Sho Yano and his sister Sayuri Yano, the unpleasant math-mind plugged into the mechanics of the universe Isaac Newton, or the more pleasant Einstein, the stratospheric Goethe, etc., and a wide range of others of some prominence or not. There is a common sentiment of wanting to catalogue. When I worked with Manahel Thabet on a variety of projects, it was a similar sentiment. Her colleague in Dubai who, in fact, originally came from British Columbia, where I live, was working on and developed his own listing of the brightest in the world. Why is this such a robust trend?
Sorenson: This “strong tendency” to “catalog and study geniuses,” brings in mind the image of “hominumlogics,” similar to the zoo, that existed in times of Leopold III, during early nineteenth century in Brussels. At that time, they brought “specimens” of Congo “for placing them in cages,” in order to be visited by “Victorian public, who was avid to browse” the behavior of “these exotic animals in captivity.” Leaving aside “bars and cages,” it seems to me that it is quite familiar to “morbid feelings” that exists toward geniuses.
Jacobsen: What is the point of counting a point here or a point there at the upper limits of human intelligence to differentiate in a micro fashion at the hardest to differentiate levels?
Sorenson: In my opinion, this “measuronditic syndrome” or tendency, does not make any sense, except that of many evaluated individuals “to exhibiting their superior micro-intelligence differences “in relation to others.” In “qualitative and methodological terms,” the fundamental theme in order “to differentiate intelligence degrees,” is regarding “its range,” and not in relation to their “discrete values.” Actually I believe, that this “exhibitionist-voyeurist phenomenon” that is expressed by many, is attributable in its etiology to “a penis neid.”
Jacobsen: Obviously, with more cognitive horsepower, there is more mental room to carve out unique mental landscapes. So, we will have more eccentric and strange outcomes or outputs, behaviourally and mentally, from the minds at the highest levels. What are typical ways of these minds going awry?”
Sorenson: I feel they are “mental rides” that go in “a simple opposite direction of logic” and in addition through an “unexpected way,” but that nevertheless “makes sense,” and for that reason “surprises.”
Jacobsen: How can societies foster excellence at the highest levels?
Sorenson: Improving “genetic crosses.”
Jacobsen: What would a future society incorporating all manner of genius require to flourish?
Sorenson: That kind of “Sanhedrin,” would be “a unique society,” since it should be the closest thing to “an empty set.”
Jacobsen: As noted before, for those who want a community, Mensa International, Intertel, Triple Nine Society, Prometheus Society, and Mega Society are listed as the most reliable high-IQ societies via Wikipedia filtration. Yet, most of societies’ talented never go well-used or even flourish in some minimal level – let alone self-actualize, whether individually or in some larger sense noted before within a larger communal context. Many have noted the mostly failure of the high-IQ societies and most acting as a form of social club (nothing wrong with that!). What can the public keep in mind in being cautious with fake, disingenuous, inflated, and cult-like or outright cult genius?
Sorenson: I think that first of all is necessary “to put an eye” in those communities that have “extremely high” cut-offs, and numerous members with “stratospheric scores.” Secondly with ones that do “shameless business” with fees and others, and thirdly in some that are sustained by presidents who are “amateur psychometrists” or psychometrist due “to infused science” and therefore publish high-range tests as if they were “spores.”
Jacobsen: What is the future of genius in a high-technology, advanced app/software, and artificial intelligence-infused world in which genius and high-intelligence becomes externalized and enhanced, i.e., becomes cheap and commonplace in some sense?
Sorenson: With regard to individuals with “high intelligence” I think that with the development of technology, in fact they will be transformed into “cheaper and more expendable or replaceable resources.” Maybe this “moderately gifted” could “be up-graded” thanks to artificial intelligence, and therefore become in what “they crave the most,” that is to say into “geniuses.” Anyhow, in relation to “geniuses,” and leaving aside what could be a “romantic pink novel,” I do not believe that the situation will change much in function “to what history has been up to now.” In this way, they will continue to be “socially marginalized,” and probably will keep on going through this world “without leaving any trace.” Society since human being decided “to be gregarious” and live “in community,” has transformed itself into “a closed system,” and for this reason, like any other system with “hermetic characteristics,” will always perceive “change in depth” as “a threat,” and therefore “will resist to accept it,” by developing “compensatory mechanisms” and through “removing” what puts “its stability at risk.” “Geniuses” for their part, regarding society, do not know how to do anything other, but to “constructively criticize” it mediating “unique innovative contributive solutions.” In consequence in my opinion, it is “logically” and “metaphysically” impossible, that they could reach now or in the future, other else than “a virtual space,” and to be “reasonably valued” in society, since both of them “operate with diametrically opposed dynamics,” and for that reason are “incompatibles” between each other.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorenson: Thanks to you for your “acoustic tolerance.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/08
The longstanding controversy over Cardinal George Pell took a turn with an overturn based on the High Court decision. One of the fathers of an alleged victim stated that he is “struggling to comprehend” the decision of the High Court to overturn the convictions, recently.
With the overturn decision of the High Court, Pell was released as a free man. The High Court earlier overturned the former treasurer of the Vatican’s convictions for both sexual assault and indecent assault against Pell, acquitting him unanimously. In Australia, thousands of sexual abuse claims have come forward over recent years from alleged survivors at the hands of Catholic priests or religious brothers while in Catholic institutions for many of the alleged assault incidents.
Phil Nagle claims Christian brother Stephen Frances Farrell assaulted him at the age of 9-years-old. Nagle is a known personality in the media on some of these issues in Australia. The Christian Brothers are a religious community within the Catholic Church. It has been wrapped up in sexual abuse scandals as an organizational community within Catholicism. Whether priests or Christian brothers, the sex abuse scandals have continued to rock much of the Catholic Church for years and years now.
When Nagle heard the verdict on Pell, he said, “Absolute shock first, then disbelief and then confusion about the court system… The Catholic Church will always defend the brand – it’s a very damaged brand now, as we know – but that’s the way they do it…You look at how much money they’ve thrown behind this Cardinal Pell thing and every court case.”
A father of an alleged victim, who died in 2014, of Pell issued a statement that he no longer maintains faith in the criminal justice system in the country. Tony Abbot, former prime minister and a supporter of Pell, stated that the verdict should speak for itself. Other supports of Pell include high-profile politicians, including former prime minister John Howard.
Pell stated, “I have consistently maintained my innocence while suffering from a serious injustice… This has been remedied today with the high court’s unanimous decision… My trial was not a referendum on the Catholic Church; nor a referendum on how church authorities in Australia dealt with the crime of paedophilia in the church.”
Some senior Catholics in Australia welcomed the decision of the High Court. Archbishop of Melbourne, Peter Comensoli, said, “The dramatic development was welcomed by Australia’s senior Catholics… The court system has gone through that now very thoroughly and has come to the conclusion that it has come to and I accept that decision… This outcome of the court will be received well by some who will be comforted. It will be distressing for others to hear.”
Lawyer David Baran has represented the Catholic Church and victims in his legal work. He said Pell’s lawyers expected this decision, as the lawyers for Pell pointed out gaps in the prosecution’s case.
Baran said, “The ultimate test is: was there a reasonable doubt? Just to put it in pre-acclaimed, simple English, if there was then you can’t have a conviction… Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the integrity of the victim… But, basically there are a number of strands in the cable that have to be put together to create a very solid rope to then secure a conviction. They just weren’t there.”
With the High Court ruling in Australia, this does legally make way for the royal commission on child abuse to release previously redacted findings, which can show some of the church leader handling of the allegations.
“The sooner that gets unredacted in the royal commission report we’ll see what’s going on,” Nagle stated, “You just don’t know how far the Catholics’ tentacles go.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/07
The President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala, used the freedom of expression enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution in addition to the freedom of religion and belief, as represented in the same constitution and, in fact, in the United Nations foundational rights document.
On April 27, a complaint was filed against some Facebook or social media posts by Bala. It was filed by S.S. Umar & Co. The claim was that Mubarak was making provocative and annoying statements to Muslims. In short, the firm and barristers made the explicit and, rather blasphemous mind us, statement that they can speak for both God and all Muslims on the matter of what is and is not blasphemous or offensive to the creator and sustainer of the universe (if seeing things within the framework of the believers).
Rather rapidly, Bala was hauled off to jail to make an example of him, as so many others have been made examples of before with the death penalty applied to them or the social reprisal murders by a public mob. Following some of the reactions to the protests online about the statements of Bala, as claiming a deceased religious figure was a “terrorist,” there was an online petition by Halima Sa’adiya Umar. I am uncertain if a relation to “S.S. Umar…”
In the online campaign through Change.Org, H. Umar’s campaign of protest stated:
Mubarak is blaspheming against the religion of Islam. He should practice his atheism and let Muslims be! “For you is your religion and for me is my religion”
His utterances are capable of causing unrest which could cause religious and social upheaval in the country.
Facebook is meant to promote & encourage relationships, allowing his kind to be on the platform is catastrophic. Freedom of expression is not synonymous to hate speech that can cause mayhem in Nigeria.
I find these assumptions and statements dehumanizing of the ordinary Muslim believers all over Nigeria because the use of the freedom of expression becomes the basis to argue Muslims en masse in Nigeria can’t but help themselves in ‘causing mayhem in Nigeria” or “causing unrest” and even the simple “allowing his kind to be on the platform is catastrophic.” The statements are both overblown to the point of comical and declaring a want for unequal access to the use of platforms and the freedom of expression. Shall we begin to unequally apply this to the practicing of religion, as he has struggled to attain equal status in practicing Humanism and non-religion in life, i.e., simply not partaking of the religious contexts and practices?
Mubarak Bala’s context or location is still unknown. He may be alive and imprisoned with human rights violate, including the inability to see a lawyer. Or he could be dead. We truly don’t know the exact whereabouts or condition of Bala. This is both a human rights travesty and a fundamental crime. No matter the framing, the religious fundamentalist groups in Kaduna, Kano, and often in Northern Nigeria have messed this one up big time. It will be a PR nightmare no matter the path moving forward.
With some international complaints from a variety of humanist organizations, the petition, which aimed for 25,000 signatures against Bala and had rapidly garnered almost 20,000, was taken down from the Change.Org website. There has continued to be international pressure on Nigerian authorities to do something about this. On the rights front, freethinkers are losing, as Bala is in unknown condition without any justice; on the media, national and international, the Freethought community is winning. Keep up the pressure.
Free Mubarak Bala.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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The largest Protestant denomination in the United States is 2% smaller than in 2018. The South Baptists believe “that the Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind, with His ultimate revelation being the Gospel message of redemption through Jesus Christ,” i.e., a fundamentalist religious denomination one can find in the United States.
With the release of the 2019 membership rolls of the Southern Baptist Convention last Thursday, there has been a decline by as many as 287,000 members of the South Baptists. Their total membership went from 14.8 million to about 14.5 million. This amounts to the thirteenth year of continuous decline in the numbers. This matches many trends on many, many faiths or religions in the richer societies, even in the highly religious outliers seen almost uniquely in the United States.
A professor at Duke University and a director of the National Congregations Study, Mark Chaves, said, “…consistent with national trends we’ve been seeing for a while now, mainly driven by generational differences… Younger people are less likely than older people to attend religious services and to be religious. That’s true across the board.”
With a strong commitment to evangelism, other important things for the measurement of commitment to the fundamentalist faith is baptism. They have noted an 11,000 baptism decrease with only 235,748 performed in 2019. In many ways, the clear trend for more than a decade will mean either a death of the faith or a significant decline followed by some stoppage or an asymptote.
Southern Baptist Executive Committee President Ronnie Floyd stated, “…it is clear that change is imperative. … We have to prioritize reaching every person with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in every town, every city, every state, and every nation.”
In an attempt to pivot on the recent numbers coming out of the data, Floyd “criticized the way the church data is collected,” according to The Associated Press.
Floyd continued, “We cannot possibly know how best to meet the needs of our 47,500 churches when we only receive needed data from just 75 percent of them.”
The overarching trends for the Southern Baptists would appear to be plural – from data coming out to leadership. The director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, Ed Stetzer, remarked that the decline might be slowed in the Southern Baptists if they stopped the consistent fighting within the leadership and the churches that can be a driver of the decline in the numbers.
The executive committee of the denomination stated that a formation of a task force in order to examine some of the policies of the Sothern Baptist Convention and the speaking roster with some inclusion of “non-Southern Baptists and a female teaching pastor.”
The Associated Press stated, “Stetzer formerly presided over the SBC’s annual church reporting. More than a decade ago, when he first started warning that the denomination’s membership was going to decline year after year, many Southern Baptists dismissed his numbers. Once the trend became irrefutable, they were alarmed. Now, he said, ‘I do think Southern Baptists are becoming used to decline. That should not be normal. It should be cause for great concern and change.’”
With files from The Associated Press.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The largely nonviolent protests have continued onwards for over a week in the United States of America now.
These have been some of the largest protests in the history of the United States with an enormous amount of pressure put on public officials, law enforcement, and fellow citizens in America and then around the world with a cascade of largely nonviolent protests in reaction to the murder of African American George Floyd. Within 8 to 9 minutes, one can watch Floyd murdered, undeniable brutality.
Many African Americans have been considered lesser-than for a long time by the nature of ethnic heritage and dint of skin colour. It shows up in the educational statistics, in the criminal justice system, in the average wealth disparities between ethnic groups in the United States, and in disproportionate use of excessive force by police officers against black Americans with an emphasis on black men. By implication, the internal narrative of the United States is black bodies mean less, equal less, and become more disposable than others.
On May 25, it may have been the largest single-day mobilization of protests in the entire history of the United States while the coronavirus pandemic still rages, which every well-informed citizen is knowledgeable about here. In that, the masks were worn, sure, but the risks would be high for anyone taking part in large protests with implied close proximity with other protestors or even police officers. People braved the pandemic to make a point – to have a more just society.
There have been some spats of arson, assault, and various smash-and-grab raids. However, this is neither a trend nor the majority of protests. In fact, these are more the outliers based on more authoritative reportage. Some of the protests, in fact, included police officers and protestors marching together in solidarity.
As has been some of the complaints, recently, some trends have arisen out of a common response woodwork with #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter as an ill-considered attempt to respond to the #BlackLivesMatter movement founded by three black queer women: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi.
When reading #BlackLivesMatter, some can read this as #OnlyBlackLivesMatter, which can be one reading, though incorrect, of the movement; however, with some more thought, we can see the rejection of the “only” as part of the hashtag because of the emphasis on black lives rather than the exclusion of other lives. In that, we come to the straightforward “aha!” of the movement meaning an emphasis on black lives due to the disproportionate violence, state and otherwise, against black bodies, African American citizens.
If there was a movement of every life mattering, what would be the traction? Of course, this ground zero for standard ethics without a Divine Right of Kings, slaves and slave masters/owners, and grounded in a modern day ethic with international (secular) human rights. Everyone acquires equal human rights, in theory, based on birth as a human being, not some God-given or asserted divine rights. They don’t exist universally as human rights exist universally. In this sense, modern ethical guidelines exist more generally in human cultures and international institutions than the purported God-given rights from the faiths of the world, including the major faiths covering about half of the population of the Earth in Christianity and Islam. Thus, it seems a straightforward observation that “transcendent” or “God-given” rights are, in fact, human constructed, human-given, and more parochial (and less justifiable) than international human rights. All life matters; and, we’ve known this for a long time, especially institutionally and with the formalization of universal rights with international secular human rights applicable to everyone, in principle.
The other misunderstanding or improper response comes from #BlueLivesMatter. As someone cut from the same cloth as me, Dave Chappelle, pointed out, it’s a blue suit, neither an ethnic heritage nor a skin colour. If you don’t like the situation, then you can change the job and can get a new suit.
With some of these clarifications, I am heartened to see protestors and police alike using masks to keep safe during protests over the murder of George Floyd and in making a modern global movement for criminal justice reform.
In spite of the largely peaceful protests, some of the violent incidents have been with clashes in London and in Marseille, France, even flash bang devices and pepper spray used to disperse protestors, while the protestors were hurling bottles and rocks with some “improvised explosives” too.
Some of the largest protests have taken part in Washington with protestors pouring into the streets closed off to traffic. Some turned the area into a dance floor. Pamela Reynolds, a 37-year-old African American teacher said that she wants a federal ban on chokeholds and body cameras as mandatory on police officers while on duty.
At the White House, new fencing and security measures were put into place, while President Donald Trump argued for a crackdown on the unrest, or the protestors, all the time downplaying the demonstrations themselves.
In Virginia, a Confederate statue was toppled. It was up since 1891. There is some reportage of urination on the statue after being toppled. It was on its pedestal in Monroe Park and was of Gen. Williams Carter Wickham. Descendants of Wickham argued for taking down the statue in 2017.
As The Associated Press stated, “Tens of thousands of protesters marched worldwide in what could be the biggest one-day mobilization against racial injustice since a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Even after a week of the most significant protests the U.S. has seen in a generation, Saturday’s crowds stood out. Protesters held signs with slogans saying “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice No Peace” during marches that were peaceful, sometimes even festive, after previous days had devolved in chaos. Police sometimes joined protesters, kneeling in a show of solidarity.”
So it goes.
With files from The Associated Press.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The World Economic Forum and the Thomson Reuters Foundation published an article by Lola-Rose Avery entitled “Why systemic racism is not just an American problem.”
In it, there is reasonable argumentation around and coverage of the murder or death of George Floyd due to asphyxiation after several minutes with, at least, half of the weight of a police officer pressed on his neck. Subsequent to this, there have been massive numbers of protests against the individuals who suffer under disproportionate police brutality.
Avery said, “As Brits have taken to the streets in protest, many have been vocally disdainful about it because, in their eyes, we don’t have the problem with racism that America has. Ironically, a lot of people have been angry about the anger. Others have likely acknowledged the injustices quietly to themselves but decided not to speak out at all.”
Even as there are proper claims as to a massive decline in violence and in racist sentiment and actions, it can be tone deaf to a particular moment with some of the largest protests of the modern era arguing for criminal justice reform and a direct addressing of grievances as such. Thus, the basis for immediate social actions build on long-term trends with both the inertia of history – not as some inexorable or mystical force – and the ramping up of change in some systemic areas disproportionately impacting blacks is important, especially as modern technology permits open cataloguing of the incidents.
The bar should not be set to what was yesterday, while the bars of prior generations can stand as a point of appreciation as to the hard work, dedication, and moral striving of prior generations because of the civilizing effects upon the societies of the social and civil rights revolutions and movements. Indeed, when we look at the assessments coming from some feminist circles about the need to curb male violence, the arguments by some activists across ethnic groups looking for justice for the murder of black men and women out of proportion to the general population, and the Steven Pinker-Humanist vision of a long-term trend of Enlightenment values infusing the society for the better, we come to the, at a minimum, triplet foundation of mutual disagreement belying a common theme. The disagreement is superficial while the common theme unites them.
When we look at the long-term historical trends, certainly, things have been improving over these periods due to technology, science, and values emergent from Humanism and the Enlightenment and a decline in fundamentalist religion. As well, we continue to see the disproportionate treatment of women in a number of domains, as the brilliant Rebecca Traister shows; in addition, we continue to see, as the illustrious Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson has noted, the disproportionate impacts of black bodies, especially black men’s bodies, by authorities. I will go out on a limb and state, “All three are mutually supportive of one another and integrate to a more coherent framework for comprehension of the issues facing us now, because all three frames of analysis matter and have validity.”
Now, as per the lead of Avery on this, I do not mean to make the argument of the weighing of different negatives, as in the least racist option of several is the best, i.e., no racism is ideal and best, but these arguments require buttressing with a mutual reinforcing tripartite framework provided above, in abridged conceptual presentation, and the facts before us with the possibility with further change now.
“A study published in 2019 in the journal Frontiers in Sociology suggested that Britain is one of the least racist countries in Europe,” Avery said, “But as the rapper Dave said during his performance at the Brit Awards in February 2020, referencing the study: ‘the least racist is still racist.’ He received widespread backlash from furious viewers who said he was wrong and ungrateful.”
As Avery continues to note, the issue isn’t the improving trends; it is the low bars relative to yesterday held. We can be grateful for all advancements for a civilizing effects upon the populations while taking into account the bar should be as high as possible within the context of now. Otherwise, we’re daydreaming, while recognizing the negative effects upon people, by accident of birth, are being discriminated against based on skin colour by racists, whether racist slurs hurled at an individual, racist violence, or discrimination in police brutality in the “use of force” or in hiring.
Avery is very candid about personal experience too, “The truth is that I have experienced racism at every stage of my life. My earliest memories of this are from as young as three years old. This continued into my school years, where increased vocabulary meant that the name-calling ramped up a gear and I was called things such as “Lola the black cola” as well as being kicked and punched on the playground and around my neighbourhood at home.”
Here, we have a country far less racist than its past while still racist by improved standards with verbal and physical violence inflicted upon an innocent and bright woman working hard to find her way into society; indeed, she’s working into one of the most coveted positions in the society, as she notes. For individuals in societies around the world, even those amongst the least racist by historical and current standards, there should be a focus on not only focusing on a rhetoric and social set of action against the least worst mentality and the idea of simply being silent on racism. In that, “silence is complicity,” as Avery affirms.
In many ways, this is true; context is important and discerning meaning & intent in borderline cases is extremely important, but, in general, I would endorse this statement.
“There is a long history of black people being compared to dark-coloured animals. I had my turn when I was compared to a horse on multiple occasions by a group of people whilst I was at university,” Avery stated, “Social media was established by that point and this meant people could also create fake accounts, anonymously messaging me more extreme racial abuse.”
She experienced a series of more covert racism, by her recollection, with comments considered offensive due to direction at specific minorities. Therefore, Avery notes this is not an isolated-to-America issue, but, rather, a larger one. The fact of the conversation happening publicly and open calls for the change in some of the sociocultural, and institutional, contexts for this to happen is a strong positive.
Avery concluded:
My experiences are a microcosm of the racism we have here in Britain: the blatant, yes, but also the more subtle, which insidiously infiltrates every aspect of our society and which can go unseen by anyone who is not on the receiving end, anyone who is not a black or minority ethnic person.
The systemic racism that lead to George Floyd’s death is also at our doorstep. It’s not an American problem. It’s not isolated incidents.
Being quietly ‘not racist’ is not enough. White people, who are the beneficiaries of this system, must educate themselves as to how and to call it out with the same vehemence as black and minority ethnic people if it is to be dismantled. Silence is complicity.
In these contexts of gratitude for the progress made, with a realization of the overt and covert forms of racism and sexism, and the ways in which to capitalize on positive trends, social movements, and the advancement of the morality of human rights, we can make a better world for all. And why not? So it goes.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/06
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How was family life growing up for you?
Nisar Ahmad: After migrating to Pakistan due to civil war in Afghanistan, life was hard for all Afghans in general. My father started working for an NGO far from our home, and would come only once a week. My mother took care of me and my other siblings. Life became very hard when my mom passed away when I was about 9 years old. My father working far away from home and with no mother, my older siblings were taking care of me. My father couldn’t find a job nearby, and it was hard for Afghans to find jobs. So he had no option. We couldn’t move to the place he worked because the city we lived in was cheaper. It was really hard to grow up like that. Though everyone was showing love and care to me, I felt like being pitied. I felt inferior and eager for real love and care, and not just receiving care and love for not having a mother. I felt lonely and started to avoid people even from childhood. I went to school in Pakistan, and due to being reserved, I passed my time reading books. So I was a bright introvert student since my childhood. I remained topper in almost all years of my academic life.
Jacobsen: What has been the impact of war and displacement for you?
Ahmad: I was born in war. Like literally in war, in falling RPGs and bullets! So the effect of war is in my sub-conscious whether I like it or not. We lived in Pakistan as refugees far from our home and place of birth. I never felt at home at any time of my life. In Pakistan showing the identity as an Afghan meant inviting many kinds of hate, racism and discrimination. I felt like I had done a sin that was unforgivable. Being displaced meant that I lacked something very important that would make me human.
Jacobsen: How has education been a consistent story for you? Something stable in spite of all the instability?
Ahmad: As explained in the first paragraph, I felt very lonely and started avoiding people. Though I studied in government schools in Pakistan where the education standard is negligible, I was taking interest in every book that I came across. I read books, watched TV and kind of self-educate myself. As a refugee, I was a hard worker like other refugees. The difference was, they started selling shopping bags in the bazaar, and became good business people with time, and I put my efforts in academia.
Jacobsen: How did you come to meet Rzgar Hama?
Ahmad: When I lived in the shelter, near Vancouver Public Library in downtown Vancouver, I saw an advertisement on the library notice board while searching for job vacancies. It was about storytelling. So it attracted my interest and I emailed Rzgar.
Jacobsen: Why did you accept to take part in “My Home is a Suitcase”?
Ahmad: I took interest in “My Home is a Suitcase” because I wanted my story to be heard as my story is the story of millions of refugees that the world doesn’t know about. At first, telling my story, I felt like I was self-pitying, but then it became a goal of my life to raising my voice for all the refugees in the world.
Jacobsen: Thanks so much, Nisar.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/05
Two of my favourite people in the world, Ann Reid and Kenneth R. Miller/Ken Miller/Kenneth Miller, have issued a statement on behalf of the National Center for Science Education. Ann Reid is the Executive Director and Kenneth Miller is the Board Chair. Both have been doing, and are part of, a noble tradition for the proper education of the public on matters of science.
As the late and beloved Dr. Carl Sagan noted, we live in a world built on science and technology, where the discoveries of science build the frameworks for comprehension of the natural world from which the engineering and technology can emerge in the first place. Technology is science applied for some purpose or function, typically relevant to a human need or want – for frivolity or necessity.
The note from Reid and Miller opened:
Today, in all corners of our nation, attention has been focused on a long-standing problem that pervades all of American society, including its educational and scientific institutions — the problem of embedded, structural racism. Our nation is gripped by protests against the latest in a long and shameful history of incidents of racist violence against black Americans. We grieve with our fellow citizens who have had to live with fear, oppression, and injustice for centuries. All of us at NCSE are inspired by the tens of thousands of Americans putting their bodies at risk to raise their voices in protest.
I am inspired by the level of solidarity expressed by several organizations on the educational front with a forthright statement as to the facts of the matter and the expression of the core issue in a cogent presentation. The purpose of the National Center for Science Education is the provision of real education and information on the sciences to the public. Indeed, one of the main areas of emphasis has been the evolution versus creationism sociopolitical, not educational, controversy over the development of life.
“The overriding goal of the National Center for Science Education is to ensure that every student in every American school has access to an effective, accurate, and inspiring education in the sciences. Many obstacles have stood in the way of this goal,” Reid and Miller said, “including unreasoning and doctrinaire opposition to the findings of many branches of science. Throughout its history, NCSE has fought to remove these obstacles and ensure that all students learn to think critically about evidence and reject flawed and misleading arguments.”
As has been said in many contexts by others and myself, and not original to me, but to the scientists and the science educators, previous eras of science support the idea of race while modern science advanced to state “racism is based on a lie — the lie that there are meaningful biological differences among humans that correspond to the color of our skin. While we acknowledge that there are real biological consequences to the lived experience of race, evolution reminds us that the genetic variation within groups we designate as races is significantly larger than the variation between those groups. Evolution tells us that we are 99.9% the same at the level or our DNA.”
In short, the proper framing of a lot of the issues facing us: species. We are an evolved product of a naturalistic process and a natural universe. Science has been used, at times, for divisive purposes. However, the full arsenal of science would seem to support a more unifying framework to plug modern human rights notions into them. In that, we can build a more equitable and just society as we deem fit rather than not – and one of the bases for this is the modern theory of evolution and, therefore, the work of the National Center for Science Education, as they conclude:
Science education can be a force for good; for unifying rather than dividing. Towards that end, we at NCSE resolve to support educational and scientific professionals fighting racism and educational inequality at every level of our society. Specifically, we commit to expanding our efforts to provide science teachers with the resources and learning opportunities needed to help their students dismantle misconceptions about race. Our common future depends upon it.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/08
*Updated June 8, 2020.*
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have issues with modern medical information because this is seen as against the tenets of the religious faith. In particular, they, for the most part or by theology, have an issue with blood transfusions.
As per the attempts to reduce the negative effects of Covid-19 to medical patients affected by Covid-19, the FDA or the Food and Drug Administration of the United States of America issued recommendations or guidelines for healthcare investigators and providers. It is based on some studies into convalescent plasma collected from Covid-19 patients who have recovered from the ill-effects of the virus.
Even with the experimental nature of the treatment, there are some circumstances under which the treatment can be considered well-advised based on some scientists and doctors using it. However, the ones for this treatment would be serious or critical cases along with the symptomatology of Covid-19.
For those with critical case symptomatology themselves or individuals with family members who are, unfortunately, suffering under the suffocating ravages of Covid-19 (coming from SARS-CoV-2), these kinds of potential treatments could – literally – save your life or the life of a loved one, or just save a life of another human being. It becomes incumbent upon us to support science, medicine, and the appropriate application in order to “do no harm.” It’s both a principle of medical professionals and civilized society, i.e., reflective of a common drive of human beings when not driven into insane circumstances.
Unfortunately, while many religious principles reflect some universal sentiments in human beings, at the time, others come out as pre-scientific understandings or rejection of modern medicine capable of helping individuals who may be suffering. One particular group, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have been known to reject blood transfusions, as these stand against their stipulated principles of The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is the governing or legislating body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This has been a strict policy since 1945.
The basis for the claim is that blood transfusions go against some divine law or ethical precepts derived from their understanding of the oughts of the world through their religious lens. Now, with the recent possibilities for critical or severe cases to be helped by the experimental treatments, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have been directed (or commanded by the legislative body) to not use them. More directly, they’re strictly forbidden, as this is Convalescent Plasma Therapy or a treatment using transfusion.
The directive from the Jehovah’s Witnesses stated:
The Blood Issue: There’s talk about the FDA allowing doctors to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients with “convalescent plasma therapy.” It would be wise to advise the publishers that it’s understood that this is giving the patient the whole plasma of the person who has developed the antibodies which would be unacceptable for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
However if the antibodies were extracted from the plasma (fractions/immunoglobulins) and then given to the patient, it would be a conscience matter for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some doctors may view plasma as a fraction. Therefore the publisher may need to explain their personal decision not to accept any of the blood’s four main components, one of them being plasma. (Source: JWsurvey, based on work of Mark O’Donnell in “Jehovah’s Witnesses Denied Plasma Treatment Amid Coronavirus Pandemic” – click for article title for link)
This is a serious public health issue for which the lives of some members of the public religion becomes a public health hazard. As we see with the prevention within the directives (theological and faith-based in character), individuals cannot use the treatments, as they are forbidden, without consequence. If they use it, then the fear of the wrath of the legislative body, as representative of God, can come down like a ton of bricks. It is, as James Randi noted to me, based on fear. If an individual uses the blood or plasma, then they will become “Disassociated” from the community and will not be permitted contact from their own families.
Theology trumps medicine here.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/05
Ryan Faulkner-Hogg is the Founder of Atlas Geographica and a member of the team at Topical Magazine. Here we talk about the Atlas Geographica in the context of the other projects and work for Douglas.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s start on the first major project, which is Atlas Geographica, the tag is “A Curiosity Blog.” What was the inspiration for the title Atlas Geographica and the tag with the title?
Ryan Faulkner-Hogg: The name Atlas Geographica is quite uninspiring, unfortunately. I wanted to call it WhatAboutWhen.Com, but the URL was taken. I was sitting in a room. It was Norway in a place called Hoddevik. It was along the countryside along the West Fjords. There was an atlas. It was written in Norwegian called Geographica. I put in Atlas Geographica in the URL finder. It worked. I always loved atlases. Also, Atlas Geographica gives a little whiff of international scope. That’s the foundation of the title. I am happy that this became the title because I consider this better than What About When. I am realizing more, and more, as I write more online blogs. The URL isn’t so important. It is the branding of the name. People can associate Atlas Geographica with the statue of Atlas, which is the logo of the site and the random curiosity-driven content.
The reason for starting it. Initially, I had the idea to commercialize online writing for affiliate income, affiliate-marketed income, for tour agents. I work for a software company, which empowers tour agents all across the world. I thought, “The way affiliate marketing is so synonymous with pushing Amazon’s books or various articles through online marketing. Nothing like this operates for tour operators.” I was in Finland sitting in a meeting with the CEO of a company, who do everything from a 50 Euro day-trip to a 5,000 Euro package. They don’t market nearly as effectively – no one in tourism does – as simple goods. So, I thought while sitting in this meeting, “Why doesn’t somebody write an article about this amazing trip through this company, put affiliate links throughout, then it is free marketing for the company and an income for everyone based on the links on the other end?”
I had this lofty goal to do that. It could still totally be a profitable business idea if someone wants to take it on. However, I quickly realized. For this to be functional, I required the company to code in an affiliate link specific to me. Just using them as one example, they were not interested in doing. This would have to be replicated across the board. All of the affiliate links would need to come from TripAdvisor. I have a sour relation with them. They are a pretty bad company. We realized this from where I am working now. You would be doing this marketing for TripAdvisor rather than the end-user, which would be the other company. This is a roundabout way of introducing it. After I took out the URL and started to write for it, I, originally, wrote three food tour blogs, which are no longer on the site. They were for Amsterdam, San Sebastian, and Rome. They give different images of food tours in these countries. I thought, “This doesn’t excite me at all. It may make a few dollars of income.”
I thought, “I have this URL. I have written content, which I have done in the past. Because I have always enjoyed writing.” I have always found if I enjoy something. The best way to have this in my head and articulate this is to formulate and write it down. I have drafts and written pieces, so I could start uploading them.
Jacobsen: Is the end goal to have a multimedia platform?
Faulkner-Hogg: Yes, it is. Again, it is an end goal, but purely out of interest. I’ve completely steered away from trying to make these media issues a monetizable thing, moved out of financial interest. It is out of interest. A media platform where I have a blog, an email list, and a YouTube channel. It is a way to put all creativity out there and to further legitimize myself if I look back on someday. I can show my parents or if I go into a job interview, “Look, here is my stuff, here is who I am.” Rather than storing it on a hard drive, storing it on the internet, I have romanticized knowing there is the chance of someone to stumble across this article and have it mean something for them. I am sure. You’re familiar with Tim Ferriss. He is an inspiring role model when I think about where I want to take media arms for me. Also, it is a very lofty goal. You will see the latest video put out was on the Tim Ferriss empire. All media arms are multimillion-dollar enterprises. I’m not bothered whether it makes $10 or $0. It is a place where all of my creativity can exist online.
Jacobsen: What do you think makes Tim Ferriss’ different arms of his octopus so functional and profitable? All of the branches built by him.
Faulkner-Hogg: I think the Tim Ferriss phenomenon is genius marketing by him. Before he does anything, he leverages his extensive network to create hype. He has SEO optimized all of the different legs. Also, it is the flywheel. All additional legs complement the others. Since he started the podcast with extremely famous and successful guests, who are people he met in a previous life as a venture capitalist and an author, he had a really good starting block. Also, he was one of the first movers in the podcast game. He quickly created one of the biggest business podcasts in the world, which boosted the blog and the email list. This reinforced authorship when he continues to publish books. His success is really outlier stuff because he has one of the highest-selling books of all time, one of the most listened to podcasts of in the world, one of the biggest email lists in the world, and one of the most read blogs in the world. He is winning on all fronts and an exceptional person.
There is not one thing to point out for success in all his media arms. But I can give an example. During the week, he released a “Tools of Titans” podcast. It is him piggybacking on one of the books that he has already written. He is probably not going to create any original new content. He is going to reformat from the content of the book. He will create a new podcast and have a new revenue stream through ad revenue and introduce new people who find the “Tools of Titan” podcast into the Tim Ferriss brand. They will become subscribers on the email list. They might subscribe to the “The Tim Ferriss Show.” Potentially, they might buy the books as well. He has this huge, huge network, which they can leverage as well.
Jacobsen: When you’re having the different platforms for yourself, as a multimedia startup, are you intending something similar to that, where you have mutually reinforcing programs and initiatives?
Faulkner-Hogg: Yes, it is definitely something that I am actively trying to create. This is why you see the different tabs of Atlas Geographica, which can take you to the YouTube channel, to the podcast channel, and also to a subscription list.
Jacobsen: If you’re looking at 2020/2021, what are your actionables? What are you looking at as targeted objectives?Faulkner-Hogg: I shouldn’t shy away from saying this publicly. However, once you say this publicly, you are subject to ridicule if you do not reach the goals. I launched the YouTube channel. End of 2020, I want the channel monetized, which is 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. It is not like you monetize this immediately into a lot of money. Once it gets the tick of approval from YouTube, it will become recommended to non-subscribers more. For the blog, I would like to see – a very lofty goal – 100 unique visitors per day. I would like 100 subscribers to the email list. That’s 6 months from now.
Jacobsen: Have you looked into Patreon account, donations, grants, in Australia for startup projects, especially during coronavirus times?
Douglas: I haven’t looked at any of it. The main reason is; I wouldn’t feel comfortable having people donating for the stuff produced by me. I am stoked if people get a kick out of reading the articles. There is no expectation for a monetary reward for it. In terms of grants, I do not consider the media enterprises as a business of mine. That’s why I haven’t considered that route. I haven’t looked at any of that. More for personal business, totally independent of media and looking like things like grants.
Jacobsen: Some areas of focus, they will be individually driven based on what is an interest at a given time for you. Some of the main areas have been on the environment, economics, and travel. What are some of the reasons for some of the touchpoints of the interest for you?
Faulkner-Hogg: Because it comes back to the point of the blog being something going to compliment personal interest rather than something targeted as a niche blog site to get more organic traffic. It is because these things happen to capture attention for me. I want to find out more about them. That’s why there is such a wide variety of unrelated content. If you take vagabonding, I really like Rolf Potts and the book Vagabonding. I wanted to expand on it. I found Tim Ferriss. I wanted to expand on that as well.
Jacobsen: Also, we are involved with some other projects with Topical Magazine. How are you looking to adapt some of the content and interests to a publication like Topical Magazine, and vice versa? Obviously, there will be a Venn diagram of overlapping interest in Atlas Geographica content produced there, and then future stuff coming out of Topical Magazine.
Faulkner-Hogg: Yes, I think Topical Magazine has a much more event-driven side to its content. So, I think Topical Magazine has more sophisticated takes on the events compared to Atlas Geographica. If we look at Ben David’s recent post of Nietzsche and the New Atheists, For instance, also, his recent Covid-19 and the enemy conspiracy theory one too. It is “Topical” “Magazine.” So, they want to touch on relevant time-stamped content. Whereas, Atlas Geographica is more than likely going to be time-specific and a little bit more ever-green as an introduction or a take on something that is an ongoing discussion or an ongoing theme/mood within society. For instance, if I look at the Christopher Hitchens and mortality post, which Atlas Geographica put out, recently, it is a piece of evergreen content. Whoever is interested in Christopher Hitchens, whether the beginning or the end of the relationship with Hitchens, it is there. What Ben did with Covid-19, the sophisticated part becomes the fact that he’s also breaking down what makes the conspiracy. Again, Scott, I’m sorry if I answered the question so indirectly.
Jacobsen: Any other areas to explore today?
Faulkner-Hogg: Not specifically, Topical Magazine and Ben, and being introduced to you, too, it is a compliment to Ben David to publish a piece in Topical Magazine and took an interest in Atlas Geographica. I think the story is quite funny how I met Ben David, Benji.
Jacobsen: Did you meet him in Norway?
Faulkner-Hogg: In Amsterdam.
Jacobsen: Of course, yes.
Faulkner-Hogg: I am working for this company. We have a bunch of people coming in for interviews. A lot of them coming into the interviews with who my manager likes. He asks, “What do you think about this guy?” I will give a shallow commentary on it. I never got to interview Ben. I gave an opinion from a quick look at him and the things the manager said. I saw. He was editor of Topical Magazine. Usually, we don’t get people with non-relevant experience.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Faulkner-Hogg: [Laughing] I was like, “That’s fantastic.” I went on the site and read an article on the Zizek and Peterson debate. I thought, “This guy is cool. I hope we hire him.” Ben and I had some business, I introduced the fact of writing for a small blog called Atlas Geographica. He taught a lot about the WordPress side of things, to make sure the site looks good. He invited me to publish some material on Topical Magazine. It is entitled “Forget Chernobyl and Don’t Listen to the Hippies.” We retitled for Topical Magazine to get more clicks. The story was about the fact that it boggles the mind that the left is so anti-nuclear power, when it is the greenest form of technology available to us. The article debunks the extreme outlier events like Chernobyl. It is a fun story about meeting Ben. I want to leave that as a compliment about Topical Magazine.
Jacobsen: Ryan, thanks so much.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/03
Adeline Sede Kamga is the Founder/CEO of FabAfriq Media Group, a Creative and Innovative Marketing and communication agency with offices in the UK and Cameroon operating both in Europe and Africa. A change leader and inspirational speaker with over fifteen years of experience. She has expertise working across different areas in the corporate, business and community world. She is committed to delivering quality projects in Corporate PR and Communications, Change management, Executive Coaching. She has a BA in Corporate Communications, MA in Human Resource Management at Coventry University UK and professional qualifications such as CIPD, PRINCE2 & Dip in Business Administration.
Adeline is an expert in Corporate communications and PR, including digital communication and eventing. As a trained executive coach, she has worked with blue chip companies from varied sectors, helping them gain visibility across Africa and the rest of the world. Her previous experience in HR, gave her hands-on experience working in different HR projects with one of the largest employers in Europe (Birmingham City Council) & subsequently as a consultant. Amongst some of her expertise are change management, People Management, T & D and Strategic HR. She has led on many strategic and restructuring projects, leading to successful change management system & implementations.
Adeline is also a founding member of FEPPSAC (Women editors of Central Africa), a UN Central Africa Office initiative to work with women in the print magazine industry. This group seeks to help drive the United Nations mandate of women, peace and security in Central Africa. She is dynamic, innovative, and tenacious. Gifted with a sharp mind and innate ability to connect with others and an insatiable thirst for excellence.
In 2016, Adeline launched a Pan Excellence In People Management initiative for change called The Corporate Awards & The Corporate Women in Leadership program. Adeline invests in inspiring and empowering young leaders through speaking engagements and mentoring programs.
She is married to a very supportive husband and has 3 kids. adeline.sede@fabafriq.com
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What have been some of the things that you’ve done to raise awareness about coronavirus?
Adeline Sede Kamga: The coronavirus pandemic has taken a huge toll on the whole world and I must say this has caused lots of mishaps, losses, panic, fear, anxiety, depression and you can name it. One of the things I do on a daily base is communication, so I used this skill to raise awareness via social media. Due to the sensitive nature of COVID-19, I had to be very accurate in providing such information, so I sourced from reliable institutions such as WHO, CDC, Medical News Today, and others.
As the Founder of Corporate Women in Leadership (CWILS), an initiative that seeks to increase the presence of women in the boardroom through inspirational career development projects. I started an online series for personal development amidst the lockdown. Our speakers are corporate experts in different fields from different countries. Through these sessions, we have touched more than 50,000 viewers and 12,000 participants.
My team and I launched “How I Stay Safe Campaign,” geared towards implementing the different measures to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Participants shared videos and key messages, which were shared on our social media platforms.
Through Fabafriq Media Group, we ran numerous campaigns for our clients and managed Corporate Social Responsibility projects. This of course involved using influencers and local communities to drive key messages.
FabAfriq Magazine, also launched a sensitization campaign whereby celebrities and high profile personalities in our communities sent images and messages of encouragement to our editorial team. These are used to design very attractive digital banners and are shared amongst their platforms.
Jacobsen: What are some organizations individuals can garner some assistance from now?
Kamga: It is no news that COVID-19 has affected most people, either psychologically or physically. As individuals, nonprofits and businesses grapple with the economic impact, many funders are stepping up to provide support through microgrants, hardship relief, and loan programs. It is truly amazing to see that many such organizations have adapted their giving policies to include people affected by COVID-19. We cannot give an exhaustive list but the following could be explored by people looking for funds. GlobalGiving, International Women’s Media Foundation, United Way, Candid, Prudential Beneficial Insurance, Ecobank Africa, and many others.
Jacobsen: How can ordinary citizens work together to deal with the coronavirus?
Kamga: Scott, it is remarkably interesting that you asked. Through FabAfriq Media Group, we have taken on initiatives that call on everyone’s participation towards dealing with Coronavirus. We have been lucky to have our national celebrities join us in a national sensitization campaign through our social media platforms. We need to continue encouraging people to observe preventive measures like social distancing, wearing masks, etc. Without the right information, this virus is only going to keep spreading. Together, we have to educate as many people as possible about staying safe. I also encourage individuals, companies & leaders to facilitate the less privileged by donating what they can to help ensure safety. Coronavirus is our fight, and together we all can beat it!
Jacobsen: What have been some of the more important areas of empowering women across Africa through the work of FabAfriq Media Group?
Kamga: We started the group as an initiative to help share the stories of African Women in Africa and the diaspora. We launched our online platform in 2009, where we have interviewed and published inspirational, educative and innovative stories. Our print magazine, launched one year after the website has also featured some of the most amazing women making a difference in the African community. We believe through our storytelling, we have empowered and impacted more lives around the world.
Six years ago, FabAfriq Media Group started a Pan African movement called The Corporate Women In Leadership. Over the last 6 years, we have hosted Conferences and summits in different African countries, Gabon, Senegal & Cameroon, and Cote d’Ivoire. Through this summit, we create a stage for women in the boardroom to share their experiences and provide mentorship to aspiring leaders. Moving forward, I see a bigger network of women empowering girls, women empowering women & women empowering the next generation
At a much lower level, we work with underprivileged women in the communities. FabAfriq Media Group has partnered with some NGOs dealing in domestic violence, incest, women with Albinism conditions, videos, and teenage mothers. We support these set of women to adapt and achieve their full potential in life.
Jacobsen: What are the more vulnerable populations of women, i.e., the sectors of the population and specific nations underperforming on the empowerment of women?
Kamga: This may get me in trouble, but I’m just going to say it [Laughing]. In my honest opinion, I think the Muslim community is still very shy about gender equality & female empowerment. We have Muslim communities in every part of the world, but the heavily concentrated communities are in North Africa, Middle East & Asia, and in some of these parts women still can’t dress freely, speak freely, study freely, talk less of practice in careers of their choice. There has been a change, but it takes time, of course. In terms of sectors, I would say the architectural market continues to see few practicing women, aviation & why not women at the highest position of power in a country, i.e., Presidency.
Jacobsen: What will be the programs and initiatives rolled out in the second half of 2020?
Kamga: Scott like every other company in the world right now, we are just re-strategizing while fighting COVID-19 together. However, the plan is to continue hosting our on-site conference and mentorship programs. We had planned to host our annual Corporate Awards in London. This is an HR initiative we launched to celebrate excellence in people management and to help create a benchmark for companies. This year, FabAfriq Media group celebrates its 10th Anniversary, so we are currently working on the anniversary issue and plan. We are, however, skeptical, as mentioned above.
Jacobsen: FabAfriq Magazine relaunched on June 8th, 2020. What happened to the magazine before?
Kamga: To be honest, with the rise of digitalization, many magazines saw a decline in sales across the world. The last decade has seen the world evolve more into a global village forcing print to fade away while tablets, phones & the internet blossomed. This made most of the print magazines, including FabAfriq management team, put a stop to its print version and focus on the digital version.
Now, it feels like the perfect time to come back with FabAfriq Magazine print because there is a high demand for quality lifestyle information. We have also grown a huge client/readership network and truth be told; there’s nothing like that glossy feeling when you turn a page after an amazing read.
Jacobsen: Why relaunch in June of 2020?
Kamga: Well, the idea was to release this edition on the 29th of May, coinciding with my birthday…but unfortunately, COVID-19 did not make that happen, pushing it one week apart. The reason I set this date was because I wanted to combine and celebrate the things that matter in life for me – offering a platform to share real and inspiring stories. FabAfriq Magazine print was launched at my prime, and seeing this vision growing bigger each day, simply means there is a need for this to stay. The entire team at FabAfriq Media Group joined the business because they believed in the dream, part of this dream is the print magazine and this is exactly one of the reasons they are with the business. We cannot sell a lie; we have to make sure whatever we sell is what we give. I am glad everyone is excited about this relaunch. I truly think this will create a great sensation in the office
Jacobsen: What is its vision and set of targeted objectives for the rest of 2020 and 2021?
Kamga: Our vision is to provide results-oriented media and communication services to clients. Being a growth-oriented company, we are looking at growing our client base, extending our service offerings and providing more employment opportunities.
In 2020 & 2021, We would focus on sharing more corporate stories through videos and images. We believe our expertise in sharing corporate stories has a valid objective. We hope to attract more businesses looking at using this service.
One of our objectives at the beginning of the year was to celebrate our 10th anniversary. This plan is not really set because of the outbreak of COVID-19. This activity has to happen. So if we do not achieve it this year, we will do it next year.
As mentioned above, we have a flagship program called The Corporate Award. The corporate awards, research and recognize companies who invest in their staff. Our intention in 2021 was to invite past participants for a 3-day program in the UK. The objective of this is to exchange knowledge with UK based corporations and gain other skills where needed.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Adeline.
Kamga: The pleasure was all mine, Scott, thank you for talking with me. Please do not forget to check out our work via our website www.fabafriq.com.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/02
Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is a proper definition of gifted?
Christian Sorenson: I feel that “gifted,” is “someone with different and superior cognitive capacities,” that leads him to “see and interpret” the “surrounding world,”
including itself, and the “problems” that these offer, from a “unique perspective,” and therefore formulates “creative” and “simple irreducible responses,” in front of “complexities of any nature.”
Jacobsen: What are the levels of gifted?
Sorenson: In my opinion the “levels” are respectively of moderate, high, very high, exceptional, profound, and incommensurably gifted.
Jacobsen: What should one expect in each level of giftedness?
Sorenson: I believe, there is a “turning point” with “profound giftedness,” since up to that level only exists the ability to solve “increasingly complex problems.” Therefore, from this last, besides that it is also possible to solve them in their “maximum depth,” and in a “more integrative-related way,” it is factible to arrive to “levels of consciousness” that are beyond “three dimensions.”
Jacobsen: What are the types of issues of the various levels of gifted?
Sorenson: In general, up to the level of the “exceptionally gifted,” they are “highly successful” academically and occupationally speaking, and for that reason, they are also “socially valued.”
The problem begins with the “profounds,” since they are socially “very discriminated and rejected,” for being seen usually as “strange individuals.” They tend to have “low academic performance,” normally are “undervalued” in their abilities, almost “never integrate” normally into the world of work, and used to be also “unsuccessful” in their personal lives.
Jacobsen: What are the most accurate, reliable measurements of intelligence now?
Sorenson: I think that those “measurements” that are carried out by “professionals,” psychologists and psychiatrists through “mainstream test” such as Wechsler and Stanford-Binet scales, which in other arrive to valid, reliable and “realistic IQ scores.” The rest are “games,” without any “professional psychometric basis,” that yield “fanciful and inflated results,” which apart from creating “false expectations and parallel realities,” are far above “mainstream tests,” and “rather closer to god.”
Jacobsen: How can parents provide for the advanced intellectual needs of the gifted?
Sorenson: I feel that first of all “not being scared,” and giving a family environment of “much affection and understanding” to them. And secondly, worrying about “integrating them” into an means of children with “similar capacities,” since in that way they will able to develop at their own rhythm their “full cognitive potential” and thus mature emotionally in “freedom and harmony.”
Jacobsen: What happens when needs of the gifted aren’t met?
Sorenson: “Failure” occurs, a feeling of “frustration arises,” and “low self-esteem” is reached.
Jacobsen: What are stellar programs and organizations that parents can look towards?
Sorenson: I think it is a good idea to look for “special schools” for gifted children, “conservatories” of music and art, and psychological therapy of “family systemic orientation.”
Jacobsen: Mensa International, Intertel, Triple Nine Society, Prometheus Society, and Mega Society are listed as the most reliable high-IQ societies. What other communities can exist for the gifted and talented?
Sorenson: Schools that promote fine arts, literature, and science, and organizations with specific sports disciplines.
Jacobsen: Any recommended books on the subject from beginner to advanced?
Sorenson: From my point of view, rather they would be two movies “Good Will Hunting” with Matt Damon and “Rebel Without a Cause” with James Dean, and the book “The Name of the Rose” of Umberto Eco.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Christian.
Sorenson: You are very welcome.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/09
The National Women’s Museum is launching a Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project. Reported from Alexandria, Vermont, the Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project is a project to ensure women’s voices are not left out of the Covid-19 melodrama seen all around the world.
It is a project featuring women from all over the world. There are women and girls from all over who can participate in this initiative. The main goal would be the recording of daily thoughts and experiences of women during the coronavirus pandemic. Here we come to women’s lives as assumed excluded from the historical record, it depends on the era, but this has happened in the past if we take into account the farther back in history moments in time.
Holly Hotchner, the President and CEO of the National Women’s History Museum, stated, “Despite being more than 50% of the population, women have largely been left out of the history books. When they’re included at all, their stories are often episodic components woven into a larger narrative centered on the experience and accomplishments of men… Sociologists and economists warn us that the COVID-19 pandemic is and will disproportionately affect women’s lives more so than men, and we want to ensure that women’s stories are recorded and shared, so that future history books are informed by women’s experiences during this global health crisis. This project really speaks to who we are as an institution. There’s an urgency to record women’s history as it unfolds.”
Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project is a project not confined to particular demographics or people. It is intended for and will include women from all backgrounds, cultures, ages, and social and economic circumstances as a living history for including in keeping a journal. The increments for the journaling have been listed as 30, 60, 90, and 120-day increments, while “any longer or shorter increments” being fine as well. In this, we can see the importance of the journalistic efforts of women and the importance of maintaining historical records from a once in a century event.
“Journals can be written, orally recorded, video recorded, a series of photographs, or original artworks—the primary goal of this project is to capture the female voice and how the pandemic has impacted daily lives and perspectives.” The National Women’s Museum said, “Journal entries might provide a summary of one’s day, descriptions of the ‘new normal,’ coping techniques, explorations of challenges or even moments of joy, or inside views of how learning and working routines have altered.”
The particularly important and seminal aspects of this history for the future generations will be the essential and healthcare workers who have been encouraged to contribute their journal entries for future generations. These journals are intended to be used as part of a living archive of the Covid-19 lives of women for presentation “online and physical exhibits, articles, publications, and scholarly research.”
Those interested in participating in Women Writing History: A Coronavirus Journaling Project should begin by filling out the participation form by clicking here. There is an FAQ here.
—
The National Women’s History Museum was founded in 1996 as the only women’s history museum in the United States devoted to the diverse contributions of women to the history of America (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/31
Humanists in the Hood can be bought here:
What a time to be alive watching the United States of America have NASA and SpaceX (of Elon Musk) jointly launch the first astronauts to the International Space Station since 2011, where some of the largest protests in American history for women’s rights and protection of civilian people of colour’s lives in recent years happen and then followed by massive and nation-wide protests over the murder of George Floyd and others, and all the while over 40,000,000 Americans are unemployed, and more than 100,000 are dead from the coronavirus, an interesting dichotomy marking much of the thematic interplays of American history harkening back to the first Black president sketch of the late Richard Pryor, “I feel it’s time Black people went to space. White people have been going to space for years, and spacing out on us, as you might say.” [Emphasis added.]
Dr. Sikivu Hutchinson is a brilliant writer and a decent human being, who writes articulately with moral force while working in and supporting underserved communities in which she lives in South Los Angeles. Hutchinson is a black woman sexual violence survivor (as a girl at the time) and a parent of a non-binary child, granddaughter of Earl Hutchinson Sr., and daughter of Yvonne Divans Hutchinson and Earl Ofari Hutchinson. She earned a Ph.D. in Performance Studies in 1999 from New York University.
She founded the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) as “a feminist service learning program designed to educate and train young middle and high school age women in South Los Angeles to take ownership of their school-communities.” Also, she founded Black Skeptics Los Angeles (BSLA), which became part of the 501(c)3 organization Black Skeptics Group (BSG – founded in 2010) in 2012. She is a co-founder of the Women of Colour Beyond Belief Conference with Bridgett “Bria” Crutchfield (Minority Atheists of MI, Detroit affiliate of Black Nonbelievers, and Operation Water For Flint) and Mandisa Thomas (Black Nonbelievers), which featured speakers as wide-ranging as Liz Ross, Candace Gorham, Deanna Adams, Cecilia Pagan, Ingrid Mitchell, Lilandra Ra, Marquita Tucker, Mashariki Lawson-Cook, Rajani Gudlavaletti, Sonjiah Davis, and Sadia Hameed.
Her work and speaking have crossed paths with several prominent African American and Black freethinkers, including Desiree Kane, Anthony Pinn, Bobby Joe Champion, Sikivu Hutchinson, Andrea Jenkins, Charone Pagett, Diane Burkholder, Juhem Navarro-Rivera, Heina Dadabhoy, Sincere Kirabo, Candace Gorham, Liz Ross, and many others. Her previous works include Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles (Travel Writing Across the Disciplines) (2003), Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (2011), Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels (2013), and White Nights, Black Paradise (2015). As well, she released a short film on White Nights, Black Paradise in 2016, which was made into a stage production in 2018.
As seems implicit in the works, any social, economic, and political progress for the godless will come in ethical form, as immoral acts in attempts to force or coerce an overarching ethical movement will provide ammunition for demagogues who wish to – so to speak – crush a neck with a knee or silence citizens who wish to protest by taking a knee. In short, she reads not only what comes in the academic volumes in intellectual interests for her, but she acts as a positive humanist agent in South Los Angeles, in particular, and America, in general, with a number of initiatives, including the First in the Family Humanist scholarship. Both personal attributes of intellectual rigour and community work come together in the written works for her. Humanists in the Hood becomes another manifestation of the universalist ink of Hutchinson.
In many ways, Hutchinson stands intellectually alone, as happens with many Black humanists in the global diaspora of Humanism. This is not to deny or neglect the reality of organizational and media buttresses, at times, for, or by, Black humanists. Certainly, supports have begun to grow, in part. However, in the cases of supports developed externally to the Black humanist community, how much sentiment is not overweening, affected, and simply nakedly fake? A woman in interviews having to define for the public even the meaning of atheism or agnosticism, as when on the “On The 7 With Dr. Sean” show. Chavonne Taylor and Hutchinson spent a not-insignificant amount of time on the basic definitions of agnosticism and atheism followed by further clarification. If you’re wondering, this was aired in 2020. However, there exists a history of writings with, for example, A. Philip Randolph who sponsored an essay contest entitled “Is Christianity a Menace to the Negro?” Naturally, Hutchinson loved the title.
Our first interaction occurred on December 20, 2016 with the publication of “Interview with Sikivu Hutchinson – Feminist, Humanist, Novelist, Author“ in Conatus News. Someone with identities disliked by racists as a Black or an African American citizen of the United States of America, by misogynists for feminist writings, women’s leadership organizational work, and lived egalitarian values, and by religious fundamentalists for rejections of supernatural claims of sacred texts and disbelief in the authority of purported holy figures, i.e., as a humanist or, naturally, a ‘heretic.’ Hence, the reason for the full title of Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical (2020). To add icing to the cake, Hutchinson advocates for socialist economic policy, which, in the United States, is heard as or translated by the culture into “antidemocratic” or “communistic,” as she notes.
The “Humanists” in the main title comes from fundamental humanist values lived out in ‘hoods’ in South L.A. while engraved with the flavors, the sounds, the emotions, and the patois, and the pains and the tragedies and the triumphs as humanists in hoods. Also, “Hood” comes from lived experience for Hutchinson. She grew up at the tail-end of COINTELPRO (COunter INTELligence PROgram) in which a program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was destroying or decimating African American communities and political organizations. Hutchinson understands the contexts of state violence and its organized manifestations. One of her earliest moments of political protest was in hearing about the murder of Eulia Love/Eulia Mae Love/Eula Love by two LAPD officers in her own residence in 1979.
It was a first moment, even as a child for Hutchinson, of the issues around “use of force” by police. Or the Darrel Gates argument of African Americans responding differently to chokeholds. Similar forms of violence and subsequent political and social protests seen with the case of George Floyd and others to this day, where protests have been breaking out in Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, D.C., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Louisville, Dallas, Sacramento, Bakersfield, and San Jose, and probably elsewhere. Both come to a context in which home is neither “safe space” nor “private sanctuary.” A deep history where African American bodies are not theirs except in service to White slaveholders with Black women in America as sub-human and not really women. These cultural bigotries rooted in a proper definition of White supremacy, as domination of Black bodies and lives.
Certainly, progress has been made, but legacies live into the present with African American, Native American, Latin American, Asian American, and working class European American women getting the shit end of the shorter stick more often. Even with prominent African American figures such as Steve Harvey, Hutchinson was correct in identifying the core issue in the blanket statements by Harvey making the argument of the amorality of African Americans who become atheists and the treasonous relation to the ‘race’ when non-religious. In other words, if you leave religion while Black, you have become a traitor to the ethnicity and lack morals, especially condemnable and criminal to community for Black women who leave communal faith.
The text covers some of these contexts, but the book represents a larger intellectual environment for Hutchinson. Don’t take this second-hand from a young Canadian humanist, the reviews on the book represent similar sentiments and thoughts, and praise, of the book. Bridgette Crutchfield of Black Nonbelievers of Detroit said, “Humanists in the Hood is an acute reminder of the struggle we as Black women have and still experience. It has documented in one place, our travels and travails.” Crutchfield makes the concise and insightful point of the amnesiac nature of American memory of the crimes of old wreaking havoc on the lives of the present generations and planting seeds of potential disproportionate despair for the generations who come after us. Humanists can act in such a manner so as to provide a space to air grievances for compassionate understanding, strategize on solutions, organize relevant resources, and mobilize for the better chances of the next generations.
“Humanists in the Hood is a must read for everyone, but especially anyone who considers themselves progressive and supportive of marginalized people,” Mandisa Thomas, Founder and President, Black Nonbelievers, Inc., stated, “With her in-depth analysis, Sikivu has issued yet another challenge — to take a long, hard look historically, institutionally, and, most important, internally, into the often complex world of feminism and how humanist/secular values have and must continue to inform our fight for equality.” Thomas is right. The book represents a fundamental challenge to the humanist community in America, at least, on its various constituencies and the differentiated needs of them, which seems like a good thing because a humanist message is a universalistic message. One in which fundamental principles yield an infinite while bounded variety of potential tools for covering the needs of humanist communities in South L.A., in America, and throughout the humanist diaspora.
“The time is now for Humanists in the Hood. With compassionate, razor-sharp clarity, Sikivu Hutchinson provides a courageously bold Black, feminist, and atheist road map to liberating ourselves, our communities, and U.S. society.” Producer/Director of NO! The Rape Documentary, Aishash Shahidah Simmons, said, “She invites and challenges readers to step outside of comfort zones to consider different possibilities in response to the oppressive systems that silence and annihilate all of us on the margins. Hutchinson’s words are a clarion call for radical, tangible actions for these perilous times.”
The purpose of the book is to provide a challenge to the mainstream humanist community and to provide a “road map” for the construction of institutions devoted to the specified concerns mentioned earlier within the philosophical framework of Humanism. A “razor-sharp clarity” did not happen in a vacuum. Pressure makes diamonds. Why isn’t Hutchinson more prominent and well-known than now? Although, she has been gaining a loyal following and readership. As we know, diamonds take time to find, and tend to remain buried for a long time. Humanists in the Hood divides into five main sections in alignment with Simmons’ aforementioned “atheist road map” with “Introduction: The Stone Cold Here and Now,” “Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Humanist,” “Culturally Relevant Humanism and Economic Justice,” “The Black Humanist Heathen Gaze,” and “Gen Secular and People and Colour.”
In the introduction or “Introduction: The Stone Cold Here and Now,” she opens with a quote from Alice Walker, who said, “In my own work, I write not only what I want to read – understanding fully and indelibly that if I don’t do it, no one else is so vitally interested, or capable of doing it to my satisfaction – I will write all the things I should have been able to read.” Walker’s statement acts as a coda or thematic ground zero for the entirety of the text because, as per the Eulia Love example, Hutchinson lacked the language, the concepts, and the crystallized imagery, not the experience, to describe the happenings of the world as a child or adolescent. Even though, she sensed something was wrong in early years.
Not only for more unheard voices with Black women victims of violence, Hutchinson covers the LGBTQI community in the context of the United States. As the United Nations founded its LGBTI Core Group, an extension of the similar stream of rights activism and thought comes in the initialism ”LGBTQI” to make “Queer” as an identity more explicit. Hutchinson takes a difficult stance in America and in community. A life and worldview brewed in early “dreary religion classes run by sanctimonious white male teachers” full of “moral hypocrisies” and a sacred text full of “violent woman-hating language.”
The books Hutchinson deserved to read did not exist, by and large, and the only text considered central to community came in the form of ancient mythological collections of sacred texts entitled The Bible. One gathers the sense of a lifelong individual struggle against structures and persons in American society searching for one’s story to be told articulately, honestly, and forthrightly without filter. Out of this, a feeling of the tragic dignity of the work of Hutchinson can set over the reader.
Somebody articulating a clearly wider or more inclusive humanist vision dealing with the problems of the everyday against seemingly overwhelmingly odds with the vitriol from the Black church and the dismissal by the largely White movement atheism of American culture. Professor Anthony Pinn made an important point with the descriptive phrase “people of colour” assuming the otherness of black people, etc., compared to White people with the more appropriate change into “people of a despised colour,” as both inclusive of every person as coloured in some manner and the relative struggles in the burden of greater negative stereotypes.
While, at the same time, the Black church can be a place of refuge and civil rights organizing in one generation. It can become a place of limitations, ostracization, and control and domination and illegitimate hierarchy. However, illegitimate hierarchies prop men to the heights of dizzying unquestioned authority in African American church communities with the expected negative effects on communities, especially with the burdens placed on women of colour in those church communities.
“For years, the rap on feminism among most Black folks was that it was a White woman’s thing. White feminists, from first-wave nineteenth-century White suffragists, to second-wave stalwarts in the postwar ‘feminine mystique’ era, routinely ignored, erased, and misrepresented Black women’s experiences and social history,” Hutchinson wrote, “While white women at the height of the so-called Baby Boom decried their ‘enslavement’ to patriarchy, domesticity, and motherhood in Ozzie and Harriet-style homes, Black women were mopping their floors, washing their laundry, and wiping the butts of their children.”
This is the language of history and the life of the everyday. This is the rooted Black Humanism articulated throughout the text by Hutchinson. Right into the present, the political consciousness of the nation becomes infused with the narrative of god-talk and religion with Senator Kamala Harris during the 2020 presidential race stipulating a “faith in god,” so as to secure proper status as a Black and god-fearing American politician. Without such an endorsement, Harris’ career would have been exploded by a cross-shaped torpedo in the United States political scene. Hutchinson notes Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were mentored by Ernestine Rose. Rose is one who said religions have been built on the backs of women. Hutchinson covers the splits or historical divides between White feminists and Black feminists in America. For example, the Fifteenth Amendment permitting Black men the equality in voting rights or the right to vote. Some White feminists saw this as a hindrance to women’s rights. As has been said before, rights aren’t a pie.
She contrasts the educated middle-class White feminism with the backbreaking working-class feminism of the lives of Black women. Hutchinson delves into or references the Combahee River Collective, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Michele Wallace, Brittney Cooper, Anna Julia Cooper, Fannie Barrier Williams, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Angela Davis, bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins), Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Christian, and, of course, Alice Walker. She remarked on an interview conducted with Thandisizwe Chimurenga, where Chimurenga noted that class differences are a source of a lot of separation between feminisms. This continues right into the current political context of the Trump Administration and the Republicans.
The median wealth rates of White families, Latino families, and Black families in the United States are $147,000, $6,600, and $3,600, respectively. The unemployment rate of Black college graduates under the age of 25 is 15.4% and for White college graduates is 7.9%. There can be a visceral fear around the academic term “White supremacy,” as this seems to imply Euro-Americans with tiki torches and white hoods walking menacingly in lockstep in the dark of night. In the history of America, this has been a physically violent and ideological extreme manifestation of it. Then there are generally applicable principles behind the use of the term in wealth and employment rates, as above. At an intersection with this comes the era of Covid-19 emergent from SARS-CoV-2, these manifestations become worse. In these conditions, one can see the socialist economic orientation of Hutchinson.
Hutchinson describes the Trumpian-Republican backlash against the rights of women while noting African Americans as the most religious population in the United States. Noting how, even though, Ariana Grande and Beyoncé may identify as feminists, most young women struggle with such a label. She provides an alternative to the common notions of feminism. “I argue that Black feminist humanism is a vibrant alternative to the woo-woo spiritualism, Jesus fetishism, and goddess worship that characterizes progressive feminist belief systems that revolve around theism,” Hutchinson writes, “…the stakes for a secularist, feminist, queer, pro-social Justice, and anti-capitalist ethos of American values are perhaps greater than ever before.”
In Chapter 1 or “Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Humanist,” Hutchinson opens, “In 2010, a seven-year-old African American girl named Aiyana Jones was murdered in her sleep by the Detroit police during a military-style raid on her home. In the wake of the shooting, neighbours and loved ones placed stuffed animals in front of the house in memoriam. Rows of stuffed animals stated out from Associated Press photographs of the executions scene in dark-eyed innocence, grieving the barbaric theft of her life and light.”
She reflects on the recency of the murder of Aiyana after her (Hutchinson’s) attendance at the African Americans for Humanism conference. A point of reflection on the separation between mostly European descent or White-dominated movement atheism without much of a voice or place for African descent or Black atheists. Hutchinson brings forth the towering work of Professor Anthony Pinn, the good Methodist who became a better atheist, to argue the indices behind science and reason as taught in the classroom can be (and are) shaped by cultural conditions and subjective categories with the European American or White American students having histories and cultural traditions affirmed throughout the classroom. She uses W.E.B. DuBois’ phrase “wages of whiteness” in this context.
Hutchinson references the execution of Michael Brown, the Youth Justice Coalition, Dignity and Power Now (of Patrisse Cullors Khan), and Black Lives Matter, and Tarana Burke’s #MeToo movement as part of various points of contact for social commentary on systemic inequities manifested in livelihood outcomes in American society. Views rooted in a history of slave-era racism and sexism where Black women are “‘unrapeable,’ hypersexual Jezebels” based on the “ideal of pure, virginal, chaste ‘Christian’ white womanhood.” She highlights the lack of people of colour in the leadership positions of leading secular organizations including the American Humanist Association, Center for Inquiry, Foundation Beyond Belief, and the Secular Student Alliance. She highlights the work of Candace Gorham and Karen Garst bringing forth a more pluralized image of people of colour in the secular movements.
There is reflection on the content of the Huffington Post piece entitled “Ten Fierce Atheists: Unapologetically Black Women Beyond Belief” and the legislation of Michigan Congresswoman Ayanna Presley to “end the punitive pushout of girls of color from schools and disrupt the school-to-confinement pathway.” Hutchinson describes how this builds on the work of Monique Morris, author of Pushout. She touches on the sexual violence as portrayed in Surviving R. Kelly, and the helpful text of Iris Jacobs in My Sisters’ Voices in the mentoring of young Black girls. Here, she pivots into her Women’s Leadership Project, and the Black Feminist and Feminist of Color conferences.
Hutchinson remarks on Audre Lorde’s observation of Black women’s self-care as something political because Black women rarely have such an opportunity based on the stressors and communal demands upon them. Michele Wallace and the ‘blasting’ of the 1965 ”Moynihan Report” are part and parcel of critiques set forth here. As Hutchinson continually frames, Black women in America find deaf ears in the White-dominated secular communities and absolute rejection & condemnation, if non-religious, in the Black church community. Thus, Euro-centric individualist Humanism is important, but not does land well with the collective boot on Black women as a category. Principles of solidarity become more dominant rather than the abstracted sovereign individual, how ever important in environments in which other fundamental needs and challenges have been mostly overcome.
It hits the Supreme Court too. Hutchinson describes how the consequential case of Anita Hill gave significance to awareness of sexual violence against Black women in particular and women in general; whereas, at the same time, the exposure of abusers like Roger Ailes and Harvey Weinstein brought forth White women’s voices who deserved to be heard, but were heard without a historical context of earlier prominent cases like Anita Hill. Even in the secular communities, “…American Atheists(AA), the largest nonbeliever advocacy organization in the nation. After former president David Silverman was terminated in April 2018 following sexual assault allegations, the organization had a signal opportunity to make a bold chance in leadership by hiring Mandisa Thomas,” Hutchinson states, “Thomas, who has a solid record of secular organizing, outreach, and management across intersectional communities, would have been the AA’s first woman of color executive and the only Black woman to head a mainstream secular organization. Instead, AA opted for a white male insider…”
Hutchinson highlights some of the work by Amy Davis Roth of SkepChick in 2014 to highlight atheist women who have been stalked and harassed, which effectuated some change. However, the “thrall” with global figures – Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Sam Harris, and Michael Shermer – of the mainstream secular communities will need reduction for more space and voice for secular Black women and women of colour.
In Chapter 2 or “Culturally Relevant Humanism and Economic Justice,” Hutchinson states, “In my community, churches of every size, architectural style, and denomination sit totemically between daycare centers, liquor stores, dry cleaners, dollar stores, and beauty shops.” ‘Totem,’ what is a totem? Sacred, symbolic objects representative of clan, family, or ancestry. This is important. Not only spatial-geographic waste and economic drags on communities needing it, many African Americans in particular and Black Americans in general feel a connection to Christianity as a whole and its manifestation in the Black Church.
She comments on the work of Paula Giddings and the exploitation of Black women slaves as “breeders,” etc., as Black women in the slave era of America were chattel for the use and abuse by slave owners. She touches on the controversy surrounding Linda Sarsour and her (Sarsour’s) support for Minister Louis Farrakhan, known for anti-Semitic and misogynist views.
Hutchinson roots such injustice in the economic context for Black Americans, as noted earlier about these median wealth disparities and unemployment inequities. The tax-free status of places of worship is a unified concern for Black and White secularists in America. One of the more unique concerns of Black atheists is the reflection of the Jim Crow era and the Great Migration in their connection with the Black church. More generally, she remarks on the inordinate wealth handed to the individual pastors in Africa, Nigeria particularly, and in America with the two most prominent cases in David Oyedepo, in Nigeria, and T.D. Jakes, in America.
How these ultra-wealthy Black male pastors suck the economic lifeblood out of community is a travesty, the ways in which Black women’s labour makes these religious communities possible in the first place too. This is where ideas of social and economic redistribution become inherent in the form of humanist discourse espoused by Hutchinson. She reflects on “How the Humanist Movement Fosters Economic Injustice” by David Hoelscher with reference to Helen Keller and Albert Einstein and some of the fundamental socialistic structures endorsed by them. Even, as Hutchinson states, the first major humanist document published in 1933 was devoted explicitly to racial equality and economic justice.
Indeed, the fourteenth affirmation in the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I stated, “The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.” [Emphasis added.]
Leading humanists Paul Kurtz and Edwin Wilson in the Humanist Manifesto II emphasized addressing economic injustices as core to Humanism and, thus, to humanist discourse. Modern Humanism, Hutchinson correctly observes, fails to deal with these realities affecting more of its non-mainstream communities, where there could be concretized humanist activism at the most fundamental level drawing back to the roots of the philosophical worldview and life stance with addressing economic injustice and social inequities.
As another great boss at The Good Men Project, Councilwoman Emily LaDouceur, has stated, “Never underestimate the power of community leaders speaking out against discrimination, injustice, and harassment… We need city council members who will unapologetically stand up against any policy, procedure, or practice, that may perpetuate bias or discrimination.”
The core of the movements has merely shifted the ratios of its currency into the big basket of combatting “religious attacks on secular freedom.” That’s it. The diversified vision of 1933 has been truncated. One where individuals “who question humanist, atheist, or skeptical orthodoxies are trashed, branded snowflakes, social justice warriors, feminazis, or religious apologists.”
She remarked on the clash between Bakari Chavanu, of Black Humanists and Nonbelievers of Sacramento, and a libertarian, exemplifying a differential vision of “Humanism” as a concept based on the August 2018 piece entitled “Why Five Fierce Humanists.” Concomitant with this, Hutchinson reflects on the “majority of forerunning early-twentieth-century Black freethinkers (with the notable exception of figures like Zora Neale Hurston and Black conservative intellectual George Schuyler) were socialist and communist aligned, and actively condemned the way capitalism and White supremacy harm Black communities.”
She notes the holes in the presentation of Roy Speckhardt, the executive director of the American Humanist Association, about Thomas Jefferson in the book Creating Change Through Humanism. He was a secularist and freethinker. Also, he believed in the inherent inferiority of Blacks and committed an ethical atrocity in the form of a slaveholding empire. Similarly, one can think of the skeptic views of H.L. Mencken while reflecting on the racist views about Blacks and imaginary crimes seen in ‘miscegenation.’ Hutchinson quotes Paul Finkelman in “The Monster of Monticello” to describe the atrocious behaviour of Jefferson. Historian Christopher Deaton reflects much the same withering critique.
Many of these economic realities come in the form of billionaire listings with a White face, Black male ultra-rich pastors bilking Black communities and taking up needed community space, and the policy and legal decisions giving economic privileges to corporations and religious institutions, e.g., the Johnson Amendment and Citizens United, which may be bolstered by appointments of people like Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, or Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. American slavery sapped the economic productivity of Black slaves in America for White Americans’ benefit; thus, in the reference to Thomas Paine and Ernestine Rose by Hutchinson, the “Original Sin” of America was an economic one.
“And even though White abolitionists and deist freethinkers like Thomas Paine and feminist suffragist Ernestine Rose decried the “original sin” of American slavery,” Hutchinson wrote, “the eighteenth-century narrative of colonial bondage to the British continues to reverberate in the toxic myth of American exceptionalism. In many regards, the myth that the United States is fundamentally better and more just or exceptional than any other country in the world is the lie that allows structural inequity to persist.”
Hutchinson speaks more to the 2014 article by James Croft “Beyond Secularism” and Croft’s important focus on a wider vision of the possibilities of Humanism. Something important Hutchinson pivots into this point is Pinn’s emphasis on the everyday little facets and facts of reality, the rooted Humanism of Hutchinson, for the proper knitting together of the grand figures and narratives of mainstream Humanism with the highly neglected communities of colour who deserve a voice at the table and a choice in programs from the wider humanist community. This can be done. Why not?
Hutchinson describes the way in which the material view of the universe does not limit her perspective on the operations of consciousness. She does not believe in the spirit or soul. Hutchinson affirms the conscious and unconscious connected to thoughts and feelings from a material brain. She looks at the indefinite nature of the findings of the scientific method’s actual discovery of the natural world. The fundamental issue is one affirming the freedom of individual choice.
She also spoke about how Stacey Abrams in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial statement said “faith, service, education, responsibility” set forth the values for Abrams. This was similar to the Kamala Harris statement before. In that, if you state a non-religious and non-faith-based view of the world, and if you state that you do not adhere to a deity, then you have committed political suicide. In a manner of speaking, African Americans as highly religious constituents only feel comfortable and encouraged by religious male hierarchs to vote for politicians who are firm in faith in order to be seen as properly Black, or to have any semblance of a moral compass or an ethical system guiding one’s life, which harkens back to the Steve Harvey commentary earlier.
“Before Humanism can be concretely relevant to the everyday lives of Black women and women of color steeped in faith and religious practice there must be space for them to exist in discomfort of the unknown.” In many ways, Hutchinson’s every day realities rooted Humanism aligns deeply with the depictions described by Hutchinson in Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
Hutchinson talked about the rape of Desiree Washington by Mike Tyson. Washington was Miss Black America in 1991. Farrakhan condemned Washington, essentially, as a Jezebel. An experience common in many communities with rape survivors tossed to the lions by community leaders, including religious leaders, as was the case with Farrakhan. Occasionally, there’s justice, as with sexual assaulters Daniel Holtzclaw, Bill Cosby, and R. Kelly. All this is simply marginal justice for raped Black American women, not even taking into account LGBTQI members of communities. Voices rarely heard. Victims barely sought.
Even institutionally, Hutchinson puts the Southern Baptist Convention on blast over its illustrative compiled crimes. Yet, with the spotty coverage of rapes and sexual violence, the violence of bullying and harassment can acquire coverage, especially around teen suicides, if a White face. This can be impacted by portrayals and commentary intended as jokes by some of the most prominent comedians of the day, e.g., Kevin Hart. Hutchinson reflects in some cultural positives in the cases of Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, or in the deconstructionist Other People’s Children by Lisa Delpit, or the essay “What’s Home Got to do With It? Unsheltered Queer Youth” by Reed Christian and Anjali Mukarji-Connoly.
Hutchinson reported on Center for American Progress’ work by Aisha Moodle-Mills and Jerome Hunt about the great risks to life and livelihood of LGBTQI youth, whether teen pregnancy, school dropout, homelessness, drug abuse, stress, and more. A rooted Humanism, or a more radical Humanism compared to the present (not as much to the 1933 vision), has a moral stake in this wider fight for equality and justice.
In Chapter 3 or “The Black Humanist Heathen Gaze,” Hutchinson describes not seeing herself in the media of Judy Blume and others presented to her. As per the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, 3,700 books published in 2017 featured mostly White protagonists. Even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s Charlie Bucket was intended as a Black protagonist, but became White in the final production. It’s the same for non-religious film and television. There has been a decline in Christian movie audiences. However, it’s still garnering a significant pull and has an audience.
She notes the only real secular studies professor in academia as Professor Phil Zuckerman with only two major exceptions who focus on Black secular Humanism in particular, who build an academic series of works devoted to critical consciousness: Dr. Christopher Cameron at the University of North Carolina and Dr. Anthony Pinn at Rice University. Hutchinson is the only one to have developed a course about humanist women of colour in the world through the Humanist Institute entitled “Women of Color Beyond Faith.” Her interest in Black humanist cultural production is seminal as well. Maureen Mahoney and Jeffrey Othello are “among the few in the White-dominated field of rock and roll musicology and music history.” Critical works by White writers have been Jack Hamilton and Gayle Wald. While, at the same time, August Wilson notes the operations of Black Americans exists within a preconfigured cultural structure by White Americans. It all feeds into cultural tropes of “Tyler Perry-esque evangelicalism” condemned by a smug atheist, etc.
When Hutchinson reviewed lists of secular films challenging religion, it was mostly White secular driven film and television making direct attacks. Black Americans in religious enclaves have to trade in a different and hidden-from-popular-culture currency. There is some questioning of faith in Black media productions, as in August Wilson, James Baldwin, and Lorraine Hansberry with further “radical aesthetic and ideological possibility” seen in the works of Richard Wright and Nella Larsen. Hutchinson’s own White Nights, Black Paradise “features perhaps the first narrative film portrayal of a Black atheist lesbian protagonist.” There is a yearning for a magical return to some long-gone past state apart from the hellish nature of many Black American lives now relative to many White and other Americans, which may come in the form of “a sentiment reflected in both the Great Migration and the Back to Africa movements.” A commentary of the state of idolatry found in Black Americans becoming involved in Jonestown in hypocritical worship of the Marxist atheist, Jim Jones, as a Christian god.
As per usual in many contexts, and in the environs of Jonestown, Black women were the pseudo-chattel of subservience and obeisance to Jones as “ever-faithful, self-sacrificing” servants, as if without autonomy of conscience and self-determination of body, i.e., as subhuman. Black women suffering from Stockholm Syndrome in identification with Jones. To quote late humanist Kurt Vonnegut, “So it goes.”
In Chapter 4 or “Gen Secular and People and Colour,” Hutchinson remarks on the treatment of children with atheist and humanist parents. They (Hutchinson’s nonbinary 11-year-old daughter), earlier in life, had to hear in second grade, “You’re going to hell and to the devil, because you don’t go to church.” This is the context for a not-insignificant number of nonbelievers in the United States. We can see this in White professional class women of tenure in self-identified Liberal Theology and progressive churches in Canada under the banner of the United Church of Canada with Rev. Gretta Vosper who was raked through the coals in national media for several years.
In South L.A. where Sikivu and they live, in 1965, there was the Watts Rebellion resulting in White “flight” from the neighbourhoods. Now, with changes in economic disparities in the ultra-wealthy and the stagnation and decline for much of the rest of the United States, Hutchinson notes the ironic return of White Americans and the subsequent gentrification following from this. “God’s plan” is an empty cliché taken as an aphorism of wisdom and assumed as a framework for comprehension of the world and relative misery around African American religious communities. She speaks to the historian Ibram Kendi’s call to recognize 1 in 4 Black American households have zero wealth compared to 1 in 10 White Americans, which builds on the work of Ta Nehisi-Coates.
These thoughts and movements aren’t new. Hutchinson brings back the historical memory of the pioneering and first Black freethinker who defied both White slavers and the “Black faith police,” where she quotes, particularly in response to censure by Black Methodist ministers, Frederick Douglass, “I bow to no priests, either of faith or unfaith, I claim as against all sorts of people, simply perfect freedom of thought.” Maria Stewart and Sojourner Truth would have experienced far more backlash if they spoke so directly and forthrightly against established dogma’s guardians. They may make it pinch and sting with a Black man; however, they will make it cut in the case of a Black woman.
Clashes exist in the current incarnations of the American freethought movements, as we see in the history with Ernestine Rose, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony. Nonetheless, we live in a globalizing world and the ex-Muslim movement is a unique one. It is working to detach religious identity from ethnic heritage. As well, it is bringing forth the concerns of the men and the women who have left Islam and endured severe censure, ostracism, abuse, and even death threats. Sadia Hameed, a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, and Zara Kay, the founder of Faithless Hijabi, writer Hibah Ch, and Taslima Nasreen, Bangladeshi activist, author, and physician, are all referenced as important examples in this work.
Heina Dadabhoy is given space to make the point about coming out as an atheist for her. In that, when she renounced Islam, her parents described the action as Dadabhoy wanting to be like White people. Freethought in some contexts is seen as a White cultural phenomenon, i.e., the god concept becomes self-imposed mental prison as a form of community identity and inverse ethnic identification (as in not being White, thus making the false linkage, in another manner, between ethnicity and religion). There is a change in the landscape, though.
Millennials, and younger generations, continue to lose religion as a core identity, even in connection with perceptions of some amorphous, invisible unity between belief in the god concept and actuality of morality. Moral movements, including Black Lives Matter of Patrisse Cullors Khan, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza, are manifestations of this in some ways. Three Black queer women who founded a movement different than the historical civil rights movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. and others steeped in “heterosexist, homophobic, patriarchal Black-church traditions [that] stifled any semblance of affirmation of queer voices (much less nonbelieving ones).” A. Philip Randolph, Hutchinson notes, was “frequently gay-baited and forced to suppress his identity in the movement.”
A Humanism embracing more gender fluid notions while rejecting gods and the supernatural can match more of the universalistic sensibilities espoused since the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I and remove false dichotomies between feeling and thinking with the feelings as feminine, etc., as Hutchinson notes in quoting Soraya Chemaly from Rage Becomes Her. One theoretical work or hypothesis Hutchinson describes is Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) from Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing (PTSS) (2005) by Joy DeGruy, which is a hypothesis about intergenerational stressors passed from one cohort to the next as a result of slavery and its aftereffects. This then leads into the concluding statements of the text.
Hutchinson remarks on the Black Skeptics Los Angeles First in the Family Humanist youth recipients as profiled in the Humanist magazine and the Huffington Post. One touching story is Mike Grimes who established firm humanist roots after the death of a father to a car crash. Grimes did not rely on the gods or the supernatural. In trying to get a settlement from the trucking company with “so-called Christian family values on its website,” the experience was hellish. This is America, for humanists – so stand tall. Hutchinson concludes with a quote from Audre Lorde on self-determination of Black women and women of colour in the humanist movements. Hutchinson adds, “Lorde’s words are a testament to the enduring power of self-representation as art, agency, and self-determination. They resonate deeply as we move further into a century where secular Black feminist and feminist of color resistance will be definitive in shaping humanist politics and consciousness.” She’s right.
If humanist institutions do not cover the wider range of the concerns of its broad base of communities or constituencies, then the humanist movement will, in part, become obsolete to the needs of its communities and constituencies, i.e., human beings enacting humanist values and searching for humanist organizations and media speaking to their human concerns. As Hutchinson observes, “If humanism is reframed as working through struggle; being silent in one’s body; being alone in one’s body; being partnered; being skeptical; being engaged in art, literature, music, and the full scope of Black creativity in the sublime and the every day – then it would have more relevance to traditions of Black women’s resistance.”
In this sense, to become “obsolete” means to lose sight of the human needs of Black humanists’ Humanism, in a manner of speaking, it becomes revolutionary to the historical trends in American society with the view of people of colour, African Americans, or Black citizens of the United States as sub-human (and Black women as not really women), because the personhood, dignity, and autonomy of each individual human being gets affirmed in Humanism. That’s the fundamental revolutionary act at this time, causa mentale: a revolution in how we see ourselves and how we see one another, as members of the same species with the same inherent dignity and value. That’s the “acute reminder” or, rather, “challenge” with “razor-sharp clarity” one finds in Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical. To this “must read” book, I will conclude on a favourite Black feminist poet of Hutchinson, Lucille Clifton, who is an icon to Hutchinson. Clifton wrote “won’t you celebrate with me” from Book of Light (1993):
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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There were some interesting and thoughtful responses to “Cases of Abuse and Cults – William Branham.” Based on the feedback, some of the article has been updated on May 27, 2020. Other factors will be covered here. Future pieces will cover the Casting Pearls Project of Jennifer Hamilton and the William Branham Historical Research of John Collins in more depth in individual pieces with the interviews provided by the two of them with me, as well as building networks for women to acquire help and how to identify abuse in a church setting. Altogether, these can provide a sufficient resource for individual members of The Message.
You can find many other writings on the formerly or the non-religious at Canadian Atheist with insightful and thoughtful content from Derek Gray, Diane Bruce, Ian Bushfield, Indi or Mark A. Gibbs, Heidi Loney, or Shawn the Humanist, or external voices brought in to build an internationalist sensibility or more varied national sense of the freethought community with the “Ask” series, whether Melissa Story, Reverend Gretta Vosper, Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson, Professor Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, and Joyce Arthurfrom Canada, Takudzwa Mazwienduna, Alton Mungani, and Shingai Rukwata Ndorofrom Zimbabwe, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Herb Silverman, Mandisa Thomas, Faye Girsh, Terry Waslow, Dr. David L. Orenstein/Dave Orenstein/David Orenstein, Rob Boston, Kim Newton, M.Litt., Shirley Rivera, Minister Amanda Poppei, and Justin Scott from the United States of America, Omar Shakir (in Jordan) on Israel and Palestine, Mubarak Balaand Dr. Leo Igwe from Nigeria, Jani Schoeman, Rick Raubenheimer, and Wynand Meijerfrom South Africa, Nsajigwa I Mwasokwa (Nsajigwa Nsa’sam) from Tanzania, and Kwabena “Michael” Osei-Assibey from Ghana.
Other great Canadian content, as noted in “And now, a word from our sponsors…,” can be seen in orbiting critical voices, including Eiynah or Eiynah Mohammed-Smith of “Polite Conversations” and Nice Mangoes (Facebook and Twitter), Laurence A. Moran of Sandwalk, the Brainstorm Podcast (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube), Left at the Valley (Facebook and Twitter), Ashlyn Noble Gem Newman, Ian James, Lauren Bailey, and Laura Creek Newman at Life, the Universe & Everything Else (Facebook), Cristina “JUNO and Platinum award winning music publicist” Roach, Adam “fighting evil by moonlight” Gardner, Darren “crash from Krypton” McKee, and “the engine that keeps TRC going” Producer Pat of The Reality Check (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram), and Bad Science Watch (Facebook and Twitter), British Columbia Humanist Association (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and MeetUp), and more.
The series of articles on William Branham emerge in the context of letters sent to me (from believers – even a deacon and a police chaplain). I took the liberty of parsing some of the contents and contexts into some digestable segmentations for the purposes of critical examination in a wider series of considerations of The Message theology of the late William Branham while connecting these concerns with responses provided by modern reason, rights, and science considerations. These will separate into Positive Life Experiences, Eyewitness Accounts, Opinions of Others, Women’s Rights, and Science. The coverage will proceed in that ordering.
Positive Life Experiences
One of the themes in the letters sent as a reaction to “Cases of Abuse and Cults – William Branham” was the sense of a life or a period after conversion of perpetual or mostly positive experiences within The Message churches and, therefore, reflective of the moral rightness of Branham and the correctness/inerrancy of both the Bible and the verbal delivery of Branham. This is a claim and, in a sense, a tight argument, which is good. Its framework seems relatively well-defined and made as a subjective claim appearing as if objective as to the transcendental truths of Branham and the Bible. One of the simpler ideas can come in the form of fantasy ideas accepted as fantasy by most adults in a North American sociocultural context while handed to children as a truism in the figure of Santa Claus in a full white beard, diabetes-inducing belly, rosy cheeks, pale North Pole face, red hat and suit edged by fuzzy white poofs and a big black belt. All equipped with flying reindeer (wings not necessary), a sleigh, and an infinitely bottomed present sac with the Christmas gifts made by the loyal elves of the North Pole factories. One hopes they get a living wage.
A fantasy idea in the lives of many North American children with associations of family, parents, maybe siblings, presents, candy, and more. All for a young child’s fantasy surprise. However, as we know, Santa Claus, if claimed as real, and if believed, can lead to an individual holding false beliefs and harbouring false knowledge about the world while having mostly positive experiences as a result. Even though, these bring positive experiences to the lives of the child. In no way does this substantiate the claim, thus, on the basic claim of a positive life experience under the theology of Branham, this fails to support the strength of the claim. Otherwise, one would have the ability to claim the same about the Santa Claus in a fantasy example as opposed to a non-fantasy example in the case of William Branham. This amounts to an argument against positive experiences leading to truth claims about a worldview rather than truth claims about the positive experience. To the positive experiences expressed by members of The Message community to me, I believe the claims wholeheartedly; however, I cannot extend the truth of positive experiences for some select individual members of the community into the illegitimate extrapolation to truth claims about the Bible or The Message from the late William Branham.
Eyewitness Accounts
On eyewitness accounts of the individuals within The Message, this can be a trickier or murkier subject matter for members within The Message diaspora around the world or under the banner of a common theology of Branham’s interpretation of the Bible because science can be seen as something of the devil and science of eyewitness testimony, i.e., the psychological science of individual observation, advanced to a sufficient point to make eyewitness claims extremely uncertain at best, unreliable at a minimum. In that, Drs. Daniel M. Bernstein/Daniel Bernstein, Cristina Atance, Geoffrey R. Loftus, Andrew Meltzoff, and generations of others have been influenced in the cognitive sciences by the pioneering and sociopolitically consequential work of Professor Elizabeth Loftus at the University of California, Irvine on research into eyewitness testimony. Professor Elizabeth Loftus showed a lot of ways in which eyewitness testimony can be (and is) unreliable because human beings cannot process information in an adequate manner. We evolved; thus, we’re good enough for some ancestral environment for the passing of genes into the next generation, not to maximize intelligence, fidelity and comprehensiveness of memory.
Any examination of the list of cognitive biases can provide an insight into the evolved biases in human thought. Quite naturally, any evolved trait will have subsequent limits to provide some new capacity – can do some things and not other things. In this new capacity, we come to the functionality for some tasks. If cognitive tasks, then this becomes a limitation in cognition as a result, which leads to all sorts of strange phenomena. With some research, you can see some of the fascinating work on Hindsight Bias by Dr. Daniel Bernstein/Dr. Daniel Bernstein at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, especially Auditory Hindsight Bias. More to the point, and based on the expert association statements on eyewitness testimony, it is unreliable. Any claims of miracles, of performances, of claimed historical events and the like, can be taken within the light of modern psychological science on eyewitness testimony.
Duly note, if the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and other books or sacred texts comprising the Bible or the biblical accounts rely on eyewitness testimony, and if this became the basis for theology, hermeneutics, biblical exegesis, or some base textual analysis of the purported eyewitness accounts or statements recorded in a script for future generations to read, then these would become empirical questions bound by the modern psychological science of eyewitness testimony. This fact (and argument) should be getting far more attention. It is a freethought view on the biblical accounts. Individuals like Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou have been in the public eye in a similar way, especially in Europe, as a prominent freethinker voice for Bible scholars. Because she is a Bible scholar who loves the text, in and of itself, while taking a rational and empirical approach to the claims within the Bible. Anyhow, more to the central point of eyewitness testimony and psychological science, the associations devoted to psychological science have been highly critical of the colloquial claims about eyewitness testimony, as noted in several statements by leading organizations or publications, even a bibliography is on board. Psychological Science states:
Memory doesn’t record our experiences like a video camera. It creates stories based on those experiences. The stories are sometimes uncannily accurate, sometimes completely fictional, and often a mixture of the two; and they can change to suit the situation. Eyewitness testimony is a potent form of evidence for convicting the accused, but it is subject to unconscious memory distortions and biases even among the most confident of witnesses. So memory can be remarkably accurate or remarkably inaccurate. Without objective evidence, the two are indistinguishable.
Scientific American states:
The uncritical acceptance of eyewitness accounts may stem from a popular misconception of how memory works. Many people believe that human memory works like a video recorder: the mind records events and then, on cue, plays back an exact replica of them. On the contrary, psychologists have found that memories are reconstructed rather than played back each time we recall them. The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is “more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.” Even questioning by a lawyer can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.
American Psychological Association states:
Iowa State University experimental social psychologist Gary Wells, PhD, a member of a 1999 U.S. Department of Justice panel that published the first-ever national guidelines on gathering eyewitness testimony, says Loftus’s model suggests that crime investigators need to think about eyewitness evidence in the same way that they think about trace evidence.
“Like trace evidence, eyewitness evidence can be contaminated, lost, destroyed or otherwise made to produce results that can lead to an incorrect reconstruction of the crime,” he says. Investigators who employ a scientific model to collect, analyze and interpret eyewitness evidence may avoid incidents like Olson’s potentially flawed identification of the Fairbanks suspects, he notes.
In fact, Wells says that other evidence techniques, such as police lineups, are similar to scientific experiments. In lineups, the police have a hypothesis, they provide instructions, collect responses and interpret the results. As such, the same factors that can bias the results of an experiment can bias an eyewitness’s performance in picking suspects out of a lineup, he says.
Oxford Bibliographies states:
Eyewitness testimony is critically important to the justice system. Indeed, it is necessary in all criminal trials to reconstruct facts from past events, and eyewitnesses are commonly very important to this effort. Psychological scientists, however, have challenged many of the assumptions of the legal system and the general public regarding the accuracy of eyewitness accounts. Particularly dominant in the psychological science literature are the views that memory reports are malleable (i.e., changed by suggestive questioning), that witnesses can be made to be extremely confident in inaccurate memories, and that police lineups should follow a careful protocol in order to avoid high rates of mistaken identification. The principal methods used by psychological scientists for examining the accuracy of eyewitnesses involve creating events that unsuspecting people witness and then collecting their reports about what they saw. Because the events were created by the researchers, these reports can be scored for their accuracy and completeness. In this way, researchers can systematically manipulate various factors (such as stress, view, the use of misleading questions, the instructions given prior to a lineup) to determine what variables influence accuracy and completeness. This body of research has its programmatic origins in the mid- to late 1970s, but it received a large boost to its credibility in the 1990s, when forensic DNA testing began to uncover convictions of innocent people. Over 75 percent of these exonerations are cases involving mistaken eyewitness identification. The discovery of these mistaken identifications and resulting wrongful convictions has been a jarring event for the legal system and threatens public faith in the criminal justice system. Accordingly, eyewitness research today is having a larger impact on the legal system as the legal system recognizes that eyewitness errors are leading to faulty trial outcomes.
With these statements, since the 1970s and due to the beginning (and ongoing) work of Professor Elizabeth Loftus, we will see, and continue to see, the erosion of the eyewitness as a high standard in courtrooms, in other legal settings, and in the psychological science, in particular cognitive science, literature. In short, the claim of William Branham as a mortal, though a Prophet, or a mortal and a fraud, make the same claim as an individual who lives, breathes, poops, pees, and yells at crowds about the blessings of Christ and of the heavenly rewards of the righteous. A man with oratory skills and a man of his time, who spoke in the manner of the culture, of his constituency, of the ordinary American fundamentalist believer. We cannot trust eyewitness accounts in the case of Branham or others purporting to witness other miracles as a rule of psychological science, modern cognitive science, with the basis in human beings as the metric, and humans stink at measurement; we’re unreliable, hence why eyewitness testimony is unreliable.
Opinions of Others
There were some other points about the personal opinion or the opinion of others about Branham, even on a surface level. Individuals who have left The Message theology due to abuse realize the nature of an ordinary man proclaiming himself as God. Others who do not leave The Message theology can see the man as one of the time, of the era. Message believers in the churches throughout the world consider this man the last Prophet of God Almighty who shall bring forth righteous unto God (The Message believers).
However, if we examine the simple nature of individual beliefs inside of the structure of The Message, and outside of The Message, there are some important considerations about character analysis, as reflected through a prism of The Message believers and those without this belief structure. These, simply and fundamentally, come back down to the basis of opining or personal opinion giving in which individual opinions do not change the fact of the matter, whether prominent religious believers or not. Indeed, many Christians do not accept The Message of William Branham, which becomes an aspect of this entire endeavour.
As a small point, in my country of Canada, whether Cloverdale Bibleway, Edmonton Living Word Assembly, Grace And Truth Message Tabernacle, Bible Believer’s Fellowship, Manifested Word Fellowship, or the End Time Message Tabernacle, one can be certain of the high praise of Branham within those churches, fellowships, or tabernacles. Even with these opinions, they would not change the facts of the matter about a large number of things, including eyewitness testimony, positive life experiences, or the science (incoming). (This isn’t a larger claim here, but this is a smaller claim oriented around unified theology, differentiation in practice, and opinions as an insufficient basis for substantiation of theology, including all the various testimonies.)
Women’s Rights
Women’s rights remain foundational to the entire endeavour to the secular movements around the world and the instantiation of a more just and equitable world around us. When the framing of human rights naturally incorporates women’s rights, as women are humans (as Margaret Atwood notes or strongly cautions against any separation), the developments for further equality in the modern world found themselves on human rights and humanitarian law rather than transcendental law espoused by particular religions. The former, human rights and humanitarian law, incorporates the freedom to believe for the secular and the religious on equal footing while the latter, transcendental law espoused by religions, permits the rights for the “righteous” (the right religion religious) and not for the non-religious.
Any secular advancement and equality for all religions will be developed through the international institutions developed since the end of the Second World War, as noted by individuals as luminous as Albert Einstein noted some of these ideas when speaking of a “supranational” authority. Something akin to this idea would involve an international set of institutions developed for the inclusion of every actor, minor or major, with rules for everyone, as created in the international human rights and humanitarian law frameworks guiding the international systems today. These are the rules of the game. When it comes to rights, women’s rights have a particular stature. I have been going through many of the relevant documents for rights today at The Good Men Project under the stellar leadership of Lisa Hickey, Lisa Blacker, and Wilhelm Cortez. You can find the stipulations or buttresses on many aspects of the international community devoted to women’s rights here:
Documents
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2).
- Convention Against Discrimination in Education (1960) in Article 1.
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) in Article 3, Article 7, and Article 13.
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
- Some general declarations (not individual Declaration or set of them but announcement) included the UN Decade for Women (1976-1985).
- Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) and the Optional Protocol (1999).
- Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984).
- The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the optional protocol (1993).
- Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), Five-year review of progress (2000), 10-year review in 2005, the 15-year review in 2010, and the 20-year review in 2015.
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), and the UN Security Council additional resolutions on women, peace and security: 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019).
- Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (2000).
- The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa or the “Maputo Protocol” (2003).
- Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence or the Istanbul Convention (2011) Article 38 and Article 39.
- UN Women’s strategic plan, 2018–2021
Strategic Aims
- 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, emphasis on the entirety of the goals with a strong focus on Goal 5
- 2015 agenda with 17 new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (169 targets for the end to poverty, combatting inequalities, and so on, by 2030). The SDGs were preceded by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2000 to 2015.
- The Spotlight Initiative as another important piece of work, as a joint venture between the European Union and the United Nations.
Celebratory Days
- February 6, International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation is observed.
- February 11, International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed.
- June 19, Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict is observed.
- June 23, is International Widows’ Day is observed.
- October 11, International Day of the Girl Child is observed.
- October 15, International Day of Rural Women is observed.
- November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed.
Guidelines and Campaigns
- Gender Inclusive Guidelines, Toolbox, & United Nations System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity.
- Say No, UNiTE, UNiTE to End Violence against Women, Orange the World: #HearMeToo (2018), and the 16 days of activism.
All these stipulate an ongoing and several decades-long formal (and longer informal) effort to provide some level of equality for women, naturally, with men. All of the stipulations cover either general or particular aspects of equality for women with men, whether by age so girls with boys or women with men, by war status so non-combatants murdered disproportionately by combatants and being mostly women and children, by economics and social status and so SES equality or parity with men based on different definitions, and so on. One member of The Message community stated Branham supported women’s rights in a number of ways. However, when I reviewed the idea of “rights” within The Message, it, in matter of fact, reflected the opposite of the rights stipulated in even the most basic documents or ideas celebrated in the events and days devoted to them. Take, for example, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2),” as the listed document and parts of the foundational United Nations rights text, there are clear statements of universality, as follows:
Preamble
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world…
…human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people…
…human rights should be protected by the rule of law…
…Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom…
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms…
…Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples… to the end that every individual and every organ of society… shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction…
Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Article 25.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Each part above in the Preamble, Article 16, and Article 25(2), take seriously the idea of the equality of women with men in an environment in which women have not had equal access to opportunities, resources, leisure, or education and work, while this remains a continually improving facet of global culture and ethics. In Canadian society, we see a wide range of organizations taking different ideological stances while standing firm on the fundamentals of women’s equality including the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, CARE Canada, REAL Women of Canada, Canadian Women’s Foundation, Manitoba Political Equality League, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter, Canadian Women’s Press Club, Vancouver Women’s Caucus, Local Council of Women of Halifax, Canadian Federation of University Women, the Almas Jiwani Foundation (formerly UN Women Canada), Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association, Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Fédération des femmes du Québec, National Council of Women of Canada, Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, Oxfam Canada, The MATCH International Women’s Fund, Nobel Women’s Initiative, Equal Voice, LEAF, Department for Women and Gender Equality, Royal Commission on the Status of Women, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and Pauktuutit.
Yet, even with this external sense, whether national organizations or international rights documents, of women’s rights, the internal to The Message sense of rights become highly peculiar. For example, William Branham, the ‘Prophet’ himself, viewed women as “human garbage,” “the lowest of all animals that God put on the Earth,” “the very lowest creature on the Earth,” “filthy,” some women should be shot, women can’t drive, women should stay in the home, and that Satan or the devil made women, and more. Please see below for some remarks from the late Mr. William Marion Branham, the Founder of The Message:
- Excuse this, young ladies. She is nothing but a human garbage can, a sex exposal. That’s all she is, an immoral woman, is a human sexual garbage can, a pollution, where filthy, dirty, ornery, low-down filth is disposed by her. What is she made this way for? For deception. Every sin that ever was on the earth was caused by a woman.
- When, in God’s sight, the Word, she is the lowest of all animals that God put on the earth.
- This was my remark then, “They’re not worth a good clean bullet to kill them with it.” That’s right. And I hated women. That’s right. And I just have to watch every move now, to keep from still thinking the same thing.
- When I was a little, bitty, ol’ boy, up there, I’d see them women come up there on the road, and their… know their husband was out working, them up there with some guy, drunk; on the side of the road, and they’d walk them up and down the road, sober them up enough to get them home, cook their husband’s supper. I said they ain’t worth a clean bullet to go through them. That’s right. I said they’re lower than animals, would do a thing like that. And I… When I was seventeen, eighteen years old, I’d see a—a girl coming down the street, I’d cross over on the other side, I said, “That stinking viper.” See? And I would have been a real hater, but when I received God in my heart, God let me know that He’s got some jewels out there, He’s got some real ladies. They’ll not all defile themselves like that; thank God for that.
- Now, you can take some of these little two-by-fours if you want to, but that’s what God said. That’s what Christ said. Now, that’s the truth. Oh, God be merciful. What must the great Holy Spirit think when He comes before the Father? You say, “Why you picking on us women?” All right, men, here you are. Any man that’ll let his wife smoke cigarettes and wear them kind of clothes, shows what he’s made out of. He’s not very much of a man. That’s exactly right. True. He don’t love her or he’d take a board and blister her with it. You know that’s the truth. Now, I don’t say that to be smart. I’m telling you the truth. That’s right.
- Women, there was only one woman in the Bible that ever painted her face, and that was Jezebel. And God fed her to the dogs. So if you see a woman wearing that, you can say, “How do you do, Miss Dogmeat?” That’s exactly what God called her. He fed her to the dogs. Exactly right.
- You may question me about Satan being her designer, but that’s the Truth.
- That’s what they were doing in Sodom and Gomorrah. The natural use our bodies… The men become so plain to women today, there’s not even respect. They’ll hardly take off their hat, men will in front of women, and they have no respect for them at all. What did it? The women done it theirself. And you all talking about juvenile delinquency and things. I think it’s parent delinquency. Some of you let your girls go out and run around all night with a cigarette-smoking, cocktail-drinking party. Come in the next morning with her clothes half off her, old make-up all over her face and that, And you call the Kentucky mothers ignorant. Write her patch down with those Dogpatch, Lil’ Abner, and make fun of the Kentucky mothers. That’s some of my people up in there. Let one of them girls…?… it up there and, brother, I’ll tell you, she wouldn’t get out of bed for six months. She’d take a hickory limb and beat what clothes she had left on her off. And if you had something like that back in the church today, you’d have better. Amen. God give us the old time mothers. I’ve got two girls coming. I don’t know what they’ll be.
- And I’ve see them laying out on the beaches half naked before man stretching themselves out there, say they get a sun-tanning. Brother, I — I may not live. But if God lets me live and keep my right mind, if one of mine does it, she’ll get a son-tanning. It’ll be Mr. Branham’s son with a barrel slat behind her. She’ll be tanned all right. She’ll know where it come from too. Yes, sir.
- And now, some of you talk about the illiteracy of the hillbillies up in Kentucky there. But how the old grandmas with their long bonnets and things on… You know what? They could teach some of you city people how to behave yourself. That’s right. Your little Martha Ann come in of a nighttime, and mess-up all over her face, and half drunk, and smoking a cigarette, and blowing it through her nose, and the stomp her foot, and scream at you. Let her do that to one of them old Kentucky mammys one time. She’d top a hickory, boy, or take something, or a barrel slat. When she got through, she’d know who was mammy around there. If you’d do that, you wouldn’t have so many wrong men, and boys and girls in the world tonight. Let one of them strip theirselves in some these old dirty clothes like you let your kids wear out here, little old shorts, and ever what they call them. And let them one time. Uh-huh. You would find out how illiterate they were. She’d beat her till she’d be so full of welts, you couldn’t get the clothes over the top of them. That’s what needs to be done tonight. That’s right.
- And we, not knowing it, turns right straight back to heathen worship again, to Women, the very lowest creature on the earth.
- Well, the other day some crazy woman driver drove right in front of me, come pretty near killing two of my children. I said, “Lady.” She said, “Now, you shut your mouth; I’m the one that’s driving.” And before I got back, twenty-six women driver’s almost caused us to be killed. We kept count of it. They made a mistake when they give her a driver’s license. They put her out here to voting. They put her out here to these public works. And during the time of the war, right in New York City, more illegitimate children was born in the city of New York, of prostitute women, and their husbands overseas, than there was soldiers killed in the four years of war.
- Notice, there is nothing designed to stoop so low, or be filthy, but a woman. A dog can’t do it, a hog can’t do it, a bird can’t do it. No animal is immoral, nor it can be, for it is not designed so it can be. A female hog can’t be immoral, a female dog can’t be immoral, a female bird can’t be immoral. A woman is the only thing can do it.
- I predicted that women would keep demoralizing and the nation would keep falling, and they’d keep hanging to mother, or like mother like that, till they become, a woman become an idol. And after a while, that America would be ruled by a woman. Mark it and see if it’s not right. A woman will take the place of a President or something, of great, some high power in America. When… I say this with respect, ladies. When a woman gets out of the kitchen, she’s out of her place. That’s right. That’s where she belongs. Outside of that, she has no place. And now, I’m not hard on them, but I just tell what’s the Truth and what the Bible. Used to be the man was the head of the house, but that was in Bible days. He isn’t no more. He’s the puppet, or he’s the—or the babysitter or something. And now… No, they want to take care of a dog, practice birth control, and pack a little old dog around in their arms all the time, so you can run around all night.
- Today, women is so brassy! Every… Their husband can’t even talk. They got to stick right out there, a cigarette in their hand, a pair of shorts on, doing all the talking. How a perverted race of people, she’s got to be chief cook and bottle washer, everything else! When she leaves the kitchen, she leaves her place of duty, right, as a mother. Now we find out, women then stayed back and behaved theirself, acted like ladies, their head was the one who did the decisions and things.
Please sit and reflect on the nature of the quotations and the ways in which the man compared to gentle Jesus meek and mild makes violent statements and extensive commentary one can deem as gender inegalitarianism external to The Message, while, to some who sent sincere letters to me, the espousal inside of The Message would deem these as gender equal statements.
Commonly, as in the Beijing Declaration or in the United Nations/World Health Organization, the main forms of violence against women taken into account are physical, sexual, and psychological (including emotional). In a minimal comparison, I would argue many of these statements would fall in the line with some of them. Even a glance at “lowest of all animals that God put on the earth” or as “human garbage” seems unequal to men to me, if we take this in a strictly Christian theological logic sense, this seems consistent as inequality. Unless, the men are the co-equal lowest of all animals that God put on the earth, which would be logically untenable as human beings, in Christian theology, stand above the rest of Creation as the pinnacle of God’s excellence as a crafter of mud/dirt and rib. If Mr. Branham harboured women’s rights defender status within The Message, then his stature would exist completely at odds with most or all meanings accepted as “women’s rights” outside of The Message established in an international context and taken as a consensus. Do women deserve living under such a theology proclaimed as building lives of equality of women with said assertions of “women’s rights” while in opposition to widely accepted standards at odds with the proclamations of the international community, or even with other denominations of Christianity with liberal theological leanings? The churches may function independently; although, if they didn’t function under The Message theology, then they would not exist as The Message churches.
There are a number of confirmed cases through reportage by the Casting Pearls Project. I would hope members and leaders in The Message would commend the bravery and the honesty of these women coming forward rather than shunning or denying them, i.e., churches in North America should praise the work of the Casting Pearls Project and give explicit positive coverage to it, whether in media, on church websites, in public statements, local news, or elsewhere. If not, then they’d merely confirm the tentative diagnosis of a destructive cult. I would hope to see that in church and ministry videos and writing in Canada and elsewhere in the future. Perhaps, you, individual believer, can encourage this in the relevant locale. I leave this section with the final word to women who reported stories in the Casting Pearls Project:
Anna-Lisa A. in “Turning Pain Into Power”:
If you are reading this and have questions or doubts about leaving this cult that has you bound, do NOT let those fears hinder you from accepting your truth. Ask questions. Research. Never stop finding your truth. You know what your truth is, and only you can make that first step. I won’t lie to you. It is very scary having the entire foundation of your belief/relationship with God crumble before your very eyes. But I promise you, if you just hold on to the truth that you deserve so much more, it WILL be worth it.
You are a queen, a survivor, a warrior. You possess strength that you haven’t even tapped into yet. I want you to know that in a sea of doubters, haters, and unfortunately, family and friends who will make you their enemy, I believe in you. Darling, just make that first step towards your truth, and watch your life become everything you have ever desired it to be. This is not the end.
This is your comeback.
Christine H. in “Breaking The Chains”:
I married at a very young age (barely 17). It was expected that we marry young and not risk making “mistakes” before marriage. I went from being in a very controlling home, to being married and becoming a submissive wife. I was always raised with the idea that a man was to have the say in the home and that my place was to make him happy (in my mind, at all costs). This wasn’t how my childhood home worked, but it was what I was taught. I already had “pleaser” type of personality. This came from trying to please everyone in hopes of them being proud of me, and the dire need to be good enough. Both sides of the family were very controlling; my family would try to control what I wore and what I did even as a married woman. I never dreamed my life would turn out the way it did. It wasn’t long before the stress of life grabbed our young home, and I found myself in an abusive marriage. After almost 11 years and two children, we ended in a divorce. I felt destroyed, knowing I was committing the forbidden sin. Once again, more hurt and abuse by people that were supposed to love me the most. The pain felt unbearable. Why was I so unlovable? Why could people physically and mentally hurt me, knowing they were causing me pain, but still say they loved me?
The spiral began. My family could only see that their daughter was now divorced and how that was going to look to everyone in the “Message”. I was told I had no rights, but no one wanted to know my story.
Joyce A. Lefler in “From Miracle to Murder”:
Branham taught that women are Satan’s partners in bringing down the morality of all men. He preached sexual discrimination, belittling, and sexual objectification of women. He believed women were “nothing but a garbage can” and “dog meat.” Branham admonished men to beat their wives “with oak slats until their clothes and skin peeled off” for the transgression of sunbathing. Men had permission to divorce their wives if they cut their hair. Instead of being treated as a precious jewel and partner in life, a woman was to be treated as a slave – good for breeding and for maintaining a home but nothing else. Education was now of the devil, especially for a woman. I graduated salutatorian of my high school class, but my dream of becoming a physician was broken. I was forced to say NO to scholarships that would have allowed me to attend college and eventually support myself.
Dating led to sin, so very young girls and boys were told to marry. Wives were expected to shut up, obey their husbands, and have babies. They had no right to ask for more. I became engaged without going on a single date. Within two weeks of marriage, my “Message” husband humiliated, cursed, raped, and beat me. His behavior became a habit. I often had bruises on my face, arms, and legs. Even with the modest cover-up clothes I wore, the bruises were not easy to ignore. When I cried out for help to my “Message” parents and my “Message” pastor and church, they ignored the bruises, turned their backs on me, and advised me to obey my husband. I was told to stop being stubborn so he wouldn’t have to beat me.
Science
On science, this becomes a slightly easier item to tackle in the queue because of the robust nature of the findings of modern science now. Fundamentalist communities all over the world have cosmogonies and philosophies of life. One from The Message appears to differ with the expert consensus of modern cosmology. One individual, in a letter, stated Branham supported science. I disagree for some reasons. If we take the fundamental view of the biological world given by evolution via natural selection, then evolution via natural selection is a given, whether for the biological sciences or the medical sciences.
Let’s conclude on a straightforward example, we have the presentation of a real historical Adam and Eve. No evidence for this theological hypothesis has ever come forward, insofar as I know, with wide acceptance amongst the individuals most qualified to make the assessment, i.e., the scientific communities with relevant training and academic background. Now, this extends into the doctrine entitled the Serpent Seed Doctrine. In the basic idea, Branham claimed the offspring of Cain, rather than Abel, resulted from intercourse between a snake/serpent and a human female, Eve. This is anti-scientific. Cain’s descendants known as “a big religious bunch of illegitimate bastard children.” This means a “serpent” claimed as the gap between chimpanzee and man. Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and homo sapiens are cousins with a common ancestry, common descent, not human beings coming from chimpanzees. Even on this fundamental doctrine to The Message theology, the claims fail to stack up.
He misunderstood science. Branham made outrageous claims on basic principles of evolutionary theory, and science. He would assert infallible visions. However, in a matter of fact, this stance stands in precise opposition to the attitude, spirit, and process of science. An attitude of skepticism, a spirit of empiricism, and a process of hypothesizing, testing, tentative confirmation/failed confirmation, followed by more testing/re-hypothesizing, and repeat. Indeed, if science is of the devil (“Knowledge, science, Education, is the greatest hindrance that God ever had. It is of the devil,” “…knowledge and science, and Christianity, has no fellowship at all. One is of the devil, and the other one is of God,” or “Education, science and civilization, is of the devil. That’s right. It isn’t of God. It is of the devil.”), and if Mr. Branham supported science as per some supporters of him, then Mr. Branham, the man of God, in fact roundly supports that which he claims was of the devil. Is Mr. Branham supportive of God, in his theology, or of that process of science, which he deemed the work of the devil? He rejected foundations of science, claimed occasional infallible visions, and called science the work of the Devil. He was anti-science.
Oh, and I don’t much care or don’t take seriously claims of the supernatural for the photograph with the ‘halo,’ either, but that’s another story.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/27
Daniel Lomax is an Editor for Topical Magazine. Here we talk about some of the contexts, history, and aims of it.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Topical Magazine has been slowly developing for a couple of years. What are its origins?
Daniel Lomax: Topical Magazine was founded by Benjamin David, whose previous project, Conatus News, branched out in two directions. Others ran with political activism while Topical Magazine emphasizes philosophical reflection. As the name of the magazine implies, we turn the microscope on contemporary events. But we look through it from the other side, aiming to put these issues into a wider historical and intellectual context.
Jacobsen: With academics, activists, and commentators as part of the team, there will be a wide range of views in addition to style of commentary. I have contributed to the publication too. Let’s take a shift into some discussion on the story for you, how did you become involved in Topical Magazine?
Lomax: The gift of nepotism brought me here. Benjamin, our editor-in-chief and founder, is an old friend of mine. He was looking for some fresh input for the magazine and so he got in touch, perhaps on account of my tendency to get into debates online (sorry/not sorry – I am one of those people).
As a contributing editor I think it’s important to allow each writer their own voice. A good editor is often a hands-off one. The magazine has a broadly left-libertarian perspective but the wide range of approaches is our virtue. It’s important for a magazine to be a magazine and not a church.
Jacobsen: What has been the writing and intellectual background for you, e.g., the influences and formal education?
Lomax: My formal education is actually in music and sound technology. During those years, I found my interests turning to philosophy, and returned to my childhood aspiration to write. I’ve run a lively philosophy forum online for some years and spent more time engaging with philosophy, politics and literature than with my formal area of study.
But my real education was a brief spell of homelessness followed by years of poverty. As a pure intellectual it can be difficult to make your mind up – Marx (for example) is persuasive, and so is Hayek. But with these sorts of experiences you go through the looking glass. For better and for worse you get a real glimpse of society, and individuals, and the government, and the economy, and yourself: and at the end of it you find you’ve developed a new clarity and confidence in your values and principles. If this sounds like I’m saying I studied at the University of Life, shoot me.
Jacobsen: The current team includes Benjamin David (Senior Editor), Daniel Lomax (Editor), Raghen Lucy (Editor), Tom Adamson, Ian Bellis, Jude Bernard, Ryan Faulkner-Hogg, Bryce Harper, Race Huchdorf, Dino Jelčić, Khadija Khan Eleanor Paisley, Benjamin Studebaker, Jeremiah Tabb, Emile Yusupoff, and myself. When we look at the team, what is the first thing that comes to mind for you?
Lomax: We have a strong international team of independent thinkers and fierce intellectuals, each with different areas of interest and different approaches to writing and analysis. It’s always interesting to see the different takes these contributors give on an issue, and they’re a pleasure to work with. We’re always open for further recruitment of course, and we hope to continue to grow and build on our foundations.
Jacobsen: What is the importance of the individuals at the helm now? Those who take particular editorial stances, orient themselves within a specific frame, and provide coverage on a variety of topics for the readership.
Lomax: Benjamin’s a gifted promoter, organizer and people-manager, with a good work rate, and he’s sort of the spine that holds the pages together. Raghen’s a strikingly intelligent young editor with a keen eye for detail. I’m extremely awkward and pedantic which, I like to think, keeps the others on their toes. The importance of that can’t be underestimated, of course.
Jacobsen: Knowing the social and intellectual circles, and networks, many publications arose in a similar manner with different emphases and orientation while having some core values around “Freedom of Speech”/freedom of expression. For example, the team at Areo Magazine began under Malhar Mali in November, 2016 (until June, 2018) with the current editorial team as Helen Pluckrose (Editor), Iona Italia (Sub-Editor), and Gauri Hopkins (Administrator), and some others who I know stipulating particular positions for themselves within the publication. They have expanded into LetterWiki. However, I remain unsure as to the current full roster. Quillette only a short time before in 2015 without much notoriety, except in the last, maybe, two or two-and-a-half years. Its team consists of Claire Lehmann (Editor-in-Chief), Jamie Palmer (Senior Editor), Paulina Neuding (European Editor), Jonathan Kay (Canadian Editor), Toby Young (Associate Editor), Andy Ngo (Sub-Editor), Greg Ellis (Voice of Quillette Narrated), Asher Honickman (Legal Advisor), Carol Horton, Jeffrey Taylor, Matthew Blackwell, Debra W. Soh, Michael Shellenberger, Spencer Case, Terry Newman, Chloe Valdary, Imran Shamsunahar, Bradley Campbell, Brad Cran, Coleman Hughes, Bo Winegard, Jonathan Anomaly, Rosalind Arden, John R. Wood, Jr., Neema Parvini, Clay Routledge, Helen Dale, and Sumantra Maitra. So, each covering some different facets of modern culture and emergent within a couple of years of one another. There are others. What is the importance of publications like these?
Lomax: We’re not the first publication to have noted with concern that freedom of expression has declined as a value among “Western” society. I’m accustomed by now to seeing and hearing historically ignorant arguments for this new authoritarianism, posed by people who should know better. Our demand is not just to protect a thing which is valuable in itself – although it is – but to preserve the liberty upon which all other liberties are built.
Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, how has Topical Magazine filled out a niche for itself?
Lomax: It’s edifying to watch the growing resistance to the authoritarian trend, but it risks being monopolized by people who obsess over gender and Islam. The civil rights movement in the US couldn’t have happened without the First Amendment and the Ottoman Empire’s ban on the printing press is one of the reasons most of the region is strangulated by hierarchical and reactionary regimes. Our position is that a seat must be kept warm for free speech on the political Left of the house.
Jacobsen: What are the goals of Topical Magazine?
Lomax: We hope to inform, educate and reason – and in an age in which so many disenfranchised people think of politics as Something For Other People, associating it with dispatches from boring men in anoraks, standing in the rain looking dour outside the halls of Westminster or sitting in a bland studio offering dry, meaningless PowerPoint infographics on “the economy”: make it interesting.
Jacobsen: What is the ethos of Topical Magazine?
Lomax: We write with clarity so as not to exclude. Integrity and strictness about the facts are not negotiable: the public’s trust in the journalistic profession is at a low point, and it’s incumbent on every writer to take some responsibility for that. With that said: don’t believe this piffle about “unbiased journalism.” Bias is ineradicable. The key thing is that your readers know from the outset what your biases are. We treat our readership like grown-ups.
Jacobsen: What are some of the main topics covered in Topical Magazine?
Lomax: We’ve written repeatedly about freedom of speech issues and technology (both of which topics you’ve made insightful contributions to yourself). We have pieces on the environment, nuclear energy, political rifts, feminism, mental health, combat sports, social media and much more. There isn’t a topic we’re afraid to touch.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Jacobsen: You’re very welcome, Daniel.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/27
Humanist Canada[1] is hosting an essay contest through its Humanist Canada Essay Contest Committee in collaboration with the Association humaniste du Québec is working to provide a voice for high school level humanist students or pupils with humanistic tendencies. The essay contest was rebooted in 2019 as a joint adventure too. The theme for 2020, as a consensus decision of the Humanist Canada Essay Contest Committee, is “Religion and Humanism in Education” in a Canadian context.
As with 2019, the prize money will be $8,000 (CAD), which, in essence, funds two competitions under one contest with an English competition and a French competition. The first place prize will be $1,000 for students with the most outstanding submissions. Within the theme, there are no predefined topics for the students. However, the content would preferably be in alignment with the values of Humanism and the humanist community throughout Canada.
As the Vice-President of Humanist Canada said, “We are once again pleased to be able to host this forum for young writers interested in humanist themes. This forum promotes a defence of science and reason from those who would attack it.”
Humanism, if you do not know, is a non-theistic view of life and the world. Its means of understanding the world are critical thinking, logical reasoning, and science. It affirms the worth and dignity of every individual human being while striving for the ethical principles of compassion, fairness, and truth. These guide a worldview aiming for the maintenance of the good in the world and working to make things even better in material and human terms. Some of the topics students may want to entertain are abortion, discrimination based on sexual orientation, concerns over the environment, freedom of thought and expression, medically assisted dying, and poverty.
As a Board Member of Humanist Canada representing British Columbia and as the Chair of the Humanist Canada Essay Contest Committee, this is a rare opportunity for the presentation of the best and brightest young freethought minds the country’s high schools have to offer, in a formal academic-based competition with written essays. Any inculcation of values comes from the passing of them and providing a space for the next generations to evaluate, present, and live them. The Humanist Canada Essay Contest is one opportunity for young freethinkers to shine, as I noted in the press release entitled “Student Essay Contest, Hosted By Humanist Canada, Call for Submissions.” The full information for the essay contest can be found here: https://www.humanistcanada.ca/programs/essay-contest/.
About Humanist Canada
Humanist Canada (HC) promotes education and awareness of humanism. We are a resource for secular groups and causes across Canada. We support the advancement of scientific, academic, medical, and human rights efforts.
[1] Humanist Canada is connected directly or indirectly to a number of humanist and freethought organizations including: British Columbia Humanist Association, Humanist Association of Ottawa, Humanist Association of Toronto, Toronto Oasis, Grey Bruce Humanists, Ontario Humanist Society, Central Ontario Humanist Association, Association humaniste du Québec, Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba, Comox Valley Humanists, Toronto Oasis, Grey Bruce Humanists, Ontario Humanist Society, Halton-Peel Humanist Community, Thunder Bay Humanists, Humanist International, American Humanist Association, Humanists UK, Humanist Society of Scotland, Humanist Association of Ireland, Humanist Association of Germany, and European Humanist Federation, Secular Humanists in Calgary, Victoria Secular Humanist Association, Humanist Association of London, Society of Free Thinkers (Kitchener-Waterloo/Cambridge/Guelph), Dying with Dignity, Secular Connexion Séculière, Centre for Inquiry, Canadian Secular Alliance, Humanist International, American Humanist Association, Humanists UK, Humanist Society of Scotland, Humanist Association of Ireland, Humanist Association of Germany, and European Humanist Federation.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Homosexuality is a normal sexual orientation among numerous species in the animal kingdom, including in primates with homo sapiens or human beings as one of them. In proportion to the natural and normal, and healthy, sexual orientation of males of the species to other males or females to other females as minority sexual orientations or innate and organically-developed psychophysiological arousals to the same sex, human societies developed the capacity for hatred, prejudice, bigotry, and straight-forward bias against this minority sexual orientation, whether for males or females in the species.
Some of which garner divine mandate. Leviticus 18:22 speaks to a man not sleeping with another man as a woman because it amounts to an abomination in the Hebrew scriptures or the Torah. Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism take accepting terms on homosexuality, as they, more or less, provide a wider liberalism for people in the community with minority sexual orientations. Within the large number of Christian sects, there can be outright condemnation or disapproval on a number of levels. At the same time, we can see the acceptance of homosexuality. It depends on the grouping.
Mormons consider it morally wrong. The Catholics see it as a violation of the marital sacrament, where this calls upon homosexuals under the doctrine of Catholicism to live a chaste life – to remain virgins or to cease homosexual sexual activity henceforth. All major sects’ teachings of Islam condemn homosexuality as unnatural. Bahá’í limits sexual relations between a man and a woman in marriage, but, more liberally, does not impose its moral standards on those outside of the faith. Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism have more mixed views on homosexuality as a sexual orientation and homosexual acts, i.e., a range of liberal to conservative orientations on the matter. Zoroastrianism points to the male homosexual act as something demonic. For Confucianism or Taoism, there’s little or no single position on it. In short, this is the wisdom of the ages. As the brilliant Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou has noted, many of the contexts, for example, of the Bible represent the tales and stories of men, written by males, who have daddy issues. As a consequence, others suffer.
This ‘wisdom’ has led, by the nature of exclusion and condemnation of individual members of a social species, to untold suffering, humiliation, abuse, ostracism, and relegation to secondary status in societies. More recent incarnations of viewpoints include Satanism, Humanism, Unitarian Universalism, Ethical Culture, and Wicca, with more acceptance of members of the LGBTI communities. We can ignore the cult-bigotry of the Unification Church. The Yogyakarta Principles from November 2006 with supplements from 2017 have been an important advancement for the development of rights and acceptance for LGBTI members of the global community. The United Nations has an LGBTI Core Group now. All for the betterment of the lives of the sexual and gender minorities around the world.
A few days ago was the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. A day garnering international attention, providing insight to the rights and lives of others, and giving a spotlight of individual sub-populations in the world known to endure disproportionate violence against them. If you were homosexual, or if I was a lesbian, what would you, or I, like to see in the international and local scene? One might be awareness. Another might be concrete action in order to reduce the amount of violence against you (or others like you), or me. When we think of abuse, it can mean many things, but it can mean the outcomes of the violence too. In that, those who experience violence or trauma in some manner. They tend to suffer from mental illness more than the baseline.
LGBTI individuals face discrimination and abuse. Mental illness follows from this. The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia commemorates this population as well as providing an awareness platform. 70 countries in the world criminalize same-sex relationships with 6 incorporating the death penalty into it. Brunei enacted an Islamic law making the stoning of LGBTI citizens to death legal. Kenya upheld another law criminalizing same-sex relations while Gabon passed one and Indonesia and Uganda are considering the identical matters now. In Hungary under Orban, there are explicit attempts to end the legal recognition of transgender people.
On the pseudoscience flames being fanned, we have the therapy entitled “Conversion Therapy” or a theological or pseudoscientific doctrine to change an individual LGBTI member’s sexual orientation or gender identity, as far as I know from LGBTI to straight or heterosexual. It has failed in most cases and, therefore, shows something closer to the null effect, which makes the therapy non-scientific. Conversion Therapy is practiced in China, Colombia, and the United States, as the major areas. Rights, as grounded in universalistic ethics, deserve universal application. Taiwan became a bright spot as a place legalizing same-sex marriage while Northern Ireland followed suit to do the same.
As with most contexts for rights in times of crisis, authoritarian regimes, self-appointed fundamentalist religious hierarchs, and hate-based groups utilize the chaos to ram through various forms of bigotry and policy intended to not raise people, build them up in a healthy manner, but, rather, to put the pedestal on them, to crush them by law, by social mores, by communal norms, and divine mandate. And it pains me to see it. More could be done, and isn’t, lives could flourish more and aren’t, and bigots, racists, and inconsiderate personalities grasp for power in a time of their dying gasps, of the death of the “Dinosaur Age,” as Robert Anton Wilson, called it.
Within intimate settings, Covid-19 can create a context in which extant domestic violence (DV) situations become more pronounced than before with homelessness and DV as a natural fallout of it, not to mention ordinary healthcare needs of LGBTI peoples that may require more special attention than others of the population not in categories (and, hence, not with these issues). Humanists around the world came together and approved the Reykjavik Declaration on the Family and Human Rights. It is a declaration inclusively incorporating the rights and respect for LGBTI people and all gender identities with an inclusive definition of family.
The fight for equal rights isn’t a day or decade battle. It is a continual process of the development of a vision as to what comprises a just and equitable global society comprised of individual regions, and regional alliances or international organizations including League of Arab States, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Gulf Cooperation Council, OPEC, NATIO, ASEAN, PLO, UN, Commonwealth of Independent States, Commonwealth of Nations, Arab Maghreb Union, OECD, WTO, Arctic Council, ANZUS, FAO, SAARC, and the European Union, or the G20, MERCOSUR, Interpol, IMF, and the Colombo Plan. All bound to notions of solidarity, how ever limited at times, with more distinct representations in the individual Member States in the UN. It’s all the same species fighting for plots of land, of resources, of the time of minds, and control over others paths in life at times. Days of commemoration and recognition represent the larger vision, in part a scientific vision, and in many ways a world still in discovery, in ever-continuous transition, based much on human choices. When it comes to the equality and dignity of others, what choice will you make?
*With some sources and information by Humanists International.*
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/19
Humanists International is kicking behinds again, doing great work, taking names, and building membership, and a unified global movement for science and human rights. This time, they’ve been working on an important educational campaign to counter misinformation and to provide appropriate information about the Covid-19 crisis emergent from SARS-CoV-2. Something “probably” (there you go, Andrew! – “likely,” ugh) coming from bats, where many types of coronaviruses fester, and then transmitted across species into a human being, i.e., from a non-human animal to a human animal. Now, here we are, with all the clumsy conspiracy theorizing, racist navel-gazing to ignore the plight of those less well-equipped to deal with the virus, End Times fearmongering as a form of collective infantile escapism, scripturally inadequate pulpit mouth-foaming, and run-of-the-mill dismissal of expert analysis and scientific information for comprehension of an international emergency – not to mention Alex Jones’ epic repetitive rant of eating his neighbour’s “ass” (we got the point the first time, Mr. Jones, thanks – now known as someone who would shout bombastic flummeries to entice his neighbour’s reluctant anal cavity), this educational campaign is incredibly important in this context.
Not only has this pandemic shown the standard structural inadequacies of several international networks, but it also exacerbates or makes bold the profoundly ignorant, and then highlights some of the extent and influence of the stupefying blank mental cartridges active throughout the globe when it’s not a drill. All grounded in low-tide respect for science across nations and regions, insufficient educational standards in critical thinking and the base theoretical frameworks from the sciences to know the natural world, and inequitable distribution of the quality curricula materials with intersects in religious dogma/fundamentalism and sexist blockading of educational progress.
That’s why the work of global democratic Humanism becomes a necessity rather than an option moving forward because the problems facing the world require international solutions rather than individualist-nationalist ones. The philosophical system may evolve to meet future problems, but this is precisely the required system at this moment in time. One in which the Amsterdam Declaration 2002 becomes part of the global democratic Humanist discourse and the international efforts for greater justice. The Board – Andrew Copson (President), Anne-France Ketelaer (Vice-President), Boris van der Ham (Treasurer), Rebecca Hale (Board Member), Gulalai Ismail (Board Member), Kristin Mile (Board Member), Roslyn Mould (Board Member), Uttam Niraula (Board Member, and David Pineda (Board Member) – and the staff – Gary McLelland (Chief Executive), Elizabeth O’Casey (Director of Advocacy), Jean Zong (Financial Administrator), Giovanni Gaetani (Membership Engagement Manager), and Mahalet Tadesse (Intern), Emma Wadsworth-Jones (Humanists at Risk Coordinator), and Lillie Ashworth (Advocacy Officer) – and volunteer representatives – Kacem El Ghazzali, Margaretha Jones, John Wagner, and Renate Bauer – of Humanists International have been doing amazing work in their countries, in their institutions, and globally through the global democratic collective voice of Humanists International. Everybody has a place; each person has a part.
Members and Associates around the world of global democratic Humanism have been working intensely to spread the word about several ongoing cases, whether the important work of Gulalai Ismail of Pakistan with Saba Ismail through Aware Girls on the empowerment of women and girls, the international campaign to free Mubarak Bala in northern Nigeria, working on the erasure of witchcraft allegations from Africa by 2030 under leadership of Dr. Leo Igwe, reporting on the scrapping of the death penalty in Sudan, bringing attention to the abolition of the blasphemy law from Scotland, calling for the release of Iranian prisoners of conscience, working to protect Mohammed Ismail in Pakistan, and so much more only in early 2020. To the particular focus of this coverage, the issue is the cross-section of politics, science, international relations, and critical thinking. We have seen a failure of politics, a denial of science, a rejection of internationalism, and a lack of critical thought about issues of existential concern to ordinary citizens world-round. Covid-19 was the hammer striking the cracked church bell called global order. All the while, global warming and nuclear catastrophe as potential looming tragedies to befall the human species. I do not deny all the positive aspects of modern life compared to decades ago. However, problems are problems for a reason and require more urgent and rapid responses than solved problems, which, by definition, are not problems anymore and can be put on the backburner of appreciation, gratitude, and the checked-off portions of the bucket list.
With a variety of multilingual memes, coloured and well-designed for presentation to the public, the languages are extremely diverse and represent a great effort of the international humanist community’s work in the development of the memes for different nationalities’ consumption. Some of the listed examples had languages of Bangla, English, French, Hindi, Ki-Swahili, Persian, Portuguese, Sinhala, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, and Urdu. Thank you to the nearly 200 members and associates of Humanists International for the work in the development of the members and in such a wide array of languages, too, the reported targeted objective is millions of people reached around the world.
While the targeted objective remains for the individuals who believe in conspiracy theories, superstitions, and fake news, as this becomes an educational campaign, it becomes part of a consistent increased effort in the education in the public through the global information and communication networks. One of the foundations of the efforts comes from targeting irrational beliefs and the application of skepticism towards particulars with the empiricist and modernist lens on them. Misinformation can lead to bad outcomes. Individuals who have the privilege and the opportunity to ignore the plight of the coronavirus may, and in fact often do, neglect the inability of others to isolate, physically distance, have access to emergency funds, acquire respirators, and have adequate medical attention. Resources in abundance to some not considered “resources” inasmuch as rights, as if the water one swims. As several others have noted, we can note the exaggerated health disparities in the cessation of life in the critical/severe cases for African Americans compared to European Americans. Even in spite of this, incompetent and inadequate response to the crisis is leading to disproportionate American deaths compared to much of the rest of the globe. It is driven by the conscious and automated spread of ‘knowledge’ or false information designed to misinform, or simply grounded in a deep lack of scientific understanding.
Thus, as Dr. Leo Igwe noted in an interview in the #GlobalHumanismNow series, the misinformation “virus” can make the spreading of the coronavirus worse. In a manner of speaking, if one knowingly spreads false information, and if demographic outcomes exist in these contexts, then one not only harms the general population, but, also, vulnerable populations disproportionately – making known disparities even worse. Humanists International – and its Board, staff, and representatives – are doing a fantastic job in ramping up international efforts to reduce the spread of lies and misinformation, and countering medically dubious and scientifically questionable treatments amounting to the unsupportable to the dangerously farcical.
This comes, mainly, in the form of the COVID-19 #MythBusters, i.e., memes displaying evidence-based messages in some of the aforementioned languages to improve the efficacy of the work. As Giovanni Gaetani, Humanists International’s Membership Engagement Manager, states:
Our goal is to… reach out to a wider global audience, on a larger scale than we have ever done so before…
…The amount of coordination and support coming from our Members and Associates is astonishing. In just one week we managed to translate the memes into 15 languages, including some of the most spoken languages around the world like Hindi, Spanish, French, Bengali, Portuguese, etc. We are literally talking about potentially reaching millions of people…
…As I speak, we keep receiving new translations and we are working to create further series of memes. Members and Associates all around the world are sharing the memes everywhere. Not only on social media, but also on Whatsapp groups, newsletters, etc. It’s hard to estimate accurately how many people we are reaching worldwide, but the feedback we are receiving is great.
…This is a great example of global humanist cooperation in the name of reason, science and solidarity.
Global Humanism can assist in the endeavour to reduce some of the issues inherent in the developments of the modern communications networks, including the first global telephone system called The Internet. We feel as if this becomes an insurmountable challenge. However, as we should remain diligent and conscious, we have larger looming issues apart from rights abuse, international humanitarian law violations, and the re-rise of an ignorant sub-culture with some modicum of prominence only appearing large-and-looming; we have the issues of anthropogenic climate change, or human-induced global warming, and the threat of nuclear catastrophe.
Once we begin to overcome, as many are, this cavalcade of a clown parade, we have the more serious issues needing intense work. Our ancestors have overcome their own challenges; we can overcome ours. It merely requires proportionate proactive, assertive, and constructive counter-response, as per the work of Humanists International.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Liberty University in the United States closed down its philosophy department, recently. The Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy over sex abuse lawsuits. “Nones” became part of common academic discourse. Movement atheism rose, failed, has begun to change, to adapt internal pressures, and incorporate wider needs and represents another part of a common trend in the hobby-ing of religion in our societies. Canada comes out no different. The fear discourse towards the formally, institutionally non-religious continues apace and the surrounding magical thinking, gullibility, superstition, pseudoscience, fake medicine, and more, co-exists with us, nonetheless. I note a mutual reinforcement, too. If magic can happen from the pulpit, why not from a local clinic or a home remedy sold on the shelf? It would harbour more a sensibility of humour if not for the tragically awful impacts derived in some domains on so many people’s lives. Liberty University’s replica, in part, can be found in the largest fundamentalist Evangelical Christian university in Canada called Trinity Western University with some controversy in its history and in the formulation of community culture in the Township of Langley, British Columbia, Canada. Those students live in its surrounding Fort Langley environment in reasonable numbers. Some times falsely advertised by Trinity Western University marketing as the Trinity Western University village or town, as if an official designation, as in the YouTube clip entitled “This is Fort Langley – TWU’s university town.” That’s a lie. It’s a National Historic Site.
Small towns all over Canada mirror many of the dynamics, magical thinking, and reliance on false or pseudo-medicines in place of (actual) or efficacious medicine. Among the local churches in the area, (e.g., Fort Langley Evangelical Free Church, Living Waters Church, Fraser Point Church – Meeting Place, St George’s Anglican Church, United Churches of Langley – St. Andrew’s Chapel, Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Fraser Point Church Offices, Jubilee Church, and Fellowship Pacific) different interpretations of the Gospels may be taught, but the community retains its Christian ‘spirit’ – in spite of a scuffed, mind you, rainbow crosswalk one can find the in the town business center – with many of the 100+ local businesses hiring many, many Trinity Western University students. The economy is integrated with the institution, in other words. It’s an expensive private Evangelical Christian university with extensive fees, where students pay international student prices as domestic students. Students need to make their way through education without substantial governmental assistance, somehow. In this context, highly educated and well-to-do fundamentalist Christian culture and a local town converge into a strange admixture. A town with a large number of community organizations including Kwantlen First Nations, Seyem’ Qwantlen Business Group, Fort Langley Youth Rowing Society, Fort Langley Community Rowing Club, Fort Langley Canoe Club, History of Fort Langley, History of the Albion Ferry, The BEST of Fort Langley, Langley Weavers and Spinners Guild Biodegradeables ~ Organic Recycling, Fort Langley Community Association, Langley Heritage Association, and Fort Langley BIA. Indeed, many towns across the country replicate this with different inputs and similar outcomes.
In its recent history, as a starter example, there has been some predictable commentary flowing in the pens and notifications. One from Derek Bisset exhibited a particularly interesting article entitled “There Are Atheists in the Church” as recent as August 4, 2015. Not necessarily a rare view, it’s more a common sentiment based on the trend line of history and the adaptations for the modern world with Liberal Theology and the tenuous status of some foundational tenets with the continual onslaughts of modern empiricism. This was formulated around a somewhat critical commentary about the welcoming-everyone attitude of the church to the general membership of The United Church of Canada. He stated:
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that after years of saying “All are welcome in this place” that the result is a range of views within the church about the existence of God, especially as we seem to live in a society becoming ever more secular and inclining to require evidence for what we are willing to believe.
I suppose a space journey through emptiness four and a half hours away at the speed of light should have some bearing in putting early concepts of the Heavens to rest. Now I think we will have to stick with a range of ideas about a God who is here on Earth, interventionist or metaphorical, according to our personal views about what we need as individuals or what is needed to make the world a better place for all.
These amount to intriguing propositions about the reasons in which evolution for the church ideology become necessities within a secularizing/de-churching culture rather than true rebukes. The reason for the theological changes come from the empirical revolutions and educational improvements with the churches harbouring less tenable propositions about the nature of the world. Many propositions some deem outmoded, comical, or equivalent to others requiring fewer personal sacrifices of individual and communal wellbeing. The implication of a rejection of the modern views would be a return to more primitive mental constructs, models of the world. Is the concern the truth or the retaining of members? As it turns out, the “most worrying” development came not from a more reality-based church, but the loss of a member to a rival church. This tells the tale of the tribe.
Indeed, the reasons provided for leaving the local church from the member who left: the hot-wax nature of the beliefs rather than the rigid stone pillar faith. Probably, a rigid faith where men have a defined active role. Women have a defined passive role. God intervenes in the world. Prayer can aid in healing ailments. Homosexuality is a sin. The Bible is the literal truth, God-breathed Word of the Lord. And Jesus rose from the dead after 3 days. And evolution is the work of He down Below. If one wants to move back the civilizational lens in the West several centuries, I suppose one could ‘upgrade’ or, rather, retrograde the theology and the worldview. Of course, the personality focus for the critical examination of a local United Church of Canada congregation came around some of the beginning of the controversy for Rev. Gretta Vosper. Bisset continued:
When a minister of the United Church of Canada declares herself for atheism in the Church and still retains her position with her own church and a sizeable congregation things appear to be coming to a head. That Gretta Vosper has changed the practicing of religion in her church drastically and has been on a personal speaking crusade to persuade Christians that more change is needed has brought her into conflict with those responsible for allowing her to act as a United Church minister. She may require to be defrocked and no longer allowed to preach her heretical doctrine…
A woman on a “personal speaking crusade to persuade Christians” who has been “brought… into conflict” and “may require to be defrocked and no longer allowed to preach her heretical doctrine.” Although, the bias is obvious. The larger, more interesting point is the focus on having to snuff out dissent and retain membership. It’s not about the ideas, except as derivative, inasmuch as it is about the numbers of the followers, the flock, for which the local church is bound to shepherd. This is relatively marginal and isolated talk or idle public conversation within an individual church. Behind the closed doors of home & hearth, and church on Sundays, the discussions, rumours, and insinuation & innuendo will be much the same. Only some retain the gumption to speak in this manner in public. He leaves off a nice skeptical note, “After all, if you can’t have a good argument about religious beliefs within the Church, where is there a better place to have it,” and deserves kudos for it. In general, though, the undercurrent probably replicates in events with different churches and similar phenomena. Demographic decline and theological liberalization – seen as watering down – concern significant sections of 2/3rds of the population of Canada.
As noted in Issue 48 of the Fort Langley Evangelical Free Church from 2017, they describe an event with The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation. An organization – The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation, akin to the Templeton Foundation, devoted to strange attempts at bridging religion and science. Although, the Templeton Foundation comes with a huge cash prize. That’s motivation enough for some. The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation focuses on science and a “life-giving Christian tradition” with a statement of faith (common in Christian organizations throughout the country):
- We confess the Triune God affirmed in the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds which we accept as brief, faithful statements of Christian doctrine based upon Scripture.
- We accept the divine inspiration, trustworthiness and authority of the Bible in matters of faith and conduct.
- We believe that in creating and preserving the universe God has endowed it with contingent order and intelligibility, the basis of scientific investigation.
- We recognize our responsibility, as stewards of God’s creation, to use science and technology for the good of humanity and the whole world.
- These four statements of faith spell out the distinctive character of the CSCA, and we uphold them in every activity and publication of the Affiliation.
As implicitly admitted in the “Commission on Creation” of the American Scientific Affiliation taken by The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation for presentation to its national public, some members of the affiliation will adhere to a “Young-Earth (Recent Creation) View,” “Old-Earth (Progressive Creation) View,” “Theistic Evolution (Continuous Creation, Evolutionary Creation) View,” or “Intelligent Design View.” There’s the problem right there. Only one real game in town, evolution via natural selection. This becomes four wrong views plus one right position with the four incorrect views bad in different ways or to different degrees, i.e., four theological views and one scientific view. In other words, the Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation, by its own claims and standards, amounts to a theological affiliation, not a “Scientific” affiliation. It’s false advertising if not outright lying by title and content.
Anyway, the Issue 48 newsletter of the Fort Langley Evangelical Free Church presented the event entitled “Science, Religion, & the New Atheism,” by Dr. Stephen Snobelen, who is an Associate Professor of the History of Science and Technology Programme at University of King’s College, Halifax. This is common too. This is, based on extensive research in “Canadians’ and Others’ Convictions to Divine Interventionism in the Matters of the Origins and Evolution,” the trend for years now. (Any commentary considerations for creationism and Intelligent Design can be considered there, as the rest would be repetition.)[1] In short, the only places, or the vast majority of places, to present these ideas are churches and religious institutions. Outside of those, these theological hypotheses posed as scientific aren’t taken seriously or, generally, are seen as a hysterical joke when posed as science rather than theology. Some, like Zak Graham in “Atheism is simply a lack of belief,” get the point published in The Langley Times. That seems like an uncommon stance in the wider community.
As Brad Warner notes in a short confessional post in Fellowship Pacific, he came to the Christian religion in university. It’s a sweet confession, which tells a sociological tale. The personalities are landmarks or guideposts, so largely irrelevant, not the main points in this article. Either someone is indoctrinated into faith or religion with specific thou shalts and thou shalt nots before critical thinking becomes a real possibility, or the individuals, typically, attend a Christian or private university and become suffused within a Christian ethos in a vastly dominated-by-Christianity culture in Canadian society with 2/3rds of the general population identifying as Christian. Even in some indications of the counselling professionals in the area, as an individual case study, statements emerge as in Alex Kwee, Ph.D., R.Psych. stating, “A distinctive of my approach lies in the fact that I am a Christian. The practice of psychotherapy is never value-neutral; even the most ostensibly ‘objective’ of counsellors must possess certain irreducible value propositions—even atheism or secular humanism are value systems that cannot be proven ‘right’ one way or another.” Note, he makes Christianity or Christian identity as part of the approach, as I am certain of the same for countless others in the area and around the country. Also, the conflation or dual-linkage between atheism and secular humanism alongside value systems. It’s a quaint proposition and half-false. In the instance of atheism, it does not posit values, but it proposes a lack of belief in gods – not values. (Hence, “half-wrong,” Q.E.D.) Coming from a Christian worldview with the good coming from God, the denial of such can only seem as if this. It’s not. What does propose values? Secular humanism, certainly, proposes values; Christianity asserts values too. Why bring atheist and secular humanism into the equation? Does this come from a pre-emptive defensive posture for the inevitable conflict of professional ethics and the introduction of theological constructs into psychotherapeutic processes with clients? Indeed, the potentially inevitable, seemingly incurable prejudice and bias in practitioners bringing their religious faiths with supernatural structures may bleed into the therapeutic process. Mr. Kwee states:
As a Christian, I contextualize my approach and strategies within a spiritual and faith-affirming framework, which is important for many of the Christian clients with whom I work. I firmly believe that therapy cannot be done in an existential or spiritual vacuum, but that the most effective therapy contextualizes evidence-based techniques to a client’s system of personal meaning to help them to create a life that is rich with meaning and purpose, not just devoid of psychological pain. Because most people are in search of greater meaning and appreciate a more “ultimate” frame of reference, I find that clients of many walks and backgrounds are comfortable working with me even if they do not share my worldview.
One can come as a non-religious person, but one should be wary – as has been commonly reported by prominent secular therapists as Dr. Darrel Ray of Recovering From Religion and the Secular Therapy Project. Furthermore, some of the peer-reviewed research presented on the professional website for Mr. Kwee amounts to assertions of sexual addiction or sex addiction. This is a pseudoscientific view or a theological assertion, not a psychological construct viewpoint. Take a counselling psychologist, Dr. Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson, in an interview with me entitled “Ask Dr. Robertson 13 — A Hawk’s Eye on Counsellors’ Professional Ethics and Morals,” stated:
When an ideology or religion is used to modify terms like “psychology,” “counselling” or “psychotherapy,” I become wary. For example, how does “Christian Counselling” differ from counselling? Christian counsellors I have talked to define their religion as having certain superior attributes with respect to love and spiritual fulfillment. But a secular counsellor, on finding that a client believed in prayer, for example, might invite the client to pray as part of his or her therapeutic plan. A difference might be that if the prayer does not work to the client’s satisfaction, the secular counsellor might be more willing to explore other alternatives while the Christian counsellor might be more prone engage in self-limiting platitudes such as, “Maybe God does not want this for you.” Counsellors employed by Catholic Family Services are routinely required to sign a statement stating they will respect the Church’s beliefs regarding “the sanctity of life.” This is regularly interpreted to mean that counsellors in their employ may not explore the option of abortion with pregnant clients, and if a client chooses that option, she will do so without the support of her counsellor or therapist. Counsellors from a variety of Christian denominations actively discourage people who are non-heterosexual. A particularly unethical practice is encapsulated in the oxymoron “Conversion Therapy.” Conversion implies a template outside of the individual to which the individual converts. It is, therefore, the opposite of therapy where the client defines his own template. Overall, Christian counselling does not add to the professional practice but is subtractive, limiting the options permitted clients.
The notion of limiting psychology’s ability to increase to individual choice and volition is pervasive…
… Scott, you asked me about professional codes of ethics. Codes of ethics are written by those with the power to do so. Conversion Therapy as practiced by some Christian groups has been ruled unethical. The feminist version has not. I believe that freedom of conscience involves a duty to conduct oneself to a higher ethic, and in my case that ethic involves supporting individual volitional empowerment. Individual volition operates within the constraint that there is a reality outside ourselves and if we stray too far from that reality we will harm ourselves and others. We cannot gain empowerment by feeding a delusion.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-5 or the DSM-5 rejected sex addiction for inclusion in 2013. There’s no such thing as sex addiction as a formal psychological construct; sex addiction is a theological construct, i.e., a pseudoscientific and worldview construct posed as psychological. This seems like bad science and, thus, leading to the potential for a bad theoretical foundation for praxis, for practice. Could purity culture from Christian doctrine and worldview be influencing this particular academic output? Could these views influence the “meaning and purpose” of those coming to the Kwees of psychotherapy or counselling psychology? It’s an open question; I leave this to clientele, while I intend this as a case study of a larger issue within the therapeutic practice culture. As Dr. Darrel Ray in “Extensive Interview with Dr. Darrel Ray on Secular Therapy and Recovering From Religion” stated:
So, #2 behind the fear of hell are issues around their sexuality and things like, “I know it’s not wrong to masturbate, but I still feel guilty,” “I am a sex addict because I look at porn.” There’s tons of evidence that the most religious people self-identify the most as “sex addicts.” Not to mind, there is no such thing as sex addiction. There’s no way to define it. I have argued with atheists that have been atheists for 20 years who say that they are sex addicts. Help me understand, how did you get that diagnosis? “My mother-in-law diagnosed me” [Laughing]. “I look at porn once or twice a week.” I do not care if you look at porn once or twice an hour. You are still not a sex addict. So, get over that. You may have other issues. You may have some compulsions. You may have some fear of driving the issue. But it almost always comes down to early childhood religious training, as we spoke about earlier. So, people are simply responding to the programming. Even though, they are atheist, secular, agnostic. I do not care what you call yourself. You are still dealing with the programming. Sometimes, you can go an entire lifetime with a guilt, a shame, a fear, rooted in religion.
If you do not believe in the Christian influence on the research and views, please review the articles in the most superficial of ways with articles entitled “Theologically-Informed Education about Masturbation: A Male Sexual Health Perspective,” “Sexual Addiction: Diagnosis and Treatment,” “Sexual Addiction and Christian College Men: Conceptual, Assessment and Treatment Challenges,” “Constructing Addiction from Experience and Context: Peele and Brodsky’s Love and Addiction Revisited,” and even a society entitled Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH). It’s like this on issue and after issue. Fundamentalist Christian universities and theological beliefs in areas infect towns, attract similarly minded individuals from around the fundamentalist Christian diaspora, and reduce the amount of proper science in professional lives and the critical thinking in the public. People are part of the culture in some framings. Then these connect to academic formalities around pseudoscientific views with societies and groups built around them too, e.g., SASH, as the “Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (SASH) was founded in 1987 by Patrick Carnes, Richard Santorini and Ed Armstrong, SASH began as a membership organization for people concerned with sexual addiction problems.” [Emphasis added.]
Again, the point isn’t the individuals inasmuch as trends in culture with representative case studies as important for this. In those cases of the Bissets with a marginally skeptical view, it’s not about factual accounts of the world. It is about maintenance of numbers. In the cases of the Kwees, it’s not about factual and empirical all the time, but it’s about selective factual-and-empirical, and buttressed and warped by theological pseudoscience (by the most up-to-date standards of the professional diagnostic and statistical manual for psychologists or the DSM-5 with lack of inclusion on one theological theory of sexual dysfunction in “sex addiction”). It should be noted. In the United States of America under the American Psychological Association, any imposition by an American-trained counselling psychologist can be called out on ethics violations. Slippery language should not be a basis upon which for a tacit claim for circumnavigation of A.4.b. Personal Values of the ethics code for American counsellors, which stipulates, “Counselors are aware of—and avoid imposing—their own values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours. Counsellors respect the diversity of clients, trainees, and research participants and seek training in areas in which they are at risk of imposing their values onto clients, especially when the counsellor’s values are inconsistent with the client’s goals or are discriminatory in nature.” However, this is in Canada. If one sees presentations crossing the line in an explicit manner in a local or national context, one can express appropriate concerns with formal channels to act on it, whether non-Christians in general or the non-religious in particular. I doubt in this case on some levels, though, as the statements are reasonably carefully worded – and is grounded in psychotherapy as opposed to counselling psychology.
Fort Langley culture follows from the culture of Trinity Western University on a number of qualitative-observational metrics. A university that failed to attain a law school status based on the bias and prejudice stemming from a Community Covenant with statements deemed repeatedly and nearly unequivocally as biased and prejudiced against members of the LGBTI community. They overwhelmingly lost the law school case 7-2 in the Supreme Court of Canada with denial of status as a law school as “reasonable” by the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada. It was June 15, 2018; the decision where the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of the British Columbia and Ontario law societies in a 7-2 collective decision for Trinity Western University v Law Society of Upper Canada and Law Society of British Columbia v Trinity Western University.Shortly thereafter, they retracted the mandatory nature of the Community Covenant for the students, but, as I have been told, not for staff, faculty, and administrators. A faith needing community legislation appears weaker than one strong enough as written on the heart and lived out in one’s life. Bearing in mind, Christ never wrote anything down on paper. Perhaps, there has been some wisdom in this fact worth retaining in this case. Dissenting views exist on the campus and in the community. One TWU is one LGBTI community group around campus without formal affiliation (“*We are run completely independently from and bare no formal affiliation with Trinity Western University”), though small, for individual students who may be struggling on or around campus. While others outside the formal TWU community, and in the extended fundamentalist Christian community, and taking the idea of “think differently” differently – as in “think the same, as always,” Richard Peachey is as fast as proclaiming the literal Word of God Almighty with homosexuality as an affront to God and fundamentally a sin in His sight. In spite of this, at one time or another, based on Canadian reportage and some names in the current listings, Matthew Wigmore, Bryan Sandberg, and David Evans-Carlson (co-founders of One TWU), and Nate/Nathan Froelich, Kelsey Tiffin, Robynne Healey, and others in the current crop – Kieran Wear, Elisabeth Browning, Queenie Rabanes, and Micah Bron – stand firm against some former mandatory community covenant standards either as supports for themselves or as allies who have been negatively impacted by the Community Covenant. A minority gender and sexual identity is completely healthy and normal. If the theology rejects this, then the theology is at odds with reality, not the students’ sense of themselves, who they love, and their identities, or the science. I agree with them and stand far more with them. When the Community Covenant was dropped as a mandatory requirement for students, many were excited and thrilled. Although, some questions arise about the reaction of excitement and thrill about some who left the university and see the change in the mandatory nature of the Community Covenant.
Why excitement? Why thrill? Aren’t some of these students gone? Wouldn’t this leave the concerns behind them? Aren’t others graduated at this point? Haven’t others already signed and suffered in the past? In short, isn’t it history? Insofar as I can discern, it’s a grounding of common suffering across academic cohorts at Trinity Western University for compassion and empathy for a sense of “no more” and “not to you, too” in the community of the fundamentalist faithful. These students, many of them, went through hell by the attitudes and behaviours reflected in a Community Covenant and selective literalist reading of purported sacred scripture of a larger sex and gender identity majority who, sometimes, treated them with suspicion, pity, or contempt grounded in theology and legislated in the Community Covenant. I feel a similar sentiment around the denial of same-sex marriage by some fundamentalist Evangelical Christians. The proportional response: I don’t believe in heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman for those particular fundamentalist Evangelical Christians. It sounds absurd because the former is outlandish, too.
Anyhow, continuing, why make others experience hell here-and-now in the belief of one’s personal near guarantee to hypothetical heaven there-and-then when one’s corpse is ash, ice, or six feet under, regardless? Does it matter? That is to ask, if God has a Divine Will and is the source of the Moral Law, the Good, and all in, of, and under Creation, why not let Him deal with it, not you? It’s obvious as to the implications here. All this is not due to the Devil, to demonic forces, to non-literalist Christians, to secular humanists, to atheists. This is entirely mundane. It is due to community attitudes and beliefs leading to actions making vulnerable members of the community feel wrong by nature, not of what they believe or their moral character but because, of who they are; that which they cannot change and are born with as human beings with minority sexual and gender identities. That’s bigotry. A nativist sensibility for the negative presumption of an individual based on, more or less, inborn characteristics with thin disguises in the form of “don’t hate the sinner, hate the sin.” Does anyone seriously buy this outside of the informationally, emotionally, and theologically confined and constricted fundamentalist walls where “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”? These are human, all-too-human, follies and foibles wrought forth on the lives of the few by the many in the hallowed halls of the largest Christian university in the country. The relief felt was less for themselves and more for others who would not have to endure as much next time around. I consider freedom of religion, belief, and conscience important for a secular democratic and pluralistic state. Thus, the students may feel healthier in a non-Christian or public university. However, if they choose a Christian university, or if they are pressured into this by parents, community, friends, church, and theology, then they have personal respect to choose, and in making the choice, to me, because, based on the readings, the reactions, and the sensibilities expressed, they’re entering hostile territory.
Congratulations for making it this far, but freethought extends into other areas too, of the local culture, as with hundreds of towns in this country, whether colonics/colonhydrotherapy, aromatherapy, chiropractory, acupuncture, reflexology, naturopathy/naturopathic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine, or simply a culture of praying for help with an ailment (which is one overlap with the religious fundamentalist community and the reduced capacity for critical thought). Colonics/colonhydrotherapy is marginally practiced within some of the town in Fort Langley Colonics. Dr. Stephen Barrett, M.D. in “Gastrointestinal Quackery: Colonics, Laxatives, and More” stated rather starkly:
Colonic irrigation, which also can be expensive, has considerable potential for harm. The process can be very uncomfortable, since the presence of the tube can induce severe cramps and pain. If the equipment is not adequately sterilized between treatments, disease germs from one person’s large intestine can be transmitted to others. Several outbreaks of serious infections have been reported, including one in which contaminated equipment caused amebiasis in 36 people, 6 of whom died following bowel perforation. Cases of heart failure (from excessive fluid absorption into the bloodstream) and electrolyte imbalance have also been reported. Direct rectal perforation has also been reported. Yet no license or training is required to operate a colonic-irrigation device. In 1985, a California judge ruled that colonic irrigation is an invasive medical procedure that may not be performed by chiropractors and the California Health Department’s Infectious Disease Branch stated: “The practice of colonic irrigation by chiropractors, physical therapists, or physicians should cease. Colonic irrigation can do no good, only harm.” The National Council Against Health Fraud agrees.
In 2009, Dr. Edzard Ernst tabulated the therapeutic claims he found on the Web sites of six “professional organizations of colonic irrigations.” The themes he found included detoxification, normailzation [sic] of intestinal function, treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, and weight loss. He also found claims elated to asthma, menstrual irregularities, circulatory disorders, skin problems, and improvements in energy levels. Searching Medline and Embase, he was unable to find a single controlled clinical trial that substantiated [sic] any of these claims.
On aromatherapy, this one is a softball. One can find this in the True Aromatherapy Products and Spa (TAP) store. As William H. London, in an article entitled “Essential Considerations About Aromatherapy” in Skeptical Inquirer, describes the foundations of aromatherapy as follows, “The practice of administering plant-derived essential oils on the skin, via inhalation of vapors, or internally via ingestion for supposed healing power is commonly called aromatherapy. The oils for aromatherapy are described as ‘essential’ to refer to the volatile, aromatic components that some people describe as the ‘essence’ of the plant source, which represents the plant’s ‘life force,’ ‘spirit,’ or soul. Aromatherapy is thus rooted in vitalism…” RationalWiki states:
Like most woo, aromatherapy starts with observable, real effects of smells on humans, and extrapolates and exaggerates into a whole range of treatments from the effective, to the banal, to the outright ridiculous…
… As well as the inherent problematic practice of wasting money on useless medicine and potentially substituting useless concoctions in place of conventional medicine, the essential oils in aromatherapy may be a skin irritant. It is also poorly regulated, as the claims that scents having any beneficial effects are regulated as a cosmetic claim, and it thus does not require FDA approval. Combined with the lack of evidence it really is a waste, but for you, not for those that sell the products. According to Quackwatch, Health Foods Business estimated that the total of aromatherapy products sold through health-food stores was about $59 million in 1995 and $105 million in 1996.
To chiropractory, it is widely regarded as a pseudoscience with either no efficacy or negative effects on the patient or the client. Fort Family Chiropractic and Evergreen Chiropractic are the two main businesses devoted to some practice of chiropractory. As Science-Based Medicine in its “Chiropractic” entry states:
Chiropractic was invented by D. D. Palmer, Sep 18, 1895 when he adjusted the spine of a deaf man and allegedly restored his hearing (a claim that is highly implausible based on what we know of anatomy). Based on this one case, Palmer decided that all disease was due to subluxation: 95% to subluxations of the spine and 5% to subluxations of other bones.
The rationale for chiropractic hinges on three postulates:
- Bones are out of place
- Bony displacements cause nerve interference
- Manipulating the spine replaces the bones, removing the nerve interference and allowing Innate (a vitalistic life force) to restore health.
There is no credible evidence to support any of these claims…
…In over a century, chiropractic research has produced no evidence to support the postulates of chiropractic theory and little evidence that chiropractic treatments provide objective benefits. Research on spinal manipulation is inherently difficult, because double blind studies are impossible and even single blind studies are problematic; a placebo response is hard to rule out…
…There is no acceptable evidence that chiropractic can improve the many other health problems it claims to benefit, from colic to asthma. There is no evidence to support the practice of adjusting the spines of newborns in the delivery room or providing repeated lifelong adjustments to maintain health or prevent disease.
Up to half of patients report short-term adverse effects from manipulation, such as increased local or radiating pain; and there is a rare but devastating complication of neck manipulation: it can injure the vertebrobasilar arteries and cause stroke, paralysis, and death. Some chiropractors do not accept the germ theory of disease and only about half of them support immunization.
Acupuncture is another issue. Hardman Acupuncturist & TCM, Integrated Health Clinic, devote themselves, in part, to this. Dr. Steven Novella of Science-Based Medicine in “Acupuncture Doesn’t Work” stated:
…according to the usual standards of medicine, acupuncture does not work.
Let me explain what I mean by that. Clinical research can never prove that an intervention has an effect size of zero. Rather, clinical research assumes the null hypothesis, that the treatment does not work, and the burden of proof lies with demonstrating adequate evidence to reject the null hypothesis. So, when being technical, researchers will conclude that a negative study “fails to reject the null hypothesis.”
Further, negative studies do not demonstrate an effect size of zero, but rather that any possible effect is likely to be smaller than the power of existing research to detect. The greater the number and power of such studies, however, the closer this remaining possible effect size gets to zero. At some point the remaining possible effect becomes clinically insignificant.
In other words, clinical research may not be able to detect the difference between zero effect and a tiny effect, but at some point it becomes irrelevant.
What David and I have convincingly argued, in my opinion, is that after decades of research and more than 3000 trials, acupuncture researchers have failed to reject the null hypothesis, and any remaining possible specific effect from acupuncture is so tiny as to be clinically insignificant.
In layman’s terms, acupuncture does not work – for anything.
This has profound clinical, ethical, scientific, and practical implications. In my opinion humanity should not waste another penny, another moment, another patient – any further resources on this dead end. We should consider this a lesson learned, cut our losses, and move on.
Many of these practices are swimming in the, or have a foot in the, waters of pseudoscience practiced as if medically or physiologically feasible, but, in matter of fact, remain a drain on the public’s purse based on taking advantage of public confidence in medicine in Canada while having given zero benefit while failing to reject the null hypothesis.
Another issue practice is reflexology, as seen in Health Roots & Reflexology. Quackwatch concludes, “Reflexology is based on an absurd theory and has not been demonstrated to influence the course of any illness. Done gently, reflexology is a form of foot massage that may help people relax temporarily. Whether that is worth $35 to $100 per session or is more effective than ordinary (noncommercial) foot massage is a matter of individual choice. Claims that reflexology is effective for diagnosing or treating disease should be ignored. Such claims could lead to delay of necessary medical care or to unnecessary medical testing of people who are worried about reflexology findings.” Health Roots & Reflexology appears to be one business devoted to thus. As Dr. Harriet Hall in “Modern Reflexology: Still As Bogus As Pre-Modern Reflexology” said, “Reflexology is an alternative medicine system that claims to treat internal organs by pressing on designated spots on the feet and hands; there is no anatomical connection between those organs and those spots. Systematic reviews in 2009 and 2011 found no convincing evidence that reflexology is an effective treatment for any medical condition. Quackwatch and the NCAHF agree that reflexology is a form of massage that may help patients relax and feel better temporarily, but that has no other health benefits. Our own Mark Crislip said, ‘The great majority of studies demonstrate reflexology had no effects that could not be replicated by picking fleas off your mate…And it has no anatomic or physiologic justification.’”
A larger concoction of bad science and medicine comes from the Integrated Health Clinic devoted, largely, to naturopathy/naturopathic medicine (based on a large number of naturopaths on staff) and traditional Chinese medicine with manifestations in IV/chelation therapy, neural therapy, detox, hormone balancing & thermography, anthroposophical medicine, LRHT/hyperthermia, Bowen technique, among others. We’ll run through those first two, as the references to them are available in the resources, in the manner before. Scott Gavura in “Naturopathy vs. Science: Facts edition” stated:
Naturopaths claim that they practice based on scientific principles. Yet examinations of naturopathic literature, practices and statements suggest a more ambivalent attitude. NDhealthfacts.org neatly illustrates the problem with naturopathy itself: Open antagonism to science-based medicine, and the risk of harm from “integrating” these practices into the practice of medicine. Unfortunately, the trend towards “integrating” naturopathy into medicine is both real and frightening. Because good medicine isn’t based on invented facts and pre-scientific beliefs – it must be grounded in science. And naturopathy, despite the claims, is anything but scientific.
The Skeptic’s Dictionary stated:
Naturopathy is often, if not always, practiced in combination with other forms of “alternative” health practices. Bastyr University, a leading school of naturopathy since 1978, offers instruction in such things as acupuncture and “spirituality.” Much of the advice of naturopaths is sound: exercise, quit smoking, eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, practice good nutrition. Claims that these and practices such as colonic irrigation or coffee enemas “detoxify” the body or enhance the immune system or promote “homeostasis,” “harmony,” “balance,” “vitality,” and the like are exaggerated and not backed up by sound research.
As Dr. David Gorski, as quoted in RationalWiki, stated, “Naturopathy is a cornucopia of almost every quackery you can think of. Be it homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, applied kinesiology, anthroposophical medicine, reflexology, craniosacral therapy, Bowen Technique, and pretty much any other form of unscientific or prescientific medicine that you can imagine, it’s hard to think of a single form of pseudoscientific medicine and quackery that naturopathy doesn’t embrace or at least tolerate.” The Massachusetts Medical Society stated similar terms, “Naturopathic medical school is not a medical school in anything but the appropriation of the word medical. Naturopathy is not a branch of medicine. It is a combination of nutritional advice, home remedies and discredited treatments… Naturopathic practices are unchanged by research and remain a large assortment of erroneous and potentially dangerous claims mixed with a sprinkling of non-controversial dietary and lifestyle advice.” This is the level of qualifications of most of the practitioners of the IHC or the Integrated Health Clinic.
Now, onto Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM, or Chinese Medicine or CM, also coming out of the Integrated Health Clinic, RationalWiki notes some of the dangerous, if not disgusting to a North American and Western European palette, ingredients:
CM ingredients can range from common plants, such as dandelion, persimmon, and mint, to weird or even dangerous stuff. Some of the more revolting (from a Western standpoint) things found in TCM include genitals of various animals (including dogs, tigers, seals, oxen, goats, and deer), bear bile (commonly obtained by means of slow, inhumane extraction methods), and (genuine) snake oil… Urine, feces, placenta and other human-derived medicines were traditionally used but some may no longer be in use.
Some of the dangerous ingredients include lead, calomel (mercurous chloride), cinnabar (red mercuric sulfide), asbestos (including asbestiform actinolite, sometimes erroneously called aconite) realgar (arsenic), and birthwort (Aristolochia spp.). Bloodletting is also practiced. Bizarrely, lead oxide, cinnabar, and calomel are said to be good for detoxification. Lead oxide is also supposed to help with ringworms, skin rashes, rosacea, eczema, sores, ulcers, and intestinal parasites, cinnabar allegedly helps you live longer, and asbestos…
Dr. Arthur Grollman, a professor of pharmacological science and medicine at Stony Brook University in New York, in an article entitled “Chinese medicine gains WHO acceptance but it has many critics” is quoted, on the case of TCM or CM acceptance at the World Health Organization, saying, “It will confer legitimacy on unproven therapies and add considerably to the costs of health care… Widespread consumption of Chinese herbals of unknown efficacy and potential toxicity will jeopardize the health of unsuspecting consumers worldwide.” On case after case, we can find individual practices or collections of practices of dubious effect if not ill-effect in the town. Indeed, this follows from one of the earliest points about the infusion of supernatural thinking or pseudoscientific integration of praxis into the community, whether fear of liberal theology, encouragement of pseudobiology, prejudice and bigotry against the LGBTI members of community, pseudo-psychological diagnoses passed off as real psychological and behavioural issues while simply grounded in theological bias and false assertions as psychological constructs, or in the whole host of bad medical and science practices seen in “colonics/colonhydrotherapy, aromatherapy, chiropractory, acupuncture, reflexology, naturopathy/naturopathic medicine and traditional Chinese medicine.”
This isn’t a declaration of “what to do,” but “if done, be, at least, informed about bad science, bad medicine, questionable theology, etc.” As noted about the right to freedom of belief, religion, and conscience (and expression and opinion), people are free to lose money on dubious treatments or otherwise. Freedom seen throughout Canada on the basis of “what people, in fact, do anyway”; whereas, at a minimum, the critical thinking of the culture should rise to the bare minimum standard of “if done, be, at least, informed about bad science, bad medicine, questionable theology, etc.”
[1] Canadians’ and Others’ Convictions to Divine Interventionism in the Matters of the Origins and Evolution states:
Canadian Mennonite University invited Professor Dennis Venema from Trinity Western University as the Scientist in Residence. Venema, at the time, stated, “I’m thrilled to be invited to be the Scientist in Residence at CMU for 2019. I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for students, and I am honoured to join a prestigious group of prior participants… I hope that these conversations can help students along the path to embracing both God’s word and God’s world as a source of reliable revelation to us.” Venema defends the view of evolutionary theory within a framework of “evolutionary creationism,” which appears more a terminologically diplomatic stance than evolution via natural selection or the code language within some religious commentary as things like or almost identical to “atheistic evolution” or “atheistic evolutionism.” He provides education on the range of religious views on offer with a more enticing one directed at evolution via natural selection. The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation provides a space for countering some of the young earth geologist and young earth creationist viewpoints, as with the advertisement of the Dr. Jonathan Baker’s lecture, or in pamphlets produced on geological (and other) sciences.
He works in a tough area within a community not necessarily accepting of the evolution via natural selection view of human beings with a preference for special creation, creationism, or intelligent design. Much of the problems post-genetics as a proper discipline of scientific study and the discovery of evolution via natural selection comes from the evangelical Christian communities’ sub-cultures who insist on a literal and, hence, fundamentalist interpretation or reading of their scriptures or purported holy texts. Another small item of note. Other universities have writers in residence. A Mennonite university hosts a scientist in residence. Science becomes the abnorm rather than the norm. The King’s University contains one reference in the search results within a past conference. However, this may be a reference to “creation” rather than “creationism” as creation and more “creation” speaking to the theological interpretations of genesis without an attempt at an explicit scientific justification of mythology.
By far, the largest number of references to “creationism” came from the largest Christian, and evangelical Christian, university in the country located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada called Trinity Western University, which, given its proximity and student body population compared to the local town, makes Fort Langley – in one framing – and Trinity Western University the heart of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity in Canada. Trinity Western University teaches a “SCS 503 – Creationism & Christainity [sic] (Korean)” course and a “SCS 691 – Creationism Field Trip” course. They hosted a lecture on Stephen Hawking, science, and creation, as stated:
In light of Steven Hawking’s theories, is there enough reason for theists to believe in the existence of God and the creation of the world?
This lecture will respond to Hawking’s views and reflect on the relationship between science, philosophy and theology.
Speaker: Dr. Yonghua Ge, Director of Mandarin Theology Program at ACTS Seminaries (Ibid.)
They hosted another event on evolution and young earth creationism:
All are welcome to attend, Public Lecture, hosted by TWU’s ‘Science, Faith, and Human Flourishing: Conversations in Community“ Initiative, supported by Fuller Seminary, Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, and the Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation, “Evolutionary and Young-Earth Creationism: Two Separate Lectures” (Darrel Falk, “Evolution, Creation and the God Who is Love” and Todd Wood, “The Quest: Understanding God’s Creation in Science and Scripture”)
Dirk Büchner, Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity Western University, states an expertise in “Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac (grammar and syntax), Hellenistic Greek (grammar and lexicography), The Septuagint. Of more popular interest: The Bible and Social Justice, and Creationism, Scientism and the Bible: why there should be no conflict between mainstream science and Christian faith.” Professor Büchner holds an expert status in “creationism.” A non-conflict between mainstream science and the Christian faith would mean the significantly reduced status of the intervention of the divine in the ordinary life of Christians. He remains one locus of creationism in the Trinity Western University environment. Dr. Paul Yang’s biography states, “Paul Yang has over twenty years teaching experience, lecturing on physics and physics education, as well as Christian worldview and creationism. He has served as the director of the Vancouver Institute for Evangelical Wordlview [Sic] as well as the Director of the Christian.” Yang holds memberships or affiliations with the American Scientific Affiliation, Creation Research Society, and Korea Association of Creation Research. Dr. Alister McGrath and Dr. Michael Shermer had a dialogue moderated by a panel with Paul Chamberlain, Ph.D., Jaime Palmer-Hague, Ph.D., and Myron Penner, Ph.D. in 2017 at Trinity Western University.
All exist as probably Christian front organizations with the pretense as scientific and Christian organizations. One can see the patterns repeat themselves over and over again. Christian ‘science’ amounts to creationism, as noted before. Yang, with more than 20 years, exists as a pillar of creationist teaching, thinking, and researching within Canada and at Trinity Western University…
…Other cases of the more sophisticated and newer brands of Christianity with a similar theology, but more evolutionary biology – proper – incorporated into them exist in some of the heart of parts of evangelical Christianity in Canada. Professor Dennis Venema of Trinity Western University and his colleague Dave Navarro (Pastor, South Langley Church) continued a conversation on something entitled “evolutionary creation,” not “creation science” or “intelligent design” as Venema’s orientation at Trinity Western University continues to focus on the ways in which the evolutionary science can mix with a more nuanced and informed Christian theological worldview within the Evangelical tradition. One can doubt the fundamental claim, not in the Bible but, about the Bible as the holy God-breathed or divinely inspired book of the creator of the cosmos, but one can understand the doubt about the base claim about the veracity of the Bible leading to doubt about the contents and claims in the Bible – fundamental and derivative…
…A more small-time politician, Dr. Darrell Furgason, ran for public office in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada. Furgason lectured at Trinity Western University and earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies. Dr. Furgason claims inclusivity for all while ignoring standard protocol in science, i.e., asserting religious views in written work, “Theistic evolution is a wrong view of Genesis, as well as history, and biology. Adam & Eve were real people….who lived in real history….around 6000 years ago.” ..
…The main fundamentalist Evangelical Christian postsecondary institution, university, found in Canadian society is Trinity Western University, where Professor Dennis Venema was the prominent individual referenced as the source of progress in the scientific discussions within intellectual and, in particular, formal academic discussions and teaching. Trinity Western University operates near Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada in Langley. The main feature case for Story comes from a city near to Trinity Western University in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Story considers this the single most controversial case of creationism in the entire country…
…John Sutherland, of Trinity Western University, chaired the Abbotsford school board of the time, which, potentially, shows some relationship between the surrounding areas and the school curriculum and creationism axis – as you may recall Trinity Western University sits in Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada, next to the city of Abbotsford, British Columbia as an evangelical Christian university. “The Minister agreed with Goodman and the Teachers’ Association and sent a letter requesting assurances from the board that they were adhering to the provincial curriculum…”, Story explained, “…The Minister’s requests were not directly acknowledged, but Sutherland was vocal about the issue in local media outlets. He accused the Minister of religious prejudice by attempting to remove creationism from the district.”
See “Canadians’ and Others’ Convictions to Divine Interventionism in the Matters of the Origins and Evolution”: https://www.newsintervention.com/creationism-evolution-jacobsen/.
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Have you ever watched a television crime show or a movie with extension cross-examination of eyewitnesses to a crime, especially when the music eerily rises and come to a crescendo with a subsequent denouement when a particular factoid is released rom the quivering lips, and shaking and salt-eyed face, of the eyewitness in the show or movie? It’s touching.
Touching in the emotionally rousing nature of the events, but also in the H.L. Mencken commentary on women’s observation of the “touching self-delusion” of men, I apply this in a cross-cultural sense. All around the world. We take eyewitness testimony extremely seriously. However, as the pioneering work of Professor Elizabeth Loftus at the University of California, and others, explain and demonstrate, and as Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson notes, eyewitness testimony remains one of the worst forms of evidence possible while taken as some of the most serious in cinematic portrayals reflecting a similar assumed authority in the efficacy of the human mind as a data-taking device.
Let’s make this perfectly clear, human beings are naturalistic and, therefore, evolved organic beings with capacities, and insofar as human beings have capacities; they have limitations. Those limitations come in the form of the human mind too. The mind as a result of the operations of the brain through time in response to internal processing and external input as interpreted and delivered, in so limited and flawed a manner as, from the senses.
The mind’s ability to remember is the source of memory, but our memories, by and large, stink. Psychological Science states, “Memory doesn’t record our experiences like a video camera. It creates stories based on those experiences. The stories are sometimes uncannily accurate, sometimes completely fictional, and often a mixture of the two; and they can change to suit the situation… memory can be remarkably accurate or remarkably inaccurate. Without objective evidence, the two are indistinguishable.”
As an evolved organ with specific traits and functions, human memory is not a single-input engine. Both in the encoding of memories and in the retrieval of memories; the mind acts with memory as a constructing to encode and reconstructing to retrieve system. Both the cognitive biases in encoding and in the breakdown of memory and the flaws in the reconstruction for a memory amount to a large part of the unreliability of human memory.
Scientific American stated, “The uncritical acceptance of eyewitness accounts may stem from a popular misconception of how memory works… The act of remembering, says eminent memory researcher and psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of the University of California, Irvine, is ‘more akin to putting puzzle pieces together than retrieving a video recording.’ Even questioning by a lawyer can alter the witness’s testimony because fragments of the memory may unknowingly be combined with information provided by the questioner, leading to inaccurate recall.”
So, these movie portrayals of a functional memory and then leading to some of the dynamics of the popular mythologies around human memory. These need to be blown out of the water. Professor Loftus’ research can be an important tool and step in this. Indeed, especially for the most cited woman psychologist ever, and the sacrifices made in professional life by her, we should work harder to support the research pioneered by her. A good start would be changes in the media and in the landscape of popular portrayals of the apparent validity and reliability of human memory for criminal cases, whether movies or television. Another would be in police, detective, and legal work. Human memory sucks.
Simply put, the human organism is a poor data taking device, including, if not especially, in eyewitness testimony. One could apply this standard to the entire Gospel accounts of the life and times of Jesus Christ (superstar) and other religious traditions reliant upon eyewitness testimony. Indeed, with the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, any decade or more timespan after the events would have to come in alignment with the modern empirical evidence if in consideration of the authority of the biblical accounts – even if ignoring supernaturalist claims in the naturalistic tentative conclusion wrought forth by the modern scientific revolutions. Her research will, eventually, revolutionize biblical criticism and, in turn, theological textual analysis by the nature of human fallibility.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Of the more delightfully positive and ill-considered futures proposed within the technocratic communities with some overlap within the humanist communities comes in the idea of a trans-humanist future and a post-humanist future in which the technological advancements of humanity (“Mankind” seems a little passé) simply run away into the sunset without their lover: human beings, the hyphenations for the “trans-” and the “post-” because of the basis in differential images of technology made sentient and transcending humanity while, in a sense, bringing human beings along for the ride and another in which humanity becomes, in the words of the late Robin Williams, obsolete, human patterns of thought and behaviour aren’t going anywhere. They’re integrated into all possible futures, though some questions arise about the prime focus of the early 21st century.
Why focus on the future with technology so advanced so as to reach the heights of delirious farce and comedy posed as reality? Why fixate on a future of techno-beings and techno-boyfriends and -girlfriends who cater to every whim of the wonderstruck nerd-o-sphere, geek-o-drome, on the long dweeb-a-thon? Why focus on the future at all? Is it all bad simply for the sake of wanting to focus on the future? My proposition: Yes, and no. Yes, we should focus on the future; and no, some of the heights of fancy so as to “space out” on the present conditions of those worse off make a mockery of the utopian orgasmic fantasizing.
Both matter because the science fiction writers of the past, in a sense, wrote the future for themselves as a present (gift and current moment) to us. We live, in some ways, within the wildest fancies of previous writers who thought about the world in terms of the possible and the impossible (to make things interesting) as a proposition of “what could be,” almost as an individual escape from the “what was” of the time. Truly, the spirit of the age is a sense of becoming as if a perpetual adolescent mind with an iron clasp on the mindscape of the culture.
A world in which technology holds the cards and the social environs remains bound to the sensibilities of its youngest members and their dominance of the tech world. Think of the phones, the computers, the laptops, the applications, the gaming consoles, all of the small conveniences as virtues, and as petty (de)vices, to make each day a tad more enjoyable, and trivial. With the technology, we feel as if an inevitable march of progress to some point of convergence. If the world continues to move faster and faster, and if technology is the driver of the “faster and faster,” well, of course, the only possible answer to the question of “What next?” is “faster and faster, until some point of convergence.”
Perhaps, but then again maybe not, it could be different, as we have heard calls of the “End of History” and the ‘return of the Messiah’ before. All for naught, while used to make calls for oughts. Which brings the current incarnation of the transhumanist and the posthumanist visions of the world into glaring and full focus, a proposition of a world with human beings as subsidiary nodes in some vast computational complex or as participants in the recombination of the material constituents of the universe at a local and then a galactic scale at some nth point of progress into the future.
Technology and progressive advancements in the science bringing about the technology become part of the same droning of the technocrats. Have you watched the presentations of the Kurzweils of the world? Are you bored too? It is the same darn thing over and over again. Is this a perpetual claim of inevitability answered and, thus, needing some repeating to the proletariat who vulgar primitives they are require such repetitions, or is it a set of charts with reasonably amorphous claims about the future with thick-enough black markers to draw the trendlines? It pays. That’s one thing. But then, there’s also the long history built by the science fiction writers of old who built the mental landscape of the micro-obsessives.
Those “micro-obsessives” who constructed the foundational technologies for the world seen today in which our lives have been in many ways transformed for the better, and also for the isolatory effects upon a social species. What effects can we expect from such changes? Shall we boot up, chip in, and forget the troubles for a better television or a new first-person shooter? When caught in a time focus on the future, the items of the forever-evolving present moment and the lessons from history can disappear from us, then we can get into some real trouble. Indeed, the systems of technology may be used for ill-begotten purposes against the ideals of the science fictioneers, futurologists.
To miss the present and the past while over-focusing on the future creates a foundation for failure amplified by technic and ahistoricity of the world, though some premises appear true with explicit statement with some further considerations of the matter, human beings as evolved natural objects appear in the world as a natural technology with the capacity for the creation of some technology in a constructed manner rather than a naturalistically evolved manner. All possible human futures derive from the nature drummed into this tribal species with a neocortex, where all constructed rather than evolved technologies will become imprinted with the behavioural and cognitive capacities of the human species and, therefore, make the current here-and-now co-extensive with all possible there-and-thens as a formulation of humanity’s patterns flowering indefinitely into the cosmos.
In this consideration of the future of the human species and divisions into different ‘kinds’ of futures, all functions under the banner of an extended consciousness of humanity apportioned into parts of the future of the universe with a trans-humanism future envisioned as an after-humans future impossible as all futures become human futures in consideration of patterns and unified notions of technology with human patterns of thought and behaviour projected into every possible future. Human beings cannot be obsolete as we cannot be lost in full, only in part, into any possible consideration of the constructed technology timelines and futures over which so much anxiety, hemming, and hawing is had in the world.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We both harbour an affinity for the humanist vision, as seen in the Amsterdam Declaration and in the, probably, 10 or more other declarations and statements devoted to variations of Humanism. In particular, you have a focus on Humanism tied to the philosophical position of Materialism. We live in a material world, or universe of matter and energy. We evolved as a social species. So, we matter to one another as evolved, complex structures with an awareness of social and emotional needs. We are matter, as part of a material order. Bring them together, we have Humanist Materialism. Is this the basic idea?
Dan Fisher: In a sense, yes. Secular Humanism has always had a focus on the material world as opposed to spiritualism. But as we have seen with Humanists UK being captured by the mythology of gender identity, there is room to grow on this matter.
I have always advocated that reason and compassion need each other – they are useless alone. With Humanist Materialism we can forge the two together inseparably. Never forgetting the realities of the world we live in, never forgetting the value of life.
It is also a response to the ‘Historical Materialism’ of Marxists. Whether or not it was intended by Marx himself, adherents of his philosophy have demonstrated time and time again their willingness to kill and otherwise violate human rights in pursuit of their goals.
Since Marxists have never achieved their desired society, what we are left with is a history of blood spilled in service of an elusive end. I too believe we can build a better world, but not by discarding the very principles we should be fighting for.
Jacobsen: How has a “mythology of gender identity” taken some in the humanist communities? How is this mythos different than more empirical ideas of sex and gender?
Fisher: The science is very clear that there are two sexes, male and female. Intersex conditions affect people who are either genetically male or female. Despite this, intersex conditions as well as normal variations of human physicality have been interpreted as a ‘spectrum’ and this way of thinking is espoused by people including the President of Humanists UK, Professor Alice Roberts. Sex denial has real consequences for both social and medical circumstances and yet is being propagated by people who should know better.
The purpose of this is to support the belief in ‘gender identity’ which is equivalent to a male or female ‘soul’ separate from the body. This is fundamentally sexist and regressive thinking which has been delivered into public institutions without appropriate scrutiny.
Jacobsen: How is Historical Materialism of Marx and modern acolytes working to deny fundamental human rights to other human beings? Things they take for granted and harbour unto themselves while ignoring the denials of said rights for others in a denial of moral truisms, including the Golden Rule.
Fisher: I was recently told by someone I previously respected a great deal that we must sometimes sacrifice individuals to protect ‘the cause’. We have seen organisations of all stripes act to cover up, for example, sexual assault scandals, on the grounds that the good work they do is too important to be tarnished. I would argue that such excuses are in themselves what tarnishes the cause. They make a mockery of what we should be standing for. Marx’s focus on the progress of society as a whole enables this overlooking of the rights of the individual in favour of a focus on a promised future.
Jacobsen: You started a social media presence for this idea. Did you start this philosophy? If so, how? If not, who?
Fisher: Humanist Materialism is the end product of at least half a decade of work on my part. You can see the foundations being laid in my For A New Left series on Uncommon Ground Media. Of course it could never have happened without the inspiration, input and motivation given to me by various philosophers and activists. Two particular wellsprings have been the work of gender critical feminists and the development of the Humanist movement in Africa.
Jacobsen: How can others find out about the For A New Left series?
Fisher: It can all be found on Uncommon Ground Media . Each article is linked in the introduction of that first one. Consider it a starting point for what I hope to include in the eventual book.
Jacobsen: What writers, activists, and others have been integral to For A New Left?
Fisher: Historical inspirations include Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and Henry George, as well as more radical sources such as Rosa Luxembourg and Emma Goldman.
Many of the writers we have published on Uncommon Ground have also helped me shape my own thoughts – Dr. Em, Jennifer Bilek, Angelos Sofocleous and Emeka Ikpeazu for example. Much of it was developed in conversation with my friends and my fiancée Katie Barker.
Jacobsen: Regardless, why form the online community devoted to it?
Fisher: Although the project is only in its infancy, I wanted to share with people the same hope that they have given me. I want to invite people to contribute their own thoughts to the process and build it from the ground up.
Jacobsen: What are some of the aims and goals of the group for its early stages?
Fisher: One of the first steps will be the publication of a book, drawing from my article series, but also with potential collaboration from other writers. We were planning to organize a conference, but obviously that’s had to be put on hold. In the meantime, then, we want to encourage people to get talking and sharing their own perspectives.
Jacobsen: How will this expand into the future?
Fisher: There is potential to form an organization, if the interest and the enthusiasm is there.
Jacobsen: Will this be an entirely non-profit or for-profit affair?
Fisher: Non-profit, for sure. Uncommon Ground Media is a commercial project, and any book will be produced on a commercial basis, but any organization for Humanist Materialism will be strictly not for profit.
Jacobsen: Who have been some early adopters of this philosophy? Who, in reflection, adhered to this philosophical position the whole time?
Fisher: It’s hard to say for sure because there is no formal structure, but we’ve definitely had interest from many of those describing themselves as ‘politically homeless’. We also have interest from people within the British Humanist community who have felt let down by Humanists UK. I’m currently in discussions with a number of key figures I hope to bring on board. As you say, there will be many who have already been on this path independently.
Jacobsen: It is still early. However, what has been some of the feedback to the group, the ideas?
Fisher: Reception has been positive so far. The For A New Left series has prompted some incredible discussions. In particular the article on Metamodernism had a lively response from the philosophy community, much more so than I expected. Meanwhile the economically focused articles were very well received by Basic Income proponents such as Scott Santens.
Jacobsen: What is the summary statement on Metamodernism?
Fisher: A response to the meaninglessness of postmodernism cannot be derived solely from modernism. Metamodernism seeks to address the weaknesses of modernism which allowed postmodernism to take root.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dan.
Fisher: You’re very welcome Scott, it’s always a pleasure to talk.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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*Updated May 27, 2020.*
The Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal continues apace and reflects a common trend in churches around the world. There are many facets of this to consider, including cults and fringe religious movements or groups, as this happens in and out of the communities of worship and the cults while the communities of worship and the cults provide a formalized structure for this.
Individuals who may not hear about the abuse in the church can be as upstanding citizens, and as moral individuals within some universal conceptualization of morality, as possible; however, other facets remain important for consideration in the context of the abuse of individuals within the church, whether physical abuse or psychological abuse, or sexual abuse. As we can note with some church members, they may state, “But I never heard about it.” One reason is the abuse did not happen at all. Another is some have not seen it because of the high costs to the victim, the culture of denial, and the complicity of the community in protecting the prominent men. This has happened in religious and secular communities. However, we see this more in the religious communities with an assumed divine mandate in support of the higher authority endowed upon the men. It can create some questions around theology.
If trends exist in theology, and if outcomes exist in people coming out of the theology in several churches and around the world independently, then some scrutiny is deserved, rather than necessarily confirming as a diagnosis. However, there appear to be confirmed cases in some churches around the world regarding The Message theology. From Canada to the rest of the world with over 2,000,000 adherents to this day, people after the Western world collapsed due to a second world war wanted answers. Preachers came in to fill the void. The theology of the late purported Prophet William Branham (1909-1965) was one response. A man who arose in the midst of the post-WWII Healing Revival Movement with several prominent figures proclaiming, by themselves, ‘faith healer’ status within a movement continuing to this day with televangelism and the Charismatic movement. Anything in association with Branham should be taken with suspicion and scrutiny, especially with historical cases of abuse in churches, including Cloverdale, Phoenix, Colonia Dignidad, Zimbabwe, or the cult compound in Prescott (click name for hyperlink).
There can be a man considered near to or equal to Jesus Christ as a messenger of the Lord of Lords through The Message, i.e., the late Mr. William Branham providing theological – his own – buttresses for the abuse in the churches. To quote Mr. Branham, “Let her daughter stay out all night and come in the next morning with her make-up all over her face and her hair twisted sideways, out drunk somewhere. You know what she would do? She would teach her a lesson with a barrel slat. That’s right.” Another time, “And I’ve see them laying out on the beaches half naked before man stretching themselves out there, say they get a sun-tanning. Brother, I — I may not live. But if God lets me live and keep my right mind, if one of mine does it, she’ll get a son-tanning. It’ll be Mr. Branham’s son with a barrel slat behind her. She’ll be tanned all right. She’ll know where it come from too. Yes, sir.” In this, individual churches of The Message may operate independently. However, the main point is an overarching theology called The Message. In this theology, this may influence some of the men in the private of the home or church, where the victims, if in a particular home or church, stay quiet. The Casting Pearls Project, devoted to abuse survivors coming out of The Message, run by Jennifer Hamilton gathers stories and quotes. From the Casting Pearls Project, we have a statement from Careyann Z.:
My father came from an abusive family. Through becoming a “Message” minister and missionary, he found a purpose and a way to feel accepted. He believed his interpretation or revelation of the “Message” would lead the bride into the rapture. My mother came from a strict Roman Catholic family. When my parents met, my father told my mother, “God told me you’re my wife.” My mother said it felt like a supernatural presence overtook her when my father asked her to marry him which forced her to marry him against her will. A week and a half later, they were married. My father was a very good manipulator. There were numerous healings that took place in my father’s ministry, and some of the things he prophesied took place. I chalk those up to luck. There were also many things that did not come to pass. Fear of God’s wrath effectively controlled his entire family and drove us to do everything he wished. When we went against his wishes, he would prophesy to us, staring deeply into our eyes as his countenance changed and his entire body shook. My father treated my mother like an object, and she just took it faithfully, helping him in all his businesses like a good slave. Once when she was 9 months pregnant and nauseous, she was up on a ladder painting a house. When she climbed down due to the nausea, he yelled at her to get back up on the ladder and finish painting. Whenever she questioned him or he disagreed with something she did, my father would speak in tongues and prophesy against her saying, “This is God speaking,” or “God is going to strike you dead.”
Another from Christine H.:
I married at a very young age (barely 17). It was expected that we marry young and not risk making “mistakes” before marriage. I went from being in a very controlling home, to being married and becoming a submissive wife. I was always raised with the idea that a man was to have the say in the home and that my place was to make him happy (in my mind, at all costs). This wasn’t how my childhood home worked, but it was what I was taught. I already had “pleaser” type of personality. This came from trying to please everyone in hopes of them being proud of me, and the dire need to be good enough. Both sides of the family were very controlling; my family would try to control what I wore and what I did even as a married woman. I never dreamed my life would turn out the way it did. It wasn’t long before the stress of life grabbed our young home, and I found myself in an abusive marriage. After almost 11 years and two children, we ended in a divorce. I felt destroyed, knowing I was committing the forbidden sin. Once again, more hurt and abuse by people that were supposed to love me the most. The pain felt unbearable. Why was I so unlovable? Why could people physically and mentally hurt me, knowing they were causing me pain, but still say they loved me?
The spiral began. My family could only see that their daughter was now divorced and how that was going to look to everyone in the “Message”. I was told I had no rights, but no one wanted to know my story.
Is the statement about barrel slats unquestioned? Why use this language and metaphor? If one can unquestioningly endorse statements of physical abuse with a barrel slat, then this raises questions about actions towards women following from it, as this man, within The Message, is considered a Prophet. At the same time, in The Message, women are considered of the devil. Branham is considered the Prophet of God. Who is a follower of The Message to question a Voice of God, especially a woman who is of the devil, anyhow? Either Branham was ordinary or not, whether ordinary made prophet of God to become extraordinary or ordinary and a liar about professed prophet status. Even with ignoring these claims about divinity or divine representation of He on High, there can be explicit statements, by the raised standards of today, of sexist statements by Branham, and behaviours within the churches.
Those statements belying particular attitudes with the views reflective of a general philosophy in regards to the roles of men and the roles of women within the “The Message” movement theology and the orientation of general subservience to men alongside a culture of silence. Do not take this from me, take this from an individual with extensive experience with former women members of “The Message,” Hamilton, who I conducted an interview with former member and author John Collins in an educational series where he invited Hamilton into the session, said abuse is normalized in the church. Therefore, this should qualify as a destructive cult.
For those with further interest in researching cults, I would strongly recommend the late Margaret Singer, and Rick Alan Ross, Steven Hassan, and Robert Jay Lifton. All four have been integral to helping hundreds of thousands of people around the continent, and probably the world, in working to combat destructive cults, which remain the main issue or problem now. Collins explained the general context in which the leadership, the pastor even, can further victimize a mother who has been abused by a husband (including the husband abusing the children). The mother was shamed to be in submission to the husband, as per their interpretations of supposedly sacred scripture.
Collins said, “Victims are pressured into keeping silent about abuse. As a result, many members of the group are unaware that sexual abuse exists. Worse, some people that are aware of the abuse have become accustomed to it and view the abuse is ‘normal.’ Some message followers rarely speak up against sexual abuse within the church because they are conditioned to keep silent. In many cases, there seems to be an unspoken rule that ‘if you speak about the problem, then you are the problem.’”
All the while this happens decades after the death of Branham in 1965. We continue to see the admonishments. The thou shalts and thou shalt nots as interpreted of the scriptures for “The Message.” In this case, the message becomes a message of denial of abuse of women’s and children’s bodies and subjugation of the wife to the headship of the husband. Collins described how the culture of abuse can create a situation in which the abused individuals remain accustomed, engendered, to the abuse culture. In the family, this can mean more of the normalization of the abuse in a cult setting with aberrant worship, doctrine, and leadership with destructive consequences under the guise of Christian theology, ethics, and norms. Many Christians would be appalled, probably. Collins only knew of a few situations in which the law enforcement agencies became actively involved in these cases of abuse.
“Typically, one of three scenarios happen when sexual abuse occurs. Unfortunately, more often than not, the victim of rape or sexual assault is afraid to speak up and the abuse is never mentioned to anyone in church authority. The second scenario is that the victim does speak to their pastor or church leader, but the pastor ‘handles’ the situation by either admonishing the abuser privately or dismissing the situation all together,” Hamilton stated, “The third scenario is the less common of the three, but the pastor might bring the offender before the congregation to reprimand them openly. In both instances of speaking out, the victim is almost always shamed and found at some fault. For sexual abuse towards girls and women, teachings of WMB place blame on the female body for being seductive and therefore a temptation.”
Indeed, as Hamilton further explained, they distrust the secular systems of jurisprudence and social services. She explained:
…when sexually abused members do speak out, the leader dictates complete control of the situation without reporting it to the local authorities. 1 Corinth 6:1-2 is most often used to justify this: “Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest laws courts?” Message pastors have no theological or counseling education and erroneously fail to understand that this passage is about settling civil cases, not criminal ones. In a criminal case, such as physical or sexual abuse, the state opposes the perpetrator in court, not the victim.
Often, cases do not go to the court or to a sufficient authority to deal with these issues. Even if a crime is known to be committed and a charge would be appropriate, and in the case of real consequences for the perpetrator, the punishment for the “rapists and sexual assaulters [are] rarely appropriate for their actions.” Some of these conversations can be seen with some commentary of Nathan J. Robinson from Current Affairs around Joe Biden in a larger sociopolitical context about the Democrats and in extensive commentary about President Donald J. Trump in the examination of the claimants with substantive stories of sexual abuse and rape by the sitting president of the United States of America.
Managing Editor, Sarah Mills, of Uncommon Ground Media (and Min Grob) in “Coercive control activist: ‘Sally Challen case is about more than murder’” wrote on a similar phenomenon of coercive control as an aspect of manipulation through emotional abuse. Another relevant aspect of this cultural phenomenon of cults. Someone in non-normal, aberrant circumstances, where murder became a mind-set induced by coercive control in the case of Challen. A woman who murdered, but who killed someone intentionally with a long background of abuse. In another case from the same outlet, Beatrice Louis or Linda Louis, Business Editor, spoke articulately a couple of years ago about the proposition of “Enforced Monogamy” in the article entitled “What Does Jordan Peterson’s Enforced Monogamy Actually Look Like?“ Short answer: “not good”; long answer: “also, not great,” Louis astutely picked up on the ad hoc manner in which Peterson covers a behind connected to him. Louis highlights this statement, “Of much more interest is the preceding paragraph which is reported as, ‘violent attacks are what happens when men do not have partners, Mr. Peterson says, and society needs to work to make sure those men are married.’”
Louis went on to ask about the factors needing change for incels to stop being incels. To a New Mythologist in Peterson, as I call them, mirroring the New Atheist, formulation of loose, ill-considered philosophizing, Louis nailed the point in a form of a question, a circumlocution punctuated by a question mark, as the surrounding contextualization for this crowd comes in the mantra of “personal responsibility” without nary a notion of the “personal” part in matters of crucial concern: underground, online, misogynist culture with derivative manifestations in the larger sociocultural structure. Society retains a deep interest in the men becoming married. That’s the claim and argument in one. In having this, not the men, but the society or factors external to the individual should hold responsibility for the men, perhaps, the small group of online men who may struggle with heterosexual relations and shifting of norms in some societies towards pragmatic egalitarian norms should focus on individual change. When one claims this, then the double, loose, ill-considered meaning or ad hoc reasoning can mean this all along, while, in fact, the [fill-in-the-blank] was intentionally placed with a surrounding quota of partial truths so as to lead the ‘stallions’ to water. When the cowboy-shepherd is shown to be naked, he meant the more positive egalitarian notion all along. Implication: How could you be so dishonest and stupid to not get the message the whole time? Und so weiter. That’s on a form of a marriage built to industrial efficiency for the subjugation of women and children to the fathers in destructive cult cultures reflected around the world in hundreds of thousands of people’s lives under “The Message” theology.
Mills’ and Grobs’ articulation of some of the emotional and psychological abuse is relevant here too. I love this statement from their article:
Abusive, controlling partners initially shower a potential target with intense flattery designed to seduce them. This is referred to as ‘love bombing,’ a tactic also employed by predatory organisations–like cults–in order to persuade their targets to let their guard down through positive emotional feedback: high self-esteem, a sense of being loved, and belonging. This initial period of idealisation succeeds in forging an intense bond with the abuser, a bond that will later be used against the victim, who will always seek to return to this state, or emotional high, following periods of cruelty.
Exactly, this becomes the basis for the abusive destructive cult tactics one can find in the world created in the post-WWII Healing Revival Movement of William Marrion Branham and others. As we see in the world of coercive control abuse tactics, or in the idealization of a state of nature with God, man, woman, and children, where the man is the head of the household and the woman exists below the man in service of husband and in devotion to the caretaking of the children and the maintenance of the home. God loves you. He is there for you, except during coercive control, during the abuse, after the scars heal while the mind reels, and still while his representative authority in the church shames you. If you come forward, the overwhelming response is a claim as a liar. Some of the most substantial research on rape, as an extreme form of violence against women, represents 8% of the cases as unfounded; thus, the default should be sensitivity and full consideration with the weight of the claims and, as well, the consideration of the claim of, in this instance, rape as highly probable rather than not, based on the statistical evidence gathered by the FBI and the Home Office of the UK – as far as I know, independently.
Hamilton said, “In the cases of the abuser being the pastor or in leadership, the victims are likely labelled liars and disregarded. Abusers in the Message are more protected than their victims through the forced silence. The Message teaches that if the rapist or assaulter confesses, their sin is ‘placed under the blood of Jesus,’ making them as ‘blameless’ as if the crime literally had never happened. Therefore, anyone who speaks about it is shamed for bringing that sin ‘back out from under the blood.’” There is explicit theological backing for these attitudes and behaviours as interpreted within “The Message.” Whether one looks at the more insider knowledge of Hamilton and Collins, or the collegial journalism on coercive control (a classic tactic of cults) and critical commentary of clumsy outmoded thoughts on enforced monogamy, Canadian society, and most other societies know better and, thus, should do better than permit open sanction of such institutional status within borders and cultures, as there have been extreme cases at Cloverdale, Phoenix, Colonia Dignidad, Zimbabwe, or the cult compound in Prescott. All functioning independently while under the common theological banner of The Message. Given the history and theology, these seem like plausible hypotheses about the organizations. Is there abuse near you? Are there considerations of trying to get out of community without community reprisal? There is help if you need it. There are the authorities – the police, the secret service agencies, the safe houses, the Casting Pearls Project, or other initiatives devoted to the safety of women (and men) who may be experiencing abuse – who can help you.
To the last question from the interview with Hamilton and Collins, I leave this to them prefaced by the original questions:
Jacobsen: For those who have not faced justice, how can they face it?
Hamilton: Time unfortunately impedes most abusers from facing the justice they deserve. Victims that are now speaking out about the abuse are sometimes unfortunately past their state’s statute of limitations. After leaving the cult, there is a processing period for de-programming and realizing that the abuse had been normalized and that justice was not served. No matter the length of time, victims can contact their local police station or Salvation Army for resources and advocates.
Collins: The only way justice can be served is through education and accountability. Members of any church – cult or not – must hold elders of the church to an acceptable standard of accountability. Leaders of church bodies must be trained in how to respond to abuse, when to report abuse, and how to properly warn members of their church when another member has abusive tendencies. As the proverbial “shepherd of the flock”, they must be held accountable to provide protection for their congregation.
At the same time, members of the church must be educated to recognize signs of abuse and recognize abuse of power. This becomes problematic for leaders, however, in the case of a destructive cult. In all cases where members are trained to recognize abuse of power, those same members become former members.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/09
Angelos Sofocleous, M.A. is a Philosophy Ph.D. student at University of York who works as an Interviews Editor at The Definite Article, Deputy Science Editor at Nouse Philosophy, and the Editor-in-Chief at Secular Nation Magazine. Here we talk more in-depth about updates since December, 2018 on the fallout of the reactions to a tweet and an article.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’ve written a decent amount together. In fact, we have seen a development of secularism in Greece and in its education, and some of the aspects of personal and professional history for you (bumpy). Mario Zucconi quoted you and I in EU Influence Beyond Conditionality: Turkey Plus/Minus the EU. One of the most recent, relevant developments came in the form of firing or considered resignation from several positions as editor or leader followed by some opprobrium in public. You were President-Elect for Humanist Students, which has a triplet setup for incumbent and leaving presidents. Recently, you were a hated person. Some stood by you. Some still hate you. What was the feeling in the interlude since the last interview in 2018?
Angelos Sofocleous: Let me first start with a recollection of what had happened, for reminding those who were following the case when it happened, and informing those who will hear about the incidents for the first time.
On August 21st 2018, I retweeted a tweet reading “RT if women don’t have penises”. The original tweet was accompanied by an article from The Spectator titled “Is it a crime to say ‘women don’t have penises’?” The retweet was part of other statements and articles that I had written about sex, gender, and the transgender movement which included certain criticisms of the movement as well as suggestions on how it can be improved so that society can achieve overcoming sex and gender stereotypes. Through my statements, I also wished to express and support the view that humans are a dimorphic species; that is, a human being can be a male or female, allowing for certain cases of intersex individuals who, however, seem to be unrepresented, underrepresented or even misrepresented by the transgender movement.
Despite me deleting the retweet a day after, I was forced to resign from the position of President-Elect of Humanists UK, and a few days later I was fired by Ry Lo and Sebastián Sánchez-Schilling from the position of Assistant Editor of Critique, Durham University Philosophy Society’s journal, and by Anastasia Maseychik from the position of Editor of The Bubble, a Durham University magazine. These dismissals were found to be ‘unfair and undemocratic’ by Durham Students’ Union as they did not follow the procedures outlined by Durham Students’ Union, did not give me an opportunity to explain my views, did not gather a vote of no confidence from their members, and did not give me an opportunity to appeal the decision. Durham Students’ Union called for the journal and the magazine to apologize. The SU too, as did the magazine, but I have not yet received an apology from the journal.
As I noted in my resignation statement from Humanists UK “[my] views were taken to be ‘transphobic’ by individuals who cannot tolerate any criticism, either of their movement or their ideas, and are unable to engage in a civilized conversation on issues they disagree on. These are individuals who think they hold the absolute right to determine which ideas can be discussed and what language can be used in a public forum.”
“Living in a free society and being present and active in a public forum means that one often witnesses comments that she may judge as offensive, divisive, or derogatory. Living in a democracy means that one will often offend and get offended. That’s the price one pays for being a member of a democracy and not existing into her own bubble.”
The incident with the Durham University Philosophy Society journal was cited in the Supreme Court of the United States case R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, INC., V. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Aimee Stephens. The Supreme Court explicitly says:
“In the U.K., Angelos Sofocleous was dismissed from Durham University’s philosophy journal Critique because he used his social media account to share another individual’s comment noting that “women don’t have penises.”
[…] As this Court rightly stated in Barnett, “[i]f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” This Court should adhere to that same principle today, and refuse to compel the R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, or anyone else, to believe that men can be women.”
My deleted retweet was not taken favourably by Durham University’s Philosophy Department either. Following the incidents, I was bullied and harassed by Dr Clare Mac Cumhaill, an academic at the Department. Dr Mac Cumhaill had called me in her office and told me I had no freedom of speech for my views, was illegally in possession of my Bachelor’s grades which she used to belittle me, threatened me with expulsion from the University, falsely accused me of misgendering someone on Twitter, and other equally appalling and unfounded accusations. Prof Sophie Gibb, then Head of Department, was dismissive of my allegations and did not act according to the rules and regulations, and Prof Stephen Mumford, current Head of Department, recently issued a non-apology saying “I am sorry that you feel we fell short in your case.” after a complaint of mine against Dr Mac cumhaill and the Department was upheld following an investigation by the University’s Student Conduct office.
Such an apology is by no means an apology for various reasons:
a) An apology is not honest or heartfelt if it’s communicated via a third party. The mere fact that this was sent to the Student Conduct Office which then sent it to me leaves me doubting whether the Philosophy Department understood what they did wrong and why they needed to apologize. It feels as if Stephen Mumford, the Head of Department (HoD) was forced to issue the apology.
b) There was no reason for Stephen Mumford to mention that “While your complaint was not upheld”, other than out of spite and wanting to stress that the Department did nothing wrong, regardless of the fact that they did not follow procedure and acted against both University and Department rules and regulations, and included a number of lies and inaccuracies in their statement to the complaint and review investigators which I am exposing as I further appeal my case.
This is particularly weird to me as in my culture such a thing would never happen. An apology will never be communicated via a third party but directly to the person to whom you are apologizing or publicly so that the parties involved have assured each other that the issue is settled and that the apology has been received as intended.
c) “I am sorry that you feel that we fell short in your case”. This is a clear usage of a gaslighting technique and victim blaming. Stephen Mumford shifts the blame from the Department to me, essentially saying that the problem is not that they fell short in my case but my feeling that they fell short in my case. “I am sorry that we fell short in your case” is the appropriate response. To put it bluntly to make this point clear – “I am sorry I raped you” and “I am sorry about how you felt after I raped you” communicate two entirely different things, the latter alleviating any blame from the perpetrator.
d) The letter puts a lot of emphasis on the need of the Department to process things quicker. That was the least of my concerns regarding the harassment and bullying I received and I am surprised the Department is putting so much focus on that. The point of my initial complaint and the review request was about harassment and bullying. Regardless of the fact that this took a lot of time and that the Department allegedly decided to issue an apology to me 12 months ago (which was never communicated and I question whether such a decision was even taken), there are far more important issues with my complaint, some of which are of legal nature.
e) The complaint was not from, or on behalf of, the academic against whom I initiated the complaint. My complaint was primarily against the academic and only secondarily against the Department.
Due to the inadequacy of Durham University and Durham University Philosophy Department to deal with this case adequately and with respect, as well as the horrible and evil behaviour I experienced from Claire Mac Cumhaill, I am now appealing the outcome of my complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator and also seeking legal advice due to the severity of the harassment incident and what this has caused me.
You said in your question that I was “a hated person”. This was indeed true – I faced a lot of hatred on Twitter and other social media, as well as in Durham University. This is also a symptom of depression – feeling that everyone hates you, that everyone wants to hurt you. In my case though it was not just an unjustified feeling of mine, but something true as I was experiencing, on a daily basis, people telling me how much they hated me or expressing hatred in their own vile ways. What for? For a deleted retweet.
There is this quote: ‘If you have haters, you must be doing something right’. This is by no means a rule as it can be easily misapplied and we can think of cases where this is not true. However, for a lot of time before the ‘women don’t have penises’ incident, although I was involved in activist circles and was publicly expressing my views on a variety of topics, I did not have any haters, I had never received a death threat, no one was disagreeing with me, and no one was exposing me publicly. Because of this, I felt I was doing something wrong. The fact that these things weren’t happening did not show that I was right in what I was saying, rather that I had not done enough to get outside my bubble and my comfort circle. You aren’t much of an activist or an opinion writer if you are only active within your own circles – you have to get out.
Once people started hating me, I realized I was doing something right – not that my ideas were right but that I was getting outside my bubble. A good analogy would be that I was previously within fans of my own football team and I felt comfortable and safe being in between them, but now I had gotten into the playing field, ready to get into an ideological battle with individuals who disagreed with me.
However, we don’t necessarily need to think of debate as two sides which are polar opposites of each other. Philosophy is the quest to truth and in a philosophical debate all sides should strive to build onto each other’s argument to reach a truth or a consensus.
Being hated is the price one pays for striving to be a public figure or expressing their opinions publicly. If you imagine you are speaking at an audience of a thousand individuals for years on a variety of topics, it is extremely unlikely if not impossible that there will not be something which offends someone or is hurtful to someone. Your job as a public figure is not to make everyone feel comfortable – we are not in kindergarten. Rather, your aim is to spark conversation and debate and give food for thought to individuals as well as the opportunity to challenge you.
Do your own thing. Haters will hate you anyway.
Jacobsen: Looking back, what were the long-term effects of these to your mental and emotional well-being?
Sofocleous: I fell into major depression. The backlash of that single retweet was immense. I would never have thought that I would make national news because I said “women don’t have penises”. It was so comical but at the same time it was something that had a huge negative effect on me. I felt that my whole life and my future in journalism and academia was collapsing.
What pushed me into depression was certainly the actions of Andrew Copson and Hannah Timson from Humanists UK, Ry Lo and Sebastián Sánchez-Schilling from Critique, and Anastasia Maseychik from The Bubble. And of course the compliance of Prof Sophie Gibb and Prof Stephen Mumford to me experiencing severe distress, bullying and harassment within their own Department. However, it was Claire Mac Cumhaill’s bullying and harassment that pushed me into depression.
No person who has not experienced depression can understand what depression is like. When you experience depression, you feel surrounded by a black fog, losing all connection to yourself, other people, and the world. The world of depression is gray, colourless, with no meaning or hope. You feel immense guilt all the time, as well as that everyone hates you.
Everything takes an incredible amount of effort to be done. Getting out of bed, making a cup of tea, getting in the shower; it’s all a struggle. You feel unable to concentrate on or pay attention to anything and focusing on getting things done seems impossible.
The weeks after I was bullied and harassed by Claire Mac Cumhaill in her office, the gas system at my house stopped working. I couldn’t even make the effort of informing the landlord or telephoning the gas company. I ended up washing dishes in the shower, which had an electric boiler, and slept feeling the cold of Durham, even though fixing the gas system was just a phone call away. The bathroom light was faulty too and wouldn’t turn on. It was a special light, not one which I could find at a supermarket. I showered with my phone light for weeks until I managed to make the effort to inform my landlord that the bathroom light needed to be replaced.
Everytime I went out; to the grocery store, to an event, to the library, to a lecture – I felt this fog around me and was unable to pay attention to anyone or anything people were telling me. I felt that people hated me and that everyone knew about the incidents and turned themselves against me. This is the world of depression, a place which I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy to experience.
The incident with Clare Mac Cumhaill took place in October 2018. I only lasted for two more months in Durham and left in early December 2018 due to the fact that I couldn’t continue belonging in a Department in which I felt I was hated and marginalized. I continued my studies as normal as I could do work from home. I only returned to Durham in February 2018, to complete a module I had during that term, and in August 2018, to complete my dissertation.
In September 2019 I contacted Clare, expressing to her how horrible I felt after the meeting we had and how her actions have pushed me into depression. Not only she denied any of my allegations, but she did not even have the slightest courage or decency to apologize for what had happened.
Now, this is very strange to me due to the fact that, in my culture, if someone tells you that you have done something that made them feel horribly bad, you apologize even if you don’t feel you have done anything wrong. This is the kindness and respect for fellow human beings that I’m talking about. If you tell me that I did something that hurt you, I will apologize, even if I think that I did nothing wrong or acted with good intentions (as Clare claimed). An individual who does not respond to another’s bad emotional situation which she caused is nothing else than wicked.
Nevertheless, I also learned a lot of lessons: People can be vile and evil – some people want to see you suffer and get joy from seeing you suffer. Some people like to experience schadenfreude in its most absolute form. There were people that were emailing my University to expel me. How can any human being wish that for another individual? One would have thought that with the development of modern civilization and democracy we would get rid of the animal inside us, but that will never happen.
We will always organize ourselves in tribes and form mobs to attack members of the other tribe. The only thing that has changed is that instead of these happening in the fields with real weapons, it takes place over the Internet with keyboards.
Twitter will be an excellent tool for future historians in understanding the toxicity of human nature.
Also, it was a good coincidence that while I was experiencing depression, I was attending the “Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences” class. Phenomenology is the branch of philosophy that studies subjective experiences of emotions of people. The seminar leader, Dr Benedict Smith, was excellent and the topic particularly interesting and exciting. Some of the classes were about the phenomenology of mental illnesses, one of them on the phenomenology of depression. I researched more and more into the phenomenology of depression as this helped me better understand my condition and also found comfort realizing that other individuals had the potential of understanding what I was feeling. One of the things you will find if you look at narratives of people who have experienced depression is the disappointment and loss of hope due to the feeling that no one is able to understand what depression is like. Indeed, it is not something one can fully describe – that’s why we are using these metaphors which are close to what we are feeling (emptiness, black fog, colourless, gray, numb) but can never accurately depict it.
Due to the fact that I became interested in the phenomenology of depression, I chose to complete my dissertation on that particular area and now I’m pursuing a PhD which focuses on the phenomenology of depression. I would like to take the opportunity to thank those who pushed me into depression because without them I wouldn’t be pursuing a PhD in this extremely interesting area of philosophy.
Jacobsen: Some happenings in the interim, too, included the restriction, in some manner, on freedom of expression, as reported by Dan Fisher in “Terror Tactics Triumph, Silence Freedom of Speech at Bristol University.” What happened?
Sofocleous: Correct. Because of the incidents following my retweet, the Bristol Free Speech Society had invited me to be a speaker at their panel discussion event in February 2019, in which three panelists would discuss freedom of speech, each having a different approach.
While the event was scheduled to take place, less than a week before the event, Bristol Students’ Union contacted the Bristol Free Speech Society informing them that I was disinvited as a speaker saying that I was no longer allowed to be present on the panel amidst ‘security concerns’. Bristol SU never said what those security concerns were nor how they were justified. My appearance on the panel was announced weeks before the event but no student society, organization, or individual student had protested against my participation or had called for me to be disinvited.
The Bristol SU was merely succumbing to the global paranoia that currently takes place in universities in which people get de-platformed and disinvited from giving speeches or participating in conferences just because they might offend someone.
It is funny to me how the act of speaking or voicing your opinion can be a ‘security concern’. The neo-liberal will immediately reply to this: Yes, but what about Hitler? He was voicing hateful, and obviously wrong, opinions.
The neo-liberal is correct. Hitler was, in fact, voicing deeply hateful and divisive opinions which were wrong beyond doubt. However, if we think that we would get rid of Nazism simply by banning the Nazi party or by fining or putting Hitler and his peers in prison for hate speech we would be very wrong.
We would be very wrong because we would ignore the system through which Nazism arose and developed. No hateful idea appears out of nowhere. We should treat a dangerous and hateful idea like a virus. Now, with the emergence of a global pandemic, the virus analogy is as timely as ever.
Dangerous ideas are viruses. But they cannot be treated in the same way as we treat biological viruses.
One would think that we need to restrict the idea to a certain area in society in a way that it cannot spread through society, as we would do with a biological virus. The thing with viruses is that they are not able to organise themselves in a way which is similar to how human societies organise. A virus can simply be marginalised to a certain part of the body where it affects healthy cells at a minimum level, and subsequently be exterminated. The viruses themselves are not going to organise and fight back to the healthy part of the body.
Think about how the majority of countries deal with the coronavirus. They impose a lockdown, and citizens in those countries face legal consequences if they do not isolate themselves at home. In order for a biological virus to be fought, people need to be isolated so that the virus does not spread and those who have the virus are strictly isolated so that they do not spread it onto others. Take the island of Spinalonga in Greece, for example. Spinalonga served as a leper colony. People with leprosy were sent there to be treated and to not infect the healthy population of Greece. The illness is restricted within a geographical area and is controlled.
However, we cannot do the same with a social virus. If you decide to marginalize or isolate individuals who follow a hateful ideology, those individuals still have the opportunity to fight back against ideologically healthy individuals. The fact that YouTube or Facebook bans individuals with unscientific or hateful ideas may restrict their ideas from spreading, but it does nothing to prevent those ideologies from emerging through other parts of society or in real life. White supremacists and fascists will still find ways to organize themselves and infiltrate society.
What is important to note here is that by attempting to punish individuals or making an ideology illegal, we are not reaching the root of the problem. It is as if we discover that a particular disease stems from unhealthy practices (eating certain kinds of animals, in the COVID-19 case) and yet we continue those practices. We need not simply try to eliminate coronavirus cases or find a vaccine, but to examine why and how the virus emerged in the first place, and once we identify the reason(s), we fight so that we create a society which does not have those kinds of threats.
In a similar manner, a hateful and divisive ideology is part of the system in which it exists. It comes from how children are educated, from biased history books, from false family narratives, from the agenda of political parties. If we want to kill a beast we must find it in its lair and not in the wild.
With a social virus, the antibodies can be developed beforehand through education. Education is for social viruses what a vaccine is for biological viruses. If enough individuals are taught logic, rational thinking, how to respect other people, how to argue with others, how to be kind toward each other, how to value human life and show admiration toward anything alive, including nature, then society will develop ‘herd immunity’ toward any hateful or divisive ideas.
So, with the above thoughts in mind, I decided to attend the scheduled event of Bristol Free Speech Society as an audience member. The event organizers were planning on holding the event without me as a panel member. However, as soon as some members of the audience realized that I was present, they called for me to appear on the panel.
The President of the Bristol Free Speech Society, listening to people’s demands, asked whether there is anyone from the audience who objected to me being on the panel.
No even one person from an audience of 200 people had any objection in me being present on the panel. All committee members of the Society favoured me being on the panel, as well as the other panel members. As responsible adults who can take matters into their own hands, people showed their power and decided that there was no risk associated with me being on the panel.
Bristol SU had acted in a patronizing manner, treating its own students like children who have the need to be disciplined and do not know to judge for themselves whether they want to listen to certain views or not.
The event went on as normal and everyone treated each other with respect and kindness, as human beings do when they grow up in a civil environment in which they learn to challenge and not cancel each other’s ideas. Universities and Student Unions so often succumb to the tiny minority of students who think they have the right to dictate what is discussed in a public forum and have the privilege to feel offended by little and unimportant things.
Being de-platformed from an event on free speech is the absolute example of the current state of universities in the UK. You can’t get more ironic than that.
Jacobsen: Following from the previous question, why were you considered a security risk within the confines of the event? This may relate to legitimate reasons of uncivil, violent protests from the left or the right, or from illegitimate reasons for the perception of words as violence when done in a controlled panel setting in which the topic, the speakers, and the time and place are known well ahead of time, i.e., if you don’t like it, then don’t go to it.
Sofocleous: It is everyone’s right to protest against the appearance of any individual who has been invited to speak at any institution, private or public. What individuals cannot do is restrict that individual from speaking or trying to ‘de-platorm’ them.
This is the beauty of being a citizen of a democratic country. You have the right to listen to all kinds of opinions and views, challenge them, ridicule them, follow them, unfollow them, without any one forcing you to believe one thing or another. When a dangerous idea appears, you challenge it and attack it publicly with reason and evidence and attack it to its core.
The fact that people from all over the political spectrum might respond to certain people speaking with violence is a huge problem. We have witnessed people entering lecture rooms or conference venues and disrupting an otherwise peaceful talk. If they disagree with what the speaker is saying, they can sit in a civil manner amongst the audience, take notes, form their questions, and then challenge the speaker during the Q&A and demonstrate in front of everyone why the speaker is so obviously wrong.
We must not succumb to people who use violence as their form of protest in these circumstances. Any historical period in which ideas were silenced or censored is a dark period. We should not let that happen again.
There were no legitimate reasons for uncivil or violent protests to take place due to me participating in the panel.
I am not a criminal, I have done nothing to justify such an abhorrent behaviour by the Bristol SU, and their stance only adds to confirming the already troubled state of free speech in UK universities.
And if there were legitimate reasons for uncivil or violent protests, this is not something that should concern the panel members, but this is the Bristol SU’s problem. If someone is offended because I speak my views on freedom of speech, then they might consider isolating themselves at home and not accessing social media because they are the kind of people that will get offended by anything. And not only they will get offended by anything but they will tell you to stop talking because they are offended.
If Bristol SU was worried that there would be protests at the event, then they should have given themselves enough time to assure police presence at the event. They had not cited security concerns until the last minute which puts their motives and aims into question.
There were never any legitimate reasons for there being any protests at the event and Bristol SU’s reaction was wholly unjustifiable.
Jacobsen: David Verry in “Banned speaker joins panel to speak at Bristol free speech event” stated, “Sofocleous complaining that the ‘authoritarian’ SU had ‘de-platformed’…SU had asked for a delay.” Reading this reportage by Verry, the language of “delay” seems too downplayed and “authoritarian” seems overplayed. With some time to reflect on the event, what seems like the correct orientation for the interpretation of the events’ proceedings?
Sofocleous: There was no reason for the SU to ask for the event to be delayed. The fact that they waited until the last minute to ask for the delay shows that they were ill-intentioned and not interested in providing a space in which ideas and views could be presented and challenged, but rather they wanted to present the event as a threat to everyone involved and to the University.
Bristol SU did, in fact, act in an authoritarian and patronizing manner. Students at the University of Bristol, one of the best universities in the country, are bright enough to decide for themselves whether they want to attend an event or not and whether they want to follow an idea they listen to or not.
As I told you earlier, there were no protests at the event, or any disruption caused by any student. This is what happens when responsible, civil, and kind adults decide to discuss an issue. They will respect the other’s opinion and will challenge it publicly. They won’t be scared of the idea or try to marginalize it. As I supported, marginalizing ideas or isolating individuals who hold them is not conducive to battling those ideas and making them disappear from society.
Let’s finally get this straight: You will never get everyone to agree with you. So the best thing you can do is learn to argue and debate. Violence is not the answer.
We talked before about the individuals who will read the tweet – “Women’ don’t have penises” – while others will skim the article, and fewer will read the entire set of the arguments into the view for you, including on Keingenderism. Lucy Connolly in UNILAD, in an article entitled “Student Who Said ‘Women Don’t Have Penises’ Was Barred From Free Speech Debate,” recounted the statement by the Bristol Free Speech Society:
We are saddened to inform you that due to Student Union bureaucracy we have been forced to cancel the invitation we extended to Angelos Sofocleous to be on our panel discussion on free speech. We have given the SU plenty of notice for this event. But they felt it proper to cancel his attendance in the last minute, citing “security concerns”. For context, Angelos is a full time student at Durham University who lives amongst students on campus. We leave it to the public to reach their own conclusions with regards to the SU’s intentions.
Taking a generous view, what were the positive intentions of the SU and the Bristol Free Speech Society? I state a “generous view” because I would assume individuals within the BFSS or the SU wuld argue for good intentions or working for the greater good insofar as they deem it, see it.
Sofocleous: The Bristol Free Speech Society, being a student society which is affiliated to the Bristol Students’ Union, is bound to follow certain rules and regulations of the SU. Societies in most UK universities must submit a speakers’ list to their SU for approval when they are hosting a guest speaker. This is also what the Bristol Free Speech Society had done on this occasion. Because of my retweet, Bristol SU decided that I was a security threat and called for my de-platforming and for the event to be postponed.
Bristol Free Speech Society acted in accordance with the SU’s rules and regulations. Me being amongst the audience members was not something that went against the rules and regulations, nor my eventual participation on the panel. SUs cannot decide for their students. If more than 200 students decided that they wanted to see me on the panel, then Bristol SU saying no to that would be nothing else than patronizing and disrespectful to its own students.
Bristol SU wanted to obviously avoid any protests taking place at the event and within its premises. They also wanted to protect their students from supposedly dangerous ideas.
Nevertheless, I fail to see the relation between words and violence. Certainly, people might call for violence with their words, and that’s a crime. But, as I said earlier, any comments that are misrepresentative or derogatory toward certain groups cannot be dealt with simply be censoring or de-platforming. When someone utters deeply xenophobic or racist insults this is just the result of an ill political, educational, societal, family system. If we want to change the situation, we need to attack the system, not merely the individual who is a victim of the system.
SUs and Universities should be champions of free speech, not the ones who will suppress it.
Obviously, in their terms, they were acting in good intention and protecting the greater good. However, this behaviour is no different from the behaviour of religious fundamentalists who send death threats to people or authoritarian regimes who get rid of their opponents.
Religious fundamentalists and authoritarian regimes, too, act in good intentions, in their terms, and say that they protect the greater good.
However, I fail to see how any individual or organization which de-platforms or censors anyone can act for the greater good. This is not to say that they are evil – to say that would be a false dichotomy. They are just not acting for the greater good. Period.
Jacobsen: What were the negative consequences of the aforementioned “positive intentions”? I ask because this goes back to the old aphorism on good intentions leading to bad consequences.
Sofocleous: As I said, I don’t think these individuals or organizations are evil or they want to hurt people with their censorship. But what they are doing goes against any notion of democracy and freedom. It doesn’t have to be about intentions – because they have neither good nor bad intentions.
They just want to satisfy the tiny minority of students who might get offended. But, of course, it is impossible to find a topic which won’t insult or offend someone. Israel-Palestine, global warming, veganism, colonialism, capitalism, communism, transgender issues, homosexuality – it’s impossible to pick a topic in each of these that won’t offend someone. Does this mean we have to stop arguing in order to not hurt people’s feelings? No.
Dangerous ideas exist in society and we must come to know about them. That’s the only way we are going to confront them. Because if these ideas exist and emerge from underground we will not be ready to battle them. Let’s face them, challenge them, and eradicate them while there is still time.
The bad consequences of Bristol SU’s actions is that they are appeasing a student generation which has learned that it has the right to determine which ideas others can and cannot hear. This generation also thinks that it has the right to never feel uncomfortable or even slightly distressed, or be protected from ideas they do not like. Universities should mirror society – but the way universities are currently managed and operated only present an elite and privileged form of society, which differs substantially from how the real world operates or functions.
Jacobsen: The tweet became the main point of focus for much of the reportage over the last while now, even for stuff on the free speech event, or as if a super-dangerous conspiratorial secret plot to have you – a surreptitious tweeter and panel participant. This is in spite of other interesting writing and news on Mars colonization, clarification in The Spectator on the free speech campus event, or running for Communications Officer in the University of York GSA, etc. You’re a busy person with an intellectual life insofar as I knew and know you. In other words, the idea of ‘opinions being expressed on Twitter.’ Your views tend to come in essays, interviews, and articles, not tweets. The tweet may be offensive to some, but not all. That’s the main point. If individuals wanted to review the personal opinions of yours, they can review some of the articles relevant to the subject matter deemed important by them. As far as I can tell, this was not done by either the SU or the BFSS. Any advice of reading your views before concluding on your moral worth based on one sentence from an old tweet?
Sofocleous: I said earlier how I thought Twitter will be valuable for future historians. The modern world has become incredibly fast-paced. Speed-read a book. Form your opinion about someone’s views in 240 characters or less. Double-speed your podcast. Digest your daily news in 5 minutes. Get notifications about every email, every Facebook notification, every Twitter mention, every Instagram like – it’s become incredibly exhausting and we cannot keep up with it.
The world has been divided into good and bad people, everyone you don’t agree with is a fascist and everyone calls each other names or derogatory terms all the time. We have become extremely polarised and yet we feel that we need to belong somewhere and adjust to whatever our ideology dictates. We were never as individualistic as we are now, in the history of humankind. Yet, we have lost ourselves. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost of being unable to have a civil discussion with another human being
Let’s take the time and get to know others, have a discussion with them about their views, their opinions, their background, their upbringing, their ideas, their dreams about life. We will find that we share more than what divides us.
Let’s not conclude one’s moral worth in a single tweet – we can do much better than that!
Jacobsen: What’s next?
Sofocleous: That we have to not conclude someone’s moral worth from a sentence they uttered does not mean that we should not strive for justice to be served to those who, having evil intentions, wanted to harm us.
For this reason, I am continuing my appeal to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator against the University of Durham and specifically Dr Clare Mac Cumhaill for her harassment and bullying, and Prof Sophie Gibb and Prof Stephen Mumford for being complicit to harassment and bullying and for doing absolutely nothing to correct Clare’s behaviour.
I will also be taking legal action.
Other than that, I am continuing my PhD in Philosophy at the University of York, focusing on the phenomenology of depression. Alongside, among other things, I am involved in some publications (Nouse, Secular Nation, The Definite Article), I am active within the Cypriot reconciliation movement, and doing research on a paper and a book review which I’m writing.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/09
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, you’ve published an article in a peer-reviewed journal called The Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The paper is titled “Apostates a Hidden Population of Abuse Victims.” First, to define terms, what is an apostate? How is abuse defined?
Hari Parekh: An ‘apostate’ is the term used to describe people within religious families who once identified as religious or with a belief in God and have, now, ceased to believe in the existence of a God, gods, or having a religious faith or belief and now identify as non-religious. Each person has their reasons for embarking on this journey – completing this journey from religious to non-religious, and identifying as an apostate is not an easy journey, and it appears to not be the end of the struggles defined within an individual’s journey Given the strong feelings families can have about the rejection of their shared faith, this can cause further complications for the apostate themselves. As such, this study aimed to inform the academic community and wider society of the possible victimisation that some apostates may face within religious households. We were looking at areas such as assault, serious assault, psychological abuse, as measured by the Conflict Tactics Scale by Straus et al (1996). The differences between the terms are highlighted in the paper – the variances within assault and serious assault can be the difference between being pushed against a wall or being threatened with death, for example. Adding to this, psychological abuse includes coercive control, stress, depression, suicidal ideation, for example. This study identifies that there is a higher risk of people being abused as a result of identifying as an apostate. Sadly, the study also identifies how victims do not have trust in their law enforcement officers to understand their plight.
Jacobsen: The study, itself, is not a meta-analysis. It is a single study with 228 people, 102 men-119 women. Why was the survey supported through Faith to Faithless?
Parekh: The study could not be a meta-analysis because it is the first of its kind! It is the first time that the academic community, and the non-religious community, can point to a piece of scientific evidence and say, “Here’s the evidence to show what is likely to happen to apostates within religious households.” Hopefully, this study is the catalyst for further studies, to look into the issue of abuse faced by apostates, and has the propensity to inform non-academic services such as governments and organisations such as the United Nations to raise awareness of the plight of apostates. The reason for the support of Faith to Faithless, initially? It was luck. I left my religious faith during my undergraduate degree at the University of Northampton. My experiences were positive as my parents have not wavered in supporting me, despite my decision. I consider myself to be an apostate-anomaly, being someone lucky enough to not have suffered the extremities and the abuse that participants have experienced within the study, for example. I worked with co-founders, Aliyah Saleem and Imtiaz Shams, at the time, and I was exposed to how much abuse people received as a result of leaving their faith. I formed my Master’s thesis around this issue because there was no other study highlighting this abuse within the academic sphere. I said to my supervisor, “We need to provide victims with a voice to show the academic community that we are failing victims.”
Jacobsen: For those who do not know the names Imtiaz Shams and Aliyah Saleem, what is their place in Humanists UK?
Parekh: They founded Faith to Faithless. It later became the apostasy service of Humanists UK, to support people who leave their religious faith. They are both amazing in their own right, do Google them! I support and work with such amazing people to raise awareness of apostasy as well.
Jacobsen: Why the gap in the research, in the academic community, i.e., not being able to do a metanalysis because of insufficient studies to take any data?
Parekh: There are academics such as Hunsberger (1983) and Hezbrun (1999) that touched upon the difficulties of apostasy, and even recently with Dr Simon Cottee. But, it’s so difficult to provide the academic community with an insight into the abuse of apostates, when most are hidden, and consequently do not want to upset the balance of their household. An individual who is doubting their religious faith has so many factors to contemplate on: whether they will leave or not, whether they will tell anybody or not, or whether they will publicly declare their apostasy or not, to name a few. The consequences of each scenario can be devastating, and such are the difficulties of apostasy. Several prominent activists have spent their life to inform society of the experiences of people who have left their religious faith. One would have hoped that the work of such activists would have culminated in further academic interest. However, this is the first opportunity for such activists to have academic evidence to solidify their work.
Again, the gap in the research might relate to many factors. First, it is one of the more nuanced and niche areas, whereby, if you’re not aware of the community or of this occurring in itself, then it’s not understood nor does it factor into the conversation of public opinion – again, a hidden population remains hidden until it gains recognition. Secondly, the role of religion and religious communities, and the way this organised structure can work for people suggests that it can provide a supportive, stable, and secure foundation to people’s lives. For the many, religious faith can provide a good foundational basis for one’s life; the concern grows for people who do not hold a similar perspective. Third, the political relationship that religious communities are likely to have upheld, such as bishops being in the House of Lords in the UK, strengthens the view that the role of religious communities, or the ideas of the religious, are less likely to be scrutinised as a result. Fourth, the nature of academia is not easy – we remain unclear as to whether there have been countless pieces of research submitted for publication that have not met the standards required? This is a common occurrence within academia. It is a common occurrence in academia anyways. That’s the point. If several activists are speaking of people going through the experiences, one of the major criticisms of the activists is no one has had the evidence to show it exists. How do you reach people, where you don’t know who, what, or how they are? How do you do that from a scientific viewpoint? It is a minefield in itself. The study was sent worldwide – we finally have a starting point to refer to.
Jacobsen: What were the general findings?
Parekh: The general findings are quite interesting to be fair. First, out of the 228 participants, we categorised them initially by the religious faith they identified with since birth. Despite having participants from faiths such as Hinduism, Judaism, and more, as they were not statistically significant they could not be utilised within the study. As such, we focused primarily on people identifying from Christian and Muslim faiths and people identifying as non-religious. From our participants, what we found was that those that identified as religious from birth were less likely to be religious now. For example, out of the 130 people that identified as Christian, only 12 people currently identify as Christian; of the 68 people that identified as Muslim, only 4 people currently identify as Muslim, and of the 18 people that were initially non-religious, 204 people currently identify as non-religious. So, we saw an increase of 1,033% in people identifying as non-religious and a 91-94% decrease in people identifying as religious. This appears similar to the trends we are seeing in society – the decrease in the number of people going to Church each week in the UK, and the rise in the number of people identifying as non-religious within the UK census also appears to support the data in this study.
Second, we used the Conflict Tactics scale by Straus and colleagues to understand the levels of violence and abuse that victims have experienced. The terms of assault, serious assault, and psychological abuse were significant for Muslim-apostates more so than Christian-apostates. Due to these terms being interrelated to each other, we categorised this as assault within the study. Interestingly, even though, we had lesser people from a Muslim heritage background take part in the study, they were more likely to experience such levels of violence and assault. It was really interesting, in itself, and the outcome of the study suggests a higher likelihood to be a victim as a result. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in negotiation. It was peculiar with the levels of violence. With negotiation, it suggests either that households are attempting to understand why their family member within the household would leave the religious faith? Yet, as there is a difficulty in being able to negotiate that stance, and trying to determine the consequences of having a family member that is not religious within the household and community, it appears difficult for households to reach a conclusion that maintains the household’s order.
Third, out of the 154 people who were assaulted, only 9 people reported their assault to the police, which is only 5.8%. Then out of the 71 people who said why they did not report it, 44% believed that reporting this would be disrespectful to family dynamics and a betrayal of the family. 27% said that they thought the police would be unable to help them. 10% reported being threatened about the perceived repercussions by the family and community for reporting their abuse. So, here are victims openly stating, they could be at risk.
Jacobsen: Some Muslim scholars and others in the public arena and may look at the terms “honour” and “violence” with internal concern to their community as human rights violations in interpersonal violence or domestic violence as dishonourable as a culture. So, it would be termed “honour violence,” but they would see this as dishonour or dishonourable violence. How is the construct of honour construed in the household with a religion in which honour in played out in an IPV or a DV setting?
Parekh: It is a really serious and important issue to raise that the study aims to not generalise everybody within a Muslim or Christian household, in stating that “hi! All your beliefs lead to abuse and violence!” That would be wrong, and suggesting a link would be incorrect. People are human at the end of the day. Many people within religious faiths argue the factors highlighted within honour-based violence is completely against the fundamentals and the principles within the faith itself. That is a fair statement to make, however, this is not a simple issue. Honour-based violence by its nature is hidden and perpetrated by the people who are related to you, formed attachments with you, and this has the potential to cause further distress for the victim too. By its nature, it is targeted, specifically, at women and girls. With apostate-abuse, gender is not a factor. Its very nature is based on coercive control and collusion, acceptance, and silence within the family. For example, by making sure it does not leave the four walls of the religious household. The notion of honour, therefore, relates strongly with shame and guilt. Paul Gilbert and Jasvinder Sanghera’s research identified the amount of guilt and shame involved within honour-abuse and also reported how hidden this abuse is. The concerns regarding apostate-abuse have similarities with the abuse faced by victims of domestic violence, LGBTQ+ abuse, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. These are the same nuances we’re tackling. The level of shame means that abuse would be hidden so much more.
Jacobsen: Would one public service announcement or concern come in the form of anti-Muslim bigotry or anti-Christian bigotry utilizing some of this research in very obviously skewed ways to cast aspersions and stereotypes at the communities? Where the research is not looking at violence as a global phenomenon and problem, but one a form of violence with that cultural and religious flavour.
Parekh: That’s the concern Vincent Egan and I did have and do continue to have when I was doing my Master’s thesis. Publishing this piece of research too, we were looking at how this would be reflected, how people would interpret and understand it, moving forwards. That’s the thing in itself. Yes, the organisations helping to find people – Faith to Faithless, Peter Tatchell Foundation, Humanists UK, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain – are very much involved in the non-religious communities and can provide opportunities to find people that are hidden. The research aims to identify that people are abusing people by using the veil of religion, culture, and tradition as a rationale, and this is not a good thing! Abuse is abuse. In talking about this research, as long as I am clear that the fundamental principle is not to demonise and, basically, negatively impact religious people or organizations. It is trying to bring awareness to a worldwide audience that there is abuse happening, and we are missing it. In conversations with people, I have found that there are people who are disgusted by people using their religious faith to manipulate and abuse people in that way. I think that’s a very strong argument for this. Yes, anyone can look at any research and manipulate it in a way that makes things suit an agenda of hate, which might not be favourable to those who created the initial study. However, as long as people read it clearly, we are saying, “We are not demonizing the religious faith. We are demonizing the way people use religious faith to abuse people. And by doing so, we are creating a hidden population of people who can’t be reached out to.” As people become more aware of the research, we can begin to openly talk about the issues of people being abused as a result. By not talking about this abuse, we would perpetuate the argument that this practice is okay and justified. We cannot – having even one person abused is a failure.
Jacobsen: What are the next steps for research?
Parekh: Having carried out the first study of its kind, there are several next steps for this research area. Firstly, we wanted to inform the academic community that apostate-abuse is occurring, and as such, we used categorised terms to categorise the religious faith of participants. For example, there are many denominations within Christianity and Islam that, future research should look at seeing whether those denominations vary the level of risk an apostate is likely to face. Secondly, we would need to gather data that also looks at financial abuse, sexual abuse, and despite gathering data on psychological abuse, we would still need to gather data on the specifics within such an umbrella term. Thirdly, further research is needed on the implications of apostate-abuse per continent, per region, per country, and how the criminal justice systems can accommodate this crime within their legal frameworks – this might also require further research into the devastating effects of blasphemy laws on the victim, such as Asia Bibi and recently with Mubarak Bala. Fourthly, research on how local law enforcement can improve their perception amongst victims that they would be unable to support victims would be an essential area for research – using a focus group to understand how police forces can improve their practice would be essential. Fifthly, looking into how larger organisations can apply this to their practice – such as how the United Nations or Amnesty International deems abuse and how they support individual nations too would be an investigative piece of research. Sixthly, working with religious organisations and religious communities to de-threaten the notion of apostasy may be one of the most significant areas from this study! That’s quite a lot, but the opportunities are pretty endless.
Jacobsen: If we look at the ways in which academics can use analytic techniques to find relatively objective findings of the research in interpretation, there are internal views from a subjective perspective, in other words, of individuals within the research by yourself and Egan. In other words, those coming out of a religion internally to their mind while living in a home with IPV or DV ongoing, or at some point happening, having attitudes about it. What do they attribute these acts to?
Parekh: Looking at the personal responses by people who participated in the study, really provides a true reflection of their experiences; we have tried to provide a fair opportunity to provide the reader with an appreciation of the comments made by participants. The concerns of participants initially began with being concerned with not believing in the same religious faith or God that the household believes in. And, the consequences of this ranged between being asked to leave the family home, being ex-communicated from the home, facing threats of violence daily, to being beaten and receiving threats of being killed as a result. Using a religious faith as a rationale for abusing another human being is an expression of wanting to remain correct and right. When human beings begin to believe that they are correct, then this creates a concern, as history has shown. When a family member decides to become an apostate, this increases the chances of other family members feeling rejected – because their belief is more than just a belief in itself, but also embedded into their identity formation and sense of self. So, any challenge to that is a personal challenge, and such increases the chances of causing a personal threat reaction. I think the religious belief in itself might be used as a validation to all of the reason why. But again, we’re still looking at the behaviour of the person to abuse somebody else. So, that’s what we’re seeing. We’re seeing people threatened to be killed or abused in one way or another because of them not agreeing or accepting the same religious belief or faith as a family. I think the concern, therefore, is the view that just because you don’t believe nor agree with the belief of the family; you are not part of the family anymore is absurd. The personality of the person, the experiences, the attachments to family members; this is not a complete list, but all of these factors make us human. Having a difference of perspective does not change the person that the family have created. Being abused for having a difference of perspective is no different from blaming a person for being human – this is why we have a brain that can think! Being abused for thinking is extreme. Being human means we are fallible, and we need to appreciate that factor.
Jacobsen: Hari, thank you for the opportunity and your time.
Parekh: Any time Scott!
Hari Parekh, has worked in the field of psychology for over four years. He obtained his BA (Hons) degree in Psychology and Criminology at the University of Northampton in 2015, and his MSc in Forensic and Criminological Psychology at the University of Nottingham in 2016. He has worked for the student sector of Humanists UK, holding roles of President and President Emeritus. Following this, he is the current European Chair for Young Humanists International, and the Volunteers Manager for Faith to Faithless. He is consistently invited to universities to talk about the psychological difficulties relating to apostasy.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/05/26
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – May 5, 2020 – PRLog — Canadian Humanists are supporting calls from Humanists International to have Mubarak Bala released from a Nigerian jail. Bala, who is president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was arrested by Nigerian police April 28 following a complaint the had insulted the prophet Mohammed in a social media post. Bala, who is a former Muslim, has been arrested without formal charges. Bala’s lawyer has not been allowed access to his client.
“The right to be charged within 24 hours of arrest and the right to legal counsel are enshrined in Nigerian law. In addition, we would request: if Mr. Bala is charged with a crime, then the charge is, or those charges are, heard in a secular as opposed to a Islamic court, as he is a humanist, atheist, and former Muslim,” said Scott Jacobsen, international rights spokesman for Humanist Canada. Humanist Canada Vice-President, Lloyd Robertson, said Canadians can support Mr Bala’s defence campaign organized by Humanists International by visiting:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-mubarak-bala.
He added that international support is important for the protection of minorities.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.Humanist Canada calls for release of Nigerian Humanist President
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Pastor Josh Loeve is the Lead Pastor of Centre Church. Here we talk about Christianity, Centre Church, and more about Canadian society and religious faith.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, let’s start on a fundamental issue within Christian doctrine or theology across denominations, what is the truth and the orientation around that within a Christian context for Centre Church and yourself? In other words, what is truth? How does your church live this out?
Pastor Josh Loeve: What is truth? Let’s talk about this in the religious sense, the Christian sense, we see, ultimately, Jesus is embodying Grace and Truth. When I speak about grace in the context of the church, I would speak of the person of Jesus.
In terms of science and all of that, I don’t know if I will touch on all that. In the context of Christianity, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus, and forgiveness of sin. To me, it is the highest truth.
That is what Christianity is, basically, hinging on: Did Jesus die? Did he rise again? If no resurrection, then there is no Christianity. So, really, the truth hinges on that pivotal part of history.
For me, when we speak of truth and the Christian landscape, that is what we are talking about.
Jacobsen: In Centre Church, what are the theological implications of this? What are the implications for community?
Loeve: Wow – those are huge questions [Laughing].
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: The implications for the community are huge. Our purpose in the community is to lead people into a life centered on Jesus. The implications of that truth is that we believe when a person centers their life on Jesus and are forgiven.
Things like shame go away. There is a community of putting Christ at the center of our lives or first in our lives. We put him first. We model his life. What that means, it affects the relationships that we have; it affects the way we interact with the community around us.
It affects the way that we use our money and lead our homes. It affects every area of our lives. The implication of that truth is that we extend forgiveness, as this is a great gift. So, we are generous to the world around us.
From that position of centering Jesus on our life, we are able to model that out to other people of the grace that He extended and gave to others. It has implications in every area.
I could exhaust that list. For me, it has implications in every area.
Jacobsen: If we are looking at an ordinary Sunday service, how is this fundamental basis of theology and scriptural reading built into the things that are spoken about in an ordinary service? Also, the in-between things and the before and after of a service.
As anyone who has gone to a church or been part of a church community knows.
Loeve: I know there is a high emphasis on Sunday service. But what do the other 6 days of the look like? How that impacts our Sunday service and that truth, it is that everything that we do on weekend service is about Jesus.
Again, it hinges on the death and resurrection of Jesus. So, every Sunday, we give people an opportunity to hear that message. We challenge people to live out that reality. So, Jesus is the central theme of all of our services.
In particular, the sermons on a weekend. He is the central message of the sermons. We have a commitment to connect the Message of Jesus to those who have never heard the Message, or those who are seeking, starting, or returning.
Someone seeking answers for God that we want to get everything out of the way as to what Jesus looks like. Those who are wanting to start again. They are starting a journey with Jesus again. We want to empower them.
Or those who are returning. Those who want to return after 20, 30, 40 years. That is the implication. We want to bring that to as many people as possible.
At Centre Church, the focus is on people who are seeking, starting, or returning.
Jacobsen: Within Centre Church, what are some other derivative fundamentals of the faith for the community and you?
Loeve: Fundamentals, we have some values that we have built. These are biblical values. That we rely on. One of them is authentic community. So, I will work that into the community.
Centre Church is small groups. We meet in homes throughout the week to discuss the weekend’s message or different books about the Bible and contextualizing scripture. Things like that.
Then we have another values intent on discipleship. Discipleship is this process of helping people to grow to be more like Jesus. We need that through our serving teams.
We are a portable church. On a week, we have about 40 to 45 volunteers who do everything from run the kids’ classes to set up the environment as we are a portable church, to leading us in music, or to production teams, and small group leaders.
So, that is our intentional discipleship. Through that, we want people to serve each other, as Jesus served others. Those are 2 of our values out of 5. We live through those values.
Jacobsen: For many churches leaders in North America, they lament the lack of men within the church. How was this manifested in some of the churches that you’ve seen in the Lower Mainland [Ed. British Columbia, Canada]?
Loeve: Personally, I am not looking at those stats. I am not lamenting those things. We have a healthy contingency of both men and women in our church.
We empower both men and women into positions of leadership. So, we’re not trying to – or I am not trying to – be more edgy, cynical, or abrasive to bring more men into the doors of a Sunday service.
We believe God calls people into church through invitations to our church. I don’t think that I am lamenting. As a matter of fact, I think we see mostly men who are coming through the doors looking for purpose, looking for meaning, and addressing the truths about who God is.
Since day 1, we are a 4-and-a-half-year-old church. Not once have I thought, “Gosh, I wish we had more men here.”
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: But we are having a healthy contingency of men and women. It is really exciting. It is really on God and on us. He has brought the right people through the door to connect with us.
I cannot speak to other churches. I do not really hear that discourse happening amongst other pastors. I think there is a lot of pastors who have seen an influx in Cloverdale into their churches. They are having to lead and pastor them.
Not once have I said, “Are they men? Or are they women?” [Laughing]
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: I felt people are coming through the doors looking for meaning and purpose and wondering who God is. I think there is a lot of people in process who belong to different churches.
Jacobsen: There are a lot of different definitions of God. There are many, many gods on offer. What definition of a god or God makes most sense to you – either emotional appeal or philosophical solidity to you?
Loeve: I believe in the Trinitarian God of the Bible. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. I hold to the biblical text in terms of my view of who God is, and, in terms of the emotional appeal, when I was 17-years-old; I had a profound about something we spoke about in our earlier [Ed. pre-interview] conversation.
I had a transcendent experience with God. That was in a much more charismatic church than we are today. There was emotion attached to that. But, for me, I look at the biblical text, “Who is God defined there?”
A lot of my perspectives of who God is and the fleshing out of who God is, is defined by the biblical text, which is, as I said, the Trinitarian God.
Jacobsen: What have been atheist and theist counters to those? How do you respond to them?
Loeve: I think in terms of an atheistic response to that. I have heard a lot of criticism against my beliefs. But one of the things, too, is that part of the Christian perspective is that God is the one who opens up the eyes and ears of those around us while we carry the Message.
Our responsibility is to carry the Message. Yes, there are many different countering messages against the person of Jesus or against the death & the resurrection, against the validity of the Bible, and the list goes on, and on, and on.
So, we can wrestle with them and Christians still wrestle with those questions. To me, though, it rests on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. When it comes to criticism against the Bible, I bring it back, “What about the resurrection of Jesus?”
We can take a historical perspective and in Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John if the New Testament. To me, if a critique outside of that, as a first conversation, typically, I start here because Christianity hinges on the Resurrection.
I focus on it, as Christianity hinges on it. That is the “truth” that we talked about in the beginning of this. It affects all of our churches. It is the truth that Christianity hinges on. Again, I, generally, field criticism around that.
I think that’s what people really should be having conversations around.
Jacobsen: How do you make a split between sacred and secular values in Canada now?
Loeve: A lot of the Christian worldview was a part of Canada, as it was formed as a nation. So, yes, the lines are, definitely, blurred. I think what I can say about that. We love the benefits of the Judeo-Christian worldview, but just don’t love all the things about it.
I think there is still a lot of benefits. Some of those benefits are focused on the family, the sovereignty of the individual. These are Christian values that come out of that worldview. I think that’s, maybe, one of those sacred values that had become one of the benefits for the secular community.
Where I think there is a great contrast between the secular and the sacred is in general belief in God, often, I see this in the idea of hope for the future, where people place their hope. Seculars tend to place hope in science and human determination.
The sacred is placing their hope in a God who controls the universe. So, it is where we place our hope, where we place our trust, it is one of the areas. The idea of hope with competing values of sacred and secular.
There are a lot of different areas where relationally. I see this often. There is a separation between sacred and secular, whether divorce and remarriage, or views around sexual orientation. This is where we see secular and sacred competing with each other as well.
Jacobsen: Within the domain of the sacred, there are the formally or the anti-divine within most Christian theologies. Those have to do with things like angels and fallen angels, and demons, and the Devil, and so on.
How does this fit into your general framework for understanding the world? For example, if you’re taking into account a God who controls the world, maintains and manifests the world, what of these other forces more or less counter to that?
Loeve: First of all, I would say, “Yes.” You are, in some ways, explaining a supernatural world that interacts with our world. I don’t know all specific examples in how that plays out. I think C.S. Lewis tried to play a little bit with that in The Screwtape Letters.
In terms of “hell,” for instance, a lot of people question whether hell is a literal place. I think for most of us as human beings; hell is a real place of suffering, cancer, relational separation. So, I would say that we see some of that evil itself. We see the effects of evil.
We see the effects of good. However specifically each one of those interacts with the world around us, I am not really sure. However, that is one of the effects of evil on the world. I do see the effects of good in the world.
I can share story after story of the effects Jesus has had on people in our church. That would be the divine interacting with the natural world. I don’t know, specifically when and how all those moments happen.
I do know good exists. I do know evil exists. I do see them interacting with our world. In terms of how, I know we talked earlier in our conversation about if this is just a figment of our imaginations as human beings. I would say, “Human beings can be quite evil, quite malicious, to one another. But I do think there is a driving force behind evil and a driving force behind the good.”
I think that’s what we are obsessed with as a culture. I think that’s why Avengers, Marvel comics, and Star Wars, and all this stuff.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: We are so fascinated by it because we love that story. We love and we hate it at the same time.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: I always find that fascinating. Why do we want the good to win? I do think that these ideas are not just constructs of the human imagination. They seem to have permeated – the ideas of good and evil – thought, and have permeated cultural norms.
I think there is a cause for that. That morality was placed in human beings, which is a Christian perspective. God created the world and created human beings with that type of moral compass, and gave option and allowance to evil.
Jacobsen: What one or two examples, as a closer to the conversation today, come to mind in terms of this, as per the argument, of the intervention of the divine or the supernatural into the natural, or the anti-divine or the demonic into the natural?
Loeve: [Laughing] an example that comes to mind is a couple that came to our church a few years back. He was struggling with addiction. Their marriage was done. She came to church. Her friend invited her. It happened to be the church in an elementary school.
She was a teacher at the elementary school and felt comfortable enough to come. She was, as far as I know, not an agnostic and would probably identify as an atheist. She connected with Canada Service with the sermon preached on the Sunday morning, and felt the love and support of the community.
She said, “I have not met people who have loved and supported me this way before.” We began to mention the Message of Jesus to her. Her husband came a couple weeks later. She was mad about it. Because this was her thing.
But when you’re going through a separation, [Laughing] you’re not always wanting to see the other person.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: But he heard the Message and began to get over some of his addictions. They did begin to move back together. They have been part of the community for 2 years. They are part of a small group and serve on a team.
I am going to have the privilege of marrying them.
Jacobsen: Congratulations.
Loeve: When I look at all these events that had to happen, and all the different components, the right timing and the church being in a school that had to be comfortable for her to come. I look at all these events.
It is hard for me to say, “I cannot deny God having a hand in that.” I can hardly pick a Netflix show.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Loeve: Yet, I see this relationship rise from the dead. This is where I see the effects of the divine and Jesus working in our church, and in the people or the lives of the people within our church.
Jacobsen: Any recommended authors, speakers, or organizations?
Loeve: Yes, I really enjoy Ravi Zacharias. I appreciate his choice to what we call Apologetics and Christianity. He is answering the questions rather than debating or speaking at people. Ravi Zacharias is one of those people.
There is a local pastor in the area who wrote The Problem of God named Mark Clark. I think he is a very smart guy. He grew up in an atheist home and had a radical transformation with Jesus. Village Church is the name of that church.
Jacobsen: It is a fast growing one.
Loeve: He is abrasive. He’s solid in his doctrine, but he just loves people as well. I think that’s just a great guy. I would probably recommend some of his resources. Those two guys in terms of Apologetics and talking about atheists, what we’re talking about right now, too.
There are a lot of others, like William Lane Craig [Laughing]. He is another guy out there. He is a pretty interesting guy. But that is just within the Apologetics landscape.
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts in conclusion based on the conversation today?
Loeve: If someone is reading this, and if they are truly searching for answers, I think there are places to wrestle with competing opinions and beliefs. There are churches that can be places of refuge, and not just places of opposition.
I think it is really important in these conversations. I don’t think the church is as closed to conversations and questions as they are pegged as. I work at Centre Church. I know a lot of other churches, where there is a lot of good dialogue and pastors willing to step up to answer the questions.
I would encourage people reading this or listening to it. To know that there are places that pastors are willing to have conversations like this, to hear different and competing opinions and ideas, there’s also just places where we would love to pray and walk alongside people.
I think more than being right and wrong. There’s also an element of being human together. We can find solidarity together. I want people to know that there are places where they can come and wrestle with life’s big questions.
There are a lot of pastors wrestling with these.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Pastor Josh.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about scientific skepticism and modern secularism.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Some of the pillars of American freethought have been individuals including H.L. Mencken, Carl Sagan, Paul Kurtz, or Martin Gardner, or in the everyday world of needed problem-solving in Parade Magazine with Marilyn (Mach) Vos Savant.
Whether in the acerbic and sardonic writings of Mencken or in the ordinary American household language of Vos Savant, the wide-ranging philosophizing by Gardner or Kurtz, or the popularization of advanced scientific concepts to a lay audience in the case of Sagan, a delivery of wide-ranging scientific skepticism as a retort to the wide-spread irrationalism in American life.
How have some of the larger figures of American scientific skepticism been helpful in providing another area of critical thinking for the public against common supernaturalisms? How have those, in turn, helped the cause of furtherance of secularism in the United States?
Dr. Herb Silverman: You mention famous American freethought individuals, some of whom might be acerbic, sardonic, read by ordinary Americans, philosophers, popularizers of science, or debunkers of irrationalism. I think all such people are useful to a freethought movement because they often represent different constituencies. I’m a “big tent” atheist who welcomes all to come out of their atheist closets to help normalize freethought in America.
I’ll describe my personal journey to atheism with four examples.
As a youngster, I was influenced by the movie The Wizard of Oz, where the gatekeeper told Dorothy that nobody had ever seen the great Wizard. Dorothy replied, “Then how do you know he exists?” The curtain is later pulled back to reveal that the “Wizard” is an elderly man operating machinery and speaking into a microphone. So the Wizard didn’t exist, and Dorothy was on her own. That sounded to me a lot like what I was beginning to think of God.
I was also influenced by the Bible. I “knew” as a trusting child that the Bible was God’s word. But after many of my biblical questions went unanswered, I became an example of what Isaac Asimov observed, “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
At age 16, in 1958, I hadn’t told anyone that I no longer believed in God, thinking I might be the only one in this country with that opinion. Then I discovered Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian in the public library. I felt better about myself after learning that Russell was more than just not a Christian. He was as many “nots” as I was, and brave enough to say so. Russell transformed the lives of many in my generation. For the first time we heard articulate arguments that confirmed and gave voice to our own skepticism and doubts. Even some true believers were led on a thoughtful journey toward altered religious states. Learning that Russell was a logician and mathematician at least partially inspired me to become a mathematician.
When I read George Orwell’s 1984, I thought the character “Big Brother” appeared to be an omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, authoritarian figure who demanded absolute obedience. I didn’t know at the time that Orwell was an atheist. Here’s what Orwell said about Big Brother: “In 1984, the concept of Big Brother is a parody of God. You never see him, but the fact of him is drilled into people’s minds so that they become robots, almost. Plus, if you speak bad against Big Brother, it’s a Thoughtcrime.”
You also asked why there might now be more critical thinkers in America, helping to further the cause of secularism in the United States.
In “The Last Taboo: Why America Needs Atheism,” published in the New Republic in 1996, Wendy Kaminer wrote, “Atheists generate about as much sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be characterized as a disease, atheism is a choice, a willful rejection of beliefs to which vast majorities of people cling.” I have one slight disagreement: Atheism is not a “choice.” For me, the only choice is whether to be open about my atheism or pretend to believe in a deity for which there is not a scintilla of evidence.
The situation in the United States has improved significantly since Kaminer’s piece appeared twenty-three years ago. Much has been written about atheism, including best-selling books by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Susan Jacoby, and others. A number of popular blogs now promote atheism and secularism. In the Internet age, people hear about many worldviews, not just the one in which they were raised. Every new national survey shows a rapid increase of atheists, agnostics, and those who claim no religious affiliation (called “nones”). Many “nones” broke from conservative religion because it is anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s rights, and anti-science. Pedophilia has also discouraged people from maintaining their church affiliation.
Fivethirtyeight, which takes its name from the number of electors in the U.S. electoral college, is a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis. A recent piece, “Millennials Are Leaving Religion and Not Coming Back,” pointed out that 40 percent of millennials are religiously unaffiliated. And there’s mounting evidence that today’s younger generations may be leaving religion for good. Changing views about the relationship between morality and religion also appear to have convinced many young parents that religious institutions are simply irrelevant or unnecessary for their children. A majority (57 percent) of millennials agree that religious people are generally less tolerant of others, compared to only 37 percent of Baby Boomers.
The Christian conservative movement warns about a rising tide of secularism, but the strong association between religion and the Republican Party may be fueling this divide. And as more members of the Democratic Party become secular, the rift between secular liberals and religious conservatives will be exacerbated. I’m hoping we will return to the day when Republicans identify as economic conservatives who want less government interference, rather than identify with the Christian religion as so many now do. I would still be a Democrat, but at least I’d understand that the Republican Party had a legitimate point-of-view.
When it comes to voting, 60 percent of Americans say they prefer a candidate who believes in God and only 6% say they prefer a candidate who doesn’t. However, this preference for candidates who believe in God nearly disappears when policy positions are included in the question. The percent who say they would vote for a well-qualified atheist has steadily risen from 18 percent in 1958 to 58 percent in 2015. The Congressional Freethought Caucus, formed in 2018 with 4 members, is a forum for secular members of Congress who promote evidence-based public policy. It now has 12 open members, with more likely to join. There are also more than 50 state legislators who identify with the atheist and humanist community.
While our community is growing rapidly, we are still severely underrepresented in politics. We need to encourage more members of our freethought community to run for public office, and also encourage elected officials to acknowledge their nonbelief. Here are some of our important issues: protecting a strict separation of religion and government, addressing climate change, advancing human rights and civil liberties (including disparities in incarceration rates, easy access to register to vote, women’s rights), health and safety (vaccines, death with dignity), and promoting religious freedom abroad (opposing blasphemy and apostasy laws). We need our atheist and humanist community to become more visible and welcomed by participants in the electoral arena. I hope for a day when every political party at every governmental level will embrace our constituency.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
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As reported by the CBC News, the economic of Canada reduced by a tenth of one percent in October of 2019.
The economic condition for Canadians remains quite strong with the 10th largest economy in the world, according to Business Insider. Not only this, its oil reserves may exceed the Middle East. (However, this may become less relevant into the future with the rather rapid and predicted transition into renewable energy sources in the 2020s, 2030s, and further into the future.
With a shrinkage of the real Gross Domestic Product of GDP of the Canadian economy, based on reportage by Statistics Canada, this will be the first decline in the last 8 months of either economic stabilization, as in July, or growth, as see in, for example, May, June, August, and September with growth percentages of 0.3%, 0.2%, 0.1%, and 0.1%.
The economy, how ever slight, appears to show a several month slowing of the growth rate of the economy. The projection was a 0.0% growth rate of the Canadian economy in October in September. This did not play out.
With the manufacturing sector in Canada down for the 4th time in 5 months, this impacted the growth of the Canadian economy.
As reported, “The United Auto Workers (UAW) strike in the U.S. caused Canada to scale back production contributing to the decline. Retail trade declined 1.1 per cent—it’s largest decline in three years, while wholesale trade declined one per cent.”
However, oil production increased by 0.1% and real estate by 0.7%. So, we had a rapid growth in real estate, minor growth in oil production, and an overall decrease in the economy where a prediction was for a halted economy for October.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the American Constitution.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When we look at the well-made human document called the American Constitution, some questions arise for the freethought community, potentially, or, at least, some in it. What parts before amendments best exemplify freethought and secularism? What amendments improve upon the original document in terms of the specific content of secularism and the freethinking ability of individual citizens?
Dr. Herb Silverman: The framers of the United States Constitution wanted no part of the religious intolerance, holy wars, and bloodshed they saw in Europe. In declaring independence from England, Americans also rejected the claim by kings, crowned by bishops, that they had been vested with a God-given authority to rule through “divine right.”
The U.S. framers wisely established the first government in history to separate religion and government. They formed a secularnation whose authority rests with “We the People” (the first three words of the U.S. Constitution) and not with “Thou the Deity.” They created a Constitution in which the government acknowledged no gods, the better to ensure freedom of conscience. We the people are free to worship one, many, or no gods. As Thomas Jefferson said, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
There are only two references to religion in the U.S. Constitution, and both are exclusionary. One is in Article 6: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” I know Article 6 quite well. When I discovered in 1990 that our South Carolina state constitution prohibited atheists from holding public office, an obvious violation of Article 6, I challenged that provision in the state constitution by running for governor as “the candidate without a prayer.” In 1997 I won a unanimous decision in the South Carolina Supreme Court, invalidating the unconstitutional provision and recognizing that atheists have the right to hold public office in South Carolina.
The other exclusionary mention of religion is in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This guarantees the right to practice any religion or no religion. The federal government cannot favor one religion over another, or believers over non-believers. No one’s religious liberty is threatened when the wall of separation between religion and government is kept strong.
As wonderful as the U.S. Constitution is, no American would call it an infallible document, as some claim about the Bible. The framers understood the need for future changes in the Constitution, and set forth mechanisms for change through amendments. Scientific and humanistic advances make it desirable to incorporate new information and adjust our worldview and behavior. The Constitution condoned slavery until the 13th Amendment ended it in 1865. Women were not granted the right to vote until 1920 when the 19th Amendment passed. On the other hand, the unamended Bible written by misogynistic men condones slavery. You will also not find any support in the Bible for respecting people who have different or no religious beliefs.
While the U.S. federal government was never considered to be a Christian nation, initially there was no prohibition against states establishing their own state churches. Some early state constitutions limited public office to Christians—or even to the correct Christian denomination. Such provisions represented a more intolerant time in our history. States with government-favored religions gradually began moving toward separating religion and government. The 14th Amendment, passed in 1868, ended state-sponsored religion.
Those who claim the United States is a Christian nation need to read the Constitution. You will not find the words Christian, Jesus, or God in it. Our framers were careful and thoughtful writers. Had they wanted a Christian nation, it seems highly unlikely that they would somehow have forgotten to include their Christian intentions in the supreme law of the land. In 1797, the Treaty of Tripoli was ratified unanimously by the United States Senate. This trade treaty stated in part: “The government of the United States is notin any sense founded on the Christian religion.” I wonder what part of “not” those who believe we are a Christian nation don’t understand.
Nevertheless, Christian-nation advocates continually try chipping away the “secular,” often with symbols like “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God.” They also try to legislate the posting of the Ten Commandments on public buildings. Most Americans believe that the Ten Commandments are among the finest guidelines for a virtuous life. Interestingly, hardly anyone can actually state them all. So I will, along with my commentary.
The First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” conflicts with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of religion—the right to worship one, several, or no gods. The next three Commandments (no graven images, not taking God’s name in vain, keeping the Sabbath day holy) refer to specific kinds of worship directed toward a God who punishes several generations of children if their fathers do not worship appropriately. These first four commandments are religious edicts that have nothing to do with moral or ethical behavior. They describe how to worship and pay homage to a jealous and vindictive God.
The Fifth Commandment, about honoring parents, should not be so unconditional as to condone child abuse. There is no commandment about parents honoring their children or treating them humanely.
The next four commandments (proscriptions against murder, adultery, stealing, and lying) obviously have merit, and existed in cultures long before these commandments appeared in Exodus 20. Yet even these are open to interpretation. Is abortion murder? What about euthanasia? War? Capital punishment? Reasonable people can disagree and respect other opinions, unless convinced they are acting as God’s messenger.
The Tenth Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, wife, slaves, ox, donkey, or any other property,” condones slavery and treating women as property.
The Ten Commandments, meant to be the cornerstone of an ethical and moral life, are notable for what they omit. Why not condemn slavery, racism, sexual assault, child and spouse abuse, and torture? Most people could come up with a better set of rules to live by.
I propose a simple solution that both honors our democratic principles and reminds us of the curbs on governmental abuse of power. Why don’t we display our American Bill of Rights on public buildings? We would still be posting ten, and we Americans can all support and celebrate these ten. Or can we?
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Canadians remain mixed in their views on the role of religion in society based on a new study by the Angus Reid Institute. One-third of Canadian citizens want to see a more secular nation. The study, though, was conducted in partnership with Cardus, which is a Christian think-tank.
6 in 10 Canadians find the freedom of religion a virtue in Canadian society. That which contributes to the society rather than detracts from it. Only 1 in 10 citizens in Canada think the opposite.
The research presented some other interesting findings about Canadians. Presumably, this is in line with other research on Canadians and the nature of religion as more of a private than a public matter. Indeed, as stated, “…a premium placed on freedom of religion exists alongside limitations as to how far that faith should extend in public life.”
4 in 10 Canadians disagree with the claim of faith improving equality and human rights. Indeed, this may seem paradoxical or counterintuitive. However, the traditional demographic categories of age, gender, and political persuasion do not count as the major deciding factors in the differentials of responses to the questions in the survey.
As reported, “The Angus Reid Institute used 17
different variables to categorize Canadians across a Public Faith Index to
create three groups: The Public Faith Proponents, the Uncertain and the Public
Faith Opponents.”
Each grouping had a different idea of the role of faith in public life while
having a consistently diverse set of backgrounds, including in the
aforementioned variable categories. The Angus
Reid research is important because of the insight into the nature of the
questions on religion in Canadian society moving further into the 21st
century.
What do Canadians think about faith? What do Canadians feel about religion? How should these thoughts and emotions influence the nature of public policy and political life in Canadian society? All important questions, where all this research can become a point of further information on the matter.
Approximately equal numbers were found within the Public Faith Proponents and the Public Faith Opponents, i.e., a split on an important subject matter to Canadians. Still, 3 in 10 Canadians remain on the fence.
From October 24 to November 1, 2019, a representative randomize sample survey was conducted on 2,057 Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum members. There may be a self-selection effect there.
This sample size produces a margin of error of 2 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
Half of Canadian citizens belief the faith communities as a practical reality harbour a mixed outcome – good and bad – to Canadian society. 1 in 5 Canadians believe Canada keeps the faith and values talk from the public arena with a further 1 out of 3 seeing room for their faith and values expressed in the public sphere.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Scientists, in a December 6, 2019, report in Nature on the finding of the ability to transmit information in a silicon chip, not simply traditionally with electrons but, with photons.
The “light signals” or photons were “squeezed” or transmitted through the silicon chip in order to “read and write data,” i.e., to process information as photons in place of electrons.
Information defined as a change in state from one to another with the change as a selection reduction to one state over an array of possible other previous choices.
The hypothesis is such that with these developments; there will be an increase in the rapidity of the processing of the information in silicon circuits based on the speed of light, of c.
Conventional computers with the same software but with photons trapped and run through the circuitry would process the information far faster than simply electrons in the same traditional silicon circuits.
The light mechanism used is pushing, so to speak, photons through fibre-optic cables as carriers of information, which is much faster than electrons and, in fact, the fastest speed known in the universe – outside of the literal expansion of space at the same time as the light is travelling, but this simply changes the referential frame of the speed.
Light has a large wavelength. There is commentary in the short article on the utilization of both forms of information transfer – electron and proton – in order to transmit the information in a traditional electronic circuit, which remains an impressive proposition.
As reported, “Harish Bhaskaran at the University of Oxford, UK, and his colleagues designed a tiny dual-signal data-storage device. Both electrical and light signals can be used to read data stored on the device, as well as to write information on it.”
The size of the device is important based on the type of information processing proposed by the physicists, the researcher, here. With the compression of the light pulse, it is separate into “miniscule channels running between gold electrodes and silicon–nitride components. A computer memory cell made of a germanium-based compound sits at the channels’ intersection. Either electrical pulses delivered through the gold electrodes or light pulses focused by the channels can change the device’s ‘state’, allowing for data storage.”
In short, channelization or separate streams of the pulses of light made from the singular input with the separate channelizations changing the state of the circuit and, in turn, changing the state for data storage. It is a differentiation for the creation of information, which is stored.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03740-9.
Academic source: Plasmonic nanogap enhanced phase-change devices with dual electrical-optical functionality
BY NIKOLAOS FARMAKIDIS, NATHAN YOUNGBLOOD, XUAN LI, JAMES TAN, JACOB L. SWETT, ZENGGUANG CHENG, C. DAVID WRIGHT, WOLFRAM H. P. PERNICE, HARISH BHASKARAN
SCIENCE ADVANCES29 NOV 2019 : EAAW2687
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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James A. Haught was born on Feb. 20, 1932, in a small West Virginia farm town that had no electricity or paved streets. He graduated from a rural high school with 13 students in the senior class. He came to Charleston, worked as a delivery boy, then became a teen-age apprentice printer at the Charleston Daily Mail in 1951. Developing a yen to be a reporter, he volunteered to work without pay in the Daily Mail newsroom on his days off to learn the trade. This arrangement continued several months, until The Charleston Gazette offered a full-time news job in 1953. He has been at the Gazette ever since—except for a few months in 1959 when he was press aide to Sen. Robert Byrd.
During his six decades in newspaper life, he has been police reporter, religion columnist, feature writer and night city editor; then he was investigative reporter for 13 years, and his work led to several corruption convictions. In 1983 he was named associate editor, and in 1992 he became editor. In 2015, as The Gazette combined with the Daily Mail, he assumed the title of editor emeritus, but still works full-time.
He writes nearly 400 Gazette editorials a year, plus personal columns and news articles. Haught has won two dozen national newswriting awards, and is author of 11 books and 120 magazine essays. About 50 of his columns have been distributed by national syndicates. He also is a senior editor of Free Inquiry magazine. He is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Contemporary Authors and 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century. He has four children, 12 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. For years, Jim has enjoyed hiking with Kanawha Trail Club, participating in a philosophy group, and taking grandchildren swimming off his old sailboat. He is a longtime member of Charleston’s Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Haught continues working full-time in his 80s.
Here we talk about the proportioning of claims to the evidence.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As these portions of the blog, not the news or the political commentary, of the News Intervention publication devote themselves, mostly, to educational projects, and as the editorial responsibility, for me, exists in North America and in science issues, this educational series will cover a historical and current perspective on the convergence of three areas: science, skepticism, and secular humanism, as you have a long history in these traditions.
Traditions better equipped collectively to provide more accurate images or pictures of the world than many other ones on offer in the current paradigms frozen in forgone centuries. Antiquated epistemologies and false ontologies forced ignorantly from one generation to the next as The True Way and The Truth (epistemology and ontology) rather than something within a sea of competing ways of knowing and things known of lesser and greater quality relative to one another, in the goal of ascertainment of the truths of reality.
Let’s start with some of the basic Humean notions taken by the late astrophysicist Dr. Carl Sagan and others – including members of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry or Skeptical Inquirer – in the form of evaluation of the most extreme claims about the nature of the world – mystical-magical claims about the world as opposed to technical-natural ones. Where did the phrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” originate in content and in phraseology?
Jim Haught: Back in the 1700s, Scottish skeptic David Hume wrote that miracle claims cannot be believed, because they lack enough trustworthy evidence. In 1808, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter: “A thousand phenomena present themselves daily which we cannot explain, but where facts are suggested, bearing no analogy to the laws of nature as yet known to us, their verity needs proofs proportioned to their difficulty.” In 1814, Laplace reportedly said that “we ought to examine [inexplicable claims] with an attention all the more scrupulous as it appears more difficult to admit them.” In 1899, Theodore Flournoy contended that “the weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.” In the 1970s, Science magazine editor Philip Abelson reportedly was first to use the phrase: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Science hero Carl Sagan gave it wide popularity in his Cosmos television series, and it became known as “the Sagan Standard.”
Jacobsen: How does this best reflect a scientific, skeptical, and secular humanistic perspective about the world?
Haught: It simply means: Don’t swallow bizarre stories — supernatural stories — without solid proof to support them.
Jacobsen: How does that view differ markedly from the religious and supernaturalist perspective on the nature of reality writ big?
Haught: Religion depends upon blind acceptance of magic tales supposed revealed by some prophet or ancient scripture — without any evidence whatsoever. This approach is unacceptable to intelligent, modern, scientific-minded people.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Jim.
Haught: Keep the faith, baby.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about fundamentalists.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In interaction with some of the literalist believers in the obscure and obscurantist fundamentalists of the Christian faith, one can gather a sense of feeling unheard in the midst of the conversation. These come from the university students to the professoriate, even into the higher-order leadership – not as character analysis, but as a way of thinking as simply thoughting in mechanical (rote) form.
In that, facts are scorned. Basic human compassion is thwarted for attempts at conversion in the hopes of a hereafter. Unreason is raised above or over reason. Attempts to correct misconception or illogic, or denial of baseless (faith) claims, gets the retort, “You lie. Those are complete lies” (because anything not of Christianity comes from the Devil, who comes to believers and unbelievers alike, supposedly, as the “father of lies”). Thus, anything one does or says gets met with suspicion, as, basically, essentialization of distrust in the individual (you).
These modes of unthought truly warp human mentation – to me – for the worse, much worse – leaving aside the six Jesuit intellectuals, and other similars, murdered for working for peace: Ignacio Ellacuria Beas Coechea, S.J., Ignacio Martín-Baró, S.J., Segundo Montes, S.J., Juan Ramón Moreno, S.J., Joaquín López y López, S.J., and Amando López, S.J.
In Canadian society, we have a number of religious – Christian – universities and colleges, including Columbia Bible College, Heritage College & Seminary, Horizon College & Seminary, Prairie, Providence University College, Redeemer University College, Rocky Mountain College, St. Stephen’s University, Trinity Western University, Tyndale University College, Tyndale University College & Seminary, and Vanguard College.
These institutions of higher Christian learning espouse principles found at the start of this nation’s population dans l’ensemble. If not ‘by and large’ in some part, then, by and large, forced or coerced onto them in good time. One of these institutions, at least, harbours a previously mandatory covenant for all. Now, only mandatory for staff and optional for students.
That is to say, an obvious – though not stated in this fashion – mechanism for the prevention of critical inquiry and scrutiny of the acts and thoughts within the institution to the institutional representatives or to the external community surrounding it. A clear operation of control through signage of the community pact because, apparently, the first two divine covenants did not suffice for the community of the faithful.
Similar to the United States of America, its history, as noted by you, jumps forward, bumps back, while showing a trendline towards a wider circle of inclusion and separation between religion and government with the current Trump Administration period as a bump back.
All these prior sessions dealt with sectors without much status or consideration as people – simply as “unpeople” – in American law and policymaking, except over time. Marie Alena Castle – a late writing partner on some articles – whose commentary was on point and on time noted the center of the current battle exists in women’s bodies, reproductive systems, and their autonomous choices in either matter.
What can build bridges of communication between fundamentalist religious believers and freethinkers? What underlies the ideational trance of not even listening to the other side by literalist interpreters of faiths? How many religious institutions exist in America? What political influence comes from them? How do the institutions of higher learning ground themselves in religious belief in the history of the United States and continue to exert control over the minds of the young? Why women’s bodies – ‘because the Bible tells them so,’ as Annie Laurie Gaylor might state the matter? How have these forms of misogyny, control of the rebellious positive curiosity and inquisitiveness of the young, and politicking played out and converged in the current American political imbroglio?
Dr. Herb Silverman: You ask how we can talk to Christian fundamentalists when their worldview is so different from ours and they don’t accept evidence. I’ve found that we can’t reason people out of a belief that they didn’t come to through reason, but we still might be able to find some points of agreement.
For instance, I might start with “Love your neighbor,” and point out varieties of the Golden Rule from Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism that predate Jesus. Another thing we could probably agree on is that all other faiths are wrong. I do say that every educated person should read the Bible, because it’s an important part of our culture. I also mention some secular books worth reading. If I’m asked for biblical quotes I like, I can mention Matthew 7:16: “By your fruits you shall know them.” I also like John 8:32: “The truth will set you free,” which it did when I became an atheist. If they tell me that they support blasphemy laws, I say I might, too, if the offended deity personally files charges.
It helps in discussions with Christian fundamentalists to treat them with kindness and respect. We should assume that they believe what they say, even if it sounds like nonsense. I ignore personal attacks and stick with the issues. Usually the best I can hope for in talking to committed Christian fundamentalists is that some of their stereotypes about atheists will change and they will think I’m a nice guy with a sense of humor (even though I’m going to hell). Since I came to atheism by following what I consider to be a sensible evidence-based path, it doesn’t much matter to me whether others adopt my position, but I understand why it’s important for Christian fundamentalists to try to convert me: Eternal life is at stake. And for many of them, that’s more important than life itself. I find such a worldview odd at best.
That worldview can also be dangerous if conversion is forced on others. This brings us to your question about women’s bodies. The Bible was written thousands of years ago by misogynistic men. The punishment for a man who raped a virgin woman was that the man should pay her father 50 shekels and that she must marry her rapist because she is now damaged goods (Deut. 22:28). There are also passages in the Christian Bible about women not having authority over a man, that the man is head of the household, that women are created for man, and much more. Some Christians live this way, but have been unsuccessful in making it the law of our land. Unfortunately, they have been somewhat successful promoting their political issues. This includes in some places denying women contraceptives and the right to choose. Though the Bible is silent on abortion, preventing women from having this right has become the top issue for Christian fundamentalists, who also try to pass biblically-based laws against LGBT rights.
You asked about religious colleges and universities in the United States. There are many throughout the nation. In my home state of South Carolina, Furman University was founded in 1826 as a Baptist university, but has become more diverse, not requiring students or faculty to hold specific religious views. In 1992, Furman separated from the Southern Baptist Convention in order to exert more control over their institution. On the other hand, in Charleston, my home city, Charleston Southern University (formerly called Baptist College) is decidedly Christian, where it integrates faith with learning, and is in good standing with the Southern Baptist Convention. Its faculty are required to sign an oath of belief. In 2004, I debated a professor from that institution on the existence of God, though the debate was not allowed on their campus. The professor later invited me to speak to his class, but the invitation was rescinded because his administration refused to allow me on campus. So much for academic freedom.
Many religious schools have decent academic programs, but quite a few don’t. Even worse, some have political agendas, including the well-known Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., considers it immoral for evangelicals to not support President Trump, adding that Trump could do nothing to lose his support.
I’ll close with some questions I get from Christian fundamentalists, along with my answers.
Why do you hate God? I don’t hate God any more than I hate the Tooth Fairy, and I didn’t become an atheist because something bad happened to me. I became an atheist because I find no evidence for any gods.
What is the purpose of life? I don’t need to believe in a god to find a purpose. There may not be a purpose of life, but we can find many purposes in life.
Why be moral? Personal responsibility is a good conservative principle. We should not give credit to a deity for our accomplishments or blame satanic forces when we behave badly. We should take personal responsibility for our actions. I try to live my life to its fullest — it’s the only life I have, and I hope to make a positive difference because it’s the right thing to do, not because of future rewards or punishment.
Why do you think science is more reliable than religion? Because we know how to distinguish good scientific ideas from bad ones. Scientists start out not knowing the answer and go wherever the evidence leads them. Science relies on experimenting, testing, and questioning assumptions critically until a consensus is reached, and even that is always open to revision in light of later evidence. This is why scientific truths are the same in Saudi Arabia, the United States, Israel, and India — countries with very different religious beliefs.
Don’t you worry that Heaven and Hell might be real and that you will be going to Hell? Here are questions I have for you about Heaven and Hell. Why is faith not only important, but perhaps the deciding factor about who winds up in Heaven or Hell? What moral purpose does eternal torture serve? If we have free will on Earth, will we have free will in Heaven? If so, might we sin and go from Heaven to Hell? If not, will we be heavenly robots? If God can make us sinless in Heaven, why didn’t he create us sinless on Earth? Can you be blissfully happy in Heaven knowing that some of your loved ones are being tortured in Hell? And what do you do for an eternity in Heaven without getting bored? Wouldn’t a loving God who wants us all to go to Heaven make it unambiguously clear how to get there?
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr Silverman.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/12/02
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You – and as a term of endearment and affection, for me, at least – exist as an elder within the freethought community, where you harbour a certain general affability, acquired wisdom, and perceptiveness on issues relevant to all ages of the freethought communities.
You have a secure place in America freethinker history. What is lost with age? What is gained with age? How does this change over time develop an understanding more rich in practical wisdom and perceptiveness via the experience of the times of the founders of the United States and the leaders of the different social reform movements in American history?
People in their time but not of it, in the sense of a widened vision of the possibilities of human relations. I intend this as a collective reflection on some of the writings in this series so far, in order to transition into other items of historical import to the philosophical and historical foundations of American secularism.
Dr. Herb Silverman: Thank you for saying I have a secure place in American freethinker history. If true, it would be because I did two things.
First, I ran for Governor of South Carolina in 1990 to challenge the state constitution prohibition against atheists holding public office. I didn’t become governor, of course, but in 1997 the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously in my favor, nullifying the anti-atheist clause in the South Carolina Constitution. Credit for my Supreme Court victory belongs to my ACLU lawyers. I was just having fun giving campaign talks and writing about my experiences.
Second, during my legal battle, I learned about and joined several national atheist and humanist organizations that all promoted causes I supported, like separation of religion and government and increasing visibility of and respect for freethinkers. However, each organization was doing its own thing without recognizing or cooperating with worthwhile efforts of like-minded groups. I thought that these diverse organizations would accomplish more by showing strength in numbers and working together on those issues to bring about cultural and political change. So in 2002, I helped form the Secular Coalition for America and became its founding president.
The Secular Coalition started with 4 and now has 19 national secular organizations as members, covering the full spectrum of our movement. It also represents hundreds of local secular communities. It was the first organization to hire a lobbyist to take our issues to Congress.
Working with allies in the faith community, the Secular Coalition combines the power of grassroots activism with professional lobbying to impact laws and policies governing separation of religion and government.
You asked what is gained by age. Being involved with secular organizations for close to 30 years has given me institutional memory. When I hear suggestions about something we might try, I can often point to having tried that before and the outcome.
You also asked what is lost with age. On this, I am an expert. I’m 77 years old and like to think I can do whatever I used to be able to do, but I have contrary physical and mental evidence. Aside from age, longevity in a leader can become problematic. “Founder’s syndrome” occurs when leaders view themselves as irreplaceable. I’ve seen many good leaders outstay their welcome. For an organization to flourish, a high priority for a leader should be to make him or herself replaceable. Atheists, above all, recognize that organizations have no “dear leaders” who communicate to us through a supernatural being. We pride ourselves on being independent, and we recognize the fallibility of all. Not to sound like a vampire, but new blood is good.
I think I managed to avoid founder’s syndrome at the Secular Coalition for America. I sought and encouraged active participants and talented replacements. I’m now happily retired as SCA president, but was asked to continue to serve for a while on its Board of Directors.
Looking back at the history of the freethought movement, changes in communication have been mammoth. At the time of the founders and early social reform movements in the United States, social media consisted of books, pamphlets, and word-of-mouth. Today, people can instantly reach each other around the world through online communication. Word travels fast, but so does miscommunication, lately known as fake news (some of it intentional). Both atheists and religious fundamentalists are able to spread information as never before, but of course they differ on what they consider to be “fake news.”
Speaking of fake news, the influence of religion at the highest levels of government has never been stronger than under President Donald Trump. He has appointed more than 150 judges, most of whom seem hostile to the separation of religion and government. He has ordered every department in the executive branch to work on faith-based partnerships, signing an executive order creating the “White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative,” an office that undermines religious freedom by giving taxpayer money to religious groups and allowing them to discriminate, with little accountability and no transparency.
Not only are Trump’s cabinet members very religious, but they also seem to oppose the separation of religion and government. Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, referred to the separation of church and state as “crap” prompted by “political correctness.” Attorney General William Barr said, “The separation of church and state is for losers, liberals, and America-hating atheists.”
Christian Nationalists and evangelicals, with Trump’s blessing, have introduced legislation to teach the Bible in schools, display religious mottos in schools, discriminate in foster care and adoption, pass religious refusal in healthcare, and promote anti-science religious teachings. Whatever you think about Trump wanting to build a wall between Mexico and the United States, we must not let him tear down the wall between church and state.
Nonetheless, I’m cautiously optimistic about our future. It is up to secularists working with all who favor separation of religion and government to counter the influence of religion in government. The secular movement is growing, both formally through secular organizations and informally through “nones,” those who don’t subscribe to any faith. The “nones” are the fastest growing “religion” in the United States, especially among young people. Many “nones” broke from conservative religion because it is anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s rights, and anti-science. Pedophilia has also discouraged people from maintaining their church affiliation.
Based on surveys, the United States is becoming less religious every year. This is finally being reflected in politics. A Congressional Freethought Caucus, formed in 2018 with 4 members, promotes evidence-based public policy and is a forum for secular members of Congress. It now has 12 open members, with more likely to join. There has also been a 900% increase in the number of state legislators who identify with the atheist and humanist community (from 5 in 2016 to over 50 today).
And finally, thanks to the Secular Coalition of America and their Director of Governmental Affairs, Sarah Levin, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) this year embraced American nonbelievers for the first time, adopting a resolution that recognizes their contributions to society. At nearly one quarter of the total U.S. population, nonreligious Americans represent a sizeable voting bloc. This resolution marks the first time a major U.S. political party has specifically courted religiously unaffiliated people across the nation.
The resolution says that the DNC recognizes the value, ethical soundness, and importance of the religiously unaffiliated demographic, a group of Americans who contribute in innumerable ways to the arts, sciences, medicine, business, law, the military, their communities, the success of the Party and prosperity of the Nation; and that religiously unaffiliated Americans are a group that, as much as any other, advocates for rational public policy based on sound science and universal humanistic values and should be represented, included, and heard by the Party.
And looking to the future of freethought, I hope that one day every political party at every governmental level will adopt similar resolutions.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/25
Fauzia Ilyas is the Founder and President of the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. This is an extremely dangerous country for freethinkers, especially women of the freethought community with the explicit title of atheist or agnostic, as known to most readers here. When we look at the contexts for women’s rights or for freedom of thought, Pakistan remains one of the worst. Fauzia deserves praise in the light of the difficult circumstances and the bravery to utilize a public platform while pronouncing public rights to freedom of belief and, in particular, to not believe, often, forced or coerced beliefs, whether by family, community, or state.
Here, we talk about her life, views, and work through the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan form?
Fauzia Ilyas: Actually it is directly interlinked with my thoughts, ideas and questions which I used to raise about religion. While trying to search for answers to those questions, and analyze their credibility and authenticity, I realized that there was no proper platform where people like me could go and have a discussion over religion, especially about Islam. It brought me to the conclusion that it’s very crucial to have a platform where we all can express our thoughts and share it with other like-minded people. Therefore, in 2012, Atheist and Agnostic Alliance Pakistan was established by me and my partner.
Jacobsen: What were the risks in founding it?
Ilyas: Just imagine for a while, a country with 97% Muslim population, a country which came into existence by so-called Islamic values. A country where you are being welcomed if you convert to Islam; however, if you leave that religion, or even if you raise any doubt or an ordinary question over Islam, you would be in hell(-ish) difficulties. So it was the same case with AAAP. When this organization was established, there was a lot of criticism, threats to life, and compromised security. We’re approached by law enforcement authorities. The blasphemy cases were initiated against me and my partner. It left us with the only option to leave Pakistan, so we left and now we’re in The Netherlands.
Jacobsen: What have been the major developments and successes of AAAP?
Ilyas: I think the major development is the establishment of AAAP itself, which was the very first organization of Pakistan, working for ex-Muslims and Atheists. People now know that ex-Muslims exist in Pakistan too. Secondly, it’s getting quite familiar within the social platforms that one can raise a question over the authenticity of the religion and its so-called values. But please count and consider the criticism and threats equally here :), but it is even more.
Lastly, people can talk to like-minded people and express their thoughts freely over religion. This organization can be considered as an effective tool to normalize the concept relates to questioning religion. And it’s definitely not wrong.
Jacobsen: Who is ‘Ayaz Nizami’?
Ilyas: Ayaz Nizami was Vice President of AAAP. He is a blogger who translated materials critical of Islam in English to Urdu for publishing. Nizami founded the website realisticapproach.org, a website in Urdu about irreligon.
Jacobsen: What happened to him? Why?
Ilyas: He was arrested in 2017 by the Federal Investigation Agency of Pakistan because of his views and thoughts over Islam. He used to talk about equality, freedom, and fundamental rights, which is not wrong; but in a state like Pakistan, it’s a crime.
Jacobsen: How does his case reflect others like those of the Ismail family and other secular and human rights activists in Pakistan?
Ilyas: This is definitely about the fundamental rights, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion. To accuse its own citizens and suppressing their rights, what message Pakistan is conveying to the whole world? These are shameful acts and I definitely condemn it. It’s a negative obligation of the state to not interfere in rights and let people freely exercise their rights; and on the other hand, it is also a positive obligation of the state to do something in order to protect its citizen. But, unfortunately, the state of Pakistan, itself is lacking in fulfilling its obligations.
Jacobsen: How can people support ‘Ayaz’?
Ilyas: First of all, people should know that it’s not wrong to raise questions over religion. They should understand that human lives are more precious than any religion. They should raise their voices in favour of those who’re in prison and taken just because of their expressions towards Islam. There’s a long list of these people. Not only Ayaz Nizami but also Junaid Hafeez and many others. So people should realize if they won’t stand up for their own rights, no one would ever realize it that how important those rights are.
Jacobsen: What forms of pressure on governments work?
Ilyas: The realization of fundamental rights is very important and Pakistan should understand the importance of those rights. So I think we should never give up to raise our voices, we should keep it raising until it’s heard. I am also trying to raise this issue on every possible platform where I consider it could be heard. I think it’s not a problem of Pakistan only. There are many other Islamic states whose laws are enacted in a way that they are used as a tool to suppress human rights. So I think there should be international involvement too. United Nations and European countries should also realize the need to talk over this issue and definitely introduce a practical mechanism under which it can be assured that people wouldn’t be accused just because of their thoughts. And finally, blasphemy laws must be ended.
Jacobsen: How has the international community taken part in these efforts for Pakistani human rights activists?
Ilyas: Well, the recent development was made in the case of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was also accused in the blasphemy law. If we analyze the ground reality it was all about international pressure. But that’s not the only case. I mean it’s not enough. The international community should also realize that Asia Bibi is not the only case that needed attention. In fact, many people are suffering in prison, waiting for their trials. They also need protection, especially the protection of their fundamental rights.
Jacobsen: Any recommended activists’ cases who also need support and coverage?
Ilyas: As I mentioned earlier there’s a long list of those who had been killed by Islamists and violent mobs. Mishaal Khan is such a prominent name, the Christian couple was also set on fire. That’s also a prominent case. In these cases, justice should prevail. Furthermore, Junaid Hafeez, Ayaz Nizami, and many more should be released as soon as possible.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Fauzia.
Ilyas: Thanks to you too!!
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/16
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the British and the Americans, and the American Revolutionary War.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: One of the groups of people who received more universalized rights as persons within the United States apart from the aristocratic, white, wealthy, slave-owning males were white women. What were some of the firmaments of women’s anger at the injustices? Who were some of the original movers of this anger into positive action and progressive change? How has women’s anger been a catalytic force for women’s self-empowerment? Also, how has women’s anger been an unacknowledged, potentially, force for other positive movements for greater societal provision of equal rights and treatment to all constituents of the United States of America?
Dr. Herb Silverman: White women certainly had more rights than black slaves, but I don’t think women in general have ever been privileged. There are even some parallels between how women and enslaved people were treated. Both were expected to be passive, cooperative, and obedient to their master-husbands.
Next to my wife Sharon, my favorite women are Sarah and Angelina Grimké, sisters from Charleston, South Carolina, who lived in the 18th century and deserve to be better known than they are. Their father, Judge John Grimké, was a strong advocate of slavery and of the subordination of women. He had hundreds of slaves, and served as chief judge of the South Carolina Supreme Court. Though raised with slaves, the Grimké sisters grew to despise slavery after witnessing its cruel effects at a young age.
In 1836 Angelina wrote her Appeal to the Christian Women of the South, imploring white southern women to embrace the antislavery cause. She said, “I know you do not make the laws, but I also know that you are the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters of those who do; and if you really suppose you can do nothing to overthrow slavery, you are greatly mistaken.” Her writing drew the ire of many southerners. By the late 1830s, Sarah and Angelina were known not only as abolitionists but also as proponents of women’s rights.
The Grimké sisters left the South in the 1820s and moved to Philadelphia, where I was born, and became Quakers. At a time when it was not considered respectable (even in the North) for women to speak before mixed audiences of men and women, Sarah and Angelina boldly spoke out against slavery at public meetings. Some male abolitionists, like Frederick Douglass, supported the right of women to speak and participate equally with men in antislavery activities.
The Grimkés grew up in a Charleston house built in 1789, three blocks away from where I now live. In 2015, the Friends of the Library at the College of Charleston (where I was a math professor) unveiled a much-deserved historical marker outside the Grimké home.
The Grimké sisters were good friends with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an abolitionist and a leading figure of the early women’s rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, parallels the American Declaration of Independence, but with women included. It asserts that both men and women are endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It explains how women are oppressed by the government and a patriarchal society. Stanton calls for women’s suffrage as well as participation and representation in the government. She also refers to women’s lack of property rights, and inequality in divorce law, education, and employment opportunities. The document insists that women be full citizens, granted all the rights and privileges that are granted to men. The Seneca Falls Convention marked the start of the women’s rights movement in the United States.
Suffragette Susan B. Anthony was a good friend and collaborator with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. However, even though Anthony was an agnostic, she didn’t like Stanton’s open criticism of religion because she feared it would lose supporters for the suffragette movement. In particular, Anthony was displeased with Stanton’s publication of The Woman’s Bible, which was justifiably critical of religion. Stanton said, “The Bible and the church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the emancipation of women,” and “Surely the immutable laws of the universe can teach more impressive lessons than the holy books of all the religions on earth.” Stanton also said, ‘I have endeavored to dissipate religious superstitions from the minds of women, and base their faith on science and reason, where I found for myself at last that peace and comfort I could never find in the Bible and the church.”
After a 72-year battle for women ‘s suffrage, women finally got the vote in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Women fighting for equality during the early part of the twentieth century focused on political equality. Yet to come were issues like workplace inequality, gender pay gap, sexual harassment, violence against women, and #MeToo.
Wifehood and motherhood are no longer regarded as women’s most significant professions. Women now have more educational opportunities than ever before. Nurse and teacher (and maybe Catholic nun, if you consider this a profession) used to be pretty much the only professional positions open to women. In 1900, women earned only19 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Since 1980, women have surpassed men in the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred annually in the United States.
Regarding the question of women’s anger, women have been socialized to suppress anger and even question whether their anger is justified. A case can be made that getting angry might first be necessary before being motivated to work for change. People don’t change the world by being apathetic; they do it by getting angry and refusing to take injustice any more. Anger can be used constructively by women (and men) to fight intolerance and discrimination. Recently, female anger at Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential win spurred historic numbers of women to run for public office in 2018 and today.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/12
“Around the world, around the world…” Good Fellas: Say, “Hello,” to my Little (Scientific) Friend!
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.
Thomas H. Huxley
I’m an atheist, and that’s it. I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for people.
Katharine Hepburn
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
Carl Sagan
I’m not sure why I enjoy debunking. Part of it surely is amusement over the follies of true believers, and [it is] partly because attacking bogus science is a painless way to learn good science. You have to know something about relativity theory, for example, to know where opponents of Einstein go wrong. . . . Another reason for debunking is that bad science contributes to the steady dumbing down of our nation. Crude beliefs get transmitted to political leaders and the result is considerable damage to society.
Martin Gardner
The evidence of evolution pours in, not only from geology, paleontology, biogeography, and anatomy (Darwin’s chief sources), but from molecular biology and every other branch of the life sciences. To put it bluntly but fairly, anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant — inexcusably ignorant, in a world where three out of four people have learned to read and write. Doubts about the power of Darwin’s idea of natural selection to explain this evolutionary process are still intellectually respectable, however, although the burden of proof for such skepticism has become immense…
Daniel Dennett
My father’s family was super Orthodox. They came from a little shtetl somewhere in Russia. My father told me that they had regressed even beyond a medieval level. You couldn’t study Hebrew, you couldn’t study Russian. Mathematics was out of the question. We went to see them for the holidays. My grandfather had a long beard, I don’t think he knew he was in the United States. He spoke Yiddish and lived in a couple of blocks of his friends. We were there on Pesach, and I noticed that he was smoking.
So I asked my father, how could he smoke? There’s a line in the Talmud that says, ayn bein shabbat v’yom tov ela b’inyan achilah. I said, “How come he’s smoking?” He said, “Well, he decided that smoking is eating.” And a sudden flash came to me: Religion is based on the idea that God is an imbecile. He can’t figure these things out. If that’s what it is, I don’t want anything to do with it.
Noam Chomsky
Young earth creationism continues apace in Canadian society, and the global community (Canseco, 2018a). Canada outstrips America, and the United Kingdom outstrips Canada, in scientific literacy on this topic of the foundations of the biological and medical sciences (The Huffington Post Canada, 2012). Here we will explore a wide variety of facets of Canadian creationism with linkages to the regional, international, media, journalistic, political, scientific, theological, personality, associational and organizational, and others concerns pertinent to the proper education of the young and the cultural health of the constitutional monarchy and democratic state known as Canada. [Ed. Some parts will remain tediously academic in citation and presentation – cautioned.] Let’s begin.
To start on a point of clarification, some, as Robert Rowland Smith, seem so unabashed as to proclaim belief in creationism a mental illness (2010). Canseco (2018b) notes how British Columbia may be leading the charge in the fight against scientific denial. The claim of belief in creationism as a mental illness seems unfair, uncharitable, and incorrect (Smith, 2010). A belief – creationism – considered true and justified, which remains false and unjustified and, therefore, an irrational belief system disconnected from the natural world rather than a mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association (2019) characterizes mental illness as “Significant changes in thinking, emotion and/or behavior. Distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.”
A mental illness can influence someone who believes in creationism or not, but a vast majority of adherence to creationism seems grounded in sincere beliefs and normal & healthy social and professional functioning, not mental health issues. Indeed, it may relate more to personality factors (Pappas, 2014). Other times, deliberate misrepresentations of professional opinion exist too (Bazzle, 2015). It shows in the numbers. Douglas Todd remarks on hundreds of millions of Christians and Muslims who reject evolution and believe in creationism around the world (2014), e.g., “Safar Al-Hawali, Abdul Majid al-Zindani, Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi`i and others” in the Muslim intellectual communities alone.
On the matter of if this particular belief increases mental health problems or mental illness, it would seem an open and empirical question because of the complicated nature of mental illness, and mental health for that matter, in the first place. Existential anxiety or outright death anxiety may amount to a non-trivial factor of belief in intelligent design and/or creationism over evolution via natural selection (UBC, 2011; Tracy, Hart, & Martens, 2011). On the factual and theoretical matters, several mechanisms and evidences substantiate evolution via natural selection and common descent, including comparative genomics, homeobox genes, the fossil record, common structures, distributions of species, similarities in development, molecular biology, and transitional fossils (Long, 2014; National Human Genome Institute, 2019; University of California, Berkeley, n.d.; Rennie, 2002; Hordijk, 2017; National Academy of Sciences, 1999). Some (Krattenmaker, 2017) point to historic lows of the religious belief in creationism.
Not to worry, though, comedic counter-movements emerge with the Pastafarians from the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Josh Elliott (2014) stated, “The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was founded in 2005 as a response to Christian perspectives on creationism and intelligent design. It allegedly sprang from a tongue-in-cheek open letter to the Kansas School Board, which mocked educators for teaching intelligent design in schools.” The most distinguished scientists in Britain have been well ahead of other places in stating unequivocally the inappropriate nature of the attempts to place creationism in the science classrooms as a religious belief structure (MacLeod, 2006). Not only in law, there are creationist ‘science’ fairs for the next generations (Paley, 2001).
Politics, science, and religion become inextricably linked in Canadian culture and society because of the integration of some political bases with religion and some religious denominations with theological views masquerading as scientific theories, as seen with Charles McVety and Doug Ford (Press Progress, 2018a). Religious groups and other political organizations, periodically, show true colors (Ibid.). Some educators and researchers may learn the hard way about the impacts on professional trajectory if they decline to pursue the overarching theoretical foundations in biological and medical sciences – life sciences; some may be seen as attempting to bring intelligent design creationism into the classroom through funding council applications (Hoag, 2006; Government of Canada, 2006; Bauslaugh, 2008).
It can be seen as a threat to geoscience education too (Wiles, 2006). According to Montgomery (2015), the newer forms of young earth creationists with a core focus on the biblical accounts alone rather than a joint consideration with the world around us take a side step from the current history. “For the first thousand years of Christianity, the church considered literal interpretations of the stories in Genesis to be overly simplistic interpretations that missed deeper meaning,” Montgomery stated, “Influential thinkers like Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas held that what we could learn from studying the book of nature could not conflict with the Bible because they shared the same author” (Ibid.). Besides, the evidence can be in the granite too (Plait, 2008).
There does appear a significant decline in the theological and religious disciplines over time (McKnight, 2019). Khan (2010) notes the ways in which different groups believe in evolution or not. In fact, he (Ibid.) provides an index to analyze the degree to which belief groups accept evolution or believe in creationism. These beliefs exist in a weave alongside antivaccination at times (oracknows, 2016). Even for foundational questions of life and its origin, we come to the proposals reported by and found within modern science (Schuster, 2018). There continue to exist devoted podcasts (Ruba, 2019) to the idea of a legitimate – falsely, so-called – conversations about creationism.
Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist (2018d) reflected on the frustration of dealing with dishonest or credulous readings of the biological and geological record by young earth creationists in which only some, and in already confirming-biases, evidence gets considered for the reportage within the young earth creationist communities by the young earth creationist journalists or leadership. Live Science (2005) may have produced the most apt title on the entire affair with creationism as a title category unto itself with the description of an “Ambiguous Assault on Evolution” by creationism. There continue to be book reviews – often negative – of the productions of some theorists in the creationist and the intelligent design camps (Cook, 2013; Collins, 2006; Asher, 2014). Others praise books not in favour of creationism or intelligent design (Maier, 2009).
Mario Canseco in Business in Vancouver noted the acceptance by Canadians of evolution via natural selection and deep biological-geological time at 68% (2018b). One report stated findings of 40% of Canadians believing in the creation of the Earth in 6 days (CROP, 2017). The foundational problem comes from the meaning of terms in the public and to the community of professional practitioners of science/those with some or more background in the workings of the natural world, and then the representation and misrepresentation of this to the public. There is work to try violate the American Constitution to enforce the teaching of creationism, which remains an open claim and known claim by creationist leaders too (American Atheists, 2018).
We can see this in the public statements of leaders of countries as well, including America, in which the term “theory” becomes interpreted as a hunch or guess rather than an empirically well-substantiated hypothesis defined within the sciences. We can find the same with the definitions of terms including fact, hypothesis, and law:
- Fact: In science, an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed and for all practical purposes is accepted as “true.” Truth in science, however, is never final and what is accepted as a fact today may be modified or even discarded tomorrow.
- Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
- Law: A descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated circumstances.
- Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate facts, laws, inferences, and tested hypotheses. (NSCE, n.d.)
This happened with American Vice-President Mike Pence, stating, “…a theory of the origin of species which we’ve come to know as evolution. Charles Darwin never thought of evolution as anything other than a theory. He hoped that someday it would be proven by the fossil record but did not live to see that, nor have we.” (Monatanari, 2016). As Braterman (2017) stated – or corrected, “The usual answer is that we should teach students the meaning of the word ‘theory’ as used in science – that is, a hypothesis (or idea) that has stood up to repeated testing. Pence’s argument will then be exposed to be what philosophers call an equivocation – an argument that only seems to make sense because the same word is being used in two different senses.” Vice-President Mike Pence equivocated on the word “theory.”
Some politicians, potentially a harbinger of claims into the future as the young earth creationist position becomes more marginal, according to O’Neil (2015), “Lunney told the House of Commons that millions of Canadians are effectively ‘gagged’ as part of a concerted effort by various interests in Canada to undermine freedom of religion.” Intriguingly enough, and instructive as always, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) conducted Project Steve as a parody and an homage to the late Stephen Jay Gould, in which the creationists’ attempt to portray evolution via natural selection as a “theory in crisis” through the gathering of a list of scientists who may disagree with Darwin (n.d.) becomes one methodology to attempt to refute it or to sow doubt in the minds of the lay public. One American teacher proclaimed evolution should not be taught because of origination in the 18th century (Palma, 2019). One may assume for Newtonian Mechanics for the 17th and 18th centuries. RationalWiki, helpful as always, produced a listing of the creationists in addition to the formal criteria for inclusion on their listing of creationists (RationalWiki, 2019d), if curious about the public offenders.
Unfortunate for creationists, and fortunate for us – based on the humor of the team at the NCSE, there is a collected list of scientists named “Steve” who agree with the findings in support of evolution via natural selection in order to point to the comical error of reasoning in creationist circles because tens of thousands of researchers accept evolution via natural selection – and a lot with the name Steve alone – while a select fraction of one percent do not in part or in full (Ibid.). Still, one may find individuals as curators as in the case of Martin Legemaate who maintains Creation Research Museum of Ontario, which hosts creationist or religious views on the nature of the world. In the United States, there is significant funding for creationism on public dollars (Simon, 2014). Answers in Genesis intended to expand into Canada in 2018 (Mehta, 2017a) with Calvin Smith leading the organizational national branch (Answers in Genesis, 2019a). Jim McBreen wrote a letter commenting on personal thoughts about theories and facts, and evolution (McBreen, 2019). Over and over again, around the world, and coming back to Canada, these ideas remain important to citizens.
York (2018) wrote an important article on the link between the teaching of creationism in the science classroom and the direct implication of institutes built to set sociopolitical controversy over evolution when zero exists in the biological scientific community of practicing scientists. Other theories propose “interdimensional entities” in a form of creationism plus evolutionary via natural selection to explain life (Raymond, 2019). Singh (n.d.) argues for the same. This does not amount to a traditional naturalistic extraterrestrial intelligent engineering of life on Earth with occasional interference or scientific intervention, and experimentation, on the human species, or some form of cosmic panspermia.
This seems more akin to intelligent design plus creationism and an assertion of additional habitable dimensions and travellers between their dimension and ours. In other words, more of the similar without a holy scripture to inculcate it. [Ed. As some analysis shows later, this may relate to conspiratorial mindsets in order to fill the gap in knowledge or to provide cognitive closure.] Whether creationism or intelligent design, as noted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2019a):
“Intelligent design” creationism is not supported by scientific evidence. Some members of a newer school of creationists have temporarily set aside the question of whether the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe are billions or just thousands of years old. But these creationists unite in contending that the physical universe and living things show evidence of “intelligent design.” They argue that certain biological structures are so complex that they could not have evolved through processes of undirected mutation and natural selection, a condition they call “irreducible complexity.” Echoing theological arguments that predate the theory of evolution, they contend that biological organisms must be designed in the same way that a mousetrap or a clock is designed – that in order for the device to work properly, all of its components must be available simultaneously….
…Evolutionary biologists also have demonstrated how complex biochemical mechanisms, such as the clotting of blood or the mammalian immune system, could have evolved from simpler precursor systems…
… In addition to its scientific failings, this and other standard creationist arguments are fallacious in that they are based on a false dichotomy. Even if their negative arguments against evolution were correct, that would not establish the creationists’ claims. There may be alternative explanations…
… Creationists sometimes claim that scientists have a vested interest in the concept of biological evolution and are unwilling to consider other possibilities. But this claim, too, misrepresents science…
… The arguments of creationists reverse the scientific process. They begin with an explanation that they are unwilling to alter – that supernatural forces have shaped biological or Earth systems – rejecting the basic requirements of science that hypotheses must be restricted to testable natural explanations. Their beliefs cannot be tested, modified, or rejected by scientific means and thus cannot be a part of the processes of science.
Disagreements exist between the various camps of creationism too. These ideas spread all over the world from the North American context, even into secular Europe (Blancke, & Kjærgaard, 2016). Canada remains guilty as charged and the media continue in complicity at times. Pritchard (2014) correctly notes the importance of religious views and the teaching of religion, but not in the science classroom. Godbout (2018) made the political comparison between anti-SOGI positions and anti-evolution/creationist points of view. This reflects the political reality of alignment between several marginally scientific and non-scientific views, which tend to coalesce in political party platforms or opinions.
Copeland (2015) mused, and warned in a way, the possibility of the continual attacks on empirical findings, on retention of scientists, on scientific institutes and research, reducing the status of Canada. This seems correct to me. He said:
- High-level science advice has been removed from central agencies and is non-existent in the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, despite trends to the contrary almost everywhere else;
- Science-based departments, funding agencies and NGOs have faced crippling budget cuts and job losses — 1,075 jobs at Fisheries and Oceans and 700 at Environment Canada alone;
- Opaque, underhanded techniques, such as the passage of the omnibus budget bill C-38 in June 2012, have weakened, reduced or eliminated scientific bodies, programs and legislative instruments. These include the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Nuclear Safety Control Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Species at Risk Act.
- Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol and earned distinction as a “Lifetime Unachiever” and “Fossil of the Year”, while promoting the development of heavy oil/tar sands, pipelines, asbestos exports and extractive industries generally;
- The long form census was abolished — against the advice of everyone dependent upon that data — prompting the resignation of the Chief Statistician;
- Rare science books have been destroyed and specialized federal libraries and archives closed or downsized;
- Commercially promising, business-friendly, applied R&D has been privileged over knowledge-creating basic science in government laboratories;
- Scientists have been publically rebuked, are prevented from speaking freely about their research findings to the public, the media or even their international colleagues, and are required to submit scholarly papers for political pre-clearance (Ibid.)
To an American context, this can reflect a general occurrence in North America in which the Americans remain bound to the same forms of problems. The attempts to enter into the educational system by non-standard and illegitimate means continues as a problem for the North Americans with an appearance of banal and benign conferences with intentional purposes of evangelization. One wants to assume good will. However, the work for implicit evangelizations seems unethical while the eventual open statements of the intent for Christian outreach in particular seems moral as it does not put a false front forward. Indeed, some creationists managed to construct and host a conference at Michigan State University (MSU) in East Lansing (Callier, 2014). It was entitled “The Origin Summit” with superordinate support by the Creation Summit (Ibid.) Creation Summit states:
Our Mission
Creation Summit: confronting evolution where it thrives the most, at universities and seminaries!
We may have been banned from the classroom, but banned does not mean silenced. By booking the speakers and renting the facilities on or near college campuses, we can and still do have an impact for proclaiming the truth of science and the Bible.
Our Strategy
Creation Summit is visiting college and university campuses through-out the country, bringing world renowned scientists before the students. Modern sciences from astronomy to genetics have shown that Darwin’s story is no longer even a feasible theory. It just does not work. It is only a matter of getting the word out to the next generation. So we work with local Creation groups and schedule a seminar with highly qualified scientists with tangible evidence as speakers. Many of these scientists were once evolution believers, but their own research convinced them that evolution is not viable. Students, many for the first time ever, are discovering that the Bible is true – that science and Genesis are in total agreement. And, if Genesis 1:1 can be trusted, so can John 3:16. (Creation Summit, 2019)
A partisan group hosting a partisan and religious conference with the explicit purpose of reducing the quality of cultural knowledge, of science, on campuses, as they bring “scientists [who] were once evolution believers, but their own research convinced them that evolution is not viable” (Ibid.). Mike Smith, the executive director of the student group at MSU, at the time stated, the summit is “not overtly evangelistic… we hope to pave the way for evangelism (for the other campus ministries) by presenting the scientific evidence for intelligent design. Once students realize they’re created beings, and not the product of natural selection, they’re much more open to the Gospel, to the message of God’s love & forgiveness” (Ibid.).
There can be inflammatory comparisons, as in the white nationalist and teaching & creationism and teaching example of Robins-Early (2019). This comes in a time of the rise of ethnic nationalism, often from the European heritage portions of the population, but also in other nation-states with religion and ultra-nationalism connected to them. Creationists see evolution as intrinsically atheistic and, therefore, a problem as taught in a standard science classroom. Beverly (2018) provided an update to the Christian communities in how to deal with the problem – from Beverly’s view and others’ perspectives – of “atheistic evolution.” Beverley stated, “The battle line that emerged at the conference is the same one that surfaced in 1859 when Charles Darwin released his famous On the Origin of Species. Then and now Christians separate into two camps – those who believe God used macroevolution (yes, Virginia, we descended from an ape ancestor about 7 million years ago), and those who abhor that theory (no, Virginia, God brought us here through special creation)… Leaders in all Christian camps agree that one of the main threats to faith in our day is the pervasiveness of atheistic evolution.” (Ibid.).
Their main problem comes from the evolution via natural selection implications of non-divine interventionism in the development of life within the context of the fundamental beliefs asserted since childhood and oft-repeated into theological schools, right into the pulpits. The same phenomenon happened with the prominent and intelligent, and hardy – for good reason, Rev. Gretta Vosper or Minister Gretta Vosper (Jacobsen, 2018m; Jacobsen, 2018n; Jacobsen, 2018o; Jacobsen, 2019n; Jacobsen, 2019o; Jacobsen, 2019q; Jacobsen, 2019r).
One can see the rapid growth in the religious groups, even in secular and progressive British Columbia with Mark Clark of Village Church (Johnston, 2017). Some note the lower education levels of the literalists, the fundamentalists and creationists, into the present, which seems more of a positive sign on the surface (Khan, 2010). Although, other trends continue with supernatural beliefs extant in areas where creationism diminishes. Supernaturalism seems inherent in the beliefs of the religious. Some 13% of American high school students accept creationism (Welsh, 2011). Khan (2010) notes the same about Alabama and creationism, in which the majority does not mean correct. Although, some Americans find an easier time to mix personal religious philosophy with modern scientific findings (Green, 2014). Christopher Gregory Weber (n.d.) and Phil Senter (2011) provide thorough rejections of the common presentations of a flood geology and intelligent design.
Garner reported in the Independent on the importance of the prevention of the teaching of creationism as a form of indoctrination in the schools, as this religious philosophy or theological view amounts to one with attempted enforcement – by religious groups, organizations, and leaders, often men – into the curricula or the standard educational provisions of a country (2014). Professor Alice Roberts (Ibid.) stated, “People who believe in creationism say that by teaching evolution, you are indoctrinating them with science but I just don’t agree with that. Science is about questioning things. It’s about teaching people to say ‘I don’t believe it until we have very strong evidence.’”
Vanessa Wamsley (2015) provided a great introduction to the ideal of a teacher in the biology classroom with education on the science without theist evangelization or non-theist assumptions:
Terry Wortman was my science teacher from my sophomore through senior years, and he is still teaching in my hometown, at Hayes Center Public High School in Hayes Center, Nebraska. He still occasionally hears the question I asked 16 years ago, and he has a standard response. “I don’t want to interfere with a kid’s belief system,” he says. “But I tell them, ‘I’m going to teach you the science. I’m going to tell you what all respected science says.’
Randerson (2008) provides an article from over a decade ago of the need to improve educational curricula on theoretical foundations to all of the life science. As Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society – circa 2008, said, “I realised that simply banging on about evolution and natural selection didn’t lead some pupils to change their minds at all. Now I would be more content simply for them to understand it as one way of understanding the universe” (Ibid.).
Indeed, some state, strongly, as Michael Stone from The Progressive Secular Humanist, the abuse of children inherent in teaching them known wrong or factually incorrect ideas, failed hypotheses, and wrong theories about the nature of nature in addition to the enforcement of a religious philosophy in a natural philosophy/science classroom (2018). In any case, creationism isn’t about proper science education (Zimmerman, 2013).
Creation Ministries International – a major creationist organization – characterizes creationism and evolution as in a debate, not true (Funk, 2017). Pierce (2006), akin to Creation Ministries International, tries to provide an account of the world from 4,004 BC. People can change, young and old alike. Luke Douglas in a blog platform by Linda LaScola, from The Clergy Project, described a story of being a young earth creationist at age 15 and then became a science enthusiast at age 23 (2018). It enters into the political realm and the social and cultural discourses too. For example, Joe Pierre, M.D. (2018) described the outlandish and supernatural intervention claimed by Pat Robertson in the cases of impending or ongoing natural disasters. This plays on the vulnerabilities of the suffering.
However, other questions arise around the reasons for this fundamental belief in agency behind the world in addition to human choice rather than human agency alone. Dr. Jeremy E. Sherman in Psychology Today (2018), who remains an atheist and a proper scientist trained in evolutionary theory, attempts to explain the sense of agency and, in so doing, reject the claims of Intelligent Design. Regardless of the international, regional, and national statuses, and the arguments for or against, America remains a litigious culture. Creationists and Intelligent Design proponents met more than mild resistance against their religious and supernaturalist, respectively, philosophies about the world, as noted by Bryan Collinsworth at the Center for American Progress.
He provided some straightforward indications as to the claims to the scientific status of Intelligent Design only a year or thereabouts after the Kitzmiller v Dover trial in 2005. Legal cases, apart from humour as a salve, exist in the record as exemplifications of means by which to combat non-science as propositions or hypotheses, or more religious assertions, masquerading as science. All this and more will acquire some coverage in the reportage here.
Court Dates Neither By Accident Nor Positive Evidence for the Hypothesis
The theory that religion is a force for peace, often heard among the religious right and its allies today, does not fit the facts of history.
Steven Pinker
I feel like I have a good barometer of being more of a humanist, a good barometer of good and bad and how my conduct should be toward other people.
Kristen Bell
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other religions were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.
Oliver Stone
God, once imagined to be an omnipresent force throughout the whole world of nature and man. has been increasingly tending to seem omniabsent. Everywhere, intelligent and educated people rely more and more on purely secular and scientific techniques for the solution of their problems. As science advances, belief in divine miracles and the efficacy of prayer becomes fainter and fainter.
Corliss Lamont
There exists indeed an opposition to it [building of UVA, Jefferson’s secular college] by the friends of William and Mary, which is not strong. The most restive is that of the priests of the different religious sects, who dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of day-light; and scowl on it the fatal harbinger announcing the subversion of the duperies on which they live. In this the Presbyterian clergy take the lead. The tocsin is sounded in all their pulpits, and the first alarm denounced is against the particular creed of Doctr. Cooper; and as impudently denounced as if they really knew what it is.
Thomas Jefferson
A common error in reasoning comes from the assertion of the controversy, where an attempt to force a creationist educational curricula onto the public and the young fails. This becomes a news item, or a series of them. It creates the proposition of a controversy within the communities and, sometimes, the state, even the nation, as a plausible scenario as the public observes the latter impacts of this game – literally, a game with one part including the Wedge Strategy of Intelligent Design proponents – playing out (Conservapedia, 2016; Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture, n.d.). The Wedge Strategy was published by the Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture out of the Discovery Institute as a political and social action plan with a serious concern over “Western materialism that (it claims) has no moral standards” and the main tenets of evolution create a decay in ethical standards because “materialists… undermined personal responsibility,” and so was authored to “overthrow… materialism and its cultural legacies” (Conservapedia, 2016). The Discovery Institute planned three phases:
Phase I. Scientific Research, Writing & Publicity
Phase II. Publicity & Opinion-making
Phase III. Cultural Confrontation & Renewal
(Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture, n.d.)
The Discovery Institute (Ibid.) argued:
The proposition that human beings are created in the image of God is one of the bedrock principles on which Western civilization was built. Its influence can be detected in most, if not all, of the West’s greatest achievements, including representative democracy, human rights, free enterprise, and progress in the arts and sciences.
Yet a little over a century ago, this cardinal idea came under wholesale attack by intellectuals drawing on the discoveries of modern science. Debunking the traditional conceptions of both God and man, thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud portrayed humans not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment…
…The cultural consequences of this triumph of materialism were devastating…
…Materialists also undermined personal responsibility by asserting that human thoughts and behaviors are dictated by our biology and environment. The results can be seen in modern approaches to criminal justice, product liability, and welfare. In the materialist scheme of things, everyone is a victim and no one can be held accountable for his or her actions.
The strategy of a wedge into the institutions of the culture to renew the American landscape, and presumably resonating outwards from there, for the recapture of the citizenry with the ideas of “Western civilization,” human beings created in the “image of God,” and the rejection of Darwinian, Marxian, and Freudian notions of the human race as not “moral and spiritual beings” (Ibid.). As this game continues to play out, more aware citizens can become irritated and litigious about the infringement of Intelligent Design and creationism in the public schools through an attempted enforcement.
Then the response becomes a legal challenge to the attempted enforcement. From this, some of the creationist community cry victim or utilize this legal challenge as a purported example of the infringement on their academic freedom, infringement on their First Amendment to the American Constitution right to freedom of speech or “free speech,” or the imposition of atheism and secular humanism on the public (the Christian community, the good people), and the like; when, in fact, this legal challenge arose because of the work to bypass normal scientific procedure of peer-review, and so on, and then trying to force religious views in the science classroom – often Christian. Some creationist and biblical fundamentalist outlets point to the calls out of creationism as non-science, i.e., it goes noticed (The Bible is the Other Side, 2008). It even takes up Quora space too (2018).
Although indigenous cosmologies, Hindu cosmology, Islamic theology, and so on, remain as guilty in some contexts when asserted as historical rather than metaphorical or religious narratives with edificative purposes with, for example, some aboriginal communities utilizing the concept of the medicine wheel for counselling psychological purposes. Some remain utterly firm in devotion to a fundamentalist reading or accounting of Genesis, known as “literal Genesis,” as a necessity for scriptural inerrancy to be kept intact, as fundamental to the theology of the Christian faith without errors of human interpretation, and to the doctrines so many in the world hold fundamentally dear (Ross Jr., 2018). The questions may arise about debating creationists, which Bill Nye notes as an important item in the public relations agenda – not in the scientific one as no true controversy exists within the scientific community (Quill & Thompson, 2014). Nye explained personal wonder at the depth of temporality spoken in the moment here, “Most people cannot imagine how much time has passed in the evolution of life on Earth. The concept of deep time is just amazing” (Ibid.).
Hanley talked about the importance of sussing out the question of whether we want to ban creationism or teach from the principles of evolution to show why creationism is wrong (2014). Religion maintains a strong hold on the positions individuals hold about the origin and the development of life on Earth, especially as this pertains to cosmogony and eschatology – beginning and end, hows and whys – relative to human beings (Ibid.). Duly noting, Hanley labelled this a “minefield”; if the orientation focuses on the controversial nature of teaching evolution via natural selection, and if the mind-fields – so to speak – sit in religious, mostly, minds, then the anti-personnel weapons come from religion, not non-religion (Ibid.). Religion becomes the problem.
This teaching evolution, or not, and creationism, or not, continues as a global problem (Harmon, 2011). Harmon stated, “Some U.K. pro–intelligent design (ID) groups are also pushing to include ‘alternatives’ to evolution in the country’s national curriculum. One group, known as Truth in Science, calls for allowing such ideas to be presented in science classrooms—an angle reminiscent of ‘academic freedom’ bills that have been introduced in several U.S. states. A 2006 overhaul of the U.K. national curriculum shifted the focus of science instruction to highlight ‘how science works’ instead of a more ‘just the facts’ approach” (Ibid.).
Ghose, on education and religion links to creationism, stated, “About 42 percent espoused the creationist view presented, whereas 31 percent said God guided the evolutionary process, and just 19 said they believe evolution operated without God involved. Religion was positively tied to creationism beliefs, with more than two-thirds of those who attend weekly religious services espousing a belief in a young Earth, compared with just 23 percent of those who never go to church saying the same. Just over a quarter of those with a college degree hold creationist beliefs, compared with 57 percent of people with such views who had at most a high-school education, the poll found.”
Pappas (2014b) sees five main battles for evolutionary theory as taught in modern science against creationism: the advances of geology in the 1700s and the 1800s, the Scopes Trial, space race as a boon to the need for science – as Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson notes almost alone on the thrust of scientific advancement and funding due to wartimes stoked (e.g., the Americans and the Soviets), ongoing court battles, and the important Dover, Pennsylvania school board battle. Glenn Branch at the National Center for Science Education provided a solid foundation, and concise one, of the levels of who accepted, or not, the theory of evolution in several countries from around the world stating:
The “evolutionist” view was most popular in Sweden (68%), Germany (65%), and China (64%), with the United States ranking 18th (28%), between Mexico (34%) and Russia (26%); the “creationist” view was most popular in Saudi Arabia (75%), Turkey (60%), and Indonesia (57%), with the United States ranking 6th (40%), between Brazil (47%) and Russia (34%).
Consistently with previous polls, in the United States, acceptance of evolution was higher among respondents who were younger, with a higher level of household income, and with a higher level of education. Gender was not particularly important, however: the difference between male and female respondents in the United States was no more than 2%.
The survey was conducted on-line between September 7 and September 23, 2010, with approximately 1000 participants per country except for Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Russia, and Turkey, for which there were approximately 500 participants per country; the results were weighted to balance demographics. (2011a)
We can find creationist organizations around the world with Creation Research and Creation Ministries International in Australia, CreaBel in Belgium, Sociedade Criacionista Brasileira – SCB, Sociedade Origem e Destino, and Associação Brasilera de Pesquisa da Criação in Brazil, Creation Science Association of Alberta, Creation Science Assoc. of British Columbia (CSABC), Creation Science of Manitoba, L’Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, Creation Science of Saskatchewan, Inc. (CSSI), Ian Juby – Creation Science Research & Lecturing, Big Valley Creation Science Museum, Creation Truth Ministries, Mensa – International Creation Science SIG, Creation Research – Canada, Creation Ministries International – Canada, and Amazing Discoveries in Canada, Assoc. Au Commencement in Franch, SG Wort und Wissen and Amazing Discoveries e. V. in Germany, Noah’s Ark Hong Kong in Hong Kong, Protestáns Teremtéskutató Kör and Creation Research – Eastern Europe in Hungary, Creation Science Association of India and Creation Research And Apologetics Society Of India in India, and Centro Studi Creazionismo in Italy (Creationism.Org, 2019).
Furthermore, クリエーション・リサーチ/Creation Research Japan – CRJ and Answers in Genesis Japan in Japan, Korea Assn. for Creation Research – KACR in Korea, gribu zināt in Latvia, CREAVIT (CREAndo VIsion Total) and Científicos Creacionistas Internacional in Mexico, Degeneratie of Evolutie?, Drdino.nl, and Mediagroep In Genesis in Netherlands, Creation Ministries International – New Zealand and Creation Research in New Zealand, Polish Creation Society in Poland, Parque Discovery in Portugal, Tudományos Kreacionizmus in Romania, Russia (None listed, though nation stated), SIONSKA TRUBA in Serbia, Creation Ministries International – Singapore in Singapore, Creation Ministries International – South Africa and Amazing Discoveries in South Africa, SEDIN – Servicio Evangelico Coordinadora Creacionista in Spain, The True.Origin Archive and Centre Biblique European in Switzerland, Christian Center for Science and Apologetics in Ukraine, and Creation Science Movement, Creation Ministries International – United Kingdom, Biblical Creation Society, Daylight Origins Society, Answers in Genesis U.K., Edinburgh Creation Group, Creation Resources Trust, Creation Research – UK, Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, and Creation Discovery Project in the United Kingdom (Ibid.). Mehta (2019b) described the “weird” nature of some of the anti-evolution content produced by organizations such as the Discovery Institute, best known for Intelligent Design or ID. In these contexts of creationist and Intelligent Design groups attempting to enforce themselves on the population, American, at a minimum, court cases arise.
Of the most important court cases in the history of creationism came in the form of the Scopes Trial or the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, H.L. Mencken became more famous and nationally noteworthy, and historically, with the advent of this reportage on Tennessean creationist culture and anti-evolution laws in which individuals who taught evolution would be charged, and were charged, as in the case of John T. Scopes (Jacobsen, 2019). The cases reported by the NCSE (2019) notes the following other important cases:
1968, in Epperson v. Arkansas
1981, in Segraves v. State of California
1982, in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education
1987, in Edwards v. Aguillard
1990, in Webster v. New Lenox School District
1994, in Peloza v. Capistrano School District
1997, in Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education
2000, Minnesota State District Court Judge Bernard E. Borene dismissed the case of Rodney LeVake v Independent School District 656, et al.
January 2005, in Selman et al. v. Cobb County School District et al.,
December 20, 2005, in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover
This points to the American centrality of the legal challenges and battles over biological sciences education in the public schools of the United States. The inimitable Eugenie C. Scott (2006) stated, “Judge John Jones III, the judge in the Kitzmiller case, was not persuaded that ID is a legitimate scientific alternative to evolution… the judge’s decision—laid out in a 139-page ruling—[stated] that ID was merely a form of creationism. His ruling that the new ID form of creationism is a form of religion and thus its teaching in science classes is unconstitutional is of course a great victory for science and science education.”
NCSE (n.d.) takes the stand on evolution as follows, “Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to ‘intelligent design,’ to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation’s public schools.”
I agree with the thrust of the statement; however, I disagree on the representation of creationism as a single set of belief structures or hypotheses about the world with creationism as such because the different formulations of the interpretations of religious orthodoxy exist within the record and into the present. These can include the young earth creationism, old earth creationism, theistic evolution, deistic creationism, rapid speciation, microevolution only (no macroevolution, i.e., speciation), intelligent design, and evolution via natural selection (nontheistic) views about the development, speciation, and growth of life on Earth (RationalWiki, 2019a).
I find the misrepresentation of the incorrect views, religious and theological orientations, of biological life not “scientifically inappropriate” but “pedagogically irresponsible” as this oversimplifies the issue and may not properly arm or equip students in their conversations with creationists, as the approach becomes creationism in general rather specific creationism(s), or in particular. The problem with creationism does not lie in the sciences in general.
Barbara J. King provided a decent rundown as to the hows and whys of evolution and the how nots and why nots of creationism (2016). In either case, for laughs and insight, though mean-spirited at times, one can return the deceased American journalist H.L. Mencken and commentary on the Scopes trial. As Fern Elsdon-Baker in The Guardian notes, trust in science exists – not trust in evolution – is the core issue, which makes this biological science specific rather than other sciences, scientific methodology, or scientific findings in general, as the source of the sociopolitical controversy (2017). As we may reasonably infer from some reading between the lines, though uncertain, the focus comes from sectors of religious communities and interpretations of religious writings as factual accounts about the foundations and development, and so history, of the world and life. If looking at the writings of the prominent creationists, there can be, at times, conflations between biological sciences and physical sciences including cosmology in which “creationism,” as such, refers to “creation of the cosmos and life” instead of “creation of life alone.”
In fact, Elsdon-Baker (Ibid.) states, “Even more unexpectedly, 70% in the UK and 69% in Canada who expressed some personal difficulty with evolution also said they felt experts in genetics were reliable, even though genetics is a fundamental part of evolutionary scientific research.” In other words, as you may no doubt tell, we come to the realization of a specific denial, suspicion, or rejection of the community consensus or the evidence on this specific scientific issue alone, which may, potentially, point to the problem sitting with the specific disinformation and misinformation campaigns coming from the creationist circles. In other words, a long, ongoing, and recent history of the court battles for the inclusion of religion in the science, or not, with the cases overwhelmingly setting the precedent of religion as not science and, therefore, not permissible inside of the science classroom or the science curricula of America.
The Global Becomes Local, the Local Becomes Tangential
I could never take the idea of religion very seriously.
Joyce Carol Oates
My introduction to humanism was when my sixth grade teacher, seeing I had a decidedly secular bent, suggested I look up Erasmus and the Renaissance. The idea that mankind could create a better future through science and industry was very appealing to me. Organized religion just got in the way.
John de Lancie
In 1986, Gloria Steinem wrote that if men got periods, they ‘would brag about how long and how much’: that boys would talk about their menstruation as the beginning of their manhood, that there would be ‘gifts, religious ceremonies’ and sanitary supplies would be ‘federally funded and free’. I could live without the menstrual bragging – though mine is particularly impressive – and ceremonial parties, but seriously: Why aren’t tampons free?
Jessica Valenti
I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty—and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.
Kurt Vonnegut
True character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others.
Edward O. Wilson
If it were up to me, I would not define myself by the absence of something; “theist” is a believer, so with “atheist” you’re defining yourself by the absence of something. I think human beings work on yes, not on no. … humanist is a great term. …except that humanism sometimes is not seen as inclusive of spirituality. To me, spirituality is the opposite of religion. It’s the belief that all living things share some value. So I would include the word spiritual just because it feels more inclusive to me. Native Americans do this when they offer thanks to Mother Earth and praise the interconnectedness of “the two-legged and the four, the feathered and the clawed,” and so on. It’s lovely. … because it’s not about not believing. It’s about rejecting a god who looks like the ruling class.
Gloria Steinem
This connects to the global context of acceptance of the theoretical underpinnings and mass of empirical findings in support of evolution via natural selection compared to young earth creationism. As Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist, on other countries and religious versus scientific views in the political arena, notes, “…in the other countries, science and religion are not playing a zero-sum game” (Mehta, 2017a). He continues, “A new survey from YouGov and researchers at Newman University in Birmingham (UK) finds that only 9% of UK residents believe in Creationism. Canada comes in at 15%. It’s shockingly low compared to the 38% of people in the U.S. who think humans were poofed into existence by God a few thousand years ago. And on the flip side, 71% of UK respondents accept evolution (both natural and guided by God) along with 60% of Canadians. (In the U.S.? That number is 57%.)” (Mehta, 2017d; Swift, 2017; Hall, 2017). The statistical data differ for various surveys on the public. However, an important marker is the closeness of the outcomes in the numbers of individuals who believe in creationism or accept evolution.
Based on a 32-year-long survey, we can note the declines over decades in Australia, too (Archer, 2018). Of course, the ways in which questions on surveys get asked can shift the orientation of the participants in the surveys (Funk et al, 2019). Even so, some of the remarkable data about the United States indicates a wide acceptance of science qua science with the advancements bringing benefits to material comfort and wellbeing (Pew Research Center, 2009). Opposition to science from some religious circles exists within the historical record including Roman Catholic Christian Church’s opposition to the findings of Galileo Galilei in defense of the Copernican model of the Solar System with the Sun at the center and the discoveries of Charles Darwin about the general mechanisms for the changes in organisms over deep time with evolution via natural selection (Ibid.).
At the same time, “For centuries, throughout Europe and the Middle East, almost all universities and other institutions of learning were religiously affiliated, and many scientists, including astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus and biologist Gregor Mendel (known as the father of genetics), were men of the cloth,” Pew Research continued, “Others, including Galileo, physicist Sir Isaac Newton and astronomer Johannes Kepler, were deeply devout and often viewed their work as a way to illuminate God’s creation. Even in the 20th century, some of the greatest scientists, such as Georges Lemaitre (the Catholic priest who first proposed what became known as the Big Bang theory) and physicist Max Planck (the founder of the quantum theory of physics), have been people of faith” (Ibid.). The world remains a complicated place – clichés can fail to capture it. Even though, the thrust of creationism and Intelligent Design comes from religious institutions and devout individuals, except, perhaps, Dr. David Berlinski.
Nonetheless, the professional community of biological scientists or individuals with the necessity of a unified theory of the differentiation of life, as found in Darwinian theory and not creationism or Intelligent Design, for the proper comprehension of the natural world of life, of biology, or plant and animal life from the highest levels of professional scientific expertise rebuke – to use a theological term – assertions of creationists and Intelligent Design advocates (ACLU, n.d.a). Arguments from authority or quote-mining do not make much sense. However, arguments from authoritative authorities, e.g., major scientific bodies as those below, or quotes to add spice to an article, i.e., as those at the tops of section headings of this article, can make a certain sense – much more so than quote mining of individual scientists to attempt to refute evolution via natural selection rather than run the experiments to support or not – always not, so far – creationism or Intelligent Design.
The list of organizations against the teaching of creationism and Intelligent Design in the science classrooms amounts to a significant number of the major scientific bodies in the United States, which remains a massive scientific powerhouse:
National
Academy of Sciences
Those who oppose the teaching of evolution in public schools sometimes ask that
teachers present evidence against evolution. However, there is no debate within
the scientific community over whether evolution occurred, and there is no
evidence that evolution has not occurred. Some of the details of how evolution
occurs are still being investigated. But scientists continue to debate only the
particular mechanisms that result in evolution, not the overall accuracy of
evolution as the explanation of life’s history.
American
Association for the Advancement of Science
The [intelligent design] movement has failed to offer credible scientific
evidence to support their claim that ID undermines the current scientifically
accepted theory of evolution… the lack of scientific warrant for so-called
intelligent design theory’ makes it improper to include as a part of science
education.
American
Anthropological Association
The Association respects the right of people to hold diverse religious beliefs,
including those who reject evolution as matters of theology or faith. Such
beliefs should not be presented as science, however. Science describes and
explains the natural world: it does not prove or disprove beliefs about the
supernatural.
National
Association of Biology Teachers
Scientists have firmly established evolution as an important natural process.
Experimentation, logical analysis, and evidence-based revision are procedures
that clearly differentiate and separate science from other ways of knowing. Explanations
or ways of knowing that invoke non-naturalistic or supernatural events or
beings, whether called creation science,’ scientific creationism,’ intelligent
design theory,’ young earth theory,’ or similar designations, are outside the
realm of science and not part of a valid science curriculum.
Geological
Society of America
In recent years, certain individuals motivated by religious views have mounted
an attack on evolution. This group favors what it calls creation science,’
which is not really science at all because it invokes supernatural phenomena.
Science, in contrast, is based on observations of the natural world. All
beliefs that entail supernatural creation, including the idea known as
intelligent design, fall within the domain of religion rather than science. For
this reason, they must be excluded from science courses in our public schools.
American
Institute of Biological Sciences
The theory of evolution is the only scientifically defensible explanation for
the origin of life and development of species. A theory in science, such as the
atomic theory in chemistry and the Newtonian and relativity theories in
physics, is not a speculative hypothesis, but a coherent body of explanatory
statements supported by evidence. The theory of evolution has this status.
Explanations for the origin of life and the development of species that are not
supportable on scientific grounds should not be taught as science.
The
Paleontological Society
Because evolution is fundamental to understanding both living and extinct
organisms, it must be taught in public school science classes. In contrast,
creationism is religion rather than science, as ruled in recent court cases,
because it invokes supernatural explanations that cannot be tested.
Consequently, creationism in any form (including scientific creationism,
creation science, and intelligent design) must be excluded from public school
science classes. Because science involves testing hypotheses, scientific
explanations are restricted to natural causes.
Botanical
Society of America
Science as a way of knowing has been extremely successful, although people may
not like all the changes science and its handmaiden, technology, have wrought.
But people who oppose evolution, and seek to have creationism or intelligent
design included in science curricula, seek to dismiss and change the most
successful way of knowing ever discovered. They wish to substitute opinion and
belief for evidence and testing. The proponents of creationism/intelligent
design promote scientific ignorance in the guise of learning. (Ibid.)
The authority of science as a methodology and its steady erosion of faith with an incremental rise in the amount of evidence present creates problems for religious laity and some leadership. Take, for example, one of the largest religious denominations in the world. Science and the authority of scientific functional discoveries about the natural world changes the view of ardent faithful leaders, including amongst the leadership of the largest hierarchical organization on the planet.
The Roman Catholic Christian Pope affirms evolution via natural selection with a theological twist, but without creationist turns of the supernatural (Elliott, 2014). Hindu and Sunni Islam as huge religious denominations harbour different sentiments, or different flavours of similar orientations. Other times, the wide acceptance in some faiths can result in some states and branches of faiths combined rejecting, in a rather dramatic manner, the fundamental theory in all of life science. This can result in creationist and state-based activist backlash and repression of the population through an attack on their ability to self-inform about the most updated views of the nature of reality, of the world. Adnan Oktar, one of the main proponents of creationism in the Middle East, got caught in some shenanigans – criminal, legal, and otherwise (Branch, 2018). Aydin (2018) reported in Hurriyet Daily News:
Oktar’s deputy, Tarkan Yavaş, escaped during the police raid, according to security sources who stressed that the suspect was armed.
Some 79 suspects in the case were detained by noon July 11.
According to the detention warrant, Oktar and his followers are accused of forming a criminal organization, sexual abuse of children, sexual assault, child kidnapping, sexual harassment, blackmailing, false imprisonment, political and military espionage, fraud by exploiting religious feelings, money laundering, violation of privacy, forgery of official documents, opposition to anti-terror law, coercion, use of violence, slander, alienating citizens from mandatory military service, insulting, false incrimination, perjury, aggravated fraud, smuggling, tax evasion, bribery, torture, illegal recording of personal data, violating the law on the protection of family and women, and violating a citizen’s rights to get education and participate in politics.
In fact, Turkey banned the teaching of evolution (Williams, 2017). Williams said, “Turkey’s move to ban the teaching of evolution contradicts scientific thinking, and tries to turn the scientific method into a belief system – as if it were a religion. It seeks to introduce supernatural explanations for natural phenomena, and to assert that some form of truth or explanation for nature beyond nature. The ban is unscientific, undemocratic and should be resisted” (2017). The trial opened on Oktar and 225 associates in September of 2019 (The Associated Press).
According to Professor Rasmus Nielsen, a Danish biologist and professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, the most severe cases of the banning and censure of the teaching of evolution via natural selection comes from the Middle East and North Africa region with cases including Saudi Arabia as the worst of the worst and other populations of students and teachers in Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey rejecting the evidence somewhere between 25% and 75%, depending on the country (2016).
“The majority of Middle Eastern and North African scientists are, like scientists in the rest of the world, firmly convinced about the principles of evolution. However, they are often isolated and lack scientific networks. Examples of researchers that do great work on teaching evolution, often in isolation, include Rana Dajani at the Department of Molecular Biology at Hashemite University in Jordan and my good friend and former postdoc Mehmet Somel from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey,” Nielsen explained, “Mehmet is a stellar new young researcher who is building up a very strong research group in evolutionary biology in Ankara, in the middle of increased direct and indirect pressure on the universities from Davutoğlu and Erdoğan’s Islamist government. There are serious worries that the government in Turkey is engaged in a process of reducing intellectual freedom at Turkish universities” (Ibid.).
The decline in the numbers who identify as creationist, of the waning of the days of much creationism in several parts of the world, comes with some signals to this slow and steady demise over time, but the “decline” may only appear as a decline without necessarily existence as a demise – perhaps an interlude or asymptote rather than a denouement. Of course, there exist hyper-optimists. Even Bill Nye may take a pollyannish mindset on the hardiness of beliefs in creationism, he posits the death throes of creationism in 20 years, presumably in America.
“In the United States there’s been a movement to put creationism in schools — this sort of pseudoscience thing — instead of the fact of life… People fight this fight in court constantly, and it wouldn’t matter except we need people to solve the world’s problems,” Nye said (Kennedy, 2014). The Kansas case in America became a phenomenon, dramatic. CBC (2005) provided some insight as to the 2005 dramatic events in Kansas and with leading scientists and researchers inside the United States and, presumably, elsewhere:
- In September 2005, four months after this broadcast, 38 Nobel Prize-winning scientists sent a joint letter to the Kansas State Board of Education, arguing against the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom. “Intelligent design is fundamentally unscientific,” they wrote. “It cannot be tested as a scientific theory because its central conclusion is based on belief in the intervention of a supernatural agent.”
- In November 2005, the Kansas board voted 6-4 in favour of teaching intelligent design.
- The U.S. National Science Teachers Association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science and publications from Yale, Harvard and UCLA have all dismissed intelligent design as a pseudoscience.
Even by leading Roman Catholic Jesuit intellectuals and scientists, they consider intelligent design bad science and bad theology. Still, the United Kingdom banned creationism outright (Kaufman, 2014). A ban in a time of increased persecution of humanist activists around the world; a time with the increased persecution of open humanists (Humanists International, 2019). As Adam Laats and Harvey Siegel (2016) remark on the correct point of some creationists, in which the attempt to force religion on people would be a human rights problem, however, evolution does not equate to a religion and, therefore, cannot amount to a religious orientation or theory about the world (2016), making this line of creationist complaint moot or argumentation invalid, unsound.
Ken Ham views literalism as the only legitimate manner in which to believe in Christianity (Ross Jr., 2018), which, in essence, makes other Christians into heretics or heretical Christians. One can find highly trained and intelligent individuals including Dr. Hugh Ross who maintains an old earth creationist view and critiques, heavily, the young earth creationist viewpoint on the nature of the world (RationalWiki, 2019c).
With an old earth creationism, he adheres to a progressive creationism, which means one methodology to maintain the fundamentalist view on creation with a still-major modification of the scientific evidence in support of the age of the earth or life complementing the biblical interpretations of the world – theological views of the world (Ibid.). Indeed, he rejects the idea of intelligent design as a scientific hypothesis and, thus, rejects intelligent design (Ibid.). He founded Reasons To Believe (2019).
The religious orientation of creationism remains an open secret with few or no one from the mainstream community of journalists and media personalities in Canada simply reading the statements of the websites of the associations and the individuals involved in the creationist efforts in Canada. Something to praise of the creationists more than the Intelligent Design advocates: honest and transparent on the websites as to their ministerial visions of the world and targeted objectives for the wider culture. The religious tone reflects cognitive biases. As Nieminen (2015) stated, “Creationism is a religiously motivated worldview in denial of biological evolution that has been very resistant to change. We performed a textual analysis by examining creationist and pro-evolutionary texts for aspects of ‘experiential thinking’, a cognitive process different from scientific thought.” Nieminen went on to describe testimonials, confirmation bias, simplification of data, experiential thinking, and logical fallacies pervaded the mindset of creationist thought (Ibid).
Some, including Jerry Coyne, do not accept the thrust of the intelligent design movement with support from biologists and judges in the United States (2019). Even at the individual level, others, such as Sarah Olson, continue the fight for personal enlightenment against the standard ignorance and misinformed education of youth, who impressively worked out the more accurate view about the nature of the world (Olson, 2019). To point more to the problem as religion in education, Answers in Genesis will teach a Bible-based worldview in the classroom in a Christian school (Smith, 2019). So it goes.
This Ain’t No Pillow Fight: Combat for Minds, Battles for Values, and Wars for Ideological Survival
I’m an atheist.
Dax Shepherd
The media—stenographers to power.
Amy Goodman
People tend to romanticize what they can’t quite remember.
Ira Flatow
Jesus is said to have said on the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Because Jesus was insane and the God he thought would rescue him did not exist. And he died on that cross like a fool. He fancied himself the son of God and he could barely convince twelve men to follow him at a time when the world was full of superstition.
Cenk Uygur
The problem of unsafe abortion has been seriously exacerbated by contraceptive shortages caused by American policies hostile to birth control, as well as by the understandable diversion of scarce sexual health resources to fight HIV. All over the planet, conflicts between tradition and modernity are being fought on the terrain of women’s bodies. Globalization is challenging traditional social arrangements. It is upsetting economic stability, bringing women into the workforce, and beaming images of Western individualism into the remotest villages while drawing more and more people into ever growing cities. All this spurs conservative backlash, as right-wingers promise anxious, disoriented people that the chaos can be contained if only the old sexual order is enforced. Yet the subjugation of women is just making things worse, creating all manner of demographic, economic, and public health problems.
Michelle Goldberg
If it were up to me, I would not define myself by the absence of something; “theist” is a believer, so with “atheist” you’re defining yourself by the absence of something. I think human beings work on yes, not on no. … humanist is a great term. …except that humanism sometimes is not seen as inclusive of spirituality. To me, spirituality is the opposite of religion. It’s the belief that all living things share some value. So I would include the word spiritual just because it feels more inclusive to me. Native Americans do this when they offer thanks to Mother Earth and praise the interconnectedness of “the two-legged and the four, the feathered and the clawed,” and so on. It’s lovely. … because it’s not about not believing. It’s about rejecting a god who looks like the ruling class. I like to say that the last five-to-ten thousand years has been an experiment that failed and it’s now time to declare the first meeting of the post-patriarchal, post-racist, post-nationalist age. So let’s add “post-theological.” Why not?
Gloria Steinem
Several signals point to problems within the communities of the young earth creationist, old earth creationist, and the flat earth communities. Those who take these hypotheses as serious challenges to Darwinian theory (Masci, 2019). They exist in non-trivial numbers. Signals of a decline in the coherence of the creationist communities including the in-fighting between individuals who adhere to a flat earth theory of the structure of the world and creationists, or between young earth creationists and old earth creationists. An old earth becomes the next premise shift, as the dominoes fall more towards standard interpretations of empirical evidence provided through sciences (Challies, 2017; Graham; 2017). It can cross well beyond the realm of the absurd into young earth creationists mocking believers in the theory of the flat earth, as taking the biblical accounts of the world with an interpretation seen as much too direct for them (Mehta, 2017b).
There can be in-fighting and ‘debate’ between young earth creationists and old earth creationists (Mehta, 2018b). Esther O’Reilly at Young Fogey stated, “It’s not every day that you get to see Ken Ham pick a fight with Matt Walsh, but it happened this week, after the conservative firebrand posted a video explaining why he rejects young Earth creationism. Walsh states emphatically that the evidence has spoken loudly across multiple disciplines, that this is not a hill anybody should be dying on, and that evangelical Christians are damaging the impact of their witness by making it so” (O’Reilly, 2018; Matt Walsh, 2018; Ham, 2018).
As Hemant Mehta stated, “Pat Robertson dismissed Young Earth Creationism as ‘nonsense’ that’s ‘so embarrassing’ and how all that ‘6,000-year stuff just doesn’t compute’” (Mehta, 2019c). Ken Ham, CEO and Founder of Answers in Genesis, stated, “It’s not those of us who take God at his Word who are ‘embarrassing,’ it’s the other way around! Those like Pat Robertson who adopt man’s pagan religion, which includes elements like evolutionary geology based on naturalism (atheism), and add that to God’s Word are destructive to the church. This compromise undermines the authority of the infallible Word” (Ibid.).
As a result, Ken Ham wants Pat Robertson to visit the Ark Encounter (Mehta, 2019f). Prominent creationists, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, wanted to – and probably still want to – save America from the evils of evolution through the ongoing, and seemingly never-ending, 150+ year battle over evolution with an emphasis on the construction of and distribution of their own On the Origin of the Species (Hinman, 2009). Cameron wanted to save America with a movie, too. Mehta (2017c) stated, “You know, conservative Christians got us into this mess. I don’t trust them to get us out of it. I especially don’t trust people who got together right before the election to do the exact same thing when that clearly failed. Whatever they were doing, it pissed God off something fierce. Why would He be on their side now? I’m also not sure how Cameron plans to unite people when his personal goals involve blocking women from ever obtaining an abortion and convincing transgender people it’s all in their minds.”
Even for those with, more or less, inerrant view of some of the standard North American purported holy texts, the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community – at least some – do not want to teach the perspective or theory of the world, the earth, as only 6,000-years-old, as this amounts to a “lie” (Mehta, 2018c). They stated, “As reported by the JC last week, last months’ notice from the UOHC warned strictly orthodox educational institutions not to sign contracts with councils for early years funding, because the [Department of Education] guidelines state councils should not fund institutions which present ‘creationism as fact.’ The notice stated that ‘they place great doubts, Heaven forfend, in the creation of the world with the lie that the world is ancient, may their mouths be filled with earth. ‘This is a lie that earlier sages of blessed memory contended with, and now they wish to infiltrate us with this falsehood’” (Ibid.). In the Canadian portion of North America, we can find the differences in the provinces and some correlates with education, age, and political and social orientation (e.g., left or right ideological commitments). The NCSE reported on some of this back in 2011.
Glenn Branch (2011b) at the National Center for Science Education stated, “According to Ekos’s data tables (PDF, pp. 77-79), creationism was strongest in the Atlantic provinces (25.1 percent) and Alberta (18.8 percent), stronger among women (18.8 percent) than men (9.5 percent), stronger among those with “right” ideology (22.4 percent), and stronger with those who attended religious services more than once in the past three months (38.4 percent). The “natural selection” option was particularly popular among respondents in Quebec (67.6 percent), less than twenty-five years old (73.9 percent), with university education (72.8 percent), and with “left” ideology (74.2 percent).” The gap in the numbers emerge more in America than elsewhere, as we can see. In fact, some questions around the foundations of consciousness remaining incomprehensible form a reason for doubting evolutionary processes, for the claims of evolution via natural selection among atheists in the United Kingdom and in Canada.
On the point about human consciousness, for instance, Catherine Pepinster in Religion News spoke to an important concern of the unexplained as a gap in the acceptance or full endorsement of evolution via natural selection (2017). She states:
- Around 64 percent of adults in the U.K. found it easy to accept evolutionary science as compatible with their personal beliefs; it was lower for Canadian adults at 50 percent.
- Somewhat fewer people with religious beliefs found evolution easy to square with their faith: 53 percent in the U.K. and 41 percent in Canada.
- 1 in 5 U.K. atheists and more than 1 in 3 Canadian atheists were not satisfied with evolutionary theory. Specifically, they agreed that “evolutionary processes cannot explain the existence of human consciousness.” (Ibid.)
As stated in The Sensuous Curmudgeon (2018), “Our understanding is that Canada has nothing like the Constitutional separation of church and state which prevails in the US, so we can’t really evaluate their opinions about what their schools should teach,” in response to survey data about school curricula. This may create problems into the future as the teaching of evolution may face ongoing attacks on its legitimacy in illegitimate and dishonest ways on the basis, often, of literal reading of a purported holy text.
Douglas Todd in the Vancouver Sun (2017) spoke to two concerns about the advancement of the fundamental idea in all of life science. Todd agrees with some of the aforementioned points. He stated:
There are two major obstacles to a rich public discussion on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and what it means to all of us. The most obvious obstacle is religious literalism, which leads to Creationism.
It’s the belief the Bible or other ancient sacred texts offer the first and last word on how humans came into existence. The second major barrier to a rewarding public conversation about the impact of evolution on the way we understand the world is not named nearly as much.
It is “scientism.”
Scientism is the belief that the sciences have no boundaries and will, in the end, be able to explain everything in the universe. Scientism can, like religious literalism, become its own ideology.
The Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics defines scientism as “an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of natural science to be applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences and the humanities).”
(Ibid.)
P.Z. Myers notifies the public to the, more or less, creationist, more directly teleological, orientation of some in Silicon Valley with some of their views on the nature of simulations and the universe (2016). This seems more complete trust in the notion of the progress of scientific knowledge leading to the moral advancement of the species. Nick Bostrom, Paul Davies, Elon Musk, Sean M. Carroll, David Chalmers, and others posit a simulation universe as more probable than a natural universe. A natural universe would host the simulation universe. One needs stable enough universes for natural entities to evolve and some of the beings sufficiently technologically inclined and intelligent to produce powerful technologies, and then have an interest in the production of simulations of the real universe in the first place.
However, one needs a natural universe for a simulation universe, as a host universe for the virtual universe. In other words, the probability sits not on the side of simulation, but on the side of natural as the ground probability state for the universe inhabited by us. Unless, of course, one posits an extremely large number of simulated universes within one natural universe. In other words, the Bostrom, Davies, Musk, Carroll, Chalmers, and others crowd seem wrong in one consideration of naturality versus virtuality and correct in another on the assumption of the civilizations with an orientation towards mass simulation, where this leads to some brief thoughts about the future of science with novel principles to become adjunct to standard principles of modern science as an evolved, and evolving, epistemology: proportionality of evidence to claims, falsifiability, parsimony, replicability, ruling out rival hypotheses, and distinguishing causation from correlation. These provide a foundation for comprehension of the natural world as a derivation from centuries of science with some positing epistemological naturalism as foundational to the scientific methodology or epistemology, as supernatural methodologies or supernatural epistemologies failed in coherence or in the production of supportive evidence.
The next principles on science will include precision in the fundamental theories and correlations unfathomed by current human science in which simulatability becomes the next stage of scientific epistemology, where computation becomes more ubiquitous and the utilization of computations to construct artificial environments to test hypotheses about the real world in artificial ones created to simulate the real world (while in the real world, as a real embedment with the virtual). The virtual becomes indistinguishable from the real at this level. At that point, when the virtual modelling becomes indistinguishable from the ‘real’ world insofar as we model the world from our sensory input and processing, the virtual will be virtual by old definitions, but will be seen as real by practical definitions. Then the new science should be simulation science.
Scientific skepticism, naturalism, and the like seems the most accurate view on the nature of the world. Most religious interpretations are teleological and seem more and more like failed philosophies. One can observe this in the decline in fundamentalist religion and in the decline of theology as a discipline. It is increasingly seen as something that people once did before proper science to put boundaries on any metaphysical speculation. In some way, the physical seems like as a limited form of materialism and materialism as a limited form of naturalism and naturalism as a limited form of informationism/informationalism. Some science incorporates simulations now. However, it is expensive. Cheap information processing further into the future will mean cheap simulations, and so cheap simulatability and the emergence of simulation as a derivative of scientific methodology into a principle of science. The over-trust in the advancements of science, though, to Todd (2011), reflects the feeling of fundamentalist Christians.
This being upset “at what they characterize as a liberal attack on the family, many evangelical leaders – like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Benny Hinn, Sarah Palin and Canada’s Charles McVety – take combative stands, which the conflict-hungry news media gobble up,” Todd stated (Ibid.). The media, according to Todd (Ibid.), remains complicit in this sensationalism with deleterious effects on the general culture. The general public and academia can be wiser at times. Counter events to educate about the evolutionary critiques against intelligent design exist too (McGill University, 2006). Some consequences even arise with the earning of tenure for some “intelligent design” professors (Slabaugh, 2016). However, the subtle use of language for political effect may imbue social and political power to religious ideas. In America, these can become significant issues with the ways in which political language can be code for creationism as noted by Waldman (2017). Freethought people can struggle for inclusion in the general public, too.
Some preliminary research indicates atheists treat Christians better than Christians treat atheists (Stone, 2019). One may extrapolate, though on thin preliminary evidence, the differential bidirectional treatment of atheists to non-Christians and non-Christians to atheists as a real phenomenon. Sometimes, secular people form community in the form of satire out of frustration or for general fun. The era where Pastafarians continue to struggle for acceptance by the wider community at any rate (Henley, 2019). To the question of teaching creationism alongside evolution in the science classroom, America gets harder problems, as in the school board candidates in St. Louis (Mehta, 2019a). Barbara A. Anderson wanted to teach both; Louis C. Cross III wanted “all aspects” addressed; and William Haas avoided the question and considered the “least of our” (their) problems as creationism and intelligent design (Ibid.). Public figures and politicians, and policymakers, set the tone for a country.
They hold an immense responsibility in North America and abroad to characterize science in an accurate way. Religious communities should clean their own house too. Otherwise, for private and personal religious beliefs, these can become seen front and center for the funding of religious projects with public money. For example, one such project came in the Ark Encounter in Petersburg, Kentucky. The Ark hired 700 people to build it, which came to the price tag of $120-million dollars (Washington Post, 2017). Ken Ham intends the Ark Encounter to reach the general public with his supposed gospel akin to the attractions for science to the public through “Disney or Universal or Smithsonian” (Ibid.). 42,000 small donors funded the Ark (Ibid.). Religion becomes political, becomes politics.
Define “Global” and “Diverse” for Me
It is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works.
Isaac Asimov
I am also atheist or agnostic (I don’t even know the difference). I’ve never been to church and prefer to think for myself.
Steve Wozniak
There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.
Stephen Hawking
Am I a criminal? The world knows I’m not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You’ve lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.
Jack Kevorkian
When I worked on the polio vaccine, I had a theory. Experiments were done to determine what might or might not occur. I guided each one by imagining myself in the phenomenon in which I was interested. The intuitive realm is constantly active—the realm of imagination guides my thinking.
Jonas Salk
I never professed any theology. And it’s complicated by my Jewishness. Obviously, being Jewish is both an ethnicity and a religion. I was concerned that if I were to explicitly disavow any religiosity, it could get distorted into an effort to distance myself from being Jewish—and I thought that was wrong, given that there is anti-Jewish prejudice.
For years I would go to temple, but I suddenly realized it doesn’t mean anything to me. So I decided, I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to pretend. During my service I never pretended to be a theist. It just never became relevant that I wasn’t, and I guess I was not as conscious of the discrimination nontheists felt. But I’ve always been opposed to any imposition of religion. I fought hard, for example, with other members of Congress to oppose any notion that a religious group getting federal funds could discriminate in hiring.
When I took the oath of office, I never swore and said, “So help me God.”
Barney Frank
As Ryan D. Jayne, Staff Attorney at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, in response to a recent conservative article, stated, “A recent article by a creationist hack for the National Review (the flagship conservative publication) preposterously argues that Canada is stifling religious freedom and that we are headed in the same direction. But Canada is doing just fine, thank you very much, and the U.S. government needs less religion, not more.” Jayne, astute in the concision of a proper and educated response, pointed to the state of affairs in secular democracies – to varying degrees, e.g., Canada and the United States, and then in theocracies, e.g., Iran and Saudi Arabia. Obviously, the intuitive understanding comes in the form of the level of restriction of religious freedom found in these areas.
“The best way to protect religious freedom is to keep the government secular. This includes enforcing laws that give protections regardless of the whims of the majority religion. A law prohibiting female genital mutilation in a Muslim-majority country would not have much effect if it allowed Muslims to opt out of the law for religious reasons,” Jayne continued, “and would be tantamount to the government simply sanctioning the abhorrent religious practice… Advocates of religious freedom only oppose state/church separation when they are comfortably in the majority and trust their government to favor their particular set of religious beliefs” (Ibid.).
Creationism in a number of ways represents a mind set or a state of mind. It seems, as a postulation, as if a reflection of a fundamentalist mindset outsourced into one domain with a happenstance in the biological sciences. The origin of the universe and life, and so us, treads directly on the subject matter of evolution via natural selection with the importance of the biological sciences and some proclamations of religious faith. This can seem rather straightforward, but this creates some issues, too. Not only limited to the United States or Canada, as reported by the University of Toronto, the creationist movement went into a global phenomenon (Rankin, 2012). Rankin continues to note the original flavor of creationism as breaking apart into “young Earth creationism, intelligent design and creationism interpreted through the lens of other world religions” (Ibid.). The numbers of the creationist movement, in its modern manifestation, continue to increase with the varieties as well as the numbers (Ibid.). An increase well beyond the borders of the United States and the Christian faith (Ibid.).
Noting, of course, the fundamental belief in the Christian creationist movements with the artificer of life and, in some interpretations, the cosmos as the Christian God, even in the genteel foundational individuals of the more sophisticated movement entitled Intelligent Design, i.e., Dr. William Dembski – a well-educated, highly intelligent, and polite person – who said, “I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God” (Environment and Ecology, 2019). In short, the final premise of the Intelligent Design movement becomes “the Christian God” with every other item as a conditional upon which “the Christian God” becomes the eventual conclusion of the argument. This does not represent a diversity. The undertone remains other religions may harbour some eventual truth in them insofar as they adhere to some principles or beliefs best defined as Christian.
“Sometimes I marvel at my own naiveté. I wrote The End of Christianity thinking that it might be a way to move young-earth creationists from their position that the earth and universe are only a few thousand years old by addressing the first objection that they invariably throw at an old-earth position, namely, the problem of natural evil before the Fall. I thought that by proposing my retroactive view of the Fall, that I was addressing their concern and thus that I might see some positive movement toward my old-earth position,” Dembski confessed, “Boy, was I ever wrong. As a professional therapist once put it to me, the presenting problem is never the real problem. I quickly found out that the young-earth theologians I was dealing with were far less concerned about how the Fall could be squared with an old earth than with simply preserving the most obvious interpretation of Genesis 1–3, namely, that the earth and universe are just a few thousand years old. Again, we’re talking the fundamentalist impulse to simple, neat, pat answers. Now I’ll readily grant that the appeal to complexity can be a way of evading the truth. But so can the appeal to simplicity, and fundamentalism loves keeping things simple” (Rosenau, 2016).
It represents, mostly, a Christian movement with a wide variety of institutes and other organizations connected within it, including Access Research Network, Biologic Institute, Center for Science & Culture at Discovery, Institute Intelligent Design & Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, Intelligent Design Network, and Intelligent Design Undergraduate Research Center (Access Research Network, 2019; Biologic Institute, 2019; Discovery Institute, 2019; IDEA, 2019; Intelligent Design Network, 2019; IDURC, 2019). The movement spread into the Islamic and Hindu worlds too (Rankin, 2012), as reported, “For example, in the 1980s the Turkish Minister of Education asked the Institute for Creation Research in the United States to translate Scientific Creationism into Turkish. Since then creationism has been taught in Turkey’s high school science curriculum.” This non-scientific and religious movement exists in Australia, South America, and South Korea now (Ibid.), including amongst Israeli and American Jewish fundamentalists who formed the Torah Science Foundation in 2000 (Ibid.).
One can find this in religious groupings too. According to the Hare Krishna, “First, Maha-Vishnu transforms some of His spiritual energy into the primordial material elements. He then glances over them, activating them with the energy of time, which underlies all transformations in the material world. Matter then evolves from subtle elements (sound, form, touch, etc.) to gross (earth, water, fire, etc.)” (2019). Then sound becomes the most important element in the creation of the world, in particular the hearing and speaking of spiritual sound, received from the Vedas or its spiritual world for the freedom of the souls to achieve a material creation (Ibid.). This amounts to a creationism.
Leslie Scrivener (2007) more than a decade ago reported on the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a spoof on the Intelligent Design movement based on the creations of an Oregon State University physics graduate named Bobby Henderson. Henderson wrote, “Let us remember there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster” (Ibid.).
For the Raëlian religion or movement, there were messages dictated to an individual named Rael as to how the life on Earth is not the product of a supernatural engineer or a random world with a non-random naturalistic selection process, but, rather, the creations of a “scientifically advanced people” who chose to make beings in their own image in a process called scientific creationism (Ashliman, 2003). In examination of these movements more as this helps provide a basis to see the ideational movement in the society with regards to the non-scientific propositions floating around the minds of the public, including famous and creative types, who further provide popular cover for these views with movies including the following – media complicit once more:
- Origins (IMDb, 1985) with Russ Bixler, Donn S. Chapman, and Paul Nelson.
- The Genesis Solution (IMDb, 1987) with Ken Ham.
- Steeling the Mind (IMDb, 1993) with Kent Hovind.
- Genesis: The Creation and the Flood (IMDb, 1994) with Annabi Abdelialil, Omero Antonutti, and Sabir Aziz.
- Startling Proofs (IMDb, 1995) with Dave Breese, Keith Davies, and David Harris.
- A Question of Origins (IMDb, 1998) with Roger Oakland, Dan Sheedy, and Mark Eastman.
- Genesis: History or Myth (IMDb, 1999a) with Kent Hovind, Nick Powers, and Terry Prewitt.
- Creation Seminar (IMDB, 1999) with Kent Hovind.
- Earth: Young or Old? (IMDb, 2000a) with John Ankerberg, Hugh Ross, and Kent Hovind.
- Creation Science 102 (IMDb, 2000b) with Kent Hovind.
- Creation Science 101 (IMDb, 2001a) with Kent Hovind.
- Creation Science 103 (IMDb, 2001b) with Kent Hovind.
- Creation Science 104 (IMDb, 2001c) with Kent Hovind.
- Christ in Prophecy. (IMDb, 2002) with David Reagan, Nathan Jones, and Jobe Martin.
- The Creation Adventure Team: A Jurassic Ark Mystery (IMDb, 2003a) with Buddy Davis, Andy Hosmer, and Brad Stine.
- Answering the Critics (IMDb, 2003b) with Kent Hovind, Eric Hovind, and Jonathan Sampson.
- A Creation Evolution Debate (IMDb, 2003c) with Kyle Frazier, Hugh Hewitt, and Kent Hovind.
- Six Days & the Eisegesis Problem (IMDb, 2003d) with Ken Ham
- Design: The Evolutionary Nightmare (IMDb, 2004a) with Tom Sharp.
- Creation in the 21st Century (IMDb, 2004b) with David Rives, Carl Baugh, and Bruce Malone.
- Evolutionism: The Greatest Deception of All Time (IMDb, 2004c) with Tom Sharp.
- The Genesis Conflict (IMDb, 2004d) with Walter J. Veith.
- Three on One! At Embry Riddle (IMDb, 2004e) with Kent Hovind, Jim Strayer, and R. Luther Reisbig.
- Old Earth vs. Young Earth (2004f) with Jaymen Dick and Kent Hovind.
- Berkeley Finally Hears the Truth (IMDb, 2004g) with Kent Hovind.
- The Big Question (IMDb, 2005b) with Rupert Hoare, Roger Phillips, and John Polkinghorne.
- Creation Seminar (IMDb, 2005a) with Kent Hovind.
- Creation Boot Camp (IMDb, 2005c) with Daniel Johnson, Eric Hovind, and Kent Hovind.
- The Intelligent Design Movement: How Intelligent Is It? (IMDb, 2005d) with Georgia Purdom.
- The Case for a Creator (IMDb, 2006a) with Lee Strobel, Tom Kane, and Don Ranson.
- Dinosaurs and the Bible (IMDb, 2006b) with Jason Lisle.
- Noah’s Flood: Washing Away the Millions of Years (IMDb, 2006c) with Terry Mortenson.
- The Longevity Secret: Is Noahs Ark the Key to Immortality? (IMDb, 2007a) with T. Lee Baumann, John Baumgardner, and Walter Brown.
- Creation and Evolution: A Witness of Prophets (IMDb, 2007b) by James F. Stoddard III.
- Ancient Secrets of the Bible (IMDb, 2007c) with Richard S. Hess, Grant Jeffrey, and Michael Shermer.
- Faithful Word Baptist Church (IMDb, 2007d) with Steven L. Anderson, David Berzins, and Roger Jimenez.
- Noah’s Ark: Thinking Outside the Box (IMDb, 2007e) with Mark Looy, John Whitcomb, and Ken Ham.
- God of Wonders (IMDb, 2008b) with John Whitcomb, Dan Sheedy, and Don B. DeYoung.
- Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (IMDb, 2008a) with Ben Stein, Lili Asvar, and Peter Atkins.
- Red River Bible & Prophecy Conference (IMDb, 2008c) with David Hocking, James Jacob Prasch, and Carl Teichrib.
- The Earth Is Young (IMDb, 2009a) with Michael Gitlin.
- Evolutionist vs. Evolution (IMDb, 2009b) with Walter Brown, Kent Hovind, and Kenneth Miller.
- The Creation: Faith, Science, Intelligent Design (IMDb, 2010a) with Robert Carr, Art Chadwick, and Alvin Chea.
- All Creatures Great and Small: Microbes and Creation (IMDb, 2010b) with Georgia Purdom.
- Wonder of the Cell (IMDb, 2010c) with Georgia Purdom.
- Creation Today (IMDb, 2011a) with Eric Hovind, Paul Taylor, and Ben Schettler, and ongoing into the present as a television series.
- Genesis Week (IMDb, 2011b) with Ian Juby and Vance Nelson for 23 episodes.
- Starlight and a Young Earth (IMDb, 2011c) with Charles Jackson.
- Hard Questions for Evolutionists (IMDb, 2011c) with Kent Hovind.
- Creation Bytes! (IMDb, 2012a) with Paul Taylor.
- What’s Wrong with Evolution? (IMDb, 2012b) with Eric Hovind, John Mackay, and Paul Taylor.
- Not All ‘Christian’ Universities Are Christian (IMDb, 2012c) with Jay Seegert, Eric Hovind, and Paul Taylor.
- The Six Days of Genesis (IMDb, 2012d) with Paul Taylor.
- Deconstructing Dawkins (IMDb, 2012e) with Paul Taylor.
- Prometheus (IMDb, 2012f) with Noomi Rapace, Logan Marshall-Green, Michael Fassbender.
- How to Answer the Fool (IMDb, 2013b) with Sye Ten Bruggencate and Eric Hovind.
- Evolution vs. God: Shaking the Foundations of Faith (IMDb, 2013a) with Ray Comfort, Kevan Brighting, and Alessandro Bianchi.
- The Interview: Past, Present, Future (IMDb, 2013c) with John Mackay and Ken Ham.
- Creation Training Initiative (IMDb, 2013d) with Mike Riddle, Buddy Davis, and Carl Kerby.
- The Comfort Zone (IMDb, 2013e) with Ray Comfort, Emeal Zwayne, and Mark Spence.
- Creation and the Last Days (IMDb, 2014a) with Ken Ham, Richard Dawkins, and Paul Zachary Myers.
- Post-Debate Answers Live W/Ken Ham (IMDb, 2014b) with Ken Ham and Georgia Purdom.
- The Pre & Post Debate Commentary Live (IMDb, 2014c) with Eric Hovind, Paul Taylor, and Terry Mortenson.
- Design(er) (IMDb, 2014d) with Georgia Purdom.
- The Genetics of Adam & Eve (IMDb, 2014e) with Georgia Purdom.
- Dr. Kent Hovind Q&A (IMDb, 2015a) with Kent Hovind, Mary Tocco-Hovind, Bernie Dehler.
- Open-Air Preaching (IMDb, 2015b) with Ray Comfort and Emeal Zwayne.
- A Matter of Faith (IMDb, 2016a) with Jordan Trovillion, Jay Pickett, and Harry Anderson.
- Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels (IMDb, 2014) with Donald Batten, Alessandro Bianchi, and Pieter Borger.
- Kent Hovind: An Atheist’s Worst Nightmare (IMDb, 2016a) with Michael Behe and Kirk Cameron.
- The Building of the Ark Encounter (IMDb, 2016b) with Craig Baker, Brad Benbow, and Ken Ham.
- The Atheist Delusion (IMDb, 2016c) with Tim Allen, Ray Comfort, and Richard Dawkins.
- Alien: Covenant (IMDb, 2017) with Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, and Billy Crudup.
With some reflection, one can note the lengths some believers of fundamentalist stripes must strive in order for coherence in the worldview, but one who affirms the evidence of evolution via natural selection first becomes much less stuck in the mud.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury of the Church of England stated, “I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it’s not a theory alongside theories. It’s not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said well, how am I going to explain all this… ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” (BBC News, 2002; BBC News, 2009) Indeed, Andrew Brown in The Guardian correctly identified the manner in which the focus on creationism as a Christian phenomenon limits the reach or scope of understanding on the nature of the problem (2009). PEW Research (2009) identified one of the main issues as the theological implications of the theory of evolution. The populations in the United States who appear below the average of the nation in acceptance of evolution via natural selection are the Jehovah’s Witnesses (8% accept), Mormons (22% accept), Evangelical Protestants (24% accept), historically Black Protestant (38% accept), and Muslims (45% accept) (Khan, 2009).
In fact, the ADL defined creationism, creation science, and intelligent design as religious and supernatural accounts of the world, where science deals with the natural and, thus, the views of creationism, creation science, and intelligent design amount to non-scientific and theological/supernatural propositions (2019), as you may no doubt recall in some of the conclusions from the court cases or legal contexts in the United States from earlier. The Freedom From Religion Foundation of Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker provides summarization of creationism, too, in an article by Andrew L. Seidel (2014). The Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren (2019) state:
Many Bible scholars have pointed out that the Genesis account of creation gives a Hebrew poetic description of the reality that God created the heavens and the earth by his word. A detailed scientific explanation of how God’s word brought creation into existence is not in view in the biblical narratives of creation. Rather, as scholars have shown, these narratives contrast markedly with ancient Near Eastern myths about cosmic origins. Unlike the deities in other texts who are depicted as giving birth to the material world, the God of the Bible speaks creation into existence. The Bible reveals a divine presence that is both intimate in its closeness and exalted in its transcendence. God is invisible, yet accessible to those who seek him in a faithful response to his self-revelation. Moreover, although God’s wisdom is revealed in the working of the natural order, the depths of God’s wisdom are beyond the reach of human understanding.
From a Christian perspective, the biblical description of God’s creative work is also necessary for understanding human nature. Christians af rm the clear statement of Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth. As the pinnacle of creation, human beings are the deliberate work of God. Human beings are created in the image of God. Atheistic models of evolutionary origins are incompatible with the biblical witness when they fail to account for human beings bearing the image of God.
In terms of the physical world, the Bible tells that God created matter from nothing, and then ordered the chaotic matter into an ordered reality (Genesis 1:1-2; Romans 4:17; Colossians 1:15-16; Hebrews 11:3). Historically, Christian theologians have interpreted this as meaning creation ex nihilo—out of nothing.3 This point is important for a number of reasons. First, it reminds us that only God is eternal, and that God’s ordered creation serves his plan. Second, in expressing that God has brought creation to be out of nothing, the biblical authors express the power of the Creator God. Third, Scripture reveals that God is distinct from creation, and sovereignly rules over it. (2019)
RationalWiki catalogues some religious orientations on creationism: Buddhism, Judeo-Christianity, Islam, Hare Krishna, Raëlism, and None (2019a). PEW Research provided a summary of some of the views of the various religious groups (2009), in which they stated:
Buddhism
Many Buddhists see no inherent conflict between their religious teachings and evolutionary theory. Indeed, according to some Buddhist thinkers, certain aspects of Darwin’s theory are consistent with some of the religion’s core teachings, such as the notion that all life is impermanent.
Catholicism
The Catholic Church generally accepts evolutionary theory as the scientific explanation for the development of all life. However, this acceptance comes with the understanding that natural selection is a God-directed mechanism of biological development and that man’s soul is the divine creation of God.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ first public statement on human origins was issued in 1909 and echoed in 1925, when the church’s highest governing body stated, “Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes.” However, several high-ranking officials have suggested that Darwin’s theory does not directly contradict church teachings.
Episcopal Church
In 1982, the Episcopal Church passed a resolution to “affirm its belief in the glorious ability of God to create in any manner, and in this affirmation reject the rigid dogmatism of the ‘Creationist’ movement.” The church has also expressed skepticism toward the intelligent design movement.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
While the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has not issued a definitive statement on evolution, it does contend that “God created the universe and all that is therein, only not necessarily in six 24-hour days, and that God actually may have used evolution in the process of creation.”
Hinduism
While there is no single Hindu teaching on the origins of life, many Hindus believe that the universe is a manifestation of Brahman, Hinduism’s highest god and the force behind all creation. However, many Hindus today do not find their beliefs to be incompatible with the theory of evolution.
Islam
While the Koran teaches that Allah created human beings as they appear today, Islamic scholars and followers are divided on the theory of evolution. Theologically conservative Muslims who ascribe to literal interpretations of the Koran generally denounce the evolutionary argument for natural selection, whereas many theologically liberal Muslims believe that while man is divinely created, evolution is not necessarily incompatible with Islamic principles.
Judaism
While all of the major movements of American Judaism – including the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox branches – teach that God is the creator of the universe and all life, Jewish teachings generally do not find an inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and faith.
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod teaches that “the Genesis account of Creation is true and factual, not merely a ‘myth’ or ‘story’ made up to explain the origin of all things.” The church rejects evolution or any theory that “denies or limits the work of creation as taught in Scripture.”
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
In 1969, the Presbyterian Church’s governing body amended its previous position on evolution, which was originally drafted in the 19th century, to affirm that evolution and the Bible do not contradict each other. Still, the church has stated that it “should carefully refrain from either affirming or denying the theory of evolution,” and church doctrine continues to hold that man is a unique creation of God, “made in His own image.”
Southern Baptist Convention
In 1982, the Southern Baptist Convention issued a resolution rejecting the theory of evolution and stating that creation science “can be presented solely in terms of scientific evidence without any religious doctrines or concepts.” Some Southern Baptist leaders have spoken out in favor of the intelligent design movement.
United Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ finds evolutionary theory and Christian faith to be compatible, embracing evolution as a means “to see our faith in a new way.”
United Methodist Church
In 2008, the church’s highest legislative body passed a resolution saying that “science’s descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with [the church’s] theology.” Moreover, the church states that “many apparent scientific references in [the] Bible … are intended to be metaphorical
[and]
were included to help understand the religious principles, but not to teach science.”
The purpose remains the innervation of a non-theological discipline as a theological set of fields or as the study of God – to bring God into science and vice versa. One may observe this in non-literate-based spiritualities and practices bound to longer histories, often, than the traditionally considered ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ religious orientations; those grounded in oral traditions. One can look to aborigine, aboriginal, first peoples’, indigenous, native, or originals’ traditions about the nature of nature. The world around us as inhabited by spirits and forces, often with a singular capital “C” Creator behind the works of it.
Indigenous belief structures in various parts of the world, and in Canada, assert a creation narrative. In C2C Journal, reportage by Robert MacBain and Peter Shawn Taylor (2019) covered some of the aspects of bad history on the part of some aboriginal communities due to historical circumstance as a consequence of colonization, they state:
Today, approximately 30,000 Ojibways live in a sprawling region north of Lake Huron and Lake Superior. And thanks to a recent Ontario court decision, they could soon be in line for a massive and unprecedented financial gift from Canadian taxpayers. It’s a giveaway made possible by an imaginative rewriting of two nearly 170-year-old signed treaties, a legal system that appears to have fallen under the spell of native mysticism, a federal government that’s given up defending the taxpayers’ interests and a judge who thinks she can read the minds of long-dead historical figures and mistakenly believes the Ojibway have lived in Northwestern Ontario since time immemorial…
Rather than sticking to the historical facts, Justice Hennessy extensively quoted an Ojibway elder’s account of his people’s cosmology and creation story, and then herself claimed: “As the last placed within creation, the Anishinaabe [Ojibways] could not act in ways that would violate those relationships that came before their placement on the land and that were already in existence across creation.” Setting aside her curious acceptance of Indigenous mythology as fact, we know that at the time of their “creation” the Anishinaabe could not have been placed in Northwestern Ontario. They originated on the Atlantic Coast and are essentially newcomers to the area, having arrived after European explorers. (MacBain & Taylor, 2019)
MacBain and Taylor firmly judge the captivation of Justice Hennessy with indigenous creationism, akin to the notion of a several thousand years old Earth with human beings as a special creation in their current form and separate from the rest of creation (Ibid.). Vine Deloria, a Standing Rock Sioux, argued for an indigenous interpretation of the world with a young planet, existence of humans alongside dinosaurs, a worldwide flood, the Middle Eastern origin of the Native Americans, the increased levels of carbon dioxide leading to “gigantism,” and, of course, a lack of acceptance in evolution (Brumble, 1998).
Bailey (2014) notes the asymmetry in the treatment of different types of creationism, where indigenous creationism gets a pass in some circles. However, creationism remains a wrong theory in a scientific sense and only one set of particular religious interpretations of origins of life and, often, the universe. Canadian Museum of History (n.d.) stated, “For the Haudenosaunee, the earth was created through the interplay of elements from the sky and waters. The different Iroquoian-speaking peoples tell slightly different versions of the creation story, which begins with Sky Woman falling from the sky.”
Several Coast Salish nations exist in Canada with creation stories (Kennedy & Bouchard, 2006) including Cowichan, Esquimault, Halalt, Homalco, Hwlitsum, Klahoose, K’omoks, Lake Cowichan, Lyackson, Musqueam, Qualicum, Saanich, Scia’new, Semiahmoo, Shishalh, Snaw-Naw-As, Snuneymuxw, Songhees, Squamish, Stó:lõ, Stz’uminus, Tla’amin (Sliammon), Tsawwassen, Tsleil-Waututh, and T’Sou-ke; each, likely, as with other complex civilizations – with or without technology – harbour creation stories or mythologies asserted as factual accounts of the world. The Canadian Encyclopedia states: Coast Salish culture and traditional knowledge survive through oral histories. Although Coast Salish legends vary from nation to nation, they often feature many of the same spiritual figures and tell similar creation stories.
One example of such a tale is the story of how Old-Man-In-The-Sky created the world, animals and humans. These stories also highlight the importance of certain creatures and elements of nature, such as the salmon and red cedar, which are considered sacred for spiritual reasons and because of the valuable resources they provide for the people (Ibid.). On some non-Middle Eastern (and co-opted by the Europeans) mythologies, we can look to Australia:
There was a time when everything was still. All the spirits of the earth were asleep – or almost all. The great Father of All Spirits was the only one awake. Gently he awoke the Sun Mother. As she opened her eyes a warm ray of light spread out towards the sleeping earth. The Father of All Spirits said to the Sun Mother,
“Mother, I have work for you. Go down to the Earth and awake the sleeping spirits. Give them forms.”
The Sun Mother glided down to Earth, which was bare at the time and began to walk in all directions and everywhere she walked plants grew. After returning to the field where she had begun her work the Mother rested, well pleased with herself. The Father of All Spirits came and saw her work, but instructed her to go into the caves and wake the spirits.
This time she ventured into the dark caves on the mountainsides. The bright light that radiated from her awoke the spirits and after she left insects of all kinds flew out of the caves. The Sun Mother sat down and watched the glorious sight of her insects mingling with her flowers. However once again the Father urged her on.
The Mother ventured into a very deep cave, spreading her light around her. Her heat melted the ice and the rivers and streams of the world were created. Then she created fish and small snakes, lizards and frogs. Next she awoke the spirits of the birds and animals and they burst into the sunshine in a glorious array of colors. Seeing this the Father of All Spirits was pleased with the Sun Mother’s work.
She called all her creatures to her and instructed them to enjoy the wealth of the earth and to live peacefully with one another. Then she rose into the sky and became the sun. (Williams College, n.d.)
Now, we can see this reflected in others with supernatural intervention or anthropomorphization of the objects of the world, as if the cosmos amounted to one big dramatic play. National Museum of the American Indian (2019) describes the Mayan foundational narrative as follows:
In this story, the Creators, Heart of Sky and six other deities including the Feathered Serpent, wanted to create human beings with hearts and minds who could “keep the days.” But their first attempts failed. When these deities finally created humans out of yellow and white corn who could talk, they were satisfied. In another epic cycle of the story, the Death Lords of the Underworld summon the Hero Twins to play a momentous ball game where the Twins defeat their opponents. The Twins rose into the heavens, and became the Sun and the Moon. Through their actions, the Hero Twins prepared the way for the planting of corn, for human beings to live on Earth, and for the Fourth Creation of the Maya.
Native American origin narratives or superstitions reflect some of the similar things:
…the Makiritare of the Orinoco River region in Venezuela tell how the stars, led by Wlaha, were forced to ascend on high when Kuamachi, the evening star, sought to avenge the death of his mother. Kuamachi and his grandfather induced Wlaha and the other stars to climb into dewaka trees to gather the ripe fruit. When Kuamachi picked the fruit, it fell and broke open. Water spilled out and flooded the forest. With his powerful thoughts, Kuamachi created a canoe in which he and his grandfather escaped. Along the way they created deadly water animals such as the anaconda, the piranha, and the caiman. One by one Kuamachi shot down the stars of heaven from the trees in which they were lodged. They fell into the water and were devoured by the animals. After they were gnawed and gored into different ragged shapes, the survivors ascended into the sky on a ladder of arrows. There the stars took their proper places and began shining….
… Iroquois longhouse elders speak frequently about the Creator’s “Original Instructions” to human beings, using male gender references and attributing to this divinity not only the planning and organizing of creation but qualities of goodness, wisdom, and perfection that are reminiscent of the Christian deity. By contrast, the Koyukon universe is notably decentralized. Raven, whom Koyukon narratives credit with the creation of human beings, is only one among many powerful entities in the Koyukon world. He exhibits human weaknesses such as lust and pride, is neither all-knowing nor all-good, and teaches more often by counterexample than by his wisdom…
… These actions commemorate events that occurred in the mythic first world. At that time a formless water serpent, Amaru, was the first female being. Her female followers stole ritual flutes, kuai, from the males of that age and initiated Amaru by placing her in a basket while they blessed food for her. Insects and worms tried to penetrate the basket, and eventually a small armadillo succeeded in tunneling through the earth into the centre of the women’s house. The creator, Yaperikuli, led the men through this tunnel, and the resulting union of males and females marked the beginning of fertile life and the origin of all species. Thus, an individual girl’s initiation is brought into alignment with cosmic fertility…
… South American eschatological thinking and behaviour share common ground with Christian eschatology. (Sullivan, & Jocks, 2019).
As Zimmerman (2010) noted, the general tenor of the public and educational conversation around creationism continues for a long time and has been extant in the North American landscape for a longer time than even Stephen Jay Gould, who is long dead at this time. Bob Joseph (2012) states:
Most cultures, including Aboriginal cultures, hold creationism as an explanation of how people came to populate the world. If an Aboriginal person were asked their idea of how their ancestors came to live in the Americas the answer would probably include a creation story and not the story of migration across a land bridge.
Take the Gwawaenuk creationism story for example. The first ancestor of the Gwawaenuk (gwa wa ā nook) Tribe of the west coast of British Columbia is a Thunderbird. The Thunderbird is a super natural creature who could fly through the heavens. One day, at the beginning of time, the Thunderbird landed on top of Mt Stevens in the Broughton Archipelago at the northern tip of Vancouver Island. Upon landing on Mt. Stevens, the Thunderbird transformed into human form, becoming the first ancestor of the Gwawaenuk people. This act signals the creation of the Gwawaenuk people as well as defining the territory which the Gwawaenuk people would use and protect.
Now, the Indigenous perspectives of a Thunderbird landing on a mountain and transforming into a human being may sound unusual and a little silly but to a Gwawaenuk person it doesn’t sound any more unusual or silly than a virgin birth, or a person walking on water, coming back from the dead, or parting the Red Sea.
Tallbear (2013) describes the problems in the inappropriate sensitivities of indigenous communities to genomics testing, which may lead to a disintegration of mythologies considered or asserted true simply because of the connection to the original inhabitants of the land, i.e., those mythologies about people groups assumed as true when stating that the indigenous inhabitants have been there since time immemorial. These amount to empirical claims and, by most accepted anthropological and historical standards, wrong ones because of the migratory patterns found through genetics and other studies into the origins and travels of ancient homo sapiens. Christian and indigenous mythologies can impede research and the lead to a furtherance of factually wrong beliefs about the world. Indeed, genetics studies can combat the problems of racism to show what the biological scientists have known since Darwin: the unified nature of the ‘race’ seen in the human species more in line with modern biological terminology and evidence rather than more non-scientific or pre-modern scientific conceptualizations, or sociological terminologies, found in colloquialisms like “race.”
In examination of the world’s indigenous and religious creation stories, individual adherents may not amount to creationists as they may accept the naturalistic evidence in support of evolutionary theory; however, the base claims of the indigenous and religious belief structures purport a supernaturalism incompatible with the processes of scientific epistemology in the modern period and, therefore, as accounts of the cosmos and life equate to creationism or creationist claims with the first evaluation as creation stories. iResearchNet (2019) catalogues creationism into a number of more distinct categories: flat earth, geocentric creationism, young earth uniformitarianism, restitution creationism or gap creationism, day-age creationism, progressive creationism, Paley-an creationism with a Thomist theological framework, evolutionary creationism, theistic evolution, and the tried-and-untrue young earth creationism. They state the fundamentals of the literalist creationism found in Christian variations of creationism as follows:
- Creation is the work of a Trinitarian God.
- The Bible is a divinely inspired document.
- Creation took place in 6 days.
- All humans descended from Adam and Eve.
- The accounts of Earth in Genesis are historically accurate records.
- The work of human beings is to reestablish God’s perfection of creation though a commitment to Jesus. (Ibid.)
Regardless, as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2019b) states, creationist views reject scientific findings and methods:
Advocates of the ideas collectively known as “creationism” and, recently, “intelligent design creationism” hold a wide variety of views. Most broadly, a “creationist” is someone who rejects natural scientific explanations of the known universe in favor of special creation by a supernatural entity. Creationism in its various forms is not the same thing as belief in God because, as was discussed earlier, many believers as well as many mainstream religious groups accept the findings of science, including evolution. Nor is creationism necessarily tied to Christians who interpret the Bible literally. Some non-Christian religious believers also want to replace scientific explanations with their own religion’s supernatural accounts of physical phenomena.
In the United States, various views of creationism typically have been promoted by small groups of politically active religious fundamentalists who believe that only a supernatural entity could account for the physical changes in the universe and for the biological diversity of life on Earth. But even these creationists hold very different views…
…No scientific evidence supports these viewpoints…
…Creationists sometimes argue that the idea of evolution must remain hypothetical because “no one has ever seen evolution occur.” This kind of statement also reveals that some creationists misunderstand an important characteristic of scientific reasoning. Scientific conclusions are not limited to direct observation but often depend on inferences that are made by applying reason to observations…
…Thus, for many areas of science, scientists have not directly observed the objects (such as genes and atoms) or the phenomena (such as the Earth going around the Sun) that are now well-established facts. Instead, they have confirmed them indirectly by observational and experimental evidence. Evolution is no different. Indeed, for the reasons described in this booklet, evolutionary science provides one of the best examples of a deep understanding based on scientific reasoning…
…Because such appeals to the supernatural are not testable using the rules and processes of scientific inquiry, they cannot be a part of science.
Across the world and through time, creation stories emerge to provide some bearing as to the origin of the world and of life, but the narratives failed to match the empirical record of the world in which the sciences emerged and advanced while the mythologies died out due to a loss of adherents or continued to stagnate in the minds of the intellectuals and leadership of the communities of supernatural and spiritual beliefs. Evolution via natural selection stands apart from and opposed to, often, the creationist arguments and lack of evidences in addition to the assertions of the creation stories of all peoples throughout time into the present, insofar as a detailed naturalistic accounting for the variety of life forms on Earth with a formal encapsulation with functional mechanisms supported by hypotheses and the hypotheses bolstered by the evidence then and now.
Institutional Teleology, Purpose-Driven Hierarchies: Associations, Collectives, Groups, and Organizations with a Purpose
We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people. The same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation.
Dan Savage
Let’s teach our children from a very young age about the story of the universe and its incredible richness and beauty. It is already so much more glorious and awesome – and even comforting – than anything offered by any scripture or God concept I know.
Carolyn Porco
The lesson here, and through the years I’ve seen it repeated over and over again, is that a relatively small group of agitators, especially when convinced God is on their side, can move corporate America to quake with fear and make decisions in total disregard of the Constitution that protects against such decisions.
Norman Lear
In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination-tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she “adjust” to prejudice and discrimination.
Betty Friedan
The reason I prefer the sledgehammer to the rapier and the reason I believe in blunt, violent, confrontational forms for the presentation of my ideas is because I see that what’s happening to the lives of people is not rapierlike, it is not gentle, it is not subtle. It is direct, hard and violent. The slow violence of poverty, the slow violence of untreated disease. Of unemployment, hunger, discrimination. This isn’t the violence of some guy opening fire with an Uzi in a McDonald’s and forty people are dead. The real violence that goes on every day, unheard, unreported, over and over, multiplied a millionfold.
George Carlin
The next time believers tell you that ‘separation of church and state’ does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word ‘trinity.’ The word ‘trinity’ appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural, Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity, Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope, Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord’s Prayer, Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy, Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.
Dan Barker
There has been important editorial work on the general post-truth era, which reflects the creationist way of knowing the world (Nature Cell Biology, 2018). It may reflect a general anti-science trend over time connected to Dunning-Kruger effects. The problem of supernaturalism proposed as a solution to the issues seen in much of the naturalistic orientation of scientific investigation creates problems, especially in publics, by and large, bound to religious philosophies.
In North America, we can see teleological belief groups adhering to a supernaturalistic interpretation of science, when science, in and of itself, remains naturalistic, technical, and non-teleological. For instance, the Baptist Creation Ministries exists as a problematic ministry (2019). In their words, “Our goal is to reintroduce biblical creationism back to North America. If people don’t believe they are created, they will not see their need for the Saviour.” The Baptist Creation Ministries earned praise from Pastor Scott Dakin from Ambassador Baptist Church in Windsor, Ontario, Pastor Douglas McClain from New Testament Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario, Pastor David Kalbfleisch from Cornerstone Baptist Church in Newmarket, Ontario, Pastor Mark Bohman from Forest City Baptist Church in London, Ontario, and Pastor Jeff Roberts from Maranatha Baptist Church in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Canadians like supernaturalism with a hunk of the supernaturalists approving of the creationist outlooks on the nature of the real world. We can see echoes throughout Canada in this regard.
Humanists, Atheists, & Agnostics of Manitoba (2019) take the appropriate stance of calling young earth creationism by its real name. Coggins (2007) compared the creationist museums here and elsewhere, in brief. Even the media, once more, Canada Free Press has been known to peddle creationism (RationalWiki, 2018a). Tim Ball is one creationist publishing in Canada Free Press (RationalWiki, 2019e). The late Grant R. Jeffrey was one creationist, involved in Frontier Research Publications, as a publication permitting creationism as purportedly valid science (2017, October 27). Emil Silvestru holds the title of the only karstologist in the creationist world (RationalWiki, 2018b). Silvestru may reflect the minority of trained professionals in these domains [Ed. Please do see the Project Steve of the National Center for Science Education]. Faith Beyond Belief hosted members of the creationist community on the subject matter “Is Biblical Creationism Based on Science?” (2019).
Canadian Atheist, which covers a wide variety of the flavors of atheism, produced a number of articles on creationism or with some content indirectly related to creationism in a critical manner, especially good material of ‘Indi’ (Jacobsen, 2017a; MacPherson, 2014a; MacPherson, 2014b; Haught, 2019; Jacobsen, 2019a; Jacobsen, 2019b; Jacobsen, 2019c; Jacobsen, 2019d; Jacobsen, 2019e; Jacobsen, 2019f; Jacobsen, 2019g; Jacobsen, 2019h; Jacobsen, 2019i; Indi, 2019; Jacobsen, 2019j; Jacobsen, 2019k; Jacobsen, 2019l; Jacobsen, 2019m; Indi, 2018a; Indi, 2018b; Indi, 2018c; Jacobsen, 2018d; Law & Jacobsen, 2018; Jacobsen, 2018e; Jacobsen, 2018f; Jacobsen, 2018g; Jacobsen, 2018h; Indi, 2018e; Jacobsen, 2018i; Indi, 2018f; Jacobsen, 2018j; Jacobsen, 2018p; Indi, 2017a; Indi, 2017b; Jacobsen, 2017d; Indi, 2017c; Rosenblood, 2015; Indi, 2015; MacDonald, 2015; Themistocleous, 2014; MacPherson, 2014c; MacPherson, 2014d; Abbass, 2014a; MacPherson, 2014e; Indi, 2014; Abbass, 2014b; MacPherson, 2014f).
Some of the more obvious cases of creationism within Canada remain the perpetually fundamentalist and literalist interpretations of Christianity with the concomitant rise of individual textual analysts and pseudoscientists, and collectives found in museums (travelling or stationary), associations, a special interest group, and different websites. One of the main national ones as a satellite for the international group: Creation Ministries International (Canada). As another angle of the fundamental issue from RationalWiki – a great resource on this topic, “Science, while having many definitions and nuances, is fundamentally the application of observation to produce explanation, iteratively working to produce further predictions, observations and explanations. On the other hand, creationism begins with the assertion that a biblical account is literally true and tries to shoehorn observations into it. The two methods are fundamentally incompatible. In short, ‘creation science’ is an oxymoron” (2019b).
That is to say, the use of the world to produce empirical factual sets in order to comprehend the nature of nature as the foundation of science rather than a ‘holy’ textual analysis in order to filtrate selected (biased in a biblical manner, or other ways too) information to confirm the singular interpretation of the purported divinely inspired book. No such process as creation science exist, except in oxymoronic title or name – either creationism or science, not both.
A large number of organizations in Canada devoted to creationism through Creation Ministries International (2019e). They function or operate out of “Australia, Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, United Kingdom, South Africa and United States of America” (Ibid.). Creation Ministries International (Canada) remains explicit and clear on its intention and orientation as a “Bible first” organization and not a “science first” organization:
Our heart as a ministry is to see the authority of God’s Word spread throughout the body of Christ… we work hard to move your people to a position of deeper faith, trusting the Bible as the actual Word of God that is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness…
…We believe person-to-person evangelism is, unquestionably, still the most effective way to win souls. That said, almost all of our presentations are geared towards a Christian audience because we believe our calling is to the building up of the LORD’s church, equipping believers with answers for their faith so they can do personal outreach more effectively…
Our goal is to show how a plain reading of Genesis (following the established historical-grammatical hermeneutic) produces a consistent theology and is supported by the latest scientific evidences!
CMI is a ‘Bible first’ (not ‘science first’) ministry. Our emphasis is on biblical authority and a defence of the faith, refuting skeptics’ and atheists’ attacks on Scripture, not to marginalize, minimize or ostracize fellow Christians.
As an apologetics (rather than polemic) ministry we seek to educate, equip, and inform Christians about the importance of consistency when interpreting Scripture and developing a Biblical worldview. We will gently point out inconsistencies when Genesis is interpreted to include evolution and millions of years, encouraging people who hold those views to consider evidence against them (both Biblical and scientific). We want your congregation to learn to love the truths that God has communicated to us in His Word! We equip the believer and challenge the skeptic, ultimately for the glory of God…
… An outside ministry can often re-energize the importance of the topic by injecting a new perspective from a different ‘face’, and often the resident creationist will be reinvigorated themselves by having an outside expert in the field provide new insight…
… As an apologetics ministry our goal is to help pastors grow their congregations in their faith to the point where people know that God’s Word is true whether they have a specific answer or not, and make Jesus the Lord of their life…
… We understand that teachers will be judged with a greater strictness. (James 3:1) Because of these principles we leave out poorly researched scientific evidences for creation, and favour the evidences that have been rigorously investigated.
(Creation Ministries International Canada, 2019a)
In short, non-scientific, or quasi-scientific, processes connected to fundamentalist and literalist on the interpretations of the Bible to comprehend the nature of the world as a ministry with an explicit aim of arming believers – followers and teachers of the Gospel, or both – to spread the glory of God, the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, and to challenge the skeptic. If this orientation seems not explicit enough as to the evangelistic nature of non-science and theological imposition on the general culture, and into the educational systems, we can examine the doctrines and beliefs of Creation Ministries International:
The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer and Judge.
The doctrines of Creator and Creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs…
The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe.
The various original life forms (kinds), including mankind, were made by direct creative acts of God…
The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
God created from the beginning male and female in his own image with different but complementary characteristics. It is thus contrary to God’s created order to attempt to adopt a gender other than a person’s biological sex… (2019b)
In other words, Creation Ministries International states ad nauseam the fundamentalist and literalist Christian belief in the Bible as the source of all proper knowledge about the natural world with contradictory evidence as sufficient to reject as unreliable because this goes against the word of their supposed god. An evangelistic ministry devoted to blur the line between science and theology, or religion and legitimate domains of natural philosophical enquiries. Within this framework of understanding the definitional and epistemological differences between the sciences and religion, and between the propositions of creationism and evolution via natural selection, the rules and parameters, and operations, of science become unused in a legitimate sense by creationists and, therefore, any proposition or proposal of a debate between an “evolutionist” (a creationist epithet for an individual who rejects creationist as non-science and affirms the massive evidence in favour evolution via natural selection in addition to the more rigorous epistemological foundations of evolutionary theory with the standard approaches in other sciences) and a creationist as creationism amounts to a biblical, religious, or theological worldview and evolution via natural selection equates to the foundations of the biological and medical sciences as a well-substantiated scientific theory about life, flora and fauna. No scientific controversy exists in practice – only an educational as per attempts to force the issue into schools or attempt a so-called wedge as in the Wedge Strategy, legal as per the legal challenges following from the educational debacles, and sociopolitical as per the largely ignorant public about the foundations of the life sciences and a sector of the public credulous enough or deprived of proper scientific educations enough to become vulnerable to these oppressions, one – and no empirical controversy could exist in theory, Q.E.D. Overall, we can note the real effects on the general population with the reduction in the quality of the culture if science becomes included in a wider or more generalized definition of that which we define as culture, where this seems legitimate, to me, as science infuses all aspects of culture because of the ideas and with the influence of the technological progress dependent on the discoveries of science – as applications of science.
They have a speaker’s bureau in a manner of speaking (Creation Ministries International Canada, 2019a). The speakers include – and may be limited to – Richard Fangrad, Clarence Janzen, Jim Mason, Augustinus “Gus” Olsthoorn, Thomas Bailey, Matt Bondy, Tom Tripp, and Jim Hughes (Ibid.). Creation Ministries International exists as a Canadian charity and a certified member of the Canadian Council of Christian Charities with an incorporation in 1978 and a more rapid growth phase in 1998 with its current headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario (Ibid.). Richard Fangrad is the CEO of Creation Ministries International (Canada) (Ibid.). Clarence Janzen is a retired high school science teacher (Ibid.). Dr. Jim Mason is a former experimental nuclear physicist (Ibid.). Augustinus “Gus” Olsthoorn is a founding member of the Creation Science Association of Quebec and former employee/technical instructor of Bombardier Aerospace (Ibid.). Thomas Bailey is an event planner for Creation Ministries International and one of the co-hosts of Creation Magazine Live! (Ibid.). Matt Bondy is a computer scientist and the Chief Operations Officer at Creation Ministeries International Canada (Ibid.). Tom Tripp is a former a lab analyst, a computer programmer, or an HR trainer (Ibid.). Jim Hughes is a former of statistics and urban planner (Ibid.). The more complete backgrounds and educational trainings exist on the website. Rod Walsh from Australia was invited to conduct tours across Canada, which can indicate the international work and travel networks of the lecturers (Creation Ministries International, 2019c).
The questions, aside from the statements of religion proposed as statements of faith and science, may arise around the issues of the churches within Canadian society opening to bringing in speakers as the aforementioned (Creation Ministries International, 2019d). If one examines those churches and then the speakers, we can note them:
· September 19, 2019 with Tom Tripp at the Winkler Evangelical Mennonite Mission Church in Winkler, MB.
· September 19, 2019 with Matt Bondy at the Bonnyville Baptist Church in Bonnyville, AB.
· September 20, 2019 with Tom Tripp at the Christian Life Church in Winnipeg, MB.
· September 20, 2019 with Matt Bondy at the West Edmonton Baptist Church in Edmonton, AB.
· September 20, 2019 with Tom Tripp at the Christian Life Church in Winnipeg, MB.
· September 20, 2019 with Thomas Bailey at the Bornholm Free Reformed Church in Bornholm, ON.
· September 20, 2019 with Richard Fangrad at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Leader, SK.
· September 21, 2019 with Richard Fangrad at the Church of the Open Bible in Swift, SK.
· September 21, 2019 with Tom Tripp at the Gladstone Christian Fellowship Church in Glasstone, MB.
· September 21, 2019 with Matt Bondy at Hilltop Community Church in Whitecourt, AB.
· September 22, 2019 with Richard Fangrad at Living Faith Fellowship in Herbert, SK.
· September 22, 2019 with Matt Bondy at the Community Christian Centre in Slave Lake, AB.
· September 22, 2019 with Tom Tripp at the Morden Church of God in Morden, MB.
· September 22, 2019 with Richard Fangrad at Assiniboia Apostolic Church in Assiniboia, SK.
· September 22, 2019 with Matt Bondy at Mayerthorpe Baptist Church in Mayerthorpe, AB.
· September 22, 2019 with Tomm Tripp at Rosenort Evangelical Mennonite Church in Rosenort, MB.
· September 26, 2019 with Clarence Janzen at Lavington Church in Coldstream, BC.
· September 27, 2019 with Clarence Janzen at Kaslo Community Church in Kaslo, BC.
· September 27, 2019 with Augustinus “Gus” Olsthoorn at Alberton Baptist Church in Alberton, PE.
· September 28, 2019 with Augustinus “Gus” Olsthoorn at Glad Tidings Tabernacle in Murray River, PE.
· September 28, 2019 with Clarence Janzen at Grindrod Gospel Church in Grindrod, BC.
· September 29, 2019 with Jim Hughes at Scarborough Baptist Church in Scarborough, ON.
· September 29, 2019 with Matt Bondy at New Life Pentecostal Church in Gravenhurst, ON.
· September 29, 2019 with Augustinus “Gus” Olsthoorn at Calvary Church in Charlottetown, PE.
· September 29, 2019 with Richard Fangrad at Hopewell Worship Centre in Kitchener, ON.
· September 29, 2019 with Clarence Janzen at Bethany Baptist Church in Barriere, BC.
· September 29, 2019 with Thomas Bailey at Kinmount Baptist Church in Kinmount, ON.
· September 29, 2019 with Clarence Janzen at Okanagan Valley Baptist Church in Vernon, BC.
· September 29, 2019 with Thomas Bailey at Cloyne, Flinton, and Kaladar Area Churches.
· September 29, 2019 with Augustinus “Gus” Olsthoorn at Charlottetown Bible Chapel in Charlottetown, PE.
· September 30, 2019 as a retreat for pastors and christian leaders in Huntsville, ON.
(Creation Ministries International, 2019d)
Here, we come to the easy realization with some minor research as to less than half of a month’s worth of speaking engagements for the Creation Ministries International dossier. A purely religious audience from a ministry with a Bible-first orientation rather than a science first orientation and to churches and worship centres, i.e., the creationist movement as portrayed by Creation Ministries International (Canada) by FAQ statements, values and beliefs statements, speakers listing, and upcoming speakers’ engagements becomes a religious and theological movement attempting with some modicum of success in practice to blur the line of science and theology to the public with miserable failures to the community of scientific experts in the life sciences
One of the more active pseudoscience organizations comes in the form of the Creation Science Association of British Columbia. The Creation Science Association of BC, as others, states their overarching values and goals at the outset. Something worth praising, as this represents openness and intellectual honesty, and transparency, in presentation of belief systems guiding the movements, as follows:
• We believe that the Bible is inerrant, and that salvation is by grace through faith in the one Mediator, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
• We affirm creation by God in six days, a young universe and Earth, and a worldwide flood in the days of Noah.
• We cooperate with similar ministries across Canada.
Our special concern is to battle the evolutionary worldview and to promote creation as described in the Bible. We’ve been serving BC churches since 1967. (Creation Science Association of BC, 2019a)
One wonders as to what one needs saving, where this makes one reflect on the research on existential anxiety or death anxiety. They view the Bible as a source of evidence (Ibid.). This sources the problem in a rapid way. One can use this as a theory of mind heuristic. Often, the literal interpretation is the root problem at the intellectual level. Conspiratorial states of mind and death anxiety/existential anxiety may be the bedrock at the emotional level. The propositions before the science or the scientific research begins, which remains against standard scientific procedure to acquire data from the world to inform, from first principles, one’s view of the world rather than work from religious assertions of the world. That is to say, Creation Science Association of BC functions as a faith-based organization; a euphemism in “faith-based organization” meaning a “religious organization,” meaning they aren’t scientific but theological.
In this manner, they’re open about principles, but dishonest about presentation: George Pearce, Christine Pearce, Richard Peachey, Gerda Peachey, Denis Dreves, The Bible Science Association of Canada (1967), now known as the Creation Science Association of Canada, was formed in 1967 (Creation Science Association of BC, 2019b). This group seems much less active over time into the present than the others with a focus on Egyptian Chronology and the Bible in September at the Willingdon Church in Burnaby, British Columbia featuring Patrick Nurre (Creation Science Association of BC, 2019c).
Other churches inviting non-science posing as science in British Columbia include Faith Lutheran Church in Surrey, Newton Fellowship Church in Surrey, Willingdon Church in Burnaby, Trinity Western University (Church) in Langley, Johnston Heights Church in Langley, Maranatha Canadian Reformed Church in Surrey, New Westminster Community Church in New Westminster, Faith Lutheran Church in Surrey, Free Reformed Church of Langley in Langley, Cloverdale Free Presbyterian Church in Surrey, Renfrew Baptist Church in Vancouver, Calvary Baptist Church in Coquitlam, Franklin Chinese Gospel Chapel in Vancouver, New Westminster Orthodox Reformed Church in New Westminster, Olivet Church in Abbotsford, Dunbar Heights Baptist Church in Vancouver, Fellowship Baptist Church in White Rock, Chandos Pattison Auditorium in Surrey, Cloverdale Baptist Church in Cloverdale, Sea Island United Church in Richmond, Westminster Bible Chapel in New Westminster, and the University of the Fraser Valley (Creation Science Association of BC, 2019d).
The speakers included Clarence Janzen, David Rives, Vance Nelson, Dr. Andy McIntosh, John Baungardner, Donald Chittick, Dennis Petersen, John Byl, Michael Oard, Mike Riddle, Danny Faulkner, Larry Vardiman, Mike Psarris, Jonathan Sarfati, John Martin, and Kevin Anderson (Ibid.). This is well-organized ignorance in British Columba. Ignorance is not a crime. It can be changed with information rather than misinformation. You will often see phrases or terms including “evolutionist” or “secular [fill in the discipline]” so as to separate the regular training in the sciences from their biblical assertions as alternative theoretical foundations as valid as regular training (Ibid.). Nurre is stated as having training in “secular geology,” by which they mean geology in contradistinction to creation ‘science’ and ‘biblical geology’ or, what is also known as, non-science and theological assertions (Ibid.). One may claim training in physics, chemistry, or biology.
However, if one learns physics and teaches astrology, or if one learns biology and proclaims creationism, or if one learns chemistry and asserts alchemy, then the person did not use the education to educate and instead used the credentials to bolster non-scientific claims. This seems less excusable than mere ignorance or lack of exposure. Indeed, the damage over time to the cultural, including science, health of the nation makes individuals with proper education and credentials much more culpable as panderers to public theological prejudice and lowering the bar on the theological discussions and the scientific literacy of the general public, especially amongst followers who trust in them. In many ways, we all know this, but we permit this in the light of dogma or faith as a means by which to remove true critiques – using the proverbial sledgehammer to render such non-scientific and simplistic beliefs ridiculous and fringe at best.
As one works from first principles, science, and the other works from purported holy texts, creationism, we come to the obvious: creationism amounts to theology with attempts at scientific justifications; therefore, creationism cannot amount to science, only theology with strained attempts at science, e.g. “creation science” becomes “creationism,” “secular science” becomes “science” with the logical iterations following in other cases or terminological rather than content differences (Ibid.). In sum, creation science amounts to creationism or a religious view of the world, not a scientific one. Furthermore, if in the case of a purported or supposed debate, the, rather obvious, conclusion becomes the debate format more as a ‘debate’ if between an evolutionary biologist and a creationist, as one demands, within the framework of the debate format, an equivalence between science and theology, which there is not; chemists would have no obligation to debate alchemists or physicists would hold zero responsibility in standing on shared debate platforms with astrologers if not for the overwhelmingly religious population amongst the more scientifically and technologically advanced industrial economies, including Canada.
Another tactic with the creationist community comes in the form of quote mining, as one can see in Creation Science Association of BC writings with quotations from Sean B. Carroll, John Sanford, Beth A. Bishop and Charles W. Sanderson, Richard Dawkins, Eugene V. Koonin, Edward J. Larson, Simon Conway Morris, John Chaikowsky, Antony Flew, W. Ford Doolittle, Colin Patterson, Richard Lewontin, A. S. Wilkins, Mark Pagel, Kenneth Miller, Francis Crick, Michael Ruse, Philip S. Skell, Richard Weikart, William Provine, John S. Mattick, Stephen Jay Gould, George Gilder, Stefan Bengtson, Michael J. Disney, Francis Crick, Paul Ehrlich and L. C. Birch, Charles Darwin, George Gilder, Eric J. Lerner, Halton Arp, W. Ford Doolittle, David Raup, C.S. Lewis, David Berlinski, Massimo Pigliucci, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark, John H. Evans, David Goldston, Andy Stirling, Lawrence Solomon, Marni Soupcoff, Arnold Aberman, Greg Graffin, Thomas Nagel, Jerry Coyne, Francis S. Collins, Edward J. Young, Henri Blocher, Alan Guth, Peter Harrison, Kenneth R. Millerand, Mark Ridley, S.R. Scadding, Storrs Olson, Mano Singham, Niles Eldredge, Gavin de Beer, Robert Carroll, Roger Lewin, Brian Alters, Edward J. Larson and Larry Witham, Edward O. Wilson, Douglas J. Futuyma, Charles Hodge, Michael Ruse, John Horgan, Robert Root-Bernstein, Richard Lewontin, Jacques Monod, David Hull, and others probably unstated, even “quotes on the Mars rock” (Batten, n.d.a; Hillsdon, n.d.; Wald, n.d.; Peachey, n.d.a; Peachey, n.d.b; Peachey, n.d.c; Peachey, n.d.d; Peachey, n.d.e; Peachey, n.d.f; Peachey, n.d.g; Peachey, n.d.h; Peachey, n.d.i; Peachey, n.d.j; Peachey, n.d.k; Peachey, n.d.l; Peachey, n.d.m; Peachey, n.d.n; Peachey, n.d.o; Peachey, n.d.p; Peachey, n.d.q; Peachey, n.d.r; Peachey, n.d.s; Peachey, n.d.t; Peachey, n.d.u; Peachey, n.d.v; Peachey, n.d.w; Peachey, n.d.x; ; Peachey, n.d.y; Peachey, n.d.z; Peachey, n.d.aa; Peachey, n.d.ab; Peachey, n.d.ac; Peachey, n.d.ad; Peachey, n.d.ae; Peachey, n.d.af; Peachey, n.d.ag; Peachey, n.d.ah; Peachey, n.d.ai; Peachey, n.d.aj; Peachey, n.d.a k; Peachey, n.d.al; Peachey, n.d.am; Peachey, n.d.an; Peachey, n.d.ao; Peachey, n.d.ap; Peachey, n.d.aq; Peachey, n.d.ar; Peachey, n.d.as; Peachey, n.d.at; Peachey, n.d.au; Peachey, n.d.av; Peachey, n.d.aw; Peachey, n.d.ax; Peachey, n.d.ay; Peachey, n.d.az; Peachey, n.d.ba; Peachey, n.d.bb; Peachey, n.d.bc; Peachey, n.d.bd; Peachey, n.d.be; Peachey, 1999; Peachey, 2002; Peachey, 2003a; Peachey, 2003b; Peachey, 2004; Peachey, 2005a; Peachey, 2005; Peachey, 2005c; Peachey, 2005d; Peachey, 2006a; Peachey, 2006b; Peachey, 2006c; Peachey, 2006d; Peachey, 2007a; Peachey, 2007b; Peachey, 2008a; Peachey, 2008b; Peachey, 2008c; Peachey, 2009; Peachey, 2010a; Peachey, 2010b; Peachey, 2010c; Peachey, 2010d; Peachey, 2011a; Peachey, 2011b; Peachey, 2012a; Peachey, 2012b; Peachey, 2012c; Peachey, 2013a; Peachey, 2014a; Peachey; 2014b; Peachey, 2014c; Peachey, 2015a; Peachey, 2015b; Peachey, 2015c; Peachey, 2015a; Peachey, 2009b; Peachey, 2009c; Peachey, 2009d; Peachey, 2009e; Peachey, 2009f; Peachey, 2009g; Peachey, 2009h; Peachey, 2009i; Peachey, 2009j; Peachey, 2009k; Peachey, 2009l; Peachey, 2009m; Peachey, 2009n; Peachey, 2009o).
To creationists in British Columbia – who may be the prime national or Canadian examples of creationist quote mining known to me – and others arguing from quote-mining, and on a broader critique, the reason the vast majority of, secular and religious, scientists do not pay attention nor care about creation ‘science’ or creationism comes from the non-scientific and theological status of it. Religion does not belong in the science classroom any more than alchemy, astrology and horoscopes, spiritism, and the like. Creationism is seen as invalid in the argument in general and unsound overall, not individuals or personalities as people can change and grow, and ideas remain the core issue, but the content and theological positions of creationism as non-science proliferated as ‘science.’ From the view of most Canadians, especially most scientifically literate ones as a rule of thumb rather than an iron law or steel principle, creationism is seen as comically befuddled – bad science and bad theology; a national embarrassment to our standing abroad, and deleterious to the scientific training of the next generations and, subsequently, the scientific and technological – not necessarily moral and ethical – advancement of the country as a whole. Thus, creationism holds the country back now, and in the past.
Individual Canadians reserve the right to freedom to believe in mythologies. However, the children and common good hold right over creationists to acquire proper scientific training and knowledge dissemination rather than religion proposed as scientific, i.e., one can freely waste their educations and lives in pursuit of the inscrutable supposed transcendent as a fundamental human right. The Creation Science Association of Alberta ‘teaches’ the same ignorance in the manner of the other associations, with the President as Dr. Margaret Helder (2019a). As with the other associations around the country, they remain admirably open and transparent in their mission statements and purposes:
Mission Statement
To provide encouragement and resources to persons who desire good scientific information which conforms to the Bible.
Purpose
- To collect, organize and distribute information on creation science.
- To develop a better public understanding of creation. (Creation Science Association of Alberta, 2019b).
They publish a newsletter, sell literature and DVDs, set forth books and information tables, have speakers, host an annual meeting, and have camps and summer seminars too (Ibid.). They openly state, “An association of Christians from all over Alberta, active in the province for over thirty years” (Ibid.). Also, they not only state Christian only members as “an association of Christians” but also the idea of creation ‘science’ or creationism as teleological or non-science, “Creation scientists have a world view or model for their science which is based on the belief that an intelligent designer exists who created our universe and everything in it” (Creation Science Association of Alberta, 2019c). By the standards of the associations in Canadian society, the demographics seem to converge on one form of creationism with Christian creationism as the source and focus of the ideological and religious, and theological, commitments here.
There is Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc. comprised of the leadership of Keith Miller (President), Dennis Kraushaar, Garry A. Miller, Shirley Dahlgren, Calvin Erlendson, Rudi Fast, Sharon Foreman, Don Hamm, Steve Lockert, Dennis Siemens, and Nathan Siemens with the tagline, “Sharing Scriptural and Scientific Evidence for Special Creation and the Creator!” (2019a). They have a number of resources including a prayer calendar, Introductory (High School/Adult) Books, Children’s Books, Christian Ed. (Home & School) Books, Popular (lay) Books, Scientific (lay) Books, Post Secondary Books, Commentaries & Bible Study Books, Apologetic Books, Biographies & History Books, CD & Audio Tapes, DVD, and Video Tapes, and more (Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019a; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019b; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019c; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019d; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019e; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019f; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019g; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019h; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019i; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019j; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019k; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019l; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019m; Creation Science Association of Saskatchewan, 2019n). Their explicit statements of purpose and worldview in What is C.S.S.I.?, as follows:
Statement of Purpose
1. To collect, organize, and distribute information on Creation.
2. To develop a better public understanding of Creation.
3. To prepare resource material on scientific creation for educational use.
4. To promote inclusion of scientific creation in school curricula.
Creation Model
1. All things came into existence by the Word of God according to the plan and purpose of the Creator.
2. The complex systems observable within the universe demonstrate design by an intelligent Creator.
3. All life comes from life, having been created originally as separate and distinct kinds.
4. The originally created kinds were created with the ability to reproduce and exhibit wide variation within pre-determined genetic boundaries.
5. The geological and fossil record shows evidence of a world wide Flood.
6. Honest scientific investigation neither contradicts nor nullifies the Biblical record of the origin and history of the universe and life. (Ibid.)
They offer a Creation Celebration and a Creation Family CAMP featuring Dr. Randy Guliuzza, Institute for Creation Research (Ibid.) with former years including Calvin Smith (Executive Director, Answers in Genesis-Canada), John Plantz, and Irene Live. They affirm the non-creation of human beings as per the section “Why we exist,” stating:
CSSI was designed to create and distribute information on the creation/evolution origins controversy. Too often the scientific information which argues against evolution is censored and the evidence for design is denied. CSSI promotes, primarily in Saskatchewan, Canada, the creation position by presenting resources covering topics such as theology, Biblical creation, scientific creation, intelligent design, fossils, dinosaurs, radiometric dating, and flood geology, as well as some teaching and home school materials. We also support people involved in creationary activities.
We continue to sell books, DVDs, and audio tapes which support the position that we did NOT evolve but that we were created by God. We handle materials for all ages (children to adults), and various interest levels right up to technical. We also sponsor international, as well as local, creation science speakers and other outreach events. (Ibid.)
As well, they appear to harbour a defunct radio station connected to ICR or the Institute for Creation Research (Science, Scripture, & Salvation, 2019; Institute for Creation Research, 2019). Features or labelled people included James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D., Frank Sherwin, M.A., Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D., Brian Thomas, Ph.D., Jake Hebert, Ph.D., Tim Clarey, Ph.D., Jason Lisle, Ph.D., and Henry M. Morris III, D.Min. (Ibid.). Ultimately, the Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc. (2019) group considers origins and development a matter of faith. They host six articles: “Was Darwin Wrong? – a critique” by John Armstrong, “The Age of Things” by Rudi Fast, “The Big Bang” by Rudi Fast, “God As Our Creator” by Garry Miller, “When is a Brick a House?” by Garry Miller, and “The Age of the Earth” by Janelle Riess (2004, Armstrong; Fast, n.d.a; Fast, n.d.b; Miller, n.d.a; Miller, n.d.b; Riess, n.d.).
The main hosts of the Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc. (2019) have been Emmanuel Pentecostal Fellowship in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, and the Echo Lake Bible Camp, near Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. Their main events are Creation Celebration (North Battleford – March), SHBE Conference (Saskatoon – February), Discerning the Times Bible Conference (Saskatoon – April), the camp (Echo Lake – July), or Christianity on Trial Conference (Regina – October)” (Ibid.). Noting, of course, the last item pitching to the event attendees the sense of siege as if 70% of the country who identify as Christian remain beleaguered in contrast to the other superminorities in the nation, i.e., the rest of the country.
Creation Science of Manitoba is a small, but an active group without an identifiable website at this time. C.A.R.E. Winnipeg has a Creation Museum in downtown Winnipeg. One may safely assume the same principles and religious views as other creationist organizations in Canada. Association de Science Créationniste du Québec devotes itself to the same real attempts at fake science:
Our Mission
CSAQ is a non-denomination and non-profit organization, which objectives are:
-To promote creation teaching;
-To link the Christian Bible with science, education and industry;
-To promote creationist scientific research;
-Encourage every human to establish a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe
About Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec
The Creation Science Association of Quebec (CSAQ) is an organism for all interested in the subject of biblical creation from a scientific and theological perspective. (Canadahelps.Org, 2019)
They have a number of articles in the same vein as the others with proposals or propositions for scientific endeavours (Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, 2019a). They have “Videos” with strange content (Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, 2019c). The “Press Kit” page remains blank (Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, 2019d). Individuals endorsed by them are Laurence Tisdall, M. Sc., Julien Perreault B.Sc., and Jonathan Nicol M.Sc. (Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, 2019e).
The places hosting the individuals of the Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec are the Centre Chrétien l’Héritage, Église Génération, Église Fusion, Collège Letendre à Laval, Assemblée Évangélique Pentecôte de St-Honoré, Église Vie Nouvelle, Centre Chrétien l’Héritage, Église Grâce et Vérité, Assemblée Chrétienne Du Nord, Mission Chrétienne Interculturelle, Centre chrétien des Bois-Francs, Assemblée de la Bonne Nouvelle à Montréal, Montée Masson Laval, Université Concordia, Centre Il Est Écrit, l’Église Évangélique d’Aujourd’hui, Théâtre Connexion, Kensington Temple, Église Évangélique Farnham, Église Adventiste Granby, Église Adventiste Sherbrooke, Eglise Evangélique Marseille, IFIM, Eglise Evangélique Aix-en-Provence, Eglise Evangélique Baptiste De Cowansville, Eglise Evangélique Baptiste de la Haute Yamaska, Cave Springs Baptist Church, Grand Forks High School, Okanagan College, Anglican Church, Église Carrefour du Suroît, and Evangel Church (Montreal) (Creation Science Association of Quebec – Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, 2019f).
Also, Centre Chrétien Viens et Vois, Église Amour et Vie, Hôtel La Saguenéenne, Laval Christian Assembly, Église baptiste évangélique de Trois-Rivières, Centre MCI Youth, Eglise Evangélique Baptiste de St-Hyacinthe, Cégep de Drummondville, Mission Charismatique Internationale, Centre Evangélique de Châteauguay, Best Western Hotel Drummondville Universel, Eglise Evangélique de Labelle, Eglise de Toulouse Minimes, Camp arc en ciel, Eglise Biblique Baptiste du Comminges, Baptiste De Rivière Du Loup, Assemblée du Plein Évangile, Assemblee de la Parole de Dieu, Christian and Mssionary Alliance Noyan, CFRA AM 580, Assemblée du Plein Évangile Lasalle, Assemblée Chrétienne De La Grâce, The River Church (Gouda), Eglise Evangelique Baptiste De l’Espoir, Cégep de Baie-Comeau, Assemblee Chretienne De La Grace Victoriaville, Eglise-Chretienne-de-l-Ouest, Église Amour et Vie de Victoriaville, Église Baptiste Évangélique de Valcourt, Assemblée Évangélique de la Rive-Sud, and Église Carrefour chrétien de l’Estrie (Ibid.).
The Association de Science Créationniste du Québec published a number of articles with different creationist takes on traditional sciences, as theological or fundamentalist religious interpretations or filtrations of the empirics (Tisdall, n.d.; Perreault, n.d.a; Batten, n.d.b; Sarfati, n.d.; Thomas, n.d.; Humphreys, n.d.a; Gibbons, n.d.; Tisdall, n.d.a; Taylor, n.d.a; Wieland, n.d.a; Tisdall, n.d.b; Tisdall, 2003; Perreault, n.d.b; Tshibwabwa, n.d.a; Thomas, n.d.b; Perreault, n.d.c; Grigg, n.d.a; Perreault, n.d.d; Wieland, n.d.b; Skell, 2005; Couture, n.d.; Gosselin, 1995; Perreault, n.d.e; Grigg, n.d.b; Bergman, n.d.a; Sarfati, n.d.b; Perreault, n.d.f; Bergman, n.d.b; Tshibwabwa, n.d.b; Stewart, n.d.a; Wieland, n.d.c; Tshibwabwa, n.d.c; Perreault, n.d.g; Tshibwabwa, n.d.d; Phillips, n.d.; Perreault, n.d.h; Taylor, n.d.b; Clarey, n.d.; Tshibwabwa, n.d.f; Bergman, n.d.c; Tshibwabwa, n.d.g; Madrigal, 2012; Sarfati, n.d.c; Hartwig, n.d.; Demers, n.d.; McBain, n.d.; n.a., n.d.a; Coppedge, 2017; Perreault, 2009; Perreault, n.d.i; Humphreys, n.d.b; Perreault, n.d.j; Stewart, n.d.b; Russel & Taylor, n.d.; Montgomery, n.d.; Humphreys, n.d.c; Taylor, n.d.c; Taylor, n.d.d; Lauzon, n.d.; Snow, n.d.; Tisdall, n.d.c; Hebert, n.d.; Taylor, n.d.e; Tisdall, n.d.d; Morris, n.d.; n.a., n.d.b; Tisdall, n.d.e.). The general orientation fits the other associations throughout the country. Museums throughout the country remain extant. Many small and one travelling museum devoted to creationism.
In the Canadian cultural context, creationism, often, means Christian forms of creationism with an emphasis on the vast majority of the nation identifying as Christian – mostly Roman Catholic Christian or Protestant Christian. We have the Creation Research Museum of Ontario (2019) out of Baptist Goodwood Church in Cornwall, Ontario run by Martin Legermaat with support from John Mackay who is the head of Creation Research (2019). There’s the Big Valley Creation Science Museum. Its curator is described by Bobbin, “Here you will meet Harry Nibourg, the charismatic owner. He used to be an oil field worker operating a gas well out of Sylvan Lake, and is now retired to run his museum full time. In 2017, he was elected to sit on the Big Valley village council. He’s an engaging person, extremely approachable and very keen to share his knowledge on all topics related to Creation Science” (2018). It is located in Big Valley, Alberta.
Creation Truth Ministries (2019a) stands to defend “the authority of the Bible starting in Genesis… enable believers to defend their faith in an increasingly secular age… fill a void in the Christian church that exists concerning this area.” Based out of Red Deer, Alberta, the Creation Truth Ministries travels and functions on this basis providing 3-day seminars, multimedia presentation, Vacation Bible Schools, and Christian camps for kids and children (Ibid.). Its statement of faith:
The scientific aspects of creation are important, but are secondary in importance to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Sovereign, Creator, Redeemer and Judge.
The doctrines of Creator and Creation cannot ultimately be divorced from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The 66 books of the Bible are the written Word of God. The Bible is divinely inspired and inerrant throughout. Its assertions are factually true in all the original autographs. It is the supreme authority, not only in all matters of faith and conduct, but in everything it teaches…
…The account of origins presented in Genesis is a simple but factual presentation of actual events and therefore provides a reliable framework for scientific research into the question of the origin and history of life, mankind, the Earth and the universe.
The various original life forms (kinds), including mankind, were made by direct creative acts of God. The living descendants of any of the original kinds (apart from man) may represent more than one species today (as defined by humans), reflecting the genetic potential within the original kind. Only limited biological changes (including mutational deterioration) have occurred naturally within each kind since Creation.
The great Flood of Genesis was an actual historic event, worldwide (global) in its extent and effect.
The special creation of Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman)…
…Jesus Christ rose bodily from the dead, ascended to Heaven, is currently seated at the right hand of God the Father, and shall return in like manner to this Earth as Judge of the living and the dead…
…Scripture teaches a recent origin for man and the whole creation.
The days in Genesis do not correspond to geologic ages, but are six [6] consecutive twenty-four [24] hour days of Creation.
The Noachian Flood was a significant geological event and much (but not all) fossiliferous sediment originated at that time.
The ‘gap’ theory has no basis in Scripture.
The view, commonly used to evade the implications or the authority of Biblical teaching, that knowledge and/or truth may be divided into ‘secular’ and ‘religious’, is rejected. (Creation Truth Ministries, 2019b)
The Creation Truth Ministries exists to minister to the public in what the founders and managers consider the truth of the artificer of the universe, in which the Bible represents the foundational truth to the entirety of reality. They have museum exhibits and a virtual tour, a book about dragons, a pot found in coal, and a hammer in cretaceous rock (Creation Truth Ministries, 2019c; Creation Truth Ministries, 2019d; Creation Truth Ministries, 2019f). Likewise, they see the modern period as a secular age and evolution as fundamentally atheistic (Creation Truth Ministries, 2019e).
Further than the Creation Discovery Centre out of Alberta run by Larry Dye (2019), one can find the Creation Truth Ministries (Secrets of Creation Travelling Museum) out of Alberta run by Vance Nelson and associated with the Alberta Home Education Association Convention (2019), and the Museum of Creation out of Manitoba run by John Feakes and Linda Feakes (2019) in the basement of the New Life Sancutary Church and maintains association with the Canadian National Baptist Convention.
Another group is the International Creation Science Special Interest Group (n.d.a) formed by Ian Juby out of Mensa International and due to membership in Mensa Canada with the explicit “intention… to provide a means for the gathering together of intellectuals (specifically members of Mensa) with a common interest in the sciences and philosophies supporting special Creation and refuting Evolutionism” (International Creation Science Special Interest Group, n.d.a). They have an explicit mention of the non-partisan nature of Mensa International on the subject matter (Ibid.). Once more, the communities of creationists in Canada remain open and honest in terms of the beliefs held by them and endorsed by their organizations — all aboveboard in this regard:
The Universe, time, space, earth, and life was created with purpose, Ex Nihilo, by a Creator named by name as Jesus Christ (John 1:1–6), in a literal six days, roughly 6,000 years ago, as documented in the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible. That there was a catastrophic, global flood (genesis 7:11), which submerged the entire planet and destroyed all life that breathes, except for a scarce few saved on board a very large boat better known as the “Ark” of Noah. That stellar, planetary and biological macroevolution, as scientific theories, are based solely on blind faith and as such, these theories are scientifically invalid.
(International Creation Science Special Interest Group, n.d.c)
Ian Juby, a member of Mensa since 1994, discovered the Mensa International social interest groups and decided to request and create one for creation science through Mensa International (International Creation Science Special Interest Group, n.d.b). The International Creation Science Special Interest Group formed out of this interest with memberships of Dr. G. Charles Jackson who is a lifetime member of Mensa, David Harris who is a member of Mensa, and Steve Edwards who is a member of Mensa, and another unmentioned person comprising the original “fab five” (Ibid.).
They have a few articles, which appeared to end in the latter half of 2005 only a few years after the social interest group began (Juby, 2005aa: Juby, 2005ab; Jackson; 2005a; Jackson, 2005b). Joseph Wilson (2007) reported on the Canadian Christian College and its invitations of Australian creationist Tas Walker, as a note on the invitations to seemingly friendly territory for creationists on Christian university and college campuses throughout Canada to indicate the religious undercurrent of creationism. Some humanists can be found in the most unlikely of people, as in the case of one of the sons of Professor Michael Behe, who founded the idea of irreducible complexity, named Leo Behe (Shaffer, 2011).
He did an interview with Ryan Shaffer for the flagship publication of the American Humanist Association entitled The Humanist (Ibid.). One cannot use Leo Behe as an example of somehow disproof or evidence against intelligent design, but, in a way, provide a window into the nature of belief and non-belief in some religious strictures in youth and the impact of proper science education of the young in terms of an increase in intellectual sophistication about the nature of the world towards a more comprehensive naturalistic framework (Ibid.). One should note Professor Behe, of Intelligent Design, and young earth creationism stand at odds, and in knowing publics, with one another (Lyons, 2008). Answers in Genesis (2019c) describes the splits between the communities of young earth creationists – themselves – and the Intelligent Design movement. Denis O. Lamoureux advocates theistic evolution after time as a young earth creationist (RationalWiki, 2018c; Lamoureux, 2019).
People with similar ideological commitments can band together and then work on common projects in spite of minor differences at times. Indeed, the nature of the variety of creationist movements means the different ways in which the common projects remain the maintenance of theological beliefs – which they have a right to – and the imposition of this in the science classroom as a seeming preventative measure. Not as well-funded or as well-organized, but present, nonetheless.
Institutions of Higher Learning: Higher From What, Learning From Who?
God is by definition the holder of all possible knowledge, it would be impossible for him to have faith in anything. Faith, then, is built upon ignorance and hope.
Steve Allen
And if you have a sacred text that tells you how the world began or what the relationship is between this sky-god and you, it does curtail your curiosity, it cuts off a source of wonder.
Ian McEwan
Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.
Philip Randolph
A child is not a Christian child, not a Muslim child, but a child of Christian parents or a child of Muslim parents. This latter nomenclature, by the way, would be an excellent piece of consciousness-raising for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a ‘child of Muslim parents’ will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose -or reject- when she becomes old enough to do so.
Carolyn Porco
For a thousand years, the Bible was almost the only book people read, if they could read at all. The stories that were officially told and portrayed were Biblical and religious stories. That other fount of Western civilization as we know it today — the Greek classics — went largely unknown until the Renaissance. For our purposes, there’s a noteworthy difference between these two literatures: in the Bible people are hardly ever said to be mad as such, whereas in Greek drama they go off their rockers with alarming frequency. It was the rediscovery of the classics that stimulated the long procession of literary madpeople of the past four hundred years.
Margaret Atwood
The problem with theology and religion in general: it was designed to answer questions via making up stuff that were not yet answerable throughout history by actual understanding of how the world worked.
Religion has been and is a comfort. It has been a means of exercising social control and concentrating power. It contains a lot of guesses about the nature of things that have turned out, as we have learned more, not to be true.
It does not mean that you have to throw out the entire exercise. Because, to some extent, theologizing and building religions. That is practicing philosophy. It is just that philosophy, especially with it is theological, eventually turns out to be disproven…
…Religion is a tool of its era. Each type of religion is a tool of its era to support or provide mental buttressing and societal buttressing for the necessary structures of that society.
But most of religions guesses about the nature of things have been wrong except in the most generous, general terms.
Rick Rosner
Christian universities and colleges throughout Canadian postsecondary education hold a non-trivial number of the possible institutional statuses of the country. Indeed, if one looks at the general dynamics of the funding and the private institutions, most remain Christian and some maintain a sizeable population of students for extended periods of time and continuing growth right into the present. These provide, within the worldview, a possibility to retain and grow one’s faith and develop a relationship with God, and maybe find a boyfriend or girlfriend who seems like husband or wife material. From the point of view of the Christian faithful within the country, one of the main issues comes from the development of a science curriculum influenced by a theology in the midst of a long history of non-science proposed as science. As to the individuals at the universities or the institutions themselves rather than the associations and the external individuals with an active written or speaker presence, or the churches and international networks supportive of them, these, too, can be catalogued for the edification or educational purposes of the interested public about the ways in which theology influences the scientific process within the nation. With some research on the internet and an investigation into the contents of the websites of the university, we can garner glimpses into the ideological commitments to creationism or not within Canadian Christian colleges and universities. If the resources exist off-site or not on the main web domain of the below-stipulated universities and colleges, or institutes, these may have evaded research and investigation. Also, the seminaries have been included in this section too.
Nonetheless, for a first instance, Crandall University, to its credit, did not have search results for creationism (2019). Same with Providence University College & Theological Seminary (2019) and Redeemer University College (2019), and Tyndale University College & Seminary (2019). Ambrose University offers “IND 287 – 1 SCIENCE AND FAITH” described as follows:
This course explores the complex relationship between science and Christian faith, with a particular focus on evolutionary biology. Topics include: models of science-faith interactions; science and religion as ways of knowing; and Christian interpretations of evolution. The bulk of the course will be spent on discussing the four main contemporary Christian perspectives: Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Theistic Evolution. These perspectives will be placed in their historic and contemporary contexts, and will be compared and contrasted for their theological understandings of Creation, Fall, Flood, image, and human origins. (Ambrose University, 2019)
Burman University (2019) does not harbour it. Canadian Mennonite University (2019) invited Professor Dennis Venema from Trinity Western University as the Scientist in Residence. Venema, at the time, stated, “I’m thrilled to be invited to be the Scientist in Residence at CMU for 2019. I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for students, and I am honoured to join a prestigious group of prior participants… I hope that these conversations can help students along the path to embracing both God’s word and God’s world as a source of reliable revelation to us” (Ibid.). Venema defends the view of evolutionary theory within a framework of “evolutionary creationism,” which appears more a terminologically diplomatic stance than evolution via natural selection or the code language within some religious commentary as things like or almost identical to “atheistic evolution” or “atheistic evolutionism” (Venema, 2018b; Apologetics Canada, 2019; The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation, 2019; Gauger, 2018). He provides education on the range of religious views on offer with a more enticing one directed at evolution via natural selection (The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation, 2016). The Canadian Scientific and Christian Affiliation provides a space for countering some of the young earth geologist and young earth creationist viewpoints, as with the advertisement of the Dr. Jonathan Baker’s lecture (2014), or in pamphlets produced on geological (and other) sciences (2017).
He works in a tough area within a community not necessarily accepting of the evolution via natural selection view of human beings with a preference for special creation, creationism, or intelligent design (Trinity Western University, 2019a). Much of the problems post-genetics as a proper discipline of scientific study and the discovery of evolution via natural selection comes from the evangelical Christian communities’ sub-cultures who insist on a literal and, hence, fundamentalist interpretation or reading of their scriptures or purported holy texts. Another small item of note. Other universities have writers in residence. A Mennonite university hosts a scientist in residence (Ibid.). Science becomes the abnorm rather than the norm. The King’s University contains one reference in the search results within a past conference (2019). However, this may be a reference to “creation” rather than “creationism” as creation and more “creation” speaking to the theological interpretations of genesis without an attempt at an explicit scientific justification of mythology.
By far, the largest number of references to “creationism” came from the largest Christian, and evangelical Christian, university in the country located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada called Trinity Western University, which, given its proximity and student body population compared to the local town, makes Fort Langley – in one framing – and Trinity Western University the heart of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity in Canada. Trinity Western University teaches a “SCS 503 – Creationism & Christainity [sic] (Korean)” course and a “SCS 691 – Creationism Field Trip” course (2019b; 2019c). They hosted (2019d) a lecture on Stephen Hawking, science, and creation, as stated:
In light of Steven Hawking’s theories, is there enough reason for theists to believe in the existence of God and the creation of the world?
This lecture will respond to Hawking’s views and reflect on the relationship between science, philosophy and theology.
Speaker: Dr. Yonghua Ge, Director of Mandarin Theology Program at ACTS Seminaries (Ibid.)
They hosted another event on evolution and young earth creationism:
All are welcome to attend, Public Lecture, hosted by TWU’s ‘Science, Faith, and Human Flourishing: Conversations in Community“ Initiative, supported by Fuller Seminary, Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, and the Canadian Scientific & Christian Affiliation, “Evolutionary and Young-Earth Creationism: Two Separate Lectures” (Darrel Falk, “Evolution, Creation and the God Who is Love” and Todd Wood, “The Quest: Understanding God’s Creation in Science and Scripture”) (2019e)
Dirk Büchner, Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity Western University, states an expertise in “Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac (grammar and syntax), Hellenistic Greek (grammar and lexicography), The Septuagint. Of more popular interest: The Bible and Social Justice, and Creationism, Scientism and the Bible: why there should be no conflict between mainstream science and Christian faith” (Trinity Western University, 2019f). Professor Büchner holds an expert status in “creationism” (Ibid.). A non-conflict between mainstream science and the Christian faith would mean the significantly reduced status of the intervention of the divine in the ordinary life of Christians. He remains one locus of creationism in the Trinity Western University environment. Dr. Paul Yang’s biography states, “Paul Yang has over twenty years teaching experience, lecturing on physics and physics education, as well as Christian worldview and creationism. He has served as the director of the Vancouver Institute for Evangelical Wordlview [Sic] as well as the Director of the Christian” (Trinity Western University, 2019g). Yang holds memberships or affiliations with the American Scientific Affiliation (2019), Creation Research Society (2019), and Korea Association of Creation Research (2019). Dr. Alister McGrath and Dr. Michael Shermer had a dialogue moderated by a panel with Paul Chamberlain, Ph.D., Jaime Palmer-Hague, Ph.D., and Myron Penner, Ph.D. in 2017 at Trinity Western University.
All exist as probably Christian front organizations with the pretense as scientific and Christian organizations. One can see the patterns repeat themselves over and over again. Christian ‘science’ amounts to creationism, as noted before. Yang, with more than 20 years, exists as a pillar of creationist teaching, thinking, and researching within Canada and at Trinity Western University. The American Scientific Affiliation (2019) states, “Two things unite the members of the ASA… belief in orthodox Christianity, as defined by the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, which can be read in full here… a commitment to mainstream science, that is, any subject on which there is a clear scientific consensus.” Creation Science in Korea (2019) states, “The Creation Research Society is a professional organization of trained scientists and interested laypersons who are firmly committed to scientific special creation. The Society was organized in 1963 by a committee of ten like-minded scientists, and has grown into an organization with worldwide membership.” The Korea Association of Creation Research (2019) states, ‘Our vision is to restore ‘biblical creation faith’ and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations.’
The seminaries across the country harbour differing levels of this, too. Taylor College and Seminary (2019) does not reference it. Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary (2019) does not state anything about it. St. Peter’s Seminary (2019) says nothing about it. Master’s College and Seminary (2019) states nothing about it. Toronto School of Theology (2019) talks a lot about “creation” without specific mention of creationism, in which the general framework functions around the origins and not the formal religious view of creationism. St. Mark’s College (2019) does not have reference to creationism. Summit Pacific College (2019) succeeds to not reference it. Centre for Christian Studies (2019) does not talk about it. CAREY Theological College (2019) does not speak of it. Also, Queen’s College Faculty of Theology (2019) did not write about it. Regis College: The Jesuit School of Theology in Canada (2019) did not have any statements about it. Heritage College & Seminary (2019) does not seem to speak to it. St. Philip’s Seminary (2019) appears to have no references to it. Emmanuel College (2019) states nothing about it. Knox College (2019) does not talk to it. Concordia Lutheran Seminary (2019) does not write about it. Acadia Divinity College (2019) does not reference creationism. St. Augustine’s Seminary of Toronto (2019) does not talk about creationism. Wycliffe College (2019; Taylor, 2017) has many references to “creation” with one specific mention by Glen Taylor about creationism. Toronto Baptist Seminary & Bible College (2019) does talk about creationism.[1]
These seminaries, colleges, and universities represent some of the more elite and academic manifestations of creationism within Canadian society. While, at the same time, we can note the lack of a creationist foothold in several, even most, of the institutions of higher learning for the Christians of several denominations throughout Canadian postsecondary. Some other creationists include: Andrew A. Snelling, Carl Wieland, Duane Gish, Frank Lewis Marsh, George McCready Price, Harold W. Clark, Henry M. Morris, John Baumgardner, John C. Sanford, John C. Whitcomb, John D. Morris, John Hartnett, Kurt Wise, Larry Vardiman, Marcus R. Ross, Paul Nelson, Raymond Vahan Damadian, Robert V. Gentry, Russell Humphreys, Thomas G. Barnes, Walt Brown, Paul Gosselin, Julien Perreault, André Eggen, Ph.D., Robert E. Kofahl, Laurence Tisdall and Jason Wiles, Dr. Walt Brown, and Douglas Theobold. Other organizations, facilities, and lawsuits include Answers in Genesis (AIG), Anti-Evolution League of America, Biblical Creation Society (BCS), Caleb Foundation, Creation Ministries International (CMI), Creation Research Society (CRS), Answers in Genesis Ministries International’s Ch ristianAnswers.Net, Geoscience Research Institute, Genesis Park, Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter, Creation-Science Research Center, The Center for Scientific Creation Institute for Creation Research, Creation Research Society, Biblical Creation Society, Creation Science Movement (CSM), and Geoscience Research Institute (GRI), and Institute for Creation Research (ICR), Hendren v. Campbell (1977), McLean v. Arkansas (1982), Edwards v. Aguillard (1987), and Webster v. New Lenox School District (1990).
Subsumed Autonomy: Motivated True Believers Fighting for the One Correct, Right, Righteous, and True Religion
After a lot of reading, and research, I realized I didn’t have any secret channel picking up secret messages from God or anyone else. That voice in my head was my own.
Greydon Square
The pens sharpen – Islamophobia! No such thing. Primitive Middle Eastern religions (and most others) are much the same – Islam, Christianity and Judaism all define themselves through disgust for women’s bodies.
Polly Toynbee
Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It’s like, it’s very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You’re just not gonna get the right answer. Your whole world is just gonna be — a mystery. Instead of an exciting place.
Bill Nye
It’s like those Christians that say that if there wasn’t a God they’d be out there robbing, raping, and murdering folks. If that’s true, and the only reason they aren’t out committing crimes is because they’re afraid to go to hell, then they aren’t really good people.
Wrath James White
I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will — and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.
Gene Roddenberry
Religion, by its very nature as an untestable belief in undetectable beings and an unknowable afterlife, disables our reality checks. It ends the conversation. It cuts off inquiry: not only factual inquiry, but moral inquiry. Because God’s law trumps human law, people who think they’re obeying God can easily get cut off from their own moral instincts. And these moral contortions don’t always lie in the realm of theological game-playing. They can have real-world consequences: from genocide to infanticide, from honor killings to abandoned gay children, from burned witches to battered wives to blown-up buildings.
Greta Christina
Apart from the associations, the museums, the universities, the colleges, and the seminaries, another category for open investigation remains the individuals who adhere to a creationist ideology throughout the world, in which the more prominent garner reputations and by doing so respectability and stature, and thus benefits, within the communities of faith. Duly noting, all efforts at isomorphizing scripture and science remain theological at base and, hence, religious in nature, and so appealing to the more sophisticated and literate amongst the populations of the religious.
An important member of the skeptic and writing/blogging community in Canada remains Professor Laurence A. Moran who speaks with authority against numerous faith-based claims and premises of the creationists in Canadian society (Farrell, 2015; Jacobsen, 2017a). America has examples of pressuring by creationists for access to research materials for fundamentally incorrect theories. Andrew Snelling, Christian creationist geologist, wanted to collect rocks from the Grand Canyon National Park (Reilly, 2017; Wartman, 2017). Snelling said, “I am gratified that the Grand Canyon research staff have recognized the quality and integrity of my proposed research project and issued the desired research permits so that I can collect rock samples in the park, perform the planned testing of them, and openly report the results for the benefit of all” (Wartman, 2017).
We need individuals like Moran to prevent the instances of creationism, or to fight on behalf of the public for proper science education and scientifically literate policymaking (CBC News, 2009), as happened with Goodyear under former prime minister Stephen Harper. We can see the continued attempts to “overturn evolution” fail at periodic rates with Professor Michael Behe earning a powerful critique from John Jay College Professor Nathan H. Lents, Washington University Professor S. Joshua Swamidass, and Michigan State Professor Richard E. Lenski (The City University of New York, 2019). The article from CUNY (Ibid.) states:
Lents and his colleagues discredit Behe in elaborate detail, noting that he’s ‘selective’ in his examples and ignores evidence contradicting his theories. Modern evolutionary theory, the authors write, ‘provides a coherent set of processes — mutation, recombination, drift, and selection — that can be observed in the laboratory and modeled mathematically and are consistent with the fossil record and comparative genomics.’ In contrast, ‘Behe’s assertion that ‘purposeful design’ comes from an influx of new genetic information cannot be tested through science’…
…Behe is known for the notion of “irreducible complexity.” He argues that “some biomolecular structures could not have evolved because their functionality requires interacting parts, the removal of any one of which renders the entire apparatus defective,” according to the Science article. But Lents and his co-authors explain that “irreducible complexity” is refuted by the evolutionary process of exaptation, in which “the loss of one function can lead to gain of another.”
Whales, for example, “lost their ability to walk on land as their front limbs evolved into flippers,” but flippers “proved advantageous in the long run.” Nature’s retooling of a biomolecular structure for a new purpose can lead to “the false impression of irreducible complexity.”
Of course, evolutionary theory has been challenged by non-scientific arguments since Charles Darwin published Origin of the Species in 1859. Darwin Devolves continues this pseudoscientific tradition. (Ibid.)
Rather direct and frank, also overall, we can find the general issue of full arguments and a complete accounting of the evidence rather than selective targeting of some of the evidence as somehow destructive of the entire edifice of evolution via natural selection. The relation between religion and politics must be maintained in the conversations on creationism in Canada because of the intimate relation at present and in the past. Historical precedents exist for the instantiation of religion into the political dialogue because of the open positions of public officials who can set policy or inform the tone of policy in educational contexts as public representatives [Ed. As the next section will explore].
Calgary YouTube personality Paul Ens attempted to attend the homeschooling conference (Michelin, 2018). Unfortunately, he was not permitted to attend the conference while others with sympathetic ties to creationist educational movements earned speaker status. In Manitoba, evolution is included in the grade 12 biology curriculum, and the grade 11 topics in science curriculum. Both classes are optional science electives for high school students. The theory is not included in science curriculums for the grades prior. The province does not make alternative viewpoints on origins a mandatory classroom science topic.
Michelin said, “Helen Beach of the Atheist Society of Calgary, said she was among those who had registered for the Alberta Home Education Association Conference, but was prevented from attending it last weekend by organizers… Dr. Jim Linville, professor of Religious Studies at U of Lethbridge, was also told he wouldn’t be admitted… Ens said he received an email from Alberta Home Education Association president Patty Marler, denying him access to the conference” (Ibid.). Some broadcasting groups, like The Good News Broadcasting Association of Canada can engage in discussions on creationism while, weirdly, talking about marijuana and science (2019). On the other hand, some of the most prominent creationists receive invitation to home schooling conventions, e.g., Ken Ham in Alberta to the Red Deer Alberta Home Education Association convention or the “contentious reality TV couple Bob and Michelle Duggar” by the same association (Kaufmann, 2017). CBC Radio (Ibid.) reported, “‘Our government expects all students to learn from the same Alberta curriculum that prepares all students for success,’ Alberta’s education minister David Eggen said in a statement sent to The Current. But Judy Arnall, president of the Alberta Home Education Parents Society, says that’s not actually the case. ‘According to Alberta, homeschoolers have the right to teach their children any curriculum they want,’” including creationism, presumably. The estimated number of home-schooled children in Alberta comes to 11,600 (Kaufmann, 2017), circa 2017.
Nonetheless, individuals behind some of the national and local Canadian problems of the proliferation of pseudoscience come in the form of the founders of groups or who take on replicated monikers of mainstream science popularizers within North American in general, but fit to print for the Canadian sensibilities and culture in some fundamentalist Christian communities. Larry Dye “the Creation Guy” stealing the theme name, and twisting the original, from Bill Nye “the Science Guy” with a defunct main website circa 2018, who founded the Creation Bible Center (CreationWiki, 2018; CreationWiki, 2016). Edgar Nernberg, somewhat known creationist, happened to find a 60,000,000-year-old fossil (Feltman, 2015; Holpuch, 2015; Platt, 2015). His case is among the more ironic (CBC News, 2015).
Other cases of the more sophisticated and newer brands of Christianity with a similar theology, but more evolutionary biology – proper – incorporated into them exist in some of the heart of parts of evangelical Christianity in Canada. Professor Dennis Venema of Trinity Western University and his colleague Dave Navarro (Pastor, South Langley Church) continued a conversation on something entitled “evolutionary creation,” not “creation science” or “intelligent design” as Venema’s orientation at Trinity Western University continues to focus on the ways in which the evolutionary science can mix with a more nuanced and informed Christian theological worldview within the Evangelical tradition (Venema & Navarro, 2019; Navarro, 2019). One can doubt the fundamental claim, not in the Bible but, about the Bible as the holy God-breathed or divinely inspired book of the creator of the cosmos, but one can understand the doubt about the base claim about the veracity of the Bible leading to doubt about the contents and claims in the Bible – fundamental and derivative.
For many, and an increasing number in this country, this becomes a non-starter and, therefore, the biblical hermeneutics and textual analysis do not speak to the nature of the world or provide value in a descriptive capacity about the nature of nature, including the evolution to and origin of human beings and other animals. In the conversation, they make a marked distinction between some of the lecture or sermon types. Some for the secular and some for the congregants, by implication (Ibid.). The argument is equipping followers of Jesus, Christians, with hermeneutics and Genesis in a proper understanding can help them keep and maintain the faith (Ibid.). Intriguingly, and astutely, Navarro states, “I had always suspected that we should be reading Genesis as something other than modern Western historiography, but I didn’t know what! But seeing the similarities between Genesis and Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh, and Atra-Hasis made it clear that Genesis is an Ancient Near Eastern document, and speaks in Ancient Near Eastern frameworks of reality. It gave me permission to read the text differently” (Ibid.).
Even notions of the Imago Dei, the creation in the image of God may hold little weight to them, whether quoting John 1:1 or Genesis 1:27. John 1:1 states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (The Bible: New International Version, 2019a). Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (The Bible: New International Version, 2019b). Venema, almost alone, presents a bulwark against creationism and intelligent design, as he moved away from intelligent design in the past.
Intelligent design tends to rest on two principles of irreducible complexity and specified complexity from Professor Michael Behe and Dr. William Dembski, respectively (Beckwith, 2009; New World Encyclopedia, 2018). Some of the core foundations in literature happened in 1802 with William Paley’s Natural Theology, Michael Denton’s 1985 book entitled Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, and Philip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial from 1991 (Wieland, n.d.d). Philip Johnson noted Christianity as the foundation of intelligent design in the “Reclaiming America for Christ Conference” in 1999:
I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call “The Wedge,” which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science.
…
In summary, we have to educate our young people; we have to give them the armor they need. We have to think about how we’re going on the offensive rather than staying on the defensive. And above all, we have to come out to the culture with the view that we are the ones who really stand for freedom of thought. You see, we don’t have to fear freedom of thought because good thinking done in the right way will eventually lead back to the Church, to the truth-the truth that sets people free, even if it goes through a couple of detours on the way. And so we’re the ones that stand for good science, objective reasoning, assumptions on the table, a high level of education, and freedom of conscience to think as we are capable of thinking. That’s what America stands for, and that’s something we stand for, and that’s something the Christian Church and the Christian Gospel stand for-the truth that makes you free. Let’s recapture that, while we’re recapturing America.
Intelligent design breaks into two streams (McDowell, 2016). Dembski stated one comes from the information-theoretic components (Ibid.). Another comes from the molecular biology parts (Ibid.). The information can be seen in the notion of specified complexity of Dr. William Dembski. The molecular biology can be seen in the irreducible complexity of Professor Michael Behe. The Evolutionary Informatics Lab represents the information-theoretic side while the Biologic Institute and Bio-Complexity, a journal, represent the molecular biology portion. Batemann and Moran-Ellis quote Behe:
By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition non-functional. (2007)
This represents the fundamental idea of irreducible complexity in accordance with the description of the founder of it. The other founded by Dembski in the form of specified complexity or complex specified information describes itself, as a form of information with specificity and complexity rather than specificity & simplicity or generality & complexity. Dembski sees attacks against the intelligent design community from two sides:
By contrast, the opposition to ID in the church is large.
On the one hand, there are the theistic evolutionists, who largely control the CCCU schools (Council for Christian Colleges and Universities), and who want to see ID destroyed in the worst possible way — — as far as they’re concerned, ID is bad science and bad religion.
And then there are the young-earth creationists, who were friendly to ID in the early 2000s, until they realized that ID was not going to serve as a stalking horse for their literalistic interpretation of Genesis. After that, the young-earth community largely turned away from ID, if not overtly, then by essentially downplaying ID in favor of anything that supported a young earth.
The Noah’s Ark theme park in Kentucky is a case in point. What an embarrassment and waste of money. I’ve recently addressed the fundamentalism that I hold responsible for this sorry state of affairs. (McDowell, 2016)
Professor Behe’s department stands apart from him:
The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others. The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of “intelligent design.” While we respect Prof. Behe’s right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific. (Lehigh University, 2019)
Some of the members of the movement distanced themselves from it. For example, Dembski in a reflection on the state of intelligent design as a movement stated:
As someone no longer active in the field but still to some extent watching from the sidelines, I gave my impressions in the interview about the successes and failures of the ID movement.
The reaction to that interview was understandably mixed (I was trying to be provocative), but it got me thinking that I really am retired from ID. I no longer work in the area. Moreover, the camaraderie I once experienced with colleagues and friends in the movement has largely dwindled.
I’m not talking about any falling out. It’s simply that my life and interests have moved on. It’s as though ID was a season of my life and that season has passed. Earlier this month (September 10, 2016) I therefore resigned my formal associations with the ID community, including my Discovery Institute fellowship of 20 years.
The one association I’m keeping is with Bob Marks’s Evolutionary Informatics Lab, but I see the work of that lab as more general than intelligent design, focusing on information-theoretic methods that apply widely and which I intend to apply in other contexts, especially to the theory of money and finance. (Ibid.)
Insofar as I can discern, the Bible represents the theological ground of Intelligent Design; Paley represents the historical father of Intelligent Design; Johnson represents the legal and cultural father of Intelligent Design; Behe represents the molecular biology father of Intelligent Design; and, Dembski represents the information-theoretic and philosophical father of Intelligent Design. All intelligent and educated men of their time, and bound to beliefs of a previous one. A world of more faith, magic, mystery, and male authority. The Director of the Discovery Institute is Dr. Stephen C. Meyer in the United States; the institute was founded by Bruce Chapman (Discovery Institute, n.d.). Other highly involved individuals include several, as follows:
…microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, biologist Paul Chien at the University of San Francisco, quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia, geneticist Norman Nevin (emeritus) at Queen’s University of Belfast, mathematician Granville Sewell at the University of Texas, El Paso, and medical geneticist Michael Denton. Research centers for intelligent design include the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, led by Robert Marks, Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University; and the Biologic Institute, led by molecular biologist Douglas Axe, formerly a research scientist at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre, and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge. (Ibid.)
Intelligent Design does have some conversation in Canadian Christian communities. However, some leave the movement, as with Venema. Looking into some of the dynamics of the ways in which the phraseology exists in some of the conversations or dialogues in Canadian culture, if we look at some almost journal entries in writing to the public about an “evolving faith,” we can see the notion of evolution of a faith as an attenuation or weakening of a religious worldview in some persons of faith, which may be the source of the strong fundamentalist and literalist interpretations of the Christian scriptures by some creationists some of the time (Chiu, 2015). Bearing in mind, the entire edifice rests on a flimsy claim as to the divine inspiration and inerrancy of a collection of books with an emphasis on one book in the collection entitled the Book of Genesis.
As one can see in the above-mentioned statements about William Dembski – “I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God” (Environment and Ecology, 2019), the general tenor of the argument becomes the quotes as the argument, the smoking pistols as seen extensively with the Creation Science Association of BC, rather than a point of individual appraisal of the cultural status of a field in the case of Dembski rather than a knockdown against intelligent design or showing the researchers of intelligent design as, ultimately, aiming for or following the “Christian God,” but many do follow it and the original aim in accordance with the statements of one of the founders becomes opening a scientific landscape for a religious worldview. Religion is politics. In this sense, where religion is proposed as personal, the personal became political (again), with the political representative of the all-encompassing for oneself – fair enough – and others – unfair enough.
To one who does not accept the authority of scripture or quotes as evidence for or against the theoretical framework or hypothesis of evolution, a purported holy text and quotes – in or out of context – do not suffice as reasons to accept in the evidence of evolution or not, as the evidence of evolution rests with the experimental and converging evidence from a variety of scientific disciplines. Does a god or gods write or inspire the writings of books? Hundreds exist on offer; one must study the claims about those first, then upon rejecting those prove the inspiration and veracity of this one interpretation of one religion’s texts, and then move about toppling the vast landscape of modern evidence in favour of evolution via natural selection in the proper way.
None of these get done, one can see a repetition in the talking points in several domains, and in the religious doctrines or religious constructions echoed in the halls of the associations, the museums, and the articles of the writers and speakers. Some might proclaim the creationist worldview as a scientific one and not a religious or theological position; however, look once more at the missions and the purposes of the organizations, their foundations come from one interpretation of the Christian faith or religion and, thus, sit upon a bedrock of philosophical creationism, religion, and theology.
One can respect the greater honesty in title than “creation science” found in much of the other spokespeople for the religious movement known as creationism causing socio-political controversy. Another individual in Canada, akin to Dye, as a youth outreach pastor, we can find the Ian Juby website, as a devoted creationist web domain (2019a). There exists a reasonably large compilation of creation videos (Juby, 2019e). Juby is the President of CORE Ottawa, Citizens for Origins Research and Education, the Director of the Creation Science Museum of Canada, a member of Mensa, and, unfortunately, Mensa International caved or inattentively created the International Creation Science Special Interest Group for Mensans (Juby, 2019c), as discussed briefly earlier on organizations.
An intelligent and educated man with detailed and, unfortunately, counter-scientific views about the world. He sells DVDs including ones on the Book of Genesis and aliens, and one series entitled “The Complete Creation” (Juby, 2019b). He writes a decent amount in something called “Creation Science Notes” or creationist notes (Juby, 2015a; Juby, 2015b; Juby, 2015c; Juby, 2015d; Juby, 2015e; Juby, 2015f; Juby, 2015g; Juby, 2015h; Juby, 2015i; Juby, 2015j; Juby, 2015k; Juby, 2015l; Juby, 2015m; Juby, 2015n; Juby, 2015o; Juby, 2015p; Juby, 2015q; Juby, 2015r; Juby, 2015s; Juby, 2015t). Those went from a highly productive March through April in 2015 and then fizzled into obscurity. Some overlap with the timings of the “Research” page publications (Juby, 2015v; Juby, 2015w; Juby, 2015x; Juby, 2015y; Juby, 2015z). Most of the research publications amount to calls for help, or short calls published as blog posts.
Within the “Media Kit,” he describes in a concise fashion the worldview laid out in the creationism espoused by him; I would use “creation science” if this perspective took on the formal procedures of science and in a correct manner, bit I do not see this playing by the normal or regular rules of modern science nor do the vast majority of secular and religious scientists, including those involved in evolutionary biology – thus creationism fits better or more aptly (Juby, 2019d). Juby states:
The Creation message is a major key to evangelism in the western hemisphere. How can a person be saved, if they’ve been convinced by “science” (falsely so called) that we evolved and there is no God?…
… In fact the gospel message of Jesus Christ is invalidated if Evolution is true. The purpose of this ministry is to expose the fallacies of Evolution and proclaim the truth of both the Bible, and its young-earth Creation message. Jesus Christ and the Apostles were all young-earth Creationists, so it is completely understandable when people (especially teens) have questions about the Bible when confronted by the supposed “overwhelming evidence” of Evolution and an old earth.
The museum is the centerpiece to Ian’s lectures, providing tangible evidence of Creation. During lectures, Ian hands out genuine fossils, fossil casts and replicas, and after the lecture, people can take photographs.
- Dinosaurs are in the bible, and in the museum!
- Fossils tell the tale of the global flood of Noah
- Biology is shown in all its incredible complexity with animatronic displays
- Ancient artifacts from deep in the earth show that man has been on earth since the beginning of time
- Truly all of Creation declares the glory and character of the Lord! (Ibid.).
Noting, of course, Juby identifies himself as in the work of “Creation ministry,” which seems more appropriately as a descriptor compared to creation science, as “creation science” seems more akin to “creation ‘science’” to me (Ibid.). He does family days, sessions for children, talks on “God’s Little Creation,” uniformitarianism, Noachian flood mythology as historical fact, dinosaurs and humans, evolution, geology and the age of the Earth, as well as a guide tour of the “traveling Creation Museum” (Ibid.). Juby (2015u) covers home projects, which remain uncertain, personally, as to how to enter into a category – corresponding “Past Projects” and “Cool Stuff” webpages remain blank, empty.
Other movement leaders are Calvin Smith who direct the work of Answers in Genesis-Canada (2019b), Dennis Kraushaar as the 1st Vice-President of Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc. and Nathan Siemens as the 2nd Vice-President of Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc., Roger Oakland and Myrna Okland of Understand the Times, Barbara Miller and Anne-Marie Collins as camp preparers for the Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc., Tina Bain of the Creation Science Association of Alberta, Vance Nelson who writes the Untold Secrets books, and Garry Miller as the camp director for the Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc., Calvin Erlendson of Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc., Dr. Gordon Wilson, Barb Churcher, John MacKay, Dr. Peter Barber at Nipawin Bible College, Laurence Tisdall and Julie Charette at Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, Shirley Dahlgren, Sandra Cheung at Creation Discovery Science Camp, Warren Smith, Alex Scharf and Velma Scharf, John Feakes, Paul Gosselin at Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, Sharon Foreman, Bryce Homes, Don Hamm, David Lashley, Dennis Siemens, David Kadylak, Dr. Thomas Sharp, Steve Lockert, Steve Lockert at Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc., David Dombrowski and Deborah Dombrowski, Joe Boot, Marilyn Carter, Laurence Tisdall, T. A. McMahon at The Berean Call ministry, Julien Perreault, Calvin Erlendson, John Feak, John Plantz, Robert Gottselig, François Garceau at Association de Science Créationniste du Québec, Dr. Andy McIntosh, Lise Vaillancourt, Thomas Bailey and Dr. Jim Mason, Doug Wagner, Emilie Brouillet, and Jonathan Nicol (Creation Science of Saskatchewan Inc., 2019a). Other organizations include Institute for Creation Research (2019), The Emperor Has No Clothes (2019), Creation Safaris (2019), Northwest Creation Network (2019), Creation Ministries International (2019a), Creationism.Com (2019), Creation Resources Trust (2019), Creation-Evolution Headlines (2019), Logos Research Associations (2019), Revolution Against Evolution (2019), Canadian Home Education Resources devoted to creationism (2019), Reasons (2019), and one assumes more – part from repetitions.
As one can see over and over again – if one looks at the References – in the titles of the articles and organizations, there exist mistakes in the titling of the articles and the organizations, which, as an independent journalist and researcher looking at the mainstream and dependent journalists and researchers, should stop or halt as a practice because no ‘debate’ exist between creationism and evolution because evolution does not have a peer in the scientific community, in the community of professional and lay biological scientists, and, thus, cannot exist with a ‘debate’ against creationism except insofar as some mechanisms of evolution via natural selection account for some more or creationism sits at a debate table with reality or, more properly, at odds with reality. (Dubois, 2014). Although, I do not set this at the feet of Dubois, for example, as the Ken Ham and Bill Nye ‘debate’ remains a problem for the overall reportage emerging out of the cultural milieu, Dubois (Ibid.), in spite of the title, provided a good comment, “Creation Ministries International, a spinoff from Answers in Genesis-Australia, has a Canadian branch with a headquarters in Ontario, which is actively involved in outreach across Canada to promote their viewpoints to the public.”
Centre for Inquiry-Canada has covered some of the materials (CFIC, 2013; CFIC, 2014). The Associated Press provided some decent coverage on the Bill Nye and Ken Ham dialogue or presentation time, or ‘debate,’ reflecting the need for better education in the United States, especially in regards to science (2014). However, one may suspect this ‘debate’ became a point of bolstering for the true believers in creationism in Canada while convincing some fence-sitters of the necessity of proper scientific theoretical frameworks as that found in evolutionary theory. An appearance as if an important and real scientific debate can convince some who wish for conversion over time. As Ham (The Associated Press, 2014) stated, “The Bible is the word of God… I admit that’s where I start from.” The “word of God” means literal readings of the Book of Genesis and, in fact, the complete suite of the books of the Bible. Note the underbelly, one can see the in-fighting. Mehta characterizes the conflicts between the flat earthers and the creationists as groups lacking complete self-awareness (Mehta, 2019d). This amounts to one collective of fundamentalists calling another group of fundamentalists not Christian enough or too fundamentalist in their reading of Christian scriptures.
So it goes,
and on, and on,
it goes,
too.
Religion in Politics and Politics in Religion: or, Religion is Politics
God is merciful, but only if you’re a man.
Ophelia Benson
The development of the nation is intimately linked with understanding and application of science and technology by its people.
Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai
‘Respect for religion‘ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.
Salman Rushdie
Given cognitive vulnerabilities, it would be convenient to have an arrangement whereby reality could tell us off; and that is precisely what science is. Scientific methodology is the arrangement that allows reality to answer us back.
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.
Kurt Vonnegut
There’ll be no money to keep them from being left behind — way behind. Seniors will pay. They’ll pay big time as the Republicans privatize Social Security and rob the Trust Fund to pay for the capricious war. Medicare will be curtailed and drugs will be more unaffordable. And there won’t be any money for a drug benefit because Bush will spend it all on the war. Working folks will pay through loss of job security and bargaining rights. Our grandchildren will pay through the degradation of our air and water quality. And the entire nation will pay as Bush continues to destroy civil rights, women’s rights and religious freedom in a rush to phony patriotism and to courting the messianic Pharisees of the religious right.
Pete Stark
Some attempt to bring creationist orientations into Canadian textbooks with a focus on the non-difference called “microevolution” and “macroevolution,” which one sees in religious circles and not scientific ones (Coyne, 2015). Microevolution amounts to change within a species and macroevolution to change into a new species, in which the religious creationist (probably a superfluous phrase in the vast majority of cases) denies changes into new species – as this means the creation of new “kinds” or species against God’s dictates – and accept changes within a species as in changes between parent and child but not dog into another species (Ibid.). These considerations, as stated in previous sections, influence politics, including Canadian. We live amidst a age of a rising tide and anti-science acts (Waldmann, 2017).
Torrone (2007), accurately, and more than a decade ago, noted the lack of imagination in much of the creationist works passed onto the next generations in the religious circles – as stated throughout this article about the fundamental religious bases for the creationist movements and, in fact, in accordance with the statements of the founders of the movements. With some examination, a case, at least within Canadian public life, can be made for the mainstay of the creationist movements coming from the religious traditions in this country with a focus on Christianity and some aboriginal traditions; another case may be made with the political life of the country as the conservatives, the Conservative Party of Canada, in particular, tends to produce the most creationist politicians (Canadian Press, 2007). Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory stated as such in 2007 in public statements devoid of scientific legitimacy (Ibid.). Tory, at the time (Ibid.), said, “It’s still called the theory of evolution… They teach evolution in the Ontario curriculum, but they also could teach the fact to the children that there are other theories that people have out there that are part of some Christian beliefs,” pointing to the equivocation between theory in science and within the lay public and political leadership. These form a basis alongside religious fundamentalist ideals throughout the country, where the political and the religious become synonymous.
Take, for example, former prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, and associates, who represented a similar worldview and voting base often at odds with the science of evolutionary theory. Nikiforuk noted the “covert” evangelicalism of the former prime minister of Canada Stephen Harper (2015). He stated:
Religion explains why Harper appointed a creationist, Gary Goodyear, as science minister in 2009; why the party employs Arthur Hamilton, as its hard-nosed lawyer (he’s an evangelical too and a member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance); why Conservative MP Wai Young would defend the government’s highly controversial spying legislation, Bill C-51, by saying it reflects the teachings of Jesus; and why Canada’s new relationship with Israel dominates what’s left of the country’s shredded foreign policy.
It also explains why Harper would abolish the role of science advisor in the federal government only to open an Office of Religious Freedom under the department of Foreign Affairs with an annual $5-million budget. Why? Because millions of suburban white evangelical Christians consider religious freedom a more vital issue than same-sex marriage or climate change.
Of approximately 30 evangelical MPs that followed Harper into power in 2006, most have stepped down for this election. One, James Lunney, even resigned from the party to run as an independent member of Parliament for Nanaimo-Alberni.
Lunney did so as he called critics of creationism “social bigots,” and railed against what he describes as “deliberate attempts to suppress a Christian worldview from professional and economic opportunity in law, medicine and academia.”
This points to, once more, the influence of religion and, in particular, evangelical Christianity’s influence on the fundamentals of the faith enforced in the social, economic, political, and science-policy domains of the nation – our dear constitutional monarchy. (Ibid.)
Some creationist politicians may feel cyberbullied (Postmedia News, 2015). Postmedia News reported, “B.C. independent MP James Lunney, who left the Conservative caucus Tuesday so he could speak out freely on his creationist views, was denied the right Wednesday to deliver in full a lengthy speech he had prepared. In a rambling address in the House of Commons, he said ‘millions’ of Canadians are being ‘gagged’ as part of a ‘concerted effort by various interests to undermine freedom of religion’” (Ibid.).
This arose after questioning the theory of evolution (Ibid.). I do not support cyberbullying of anyone for their beliefs, but I do respect humour as a tool in political and social activism as an educational tool against ideas. Lunney said, “I am tired of seeing my faith community mocked and belittled” (Ibid.). Thus pointing to the more known point of religion and personal religious beliefs as the problem and not the science, science conflicts with the religious convictions of the Hon. Lunney and others (Ibid.).
As noted earlier, or furthermore, O’Neil (2015) reported Lunney told the House of Commons that millions of Canadians feel gagged by efforts to – from his point of view – “undermine freedom of religion.” Naharnet Newsdesk (2015) stated:
A veteran Conservative MP quit Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government Tuesday in order to freely defend his denial of evolution, claiming there is a concerted Canadian effort to stifle creationists’ views.
MP James Lunney, who was first elected to parliament in 2000, said he will sit in the House of Commons as an independent but will continue to vote with the ruling Tories.
The British Columbia MP said he took the decision to leave the party just six months before a general election in order to “defend my beliefs and the concerns of my faith community.”
He pointed to an alleged plot that reaches into the “senior levels” of Canadian politics seeking “to suppress a Christian world-view,” and criticized the media for provoking a “firestorm of criticism and condemnation.”
A more small-time politician, Dr. Darrell Furgason, ran for public office in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada (Henderson, 2018). Furgason lectured at Trinity Western University and earned a Ph.D. in Religious Studies (Ibid.). Dr. Furgason claims inclusivity for all while ignoring standard protocol in science, i.e., asserting religious views in written work, “Theistic evolution is a wrong view of Genesis, as well as history, and biology. Adam & Eve were real people….who lived in real history….around 6000 years ago” (Ibid.). He believes no Christian extremists exist in Canada (Lehn, 2019).
Mang, back in 2009, described some of the religious influence on the political landscape of Canada. The statements of “God bless Canada” at the ends of Harper’s speeches, the alignment of Roman Catholic Christianity with the conservatives and of the Protestant Christians with the liberals, and the lack of religion or the non-religious affiliated associated with the New Democratic Party or the NDP (Ibid.). Evangelical Christians identify with socially conservative values more often and, therefore, identify with and vote for the conservative candidates in local ridings or in federal elections (Ibid). Even so, the laity and the hierarchs of the Catholic Church can differ on some fundamental moral questions of the modern period for them with the Pope issuing, or popes writing, encyclicals on abortion and contraception for espousal by the religious leaders in the bishops and priests while being rejected by the lay Catholic public (Ibid.).
This may explain the support for the liberals by many of the Catholic voters of Canadian society (Ibid.). One of the dividing issues, according to Mang, came in the form of the same-sex marriage question because of the importance seen in the religious concept of the “sanctity of marriage” with the sanctity intended only or solely for heterosexual couples (Ibid.). Mang (Ibid.) stated, “But times could be changing. Current polls suggest that the Conservatives are in majority territory while Liberal support, once steady and predictable, is dropping precipitously. The Conservatives invoke god when delivering speeches, hire political staff such as the Prime Minister’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Darrel Reid, who denounced abortion and same-sex marriage while president of Focus on the Family in Canada, and pander to myriad religious communities. However, they have attempted to place a veil over a level of religiosity that makes the majority of Canadians squeamish” (Focus on the Family, 2019; Mang, 2009).
Press Progress (2018d) spoke to the far-right rallies of Doug Ford who wanted to “celebrate” the new social conservative agenda for the country. Some point out the direct attempts for a transformation of the society into more socially conservative directions with the work to change policy in that direction (Gagné, 2019). The Christian right with an intent or desire to teach creationism or intelligent design in the schools (Ibid; The Conversation, 2019). A top creationist was invited as a speaker at a convention in Alberta (CBC News, 2017b). In the meantime, Canadians continue with non-sense around purported miracles of white men in modern garb and selling ancient superstitions (Carter, 2016).
Gurpreet Singh (2019) spoke to the urgent need to defeat some of the more egregious cases of science denialism in the political realm. He, immediately, directed attention to ‘skepticism’ on the part of Conservative Party of Canada Leader Andrew Scheer about the Canada Food Guide (Kirkup, 2019; Government of Canada, 2019). Singh (2019) said, “Scheer recently told dairy farmers in Saskatoon that the food guide was ‘ideologically driven by people who have a philosophical perspective and a bias against certain types of healthy food products’… Scheer’s statement clearly shows that he has joined the growing list of right-wing populist leaders of the world who have repeatedly denied science and are bent upon taking the society backwards.” Press Progress (2018a) catalogued Charles McVety stating:
People talk about the world being billions and billions of years old, but I’ve never seen anything more than 6,000 years old. You have a perfect historical record for about 6,000 years and then…stopped…This nonsense that this world has been like this for billions of years is really troublesome to me in my mind because it makes no sense at all, but how many know that the devil makes no sense?…
…I just want people to know, that this man takes a stand, and you know that the devil doesn’t like it. In fact, last week the Toronto Star wrote an article and they ridiculed us for having Ken Ham here to come to speak on Genesis and they said that they’re worried that McVety’s relationship with Doug Ford means that creation is now going to be taught in all the schools in Ontario. I, of course, said there’s no move in that direction but it sounds like a good idea, don’t you think? (Press Progress, 2018a; Canada Christian College, 2018).
None of these statements of frustrations, or behaviours, are new. They harbour a legacy in this country undealt with in the past, which provides the basis for their maintenance through time. Almost two decades ago, Stockwell Day was the Canadian Alliance Leader in Canadian politics (The Globe and Mail, 2000). As reported, he resented “the probing of his conviction that the Biblical account of how life originated on this planet is a scientifically supported theory capable of being taught alongside evolution. He says the inquiries are intrusive and irrelevant to the election campaign” (Ibid.). Problem: the personal beliefs and convictions “coloured” the proposed policies and policy changes of Day on behalf of the public as a public servant, a politician. He said, “There is scientific support for both creationism and evolution” (Ibid.). The reportage continued:
In a documentary aired Tuesday on CBC-TV’s The National, the head of natural science at Red Deer College in 1997 said he heard Mr. Day tell a crowd that the world is only several thousand years old and that men walked with dinosaurs. While that may be consistent with the literal word of Genesis, it is inconsistent with the evidence uncovered by geologists and others, and subjected to tests and challenges, that Earth is billions of years old and that, The Flintstones notwithstanding, dinosaurs died off tens of millions of years before humans first appeared.
Mr. Day says the documentary denied him a chance to reply. (Ibid.)
Other politicians right into the present continue this tradition in different ways. The work to indoctrinate children with right-wing ideological stances remains against the spirit of education and the stance of the general notion of an informed education rather than a coerced education around creationism and pro-life groups, as in some schools (Press Progress, 2019c).
One can see this in some Cloverdale-Langley candidates in British Columbia associated with the promotion of “blogs purporting to show science supports the idea earth was created in six days. Cloverdale-Langley City’s Tamara Jansen has been in full damage control mode” (Press Progress, 2019a). At the same time, she cast doubt on Darwinian evolution and climate change research published by NASA scientists. Press Progress stated, “…on multiple occasions, Jansen has promoted obscure blogs on the topic of ‘Young Earth Creationism’ — the idea God literally created the Earth in six days only a few thousand years ago. One creationist blog Jansen shared, titled ‘a defence of six-day creation,’ states: ‘Yes, scientific theories do appear to discredit that creation account. But be patient. In time it will be seen that those humble Bible believers were right all along: it was asix-day creation. ‘What is the remedy?’ the blog asks. ‘I will tell you that too. A return to God’s Word! We had science for the sake of science, and got the World War.’ It is entirely true that World War II was, in the deepest sense, a result of widespread acceptance of the doctrine of human evolution” (Press Progress, 2019a; Williamson, 2013; Wieske, 2013). One can find some, but not pervasive, approval of some creationist ideas or modernist paradigms in the creation ministerial works (DeYoung, 2012). In some writing, Mehta commented on and reflected on the need for experts, which seems relevant and important here (2018a).
Gerson (2015) identified a problem for conservative candidates who espouse religious worldviews as scientific hypotheses. In that, belief in young earth creationism may become ammunition utilized by political opposition against the conservative politician who holds religious views on biological origins, who adheres to young earth creationism. At the time, education minister Gordon Dirks was picked by Jim Prentice, former Alberta premier. He was insinuated to adhere to a religious view in rejection of modern scientific evidentiarily substantiated hypotheses or theories found in the biological sciences and important to the medical sciences. She said, “Evolution became a toxic issue for Conservative politicians in the early 2000s. Barney the Dinosaur dolls and whistled renditions of the Flintstones theme song met former federal MP Stockwell Day after he expressed his belief in Young Earth creationism in the early 2000s… In 2009, researchers balked when federal science minister Gary Goodyear declined to say whether he believed in evolution” (Ibid.). This became an issue for Progressive Conservative MPP Rick Nicholls who thought positively of the ability of students having the option to opt out of the teaching of evolution (The Canadian Press, 2015). “For myself, I don’t believe in evolution… But that doesn’t mean I speak for everyone else in my caucus. That’s a personal stance,” Nicholls stated (Ibid.). Jim Wilson, Interim PC leader at the time, described Nicholls’s position as unrepresentative of the Ontario Tories (Ibid.). At the time, this was heavily used by liberals against Nicholls. Health Minister Eric Hoskins said, “We had one member of the PC party questioning whether we should even be teaching evolution in schools… I can’t even begin to imagine what may be coming next: perhaps we never landed on the moon.” Religion and politics professor at the University of Calgary, Irving Hexham, explained how if a politician came out in support of evolution via natural selection then the liability becomes exclusion from the religious community (Gerson, 2015). A religious community, one might safely assume, propping said politician up.
Dr. John G. Stackhouse, Jr., the Samuel J. Mikolaski Professor of Religious Studies at Crandall University in Moncton, New Brunswick, stated, “Still, maybe evolution, theistic or otherwise, can explain all these things–as Christian Francis Collins believes just as firmly as atheist Richard Dawkins believes. But we must allow that evolution has not yet done so” (2018). Perhaps, however, the phrase should parse because unguided evolution remains much different than a god-guided evolution in the overall narrative framework. Stackhouse also notes:
Nowadays, however, many people assume that belief in creation (= “creationism”) means a very particular set of beliefs: that the Biblical God created the world in six 24-hour days; that the earth is less than 10,000 years old; and that the planet appears older because a global flood in Noah’s time laid down the deep layers of sediment that evolutionists think took billions of years to accumulate.
These beliefs are not, in fact, traditional Christian beliefs, but a particular, and recent, variety of Christian thought, properly known as “creation science” or “scientific creationism.” Creation science was popularized in a 1923 book called The New Geology by amateur U.S. scientist George McCready Price. A Seventh-Day Adventist, Price learned from Adventism’s founder Ellen G. White that God had revealed to her that Noah’s flood was responsible for the fossil record. (Ibid.).
Further, this means Collins and Dawkins believe in disparate narratives on, at least, one fundamental level. Stackhouse continues to cite the “punctuated equilibrium” hypothesis of Stephen Jay Gould as somehow not quite evolution, but the problem: punctuated equilibrium exists as a theory adjunct to evolutionary biology as a component of evolution in some models. With all due respect to Dr. Stackhouse, he remains flat wrong, or mostly incorrect.
Stackhouse (2018) edges into the conflation of theory with hypothesis, religious narrative guess, or hunch in saying, “The creation science and ID people cannot be dismissed as wrong about everything!—and their opponents would do well to heed their criticisms, even if they hate their alternative theories.” What predictions have been made by young earth creationists to narrow the point? What makes young earth creationism falsifiable as a part of the fundamental proposal? In a strange ongoing well-informed and wrong-headed soliloquy, Stackhouse states, “So what should we do about the vexed questions about origins and evolution?” Nothing, except, maybe, continue with more predictions, more and better tools for more and better science, for improved understandings of origins an evolution via natural selection.
Often, we can find the ways in which the socially conservative views mix with the conservative political orientation, the conservative religious views, and the non-science views on origins and, in particular, development of complex organisms, e.g., mammals and primates including human beings (Press Progress, 2019b). Some social conservatives, mutually, support one another or, probably more properly, protect one another when on the gauntlet over some messaging or statements around creationism and denial/pseudoskepticism of evolution via natural selection, as with Stockwell Day protecting Wai Young (Press Progress, 2015). Day controversial for creationist views in the past, in and of himself (BBC News, 2000). The BBC said, “From an early age Stockwell Day has had strong ties with the Evangelical Church. Between 1978-85 he was assistant Pastor at a church in Alberta” (Ibid.). The evangelical upbringing and traditions seems deeply linked, in many not all regards, to creationist outlooks on the world.
Progressive Conservative MPP Rick Nicholls stood by the position from 2015 in which he said, “For myself, I don’t believe in evolution” (Ferguson, 2015). Conservative MPP Christine Elliott disagreed, stating, “I don’t agree with the views that were expressed with respect to evolution” (Ibid.). Helpful to note, during the statements by Nicholls, now infamous, he did not simply state them, but, in fact, shouted them, “…not a bad idea,” which connects, once more, to other conservative political points in the news cycle, e.g., sexual education (Ferguson, 2018; Benzie & Ferguson, 2018). Benzie & Ferguson (2008) stated, “Inside, the morning question period was especially nasty — Education Minister Liz Sandals mocked McNaughton and other right-wing Tories saying they “want to make the teaching of evolution optional.” One may surmise the conflict of the religious-political views as at odds with the march of the scientific rationality into the public and the policies and, thus, more and more with what is better known about the real world rather than what was in the past assumed about the ‘real’ world.
Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s United Conservative Party, remains an individual not to shy from attendance at some of these creationist events within the country (Press Progress, 2018b), where Kenney was, in fact, the distinguished guest as the key note speaker at the National Home Education Conference held in Ottawa, Ontario between September 28 and 29 (2019). Homeschooling remains one way in which the proliferation of religious or theological views as science continues. Kenney (Press Progress, 2018b) was seen as the headline speaker for a “conference sponsored by fringe education groups that promote homophobic and anti-scientific teachings… one sponsor helped shape UCP education policy and is now campaigning for the repeal of a law protecting students in gay-straight alliance clubs, another provides students with learning material that denies evolution, claims sea monsters are real and suggests humans traveled to the moon 4,000 years ago.”
Kenney (Press Progress, 2019d) stated an admiration for the tactics of a former KGB operative who became President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. This reflects a violent and fundamentalist orientation against the right to protest. This may form some of the general attitudinal orientation of Kenney in the rights of others. One may doubt the symmetry for others in his party, or for him, if protesting in some fashion. Often, the creationist politicians comprise four categories: older, male, white, and conservative. The counter-science reactionaries tend to target women who are not conservative. The Governor General of Canada, Julie Payette, described the problem with faith-based and non-scientific approaches to the world to a group of scientists in the news, which became a media item and a political debacle – not on her part but on the commentators’ parts. Foster (2017) in the ongoing game of missing the point used the Payette news cycle to make a point against another woman who is the Canadian Environment and Climate Minister, Catherine McKenna.
Efforts to point out sympathizing, knowingly or unwittingly (ignorantly because unaware of the implications of what one says), may, in fact, bolster the support for the candidate with such musings (Dimatteo, 2018), creationism in education and politics seems like an open secret. The British Columbia Humanist Association, described the rather blatant, overt, and without shame presentation of creationism in the schools at the high school level as if science (Bushfield, 2018). Science is not despised by religion or politics in general. Indeed, there can be affirmations of some fundamental scientific findings, including human-induced climate change (Anglican Diocese of British Columbia, 2019) by religious orthodoxies in Canada’s religious belief landscape. Creationism, climate change denial, and Intelligent Design maintain a similar rejection of the facts before us. As you know well by now, Intelligent Design adheres to non-naturalistic mechanisms, or guided processes, for the features of some creatures or organisms alive now (Smith, 2017).
CBC News (2018) stated Payette “learned” from the earlier statements based on reporting of the event after the fact with the nature of the problem coming into the fore with the position, as the Hon. Payette noted adaptation to the position, i.e., do not change on the scientific positions but remain chary of the soft spots of a largely religious public. Payette (Bissett, 2017) even affirmed some standard Canadian values, “Our values are tolerance and determination, and freedom of religion, freedom to act, opportunities, equality of opportunities amongst everyone and for all.” The purportedly egregious statements of Payette on matters of scientific import to the cultural health of the nation. Let’s see:
Payette targeted evolution, climate change, horoscopes, and alternative medicine in the speech. Some quotes, on climate change from human activity:
Can you believe that still today in learned society, in houses of government, unfortunately, we’re still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up or whether even the Earth is warming up, period?
On evolution by natural selection, unguided:
And we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process.
On alternative medicines:
And so many people — I’m sure you know many of them — still believe, want to believe, that maybe taking a sugar pill will cure cancer, if you will it!
On horoscopes:
And every single one of the people here’s personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported the remarks by Payette.
(Jacobsen, 2017c)
From a standard scientific point of view, she did not state anything incorrect, and several within the community of the general public – leaders and laity – conflated criticism of non-science masquerading as science as somehow an assault on faith-based systems of belief found in traditionalist religions (Rabson, 2018). These, purely and simply, do not mean the same thing and the conflation by the media, or the catering to this by the media personalities and outlets, reflects a significant problem and, in turn, stoked fires not needing further enflaming, as the veneer of congeniality and sociability amongst the laity and leadership of religious communities with one another and the freethought communities seems thin to me. Duly note, the most prominent religious denomination at present and since the founding of Canadian society: Roman Catholic Christian. Both Andrew Scheer and Justin Trudeau identify as Roman Catholic Christians of more conservative and more liberal strains of the same undergirding theological assumption-structure. For the purposes of this commentary on the article of Urback (2017), the nature of the problem comes from the lack of scientific literacy in the public and non-derision but pointing out the discrepancies in the factual state of the world, as per a trained scientist and former astronaut Governor General, and the sensitivities of the public to counters to faith-claims, apolitical scientific statements. In fact, the Governor General may have experienced the reality of the phrase by Mark Twain, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” As Carl Meyer (2017) observes, Payette was in the service of the general public with telling – to the sensitivities of the general public – uncomfortable truths with myth busting there.
“Rideau Hall is, furthermore, a hidebound place that puts a premium on tradition. Ms. Payette’s scientific background valorizes reason and new frontiers, rather than the way things have been done in the past. It could be said that this personality mismatch speaks well of Ms. Payette – that she’s too smart and independent for such a fusty post,” the Globe and Mail reported (2018). Both CBC News and Premier Brad Wall of Saskatchewan in 2017(a) missed the point entirely on the nature of the problem with the inclusion of “religion” as a statement, which remains wrong then, and now, and amounts to imputed motive, as the Governor General Payette focused on factually wrong beliefs: climate change from human activity, evolution by natural selection, unguided, alternative medicines, and horoscopes. All parties who misrepresented the comments – news stations, public officials, and individuals – of the Hon. Julie Payette should issue a public apology or writer a letter of apology to her. In fact, they should appreciate and thank her. She set a tone of scientific literacy and individual, educated integrity with the spirit and content of the statements unseen in this country, often.
Besides, Payette noted the turbulence within Rideau Hall as, more or less, supposed or purported turbulence (Marquis, 2018). The Globe and Mail (2018) noted the statements by Payette as mocking creationism, and not creationists – an important distinction. For some who want to bring a nation back to the Bible like those at www.backtothebible.com consider critiques of bad hypotheses and affirmation of scientific theories as an attack on their religion, a giveaway as to name of the sincere game: the creationist view – and other faith-based and supernatural views – as a religious proposition without merit. John Neufeld, a Bible Teacher at Back to the Bible Canada, stated, “At a recent speech to scientists at an Ottawa convention, Ms. Payette was very clear about how she felt about religion… Much has already been said about Ms. Payette’s insensitivity to people of religious persuasion. Some have called her ‘mean-spirited’… As one Christian living in Canada, I say, “Shame on you” (2017). Again, he never said, “She’s empirically wrong,” because this would force commitment to a scientific, repeatably testable, and empirical position. These, purely and simply, do not mean the same thing and the conflation by the media, or the catering to this by the media personalities and outlets, reflects a significant problem and, in turn, stoked fires not needing further enflaming, as the veneer of congeniality and sociability amongst the laity and leadership of religious communities with one another and the freethought communities seems thin to me.
Wood (2017) wrote on the entire fiasco around the Hon. Payette with a rather humorous note about Rex Murphy writing a “hard-to-follow take down” of the speech, which makes one question the strength of the take down or even the assertion of a ‘take down.’ Scientific views do not come from the intersubjective realm of political and social discourses found in norms and mores, but, rather, in the nature of the empirical findings and the preponderance of those findings with the best theoretical framework for knitting the data in a coherent weave. The other theories lack empirical support and, many times, coherence. Thus, every single commentator who took part in the chorus of Canadian journalism here exposed themselves as marginally intellectual in the affairs of central concern to them, in proclaiming faux offense over the Hon. Payette’s statements about basic science. It was never about opinion, but it was about relaying the statements of fact and fundamental scientific theories about the world and the reaction represented the discrepancy of the general public’s knowledge of science and the scientific findings themselves. In these domains, the journalists, as a reflection of some of the public, and several politicians, showed themselves ignorant, or deliberately pandering to sectors of the public who do not prefer women in power, smart and educated individuals in places of influence, or both.
The aforementioned Professor Dennis Venema at Trinity Western University has stated on several occasions and in an articulate manner the theologically inappropriate and scientifically incorrect beliefs inherent in all alternatives to evolutionary theory. He states:
Well, the evidence is everywhere. It’s not just that a piece here and there fits evolution: it’s the fact that virtually none of the evidence we have suggests anything else. What you see presented as “problems for evolution” by Christian anti-evolutionary groups are typically issues that are taken out of context or (intentionally or not) misrepresented to their non-specialist audiences. For me personally (as a geneticist) comparative genomics (comparing DNA sequences between different species) has really sealed the deal on evolution. Even if Darwin had never lived and no one else had come up with the idea of common ancestry, modern genomics would have forced us to that conclusion even if there was no other evidence available (which of course manifestly isn’t the case).
For example, we see the genes for air-based olfaction (smelling) in whales that no longer even have olfactory organs. Humans have the remains of a gene devoted to egg yolk production in our DNA in exactly the place that evolution would predict. Our genome is nearly identical to the chimpanzee genome, a little less identical to the gorilla genome, a little less identical to the orangutan genome, and so on—and this correspondence is present in ways that are not needed for function (such as the location of shared genetic defects, the order of genes on chromosomes, and on and on). If you’re interested in this research, you might find this (again, somewhat technical) lecture I gave a few years ago helpful. You can also see a less technical, but longer version here where I do my best to explain these lines of evidence to members of my church. (Venema, 2018a)
He sets a new or a more scientific tone in the fundamentalist Evangelical Christian communities and postsecondary institutions within Canadian society and remains active, and young, and can continue to develop a positive theological grounding within a modern scientific purview. In a way, he shows a non-fundamentalist path for the next generations. He and others can provide a context for a more sophisticated political discourse over time.
Creative Stiflement and the Outcomes of Personal Bafflement: or, the Need for Cognitive Closure
I don’t profess any religion; I don’t think it’s possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words ‘spiritual’ or ‘spirituality.’
Philip Pullman
I think . . . that philosophy has the duty of pointing out the falsity of outworn religious ideas, however estimable they may be as a form of art. We cannot act as if all religion were poetry while the greater part of it still functions in its ancient guise of illicit science and backward morals.
Corliss Lamont
I regard monotheism as the greatest disaster ever to befall the human race. I see no good in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam — good people, yes, but any religion based on a single, well, frenzied and virulent god, is not as useful to the human race as, say, Confucianism, which is not a religion but an ethical and educational system.
Gore Vidal
Science and religion stand watch over different aspects of all our major flashpoints. May they do so in peace and reinforcement–and not like the men who served as a cannon fodder in World War I, dug into the trenches of a senseless and apparently interminable conflict, while lobbing bullets and canisters of poison gas at a supposed enemy, who, like any soldier, just wanted to get off the battlefield and on with a potentially productive and rewarding life.
Stephen Jay Gould
It took me years, but letting go of religion has been the most profound wake up of my life. I feel I now look at the world not as a child, but as an adult. I see what’s bad and it’s really bad. But I also see what is beautiful, what is wonderful. And I feel so deeply appreciative that I am alive. How dare the religious use the term ‘born again.’ That truly describes freethinkers who’ve thrown off the shackles of religion so much better!
Julia Sweeney
They say that Caliph Omar, when consulted about what had to be done with the library of Alexandria, answered as follows: ‘If the books of this library contain matters opposed to the Koran, they are bad and must be burned. If they contain only the doctrine of the Koran, burn them anyway, for they are superfluous.’ Our learned men have cited this reasoning as the height of absurdity. However, suppose Gregory the Great was there instead of Omar and the Gospel instead of the Koran. The library would still have been burned, and that might well have been the finest moment in the life of this illustrious pontiff.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
It may be remarked incidentally that the recognition of the relational character of scientific objects completely eliminates an old metaphysical issue. One of the outstanding problems created by the rise of modern science was due to the fact that scientific definitions and descriptions are framed in terms of which qualities play no part. Qualities were wholly superfluous. As long as the idea persisted (an inheritance from Greek metaphysical science) that the business of knowledge is to penetrate into the inner being of objects, the existence of qualities like colors, sounds, etc., was embarrassing. The usual way of dealing with them is to declare that they are merely subjective, existing only in the consciousness of individual knowers. Given the old idea that the purpose of knowledge (represented at its best in science) is to penetrate into the heart of reality and reveal its “true” nature, the conclusion was a logical one. …The discovery of the nonscientific because of the empirically unverifiable and unnecessary character of absolute space, absolute motion, and absolute time gave the final coup de grâce to the traditional idea that solidity, mass, size, etc., are inherent possessions of ultimate individuals. The revolution in scientific ideas just mentioned is primarily logical. It is due to recognition that the very method of physical science, with its primary standard units of mass, space, and time, is concerned with measurements of relations of change, not with individuals as such.
John Dewey
*Footnotes in accordance with in-text citations of Story.*
Canadian creationism exists, as per several sections before this, within a larger set of concerns and problematic domains, including the international and the regional. By implication, American creationism forms some basis for creationism in Canada. Of the freethought communities’ writers, even amongst religious people – apart from Professor Dennis Venema, few individuals stood out in terms of the production of a comprehensive piece on creationism in Canada. Melissa Story is one exception, and, in a way, amounts to the national expert circa 2013 on this topic based on an honours thesis on creationism in Canada (Jacobsen, 2019t; Jacobsen, 2019u). Full credit to Story’s investigative and academic work for the foundation of this section – much appreciated.
Ken Ham sees Intelligent Design as insufficient to keep the faith of the next generations (2011). We see more creationism than Intelligent Design in Canada. Boutros (2007) gave a reasonable summary on creationism in some of Canada. We can see Creation Ministries International launched their own Deconstructing Darwin in Canada (Creation Ministries International Canada. (2019b). Canseco (2015) notes the decline most strongly in British Columbia of creationism. Mulherin (2014) noted the differences of opinion and belief, and so conclusions, of the different types of theological views known as creationism. Journalist and Philosopher, Malcolm Muggeridge, of the University of Waterloo, stated, “I, myself, am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so flimsy and dubious a hypothesis could be accepted with the credulity that it has” (GoodReads, 2019). This is Canada.
The British Columbia Humanist Association republished a reasonable piece by Melissa Story in 2013 on the Canadian creationism landscape, of which this section will incorporate as part of the larger analysis of the context of creationism and its (dis-)contents (Story, 2013a; Story, 2013b; Story, 2013c; Story, 2013d). Story (2013a) directs attention to the “Teach the Controversy” battles within Canada and the style of them. They tend to be more local and not national (Ibid.). Story supports religious freedom (Ibid.). Some of the history precludes the recent history. NPR (Adams, 2005) provided a rundown of the history from the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 to the publication of The Descent of Man in 1871, to the publication of George William Hunter’s A Civic Biology in 1914. The ex-Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, was a leader of the anti-evolution movement starting in 1921, who was a former congressman too (Ibid.). Bryan spoke about the Bible’s truth and delivered copies of the speech to the Tennessee legislature in 1924, and on January 21, 1925 Representative Butler introduced legislation banning evolution to the Tennessee House of Representatives entitled the Butler bill (Ibid.).
1925, busy a year as it was, January 27 saw the approval of the Butler bill 71:5 with heated debate for hours on March 13 for approval of the Butler bill (24:6) in the Tennessee Senate with Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signing the Butler bill into law as the first law banning evolution in the United States of American (Ibid.). May 4 saw a Chattanooga newspaper run a piece on the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the Butler law with May 5 had a “group of town leaders in Dayton, Tenn., read the news item about the ACLU’s search. They quickly hatch a plan to bring the case to Dayton, a scheme that they hope will generate publicity and jump-start the town’s economy. They ask 24-year-old science teacher and football coach John Thomas Scopes if he’d be willing to be indicted to bring the case to trial” (Ibid.).
May 12 had William Jennings Bryan agree to participation in the prosecution side of the trial for national interest in the case with Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone taking the opposing side, or representing Scopes, and Scopes got indicted by a grand jury on May 25, where May to July of 1925 saw the preparation for the trials’ anticipated publicity (Ibid.). A touch of naughtiness must have filled the air. The ACLU lawyers represented Scopes with Clarence Darrow as the main defense attorney or the individual who took the rather theatrical stage with Darrow convincing Scopes to admit to the violation of the statute of Tennessee (Adams, 2005). Modern technology, including a movie-newsreel camera platform with radio microphones, telephone wiring, and the telegraph, was equipped to the courthouse to provide a context of proper amplification of the happening to the outside world (Ibid.). July 10 the jury selection begins and Rev. Lemuel M. Cartright opens the proceedings with a prayer based on the request of Judge John Raulston (Ibid.). July 13 the court case opens and July 14 Darrow objected to the use of a prayer to open, but the judge overruled the objection allowing the ministers to continue and not to reference the matters of this case (Ibid.). July 15, Judge Raulston overruled the defense’s motion of the Butler law declared as unconstitutional because “public schools are not maintained as places of worship, but, on the contrary, were designed, instituted, and are maintained for the purpose of mental and moral development and discipline” (Ibid.).
July 17 saw the barring of expert testimony by scientists based on a motion of the prosecutors with Judge Raulston arguing expert opinion will not shed light on the issues of the trial involving evolutionary theory (Ibid.). For July 20 and July 21, “With the proceedings taking place outdoors due to the heat, the defense — in a highly unusual move — calls Bryan to testify as a biblical expert. Clarence Darrow asks Bryan a series of questions about whether the Bible should be interpreted literally. As the questioning continues, Bryan accuses Darrow of making a ‘slur at the Bible,’ while Darrow mocks Bryan for ‘fool ideas that no intelligent Christian on earth believes,’” NPR continued, “The final day of the trial opens with Judge Raulston’s ruling that Bryan cannot return to the stand and that his testimony should be expunged from the record. Raulston declares that Bryan’s testimony ‘can shed no light upon any issues that will be pending before the higher courts.’ Darrow then asks the court to bring in the jury and find Scopes guilty — a move that would allow a higher court to consider an appeal. The jury returns its guilty verdict after nine minutes of deliberation. Scopes is fined $100, which both Bryan and the ACLU offer to pay for him. After the verdict is read, John Scopes delivers his only statement of the trial, declaring his intent ‘to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideal of academic freedom — that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our constitution, of personal and religious freedom’” (Ibid.).
On July 26, William Jennings Bryan dies in Dayton, in his sleep, with a burial in the Arlington National Cemetery on July 31 (Ibid.). In 1926, Mississippi was the second state to ban the teaching of evolution in the public schools. On May 31, 1926, the appeal hearing of the Scopes case begins once more (Ibid.). Into the next year, on January 15 of 1927, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of the Butler law, where this overturned the verdict of the Scopes case based on a technicality (Ibid.). In 1927, the updated version of the textbook, A New Civic Biology, by George William Hunter used by Scopes in the educational context teaches evolution in a more cautious way, more judicious to the fundamentalist sensibilities of the Tennessean establishment of the time in 1927 (Ibid.). Arkansas becomes the third state to enact legislation banning the instruction of evolution in 1928, and then one March 13, 1938 Clarence Darrow dies (Ibid.), aged 80. “Inherit the Wind” base on the Scopes “Monkey” trial opens on Broadway on January 10, 1955 with the 1960 showing the first film version entitled Inherit the Wind (Ibid.), which Scopes saw in Dayton (Ibid.). On May 17, 1967, the Butler Act is repealed (Ibid.).
In 1967, Scopes published Center of the Storm as a memoir of the trial; in 1968, Epperson v. Arkansas struck down the banning of evolution in Arkansas (Ibid.). In 1973, “Tennessee becomes the first state in the United States to pass a law requiring that public schools give equal emphasis to “the Genesis account in the Bible” along with other theories about the origins of man. The bill also requires a disclaimer be used any time evolution is presented or discussed in public schools. It demands evolution be taught as theory and not fact,” NPR stated. 1975 saw the ruling of the equal time demanded and passed as unconstitutional with the defeat by a federal appeals court of the 1973 law (Ibid.). As you may see from the development from the 1920s with the Scopes trial and fallout from it, Story, appropriately, points to the 1920s as an important time for the creationist movement in the legal cases, and for the public school teachers who want to teach the fundamentals of all of life science (American Experience, n.d.).
It came to a head in Dayton, Tennessee with the Scopes trial, where John Scopes became someone willing to be arrested for the teaching of evolution based on a call of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, n.d.b). Scopes was arrested on May 7, 1925 with the purpose to show the ways in which the particular statute or law in Tennessee was unconstitutional (Ibid.). The ACLU stated, “The Scopes trial turned out to be one of the most sensational cases in 20th century America; it riveted public attention and made millions of Americans aware of the ACLU for the first time. Approximately 1000 people and more than 100 newspapers packed the courtroom daily” (Ibid.). William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow were the opposing attorneys in this world-famous case (History.Com Editors, 2019). The legal case was known as The State of Tennessee vs. John Thomas Scopes and challenged the Butler Act of Tennessee at the time – the ban on the teaching of evolution in the state (Szalay, 2016).
“It would be another four decades before these laws were repealed; however, the trial set in motion an ongoing debate about teaching evolutionary theories alongside Biblically-inspired creation accounts in science classrooms… The early years of legal challenges focused on the constitutionality of imposing religious views in public schools versus the autonomy of parents to provide an education to their children that was compatible with their own worldviews,” Story explained, “The inclusion of creationism in the curriculum was seen by some as a violation of the separation of church and state. Others argued that by not providing equal time to creationist theories, religious students were being taught in an environment that was seemingly hostile to their religious beliefs. Time and time again, higher courts ruled that creationism could not be taught alongside evolution because creationism was dogmatic in nature and essentially brought religion into the public school system” (2013a).[2],[3],[4]
Story emphasized the early development of the arguments against evolution in the public schools with the emphasis on two items. One with the autonomy of parents to raise and educate their children. Another for the constitutionality of the imposition of religious views on the or in the public schools with, often as one can observe, a preference for one particular religious creation story or creationism. Story (2013a) explained the more recent developments in the theorization of the communities of faith with the leadership, often, as white men with doctoral or legal degrees – or two doctoral degrees as in the case of Dr. William Dembski – espousing Intelligent Design or ID, where there is a proposal for “alternative ‘scientific’ theories.” Story (2013a) stated, “Proponents claim that ID is a valid alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution and have lobbied to have it included in science curricula. To date, several higher courts have ruled that ID is nothing more than creationism in the guise of science.”[5],[6]
One of the abovementioned cases from 2005 stemmed from parents who challenged the Pennsylvania Dover Area School District in its amended curriculum of the time proposed for the inclusion of Intelligent Design, which Story (2013a) characterizes as “essentially a secularized version of creationism.”[7]The separation of church and state, Story notes (Ibid.), accounts for the continual return to the American Constitution in the matters of religious orthodoxy, to some, within the educational system and the pushback against the attempted imposition within the science classrooms via the biology curricula. “Canada, however, does not have such finite divisions between church and state entrenched in its laws,” Story said, “While the Charter of Rights does provide protections to citizens, it does not explicitly outline divisions between faith and politics. Despite this, Canadian politics do not seem to be overtly intertwined with religion. On the surface, Canadians seem less preoccupied or concerned about religious influences on government or public institutions. This has meant that any religious controversies, similar to those in the United States, have remained largely unnoticed” (Story, 2013a).[8] Her main warning comes in the recognition of the quiet penetration of Canadian educational institutions with creationist dogmas or religious ideologies pretending to take the place of real science or proper education. (Ibid.).
The main fundamentalist Evangelical Christian postsecondary institution, university, found in Canadian society is Trinity Western University, where Professor Dennis Venema was the prominent individual referenced as the source of progress in the scientific discussions within intellectual and, in particular, formal academic discussions and teaching. Trinity Western University operates near Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada in Langley. The main feature case for Story comes from a city near to Trinity Western University in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Story (2013a) considers this the single most controversial case of creationism in the entire country. The communities here have been characterized the Bible belt of the province, of British Columbia. Story stated, “During the time of this controversy, Abbotsford’s population consisted of a large Mennonite community, many Western European immigrants, and the highest number of Christian conservatives in the province” (Ibid.).
She recounted the 1977 walkout of 300 students in a high school because of the reinstatement of compulsory prayer and scripture readings every day; following this, in 1980, the Abbotsford School Board defied the Supreme Court of Canada ruling “that struck down mandatory daily prayer in public schools” (Ibid.). 15 years later, the library board attempted to ban a newspaper who targeted homosexuals as their main readership.[9] In the late 2000s, the same school board was caught in controversies involving “Social Justice” courses intended for the high school curriculum with some emphasis on community concerns including homophobia or discrimination and prejudice against homosexuals (Ibid.).[10],[11] In 2012, the same school board went under review for the allowance of Gideons International providing Bibles to students, where Story attributes the highly religious nature of the education system to the lack of a formal and consistent challenge (Ibid.). Story uses the terminology and creation science within the context of self-definition by creation scientists. This will become a split in the orientation between Story and this article because the nature of creation science amounts to an appropriation of the term “science” while being a creation ministry, religious worldview, theological proposition, or simply creationist views, i.e., creation science remains a misnomer. The public schools in the 1970s in British Columbia became the first introduction of creationism into the public school school science classes in Canadian society, which points to the Creation Science Association of British Columbia or the Creation Science Association of BC as a possible culprit with a founding in 1967.
“Unlike the Abbotsford case, which received considerable media and government scrutiny, other districts enacting such policies received little attention. Indeed, scant evidence exists that creationism was ever taught in public schools,” Story stated, “The Mission School Board introduced creation-instruction to its classrooms in 1976, but there exists little evidence to support rumours that creation instruction was taking place in other schools throughout British Columbia. Further, the policy enacted by the Mission School Board garnered much less controversy than the Abbotsford case. It is unclear as to why one board’s policy went virtually unnoticed…” (2013b).[12] Some reach national consciousness and numerous remain unnoticed in the entire dialogue of the media. Story (Ibid.) speculated pastors, parents, and “unofficial lobbyists” of the region placed these to the table, even though documents remain lacking here (Ibid.) to further corroborate the supposition. One journalist named Lois Sweet took the time to investigate into the findings through interviews with stakeholders “embroiled in the controversy” who, based on research and acumen, proposed the constituents influenced the decisions of the school board, i.e., the Mennonite and Dutch Reform Church community, and, potentially, the development of the Abbotsford School District Origin of Life policy (Ibid.).[13] Sweet (Ibid.) considered fundamentalist Christian advocates as major players in the 1970s for influencing the development of the school board science program “for more than ten years.”
“In late 1980, an Abbotsford resident, Mr. H. Hiebert, began to a campaign to have more creationist materials available to teaching staff in the district,” Story explained, “Feeling that his requests to the board were not satisfactorily addressed, he approached local news outlets and urged residents to make the lack of creation-instruction a concern during the upcoming election of school board trustees” (Ibid.). At the beginning of the 1980s, in 1981, the national organization, the Creation Science Association of Canada, mentioned much earlier, sent a petition to the Education Minister, Brian Smith, with more than 7,000 signatures as a group of concerned citizens over the purported unequal time for a religious philosophy next to a natural philosophy with the Hon. Smith stating both in the classroom may be valuable for the students (Ibid.).[14],[15],[16] Intriguingly, the comments from the Education Minister did not spark discussion and the comments went into the aether.
Story (2013b) provided part of the contents of the Origin of Life policy with explicit references to the inability of evolutionary theory or “Divine creation” as capable of explaining the origin of life and so as have “the exclusion of the other view will almost certainly antagonize those parents and/or pupils who hold to the alternative view, all teachers, when discussing and/or teaching the origin of life in the classrooms, are requested to expose students, in as objective a manner as possible, to both Divine creation and the evolutionary concepts of life’s origins.”[17] The inclusion of the theological assertions and the proper biological scientific theory because of an implied fear of antagonizing the parents of children. In 1983 a majority vote provided the grounds for refraining from the teaching of the theory of evolution for teachers alone, this meant the enforced teaching of both creationist and evolution via natural selection in Social Studies 7, Biology 11, and Biology 12 (Ibid.).[18],[19] Story (Ibid.) stated the resources for the schools, including textbooks and speakers, came from organizations including the Institute for Creation Research found throughout the country and discussed, or mentioned, in earlier sections, but, interestingly, the teachers avoided the origin of life altogether. In a manner of speaking, this became a weird victory for creationists and a loss for science, as the fundamental theory of life sciences was simply avoided due to religiously-based fundamentalism winning the vote in an educational setting in a fundamentalist and sympathetic part of the country (Ibid.).[20] “Fleeting media attention was directed at the policy and its application. Almost a decade later, Abbotsford was thrust back in the media spotlight,” Story said (Ibid.).
The 1990s continued some of the same creationist trends as those in the 1970s and 1980s in Abbotsford as a flash point case of the influence of so-called creation science or, more properly, creation ministry or creationism with more concerted efforts by Robert Grieve, then-director of the Creation Science Association of Canada, with the distribution of letters to Canadian school boards with requests for the presentation of creationism “creation science associations” (Story, 2013c). Several years later, the Creation Science Association of Canada, as was discovered or found out, has been conducting presentations in Abbotsford schools for “a number of years” (Ibid.).[21] Based on the academic reportage of Story (Ibid.), the 1990s became a period of unprecedented, probably, scrutiny of creationism within the public education system in Abbotsford, presenting a problem to the proper education of the children, especially as regards the aforementioned Origin of Life policy stipulated by Abbotsford (Ibid.). Anita Hagan, British Columbia Minister of Education, in 1992, spoke about the issue “with passive interest,” in spite of the fact that “most of the pieces were resoundingly negative” (Ibid.).
Story (2019c) stated, “…the Minister never formally addressed the Abbotsford School Board regarding the policy. Since no formal intervention was being carried out, a group of teachers and parents aided by a science teacher from outside the district, Scott Goodman began to covertly investigate the policy. This examination led the Abbotsford Teachers’ Association to issue a request to the board to review and rescind the policy. This request was ignored.”[22],[23] The middle of the 1990s, 1995 specifically, became the height of the controversy in Abbotsford over creationism in the schools and its relationship with public policy with the Organization of Advocates in Support of Integrity in Science Education with Scott Goodman and a teachers’ association from the area (Ibid.). They filed an appeal to Art Charbonneau, the Education Minister, where Goodman argued, in an interview at the time, for the importance of secularity of the government, freedom of religion, and the possibility of the attacks of fundamentalist Christianity on the public school curriculum with religious views posed as scientific ones (Ibid.).[24],[25]
John Sutherland, of Trinity Western University, chaired the Abbotsford school board of the time, which, potentially, shows some relationship between the surrounding areas and the school curriculum and creationism axis – as you may recall Trinity Western University sits in Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada, next to the city of Abbotsford, British Columbia as an evangelical Christian university (Ibid.). “The Minister agreed with Goodman and the Teachers’ Association and sent a letter requesting assurances from the board that they were adhering to the provincial curriculum…”, Story (Ibid.) explained, “…The Minister’s requests were not directly acknowledged, but Sutherland was vocal about the issue in local media outlets. He accused the Minister of religious prejudice by attempting to remove creationism from the district.”[26]
According to Story, the board did not respond properly to Charbonneau, who then sent a second letter with actionables for the board and recommendations from the Education Minister (Ibid.). One such directive included the amendment of the Origin of Life policy by June 16, 1995 with the cessation of creation science in the educational curricula of the biology classes (Ibid.).[27],[28],[29],[30] The Education Minister of the time stated the efforts of the board were to force the educators to teach religious theory as if scientific theory (Ibid.).[31] Sutherland defended the board; the board mostly shared the position and support of Sutherland, where the theological positions infected the science curriculum posited as scientific ones (Ibid.).[32],[33] “Sutherland countered accusations that the board was attempting to bring theology into science classrooms by suggesting that learning different theories allowed students to hone critical thinking skills, and that only alternative ‘scientific’ theories were presented to students,” Story said, “Sutherland also pointed out that the community supported creation-science instruction” (Ibid.).[34],[35],[36],[37] An interview with Sutherland, at the time,indicated a personal belief in “alternative schemes” in the interpretation of the data presented to students in the biology classroom with the “random, purposeless, evolutionary hypotheses” as only one among other belief systems (Ibid.).[38]
The drafting of the newer Origin of Life policy took place and references to supernatural creation was removed while leaving one loophole for alternative theories (Ibid.). British Columbia Civil Liberties Association representatives lobbied for the disbandment of the policy while the Minister thought the policy needed further clarification, so the board chad to comply with the requests of the Minister (Ibid.). The main arguments focused on the feelings of marginalization of the Christians within the and outside the community while others viewed the media sensationalizing the entire affair with further people supporting the Ministry who thought fundamentalist Christians influenced the region (Ibid.). These were seen as attempts to force Christianity morality, mores, and ideas on the general culture, not simply in the biology classrooms (Ibid.). “With the final version of the new Origin of Life policy in place, the board forwarded it to Charbonneau and also obtained legal counsel to ensure the policy adhered to the School Act,” Story stated, “In July of 1995, Minister Charbonneau formally rejected the new policy stating that it was, ‘vague and open to various meanings’” (Ibid.).[39] The base claim of religious dogma not permitted in the science classroom, as religious dogma amounts to theology or religious orthodoxy – not science.
According to Story’s coverage of the new curriculum and digging into the documents, the teachers are instructed or guided to teach the proper science while respecting the particular religious beliefs of the students.[40] September 14, 1995 saw the drafting of a new Abbotsford School Board Origin of Life policy stating, “Teachers may find that the evolutionary perspectives of modern biology conflict with the personal beliefs of some of their students; therefore, when teaching this topic in the classroom, teachers should explain to students who have misgivings, that science is only one of the ways of learning about life. Other explanations have been put forth besides those of biological science. However, other viewpoints which are not derived from biological science are not part of the Biology 11/12 curriculum. Biology teachers will instruct only in the Ministry of Education curriculum” (Ibid.).[41] Story claims the mid-1990s was the end of the public discussion on creation in the public schools in Canadian society (Ibid.).
In the present day, circa the 2013 publication in July of the research by Story, the provincial and territorial curriculum guidelines frame the origin of life issue as unsettled through the acknowledge of parents and students who may have questions about the theories in science put forth in the educational setting (Story, 2013d). British Columbia has the only ban on creationism as an “explicit policy” (Ibid.), while New Brunswick does provide language in such a manner so as to allow Intelligent Design a possible way into the curricula (Ibid.). In fact, Ontario stipulates cultural sensitivities as an issue, which may connect to the feeling of siege on the part of some Christians in the jurisdiction (Ibid.). Newfoundland and Labrador explicitly leaves room open for the doubt portion, in relation to “Earth origins, life origins, evolution, etc.” with possible judgment along the lines of value judgments, ethical assessments and religious beliefs” (Ibid.).[42],[43] Some carryover between the different portions of the contents appears evident in the documents, as analyze by Story (Ibid), as in a permission of discussion and exploration as if legitimate to entertain religious views as science in a biology classroom.
“For the most part, Canada’s education system seems to relegate evolution to upper year elective biology courses. This means that the vast numbers of public high school students are graduating without ever learning about Darwin’s evolutionary theories,” Story (Ibid.) explained, “Quebec is the only province to mandate elementary school teaching of evolutionary. Perhaps then, the critics are right. Canada appears to draw less divisive lines between creationist and evolution instruction as is the case in the United States.”[44] Story (Ibid.) considers the split between the private schools and the public schools within Canadian society in which the public schools exist in a different cultural milieu than the private school system, especially in a nation bound to a largely religious population with the vast majority as Christian – the religious source of creationism in North America, mostly; this does not even mention the “thousands of homeschooled children unrestricted by standard curricula. Story said, “In 2007, a group of Quebec Mennonites moved their families to a small town in Ontario. They did so because the Quebec Ministry of Education had mandated that their small private school must adhere to the provincial curriculum, which included instruction on Darwin’s theory of evolution” (Ibid.).[45],[46]
A reporter called the private schools private businesses without the necessary certification from the Ontario College of Teachers; in addition, public organizations, e.g., Big Valley Creation Science Museum, opened in the 2000s to compound the issue of proper scientific education in the public and the private schooling systems in the nation followed by the impacts on the general populace as a result (Ibid.).[47],[48] Religious orthodoxy dominant in the culture infused into the homeschooled educational curricula and bolstered by monuments to public ignorance. Creations acquires a platform unseen in other institutions. Story (Ibid.) stated, “The Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the federal body that rejected the proposal, stated that there was not ‘adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent design, was correct…’ Thus, creationism seems to be an issue that some government institutions would rather not bring into the public consciousness. The refusal to fund such investigations speaks volumes to this being a hot-button topic best avoided.”[49]
Story’s most important point comes in the cultural analysis of the apathy of Canadians in the face of the creationism issue and the proper teaching of the foundations of biological sciences where students come into the postsecondary learning environment with “either no knowledge or very limited knowledge of Darwin’s theory of evolution” providing an insight into the cultural ignorance grounded in the apathetic stances of the public (Ibid.). We can do better.
Post-Apocalyptic Visions: Admission of Mistakes, But Only Under Pressure and After Community Catastrophes
God doesn’t exist, and even if one is a bloody idiot, one finishes up understanding that.
Michel Houellebecq
Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.
Martin Amis
I mean I don’t believe: I’m sure there’s no God. I’m sure there’s no afterlife. But don’t call me an atheist. It’s like a losers’ club. When I hear the word atheist, I think of some crummy motel where they’re having a function and these people have nowhere else to go.
John Brockman
Religion was a lie that he had recognized early in life, and he found all religions offensive, considered their superstitious folderol meaningless, childish, couldn’t stand the complete unadultness — the baby talk and the righteousness and the sheep, the avid believers. No hocus-pocus about death and God or obsolete fantasies of heaven for him. There was only our bodies, born to live and die on terms decided by the bodies that had lived and died before us. If he could be said to have located a philosophical niche for himself that was it – he’d come upon it early and intuitively, and however elemental, that was the whole of it. Should he ever write an autobiography, he’d call it The Life and Death of a Male Body.
Philip Roth
The final piece was to present it to the world and to make it useful to the world. That was essential to my healing. I survived all of this. I am lucky. I came out on my own two feet with a sense of who I am and a love, and joy, of life. I want that for everyone on the planet.
If my story can help you work through your story in any way, and make you have a more joyful, fulfilling life, then it was worth every bit of suffering for me, for that to happen. That’s really the healing, ultimately. It is the healing we do for each other when we tell our stories because it helps us feel a lot less alone.
We all have these stories to tell. We have all lived through treacherous moments in our lives, great loss, stupidity, joy, and success. We need to share these stories because we connect with each other. The only way we’re going to get through the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years on this planet is by connecting to each other as human beings.
Not ideologies, not profit motives, not how big our bank accounts are, but just humans-to-humans. When we tell our stories, that instantly happens. So, I am very honored to be a member of the tribe that tells the stories of the humans and to have been able to tell my story.
Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall
Canadian schools, fundamentally, avoid or inadequately teach evolution via natural selection in elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools leaving students who proceed to postsecondary education ill-equipped to learn within the biology classes in university, as noted by Douglas Todd (2009).
Fred Edwords, in Dealing With “Scientific” Creationism (n.d.) – a well-informed and well-researched article, stated, “Only with this knowledge can one have some chance of success. One should, in fact, go to great lengths to avoid misrepresenting the creationist position. Paradoxically, one must also go to great lengths to not too easily buy into the creationist definition of the issues. One would do best by seeking to understand accurately what creationists are saying while, at the same time, seeking to learn their hidden motives and agendas.”
The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History provides a good explanation of science and religion, and the demarcation between them (2018):
Science is a way to understand nature by developing explanations for the structures, processes and history of nature that can be tested by observations in laboratories or in the field…
Religion, or more appropriately religions, are cultural phenomena comprised of social institutions, traditions of practice, literatures, sacred texts and stories, and sacred places that identify and convey an understanding of ultimate meaning…
Science depends on deliberate, explicit and formal testing (in the natural world) of explanations for the way the world is, for the processes that led to its present state, and for its possible future… Religions may draw upon scientific explanations of the world, in part, as a reliable way of knowing what the world is like, about which they seek to discern its ultimate meaning. (Ibid.)
Although, as Wyatt Graham, Executive Director of the Gospel Coalition Canada, stated, “There seems to be widespread agreement that the age of the earth is tertiary or non-central point of doctrine among Christians. The impulse to press the doctrine of YEC in the 1950s-1980s has become gentle hum, with Answers in Genesis being an exception to the rule.” (Graham, 2017). He harbours doubts as to the long-term viability of this view, saying, “It is safe to assume that in Canada YEC will decline in popularity. The cultural and theological pressures of those who hold to YEC will slowly erode YEC proponents’ confidence” (Ibid.). Stoyan Zaimov of the Christian Post spoke to the concerns of the decline of creationist beliefs in some countries in the more developed world and the apathy of some Christians and the rebuking by other Christians (2017).
This seems to imply the, based on the statement of Graham, comprehension or eventual admission – with the eventual decline of young earth creationism – in Canadian Christian communities of their forebears believing patent wrong ideas in a purported inerrant and holy text, as continues to happen over history and leaves one critical as to the viability of supposed origin, development, and assertions of the Bible within generations and generations of sincere biblical believers. Still into the present, young earth creationism and old earth creationism continue abated and debated, e.g. “Drs. Albert Mohler (YEC) and John Collins (Old Age Creationist / OEC)” or between “Tim Challies (YEC) and Justin Taylor (OEC)” (Graham, 2017; Carl F.H. Henry Center for Theological Understanding, 2017).
Edwords notes the foundational claims of creationism in multiple forms:
For convenience, I will quote the definition of “creation-science” appearing in Arkansas Act 590.
Creation-science includes the scientific evidences and related inferences that indicate:
- Sudden creation of the universe, energy, and life from nothing;
- The insufficiency of mutation and natural selection in bringing about development of all living kinds from a single organism;
- Changes only within fixed limits of originally created kinds of plants and animals;
- Separate ancestry for man and apes;
- Explanation of the earth’s geology by catastrophism, including the occurrence of a worldwide flood; and
- A relatively recent inception of the earth and living kinds.(n.d.)
As with the British Columbia jurisdictional case of the banning of creationism from the public schools, this has been replicated in other countries including Australia:
The South Australian Non-Government Schools Registration Board has published a new education policy that states it requires the ”teaching of science as an empirical discipline, focusing on inquiry, hypothesis, investigation, experimentation, observation and evidential analysis.” It then goes on to state that it “does not accept as satisfactory a science curriculum in a non-government school which is based on, espouses or reflects the literal interpretation of a religious text in its treatment of either creationism or intelligent design.”
However, Stephen O’Doherty, the chief executive of Christian Schools Australia, said that he believes the intention of the South Australian policy was to ban the teaching of the biblical perspective on the nature of the universe altogether. It was the only such subject singled out, he said.
O’Doherty said the statement by the South Australian Board was too strident, the Herald reports. “Taken literally,” he said, “it means you cannot mention the Bible in science classes.” (Baklinski, 2010).
However, the poor ideas may continue to persist. One difficulty lies in the conspiratorial mindset behind the belief system. Lewandowsky said, “There is growing evidence that indulging in conspiracy theories predisposes people to reject scientific findings, from climate change to vaccinations and AIDS. And researchers have now found that teleological thinking also links beliefs in conspiracy theories and creationism.” In a sense, the conspiratorial mindset rests on a teleological foundation in which the creationist becomes an extreme and explicit case study or the creationism as a theory of the origins of life and the cosmos. Conspiracy theory mindsets provide creationists (Best, 2018). Mehta (2019e) stated:
The good news: Belief in Young Earth Creationism is nearly as low as it’s ever been, and acceptance of evolution by natural selection is at an all-time high!
The bad news: Belief in Young Earth Creationism is still nearly twice as popular as reality.
Unfortunately, if well financed, and if an invalid epistemological belief-building structure, and if sufficient fervor and zeal, then we come to the problems extant in one nation extending into another country, as in the creationist theme park in Hong Kong (Taete, 2019). The Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky remains an – ahem – testament and warning as to the problems inherent in the religious-based conceptualization of the natural world, of the world discovered by science and organized by the theoretical frameworks of scientists (Creation Museum, 2019). They have a life-sized Noah’s Ark and an Eden Zoo. Onward with these problems of education and theology proposed as science, the main concern becomes the proliferation of bad science.
The
choice for good science is ours if we work where it counts: education.
[1] The Creation Club [Ed. David Rives Ministries] is an online resource (2016), which lists a large number of creationists for consumption and production of similar materials around the world: David Rives, Sara J. Mikkelson, Cheri Fields, Duane Caldwell, Tom Shipley, Jay Wile, Jay Hall, Vinnie Harned, Dr. Tas Walker, Avery Foley, Bryan Melugin, Karl Priest, Tiffany Denham, Garret Haley, Dr. Jack Burton, Terry Read, Mike Snavely and Carrie Snavely, Caleb LePore, Kate [Loop] Hannon, Russel Grigg, Russ Miller, Dante Duran, Doug Velting, Joseph Mastropaolo, Zachary Bruno, Bob Sorensen, Daniel Currier, Bob Enyart, Steve Schramm, Todd Elder, Dr. Jason Lisle, Walter Sivertsen, Janessa Cooper, Christian Montanez, Peter Schreimer, Todd Wood, Gary Bates, Lindsay Harold, Luke Harned, Wendy MacDonald, Dr. Charles Jackson, Emma Dieterle, Jim Liles, Victoria Bowbottom, Jeff Staddon, Rachel Hamburg, Tim Newton, Dr. Carolyn Reeves, Emory Moynagh, Bill Wise, Richard William Nelson, David Bump, Kally Lyn Horn, Tom Wagner, Mark Finkheimer, Paul Tylor, Jim Brenneman, Benjamin Owen, Steven Martins, Dr. John Hartnett, David Rives, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati, Mark Opheim, Mark Crouch, Salvador Cordova, Jim Gibson, Dr. Edward Boudreaux, Stephanie Clark, Faith P., Sara H., Donnie Chappell, George Maxwelll, Dr. Jerry Bergman, Jonathan Schulz, Albert DeBenedictis, Steve Hendrickson, Pat Mingarelli, Verle Bell, Bill Kolstad, D.S. Causey, Michael J. Oard, Jillene Bailey, NNathan Hutcherson, Tammara Horn, Dr. Andrew Snelling, Geoff Chapman, Philip Bell, Denis Dreves, Len Den Beer, Stella Heart, Joe Taylor, Trooy DeVlieger, Patrick Nurre, Roger Wheelock, David Mikkelson, Douglas Harold, Louie Giglio, Eric Metaxas, and Murry Rives.
[2] See America’s difficulty with Darwin. (2009, February). History Today, 59(2), 22-28.
[3] See Armenta, T. & Lane, K. E. (2010). Tennessee to Texas: Tracing the evolution controversy in public education. The Clearing House, 83, 76-79. doi:10.1080/00098651003655811.
[4] See Larson, E. J. (1997). Summer for the gods: The Scopes trial and America’s continuing debate over science and religion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
[5] See Moore, R., Jensen, M., & Hatch. J. (2003). Twenty questions: What have the courts said about the teaching of evolution and creationism in public schools? BioScience, 53(8), 766-771.
[6] See Armenta, T. & Lane, K. E. (2010). Tennessee to Texas: Tracing the evolution controversy in public education. The Clearing House, 83, 76-79. doi:10.1080/00098651003655811
[7] See Cameron, A. (2006). An utterly hopeless muddle. The Presbyterian Record, 130(5), 18-21..
[8] See Noll, M. A. (1992). A history of Christianity in the United States and Canada. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[9] See Barker, J. (2004). Creationism in Canada. In S. Coleman & L. Carlin (Eds.), The cultures of creationism (pp. 85-108). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
[10] See Steffenhagen, J., & Baker, R. (2012, November 8). Humanist wants Abbotsford School District scrutinized for Bible distribution. Abbotsford Times.
[11] See Gay-friendly course halted by Abbotsford school board. (2008, September 21). The Vancouver Sun.
[12] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[13] See Sweet, L. (1997). God in the classroom: The controversial issue of religion in Canada’s schools. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart Inc.
[14] See Barker, J. (2004). Creationism in Canada. In S. Coleman & L. Carlin (Eds.), The cultures of creationism (pp. 85-108). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
[15] See British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (1995). Comments on the “creation science” movement in British Columbia. Retrieved from http://bccla.org/our_work/comments-on-the-creation-science-movement-in-british-columbia/.
[16] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[17] See Ibid.
[18] See Barker, J. (2004). Creationism in Canada. In S. Coleman & L. Carlin (Eds.), The cultures of creationism (pp. 85-108). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
[19] See British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (1995). Comments on the “creation science” movement in British Columbia. Retrieved from http://bccla.org/our_work/comments-on-the-creation-science-movement-in-british-columbia/.
[20] See Barker, J. (2004). Creationism in Canada. In S. Coleman & L. Carlin (Eds.), The cultures of creationism (pp. 85-108). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
[21] See Ibid.
[22] See Ibid.
[23] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[24] See Wood, C. (1995). Big bang versus a big being. Maclean’s, 108(24), 14.
[25] See British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (1995). Comments on the “creation science” movement in British Columbia. Retrieved from http://bccla.org/our_work/comments-on-the-creation-science-movement-in-british-columbia/.
[26] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[27] See Todd, D. (1995). Abbotsford teachers want Genesis out of Biology 11 class: Creationism stays, school chair insists. The Vancouver Sun.
[28] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[29] See Wood, C. (1995). Big bang versus a big being. Maclean’s, 108(24), 14.
[30] See Barker, J. (2004). Creationism in Canada. In S. Coleman & L. Carlin (Eds.), The cultures of creationism (pp. 85-108). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
[31] See Wood, C. (1995). Big bang versus a big being. Maclean’s, 108(24), 14.
[32] See Byfield, T., & Byfield, V. (1995, November 20). Religious dogma is banned in B.C. science classes to make way for irreligious dogma. Alberta Report/Newsmagazine, 36.
[33] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[34] See Todd, D. (1995). Abbotsford teachers want Genesis out of Biology 11 class: Creationism stays, school chair insists. The Vancouver Sun.
[35] See Wood, C. (1995). Big bang versus a big being. Maclean’s, 108(24), 14.
[36] See Barker, J. (2004). Creationism in Canada. In S. Coleman & L. Carlin (Eds.), The cultures of creationism (pp. 85-108). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
[37] See Sweet, L. (1997). God in the classroom: The controversial issue of religion in Canada’s schools. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart Inc.
[38] See Ibid.
[39] See Chahal, S. S. (2002). Nation building and public education in the crossfire: An examination of the Abbotsford School Board’s 1981-1995 Origin of Life policy (Master’s Thesis). Retrieved from https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/16315.
[40] See British Columbia Ministry of Education (2006). Biology 11 and 12 Integrated Resource Package 2006. [Program of Studies]. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/sciences/2006biology1112.pdf.
[41] See School District No. 34 – Abbotsford. (1996). Origin of Life. [Curriculum Guide].
[42] See Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education. (2004). Biology 3201 Curriculum Guide. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov.nl.ca/edu/k12/curriculum/guides/science/bio3201/outcomes.pdf.
[43] See Laidlaw, S. (2007, April 2). Creationism debate continues to evolve. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/life/2007/04/02/creationism_debate_continues_to_evolve.html.
[44] See Halfnight, D. (2008, September). Where’s Darwin? The United Church Observer. Retrieved from http://www.ucobserver.org/ethics/2008/09/wheres_darwin/.
[45] See Alphonso, C. (2007, September 4). Quebec Mennonites moving to Ontario for faith-based teaching. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-mennonites-moving-to-ontario-for-faith-based-teaching/article1081765/.
[46] See Bergen, R. (2007, September 1). Education laws prompt Mennonites to pack bags; Quebec residents move to Ontario so kids can be taught creationism. Times – Colonist.
[47] See Alphonso, C. (2007, September 4). Quebec Mennonites moving to Ontario for faith-based teaching. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-mennonites-moving-to-ontario-for-faith-based-teaching/article1081765/.
[48] See Dunn, C. (2007, June 5) A Canadian home for creationism. CBC News. [Video file].
[49] See Halfnight, D. (2008, September). Where’s Darwin? The United Church Observer. Retrieved from http://www.ucobserver.org/ethics/2008/09/wheres_darwin/.
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Jacobsen, S.D. (2019u, October 5). Ask Melissa 1–2013 to Infinity: On Creationism in Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/10/ask-melissa-1-jacobsen/.
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Peachey, R. (n.d.au). “Big Bang”: The Implausible Explosion!. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/big-bang-the-implausible-explosion/.
Peachey, R. (2002, December). “Finding Darwin’s God” — Is It Possible?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/finding-darwins-god-is-it-possible/.
Peachey, R. (2009a, March). “Flat Earthers” — A Half-Baked Charge Against Creationists!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/flat-earthers-a-half-baked-charge-against-creationists/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.bd). “Men of Science — Men of God”. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/men-of-science-men-of-god/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.aa). “SADDLE CATNAP”: Ten reasons why the Genesis flood must have been a global event. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/saddle-catnap-ten-reasons-why-the-genesis-flood-must-have-been-a-global-event/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.af). “Time is the Hero of the Plot” — in Genesis!. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/time-is-the-hero-of-the-plot-in-genesis/.
Peachey, R. (2012c, December). A Simple But Powerful Argument Against Evolution — The Bible Doesn’t Teach It!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/a-simple-but-powerful-argument-against-evolution-the-bible-doesnt-teach-it/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.a). A Smorgasbord of Quotations. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/a-smorgasbord-of-quotations/.
Peachey, R. (2006b, June). Altercation at McGill!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/altercation-at-mcgill/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ar). Are “Vestigial Organs” Valid Evidence of Evolution?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/are-vestigial-organs-valid-evidence-of-evolution/.
Peachey, R. (2007a, June). Arguing from Augustine: Evolutionists Should Give It Up!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/arguing-from-augustine-evolutionists-should-give-it-up/.
Peachey, R. (2005a, June). As a Creationist . . . I Agree with Evolutionists!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/as-a-creationist-i-agree-with-evolutionists/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.x). Bruce Waltke on the Genre of Genesis 1: A Critique. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/bruce-waltke-on-the-genre-of-genesis-1-a-critique/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.av). Can Scientists Create “Life” in a Test Tube?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/can-scientists-create-life-in-a-test-tube/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.aw). Chemical Evolution: The Problem Of Improbable Proteins. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/chemical-evolution-the-problem-of-improbable-proteins/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.s). Christ’s View of the Bible. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/christs-view-of-the-bible/.
Peachey, R. (2004, March). Classic Defense of Genesis. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/classic-defense-of-genesis/.
Peachey, R. (2006a, March). Creation, Evolution, and Speed-of-Light Problems. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/creation-evolution-and-speed-of-light-problems/.
Peachey, R. (2014c, December). Criticizing The Creator — And Calling It “Science”!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/criticizing-the-creator-and-calling-it-science/.
Peachey, R. (2009d, September 24). Darwin’s Depressing Idea. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/darwins-depressing-idea/.
Peachey, R. (2009l, November 20). Darwin’s Favourite Evidence: Fraudulent!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/darwins-favourite-evidence-fraudulent/.
Peachey, R. (2006d, December). Darwinism = Atheism!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/darwinism-atheism/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.al). Darwin’s Use of Lamarck’s “Laws”. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/darwins-use-of-lamarcks-laws/.
Peachey, R. (2009f, October 9). David: About that Opinion Piece . . .. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/david-about-that-opinion-piece/.
Peachey, R. (2009j, November 6). David’s Disappointing Diatribe: A Rejoinder. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/davids-disappointing-diatribe-a-rejoinder/.
Peachey, R. (2009b, September 10). Dawkins and Design. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/dawkins-and-design/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.d). Debate: “Evolution versus Creation: War of the Worldviews!”. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/debate-evolution-versus-creation-war-of-the-worldviews/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.c). Did We Quote Dawkins Properly? — A Blog Interaction. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/did-we-quote-dawkins-properly-a-blog-interaction/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.e). Do Creationists Oppose “All of Science”?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/do-creationists-oppose-all-of-science/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.f). Do Evolutionists Avoid the Terms “Macroevolution” and “Microevolution”?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/do-evolutionists-avoid-the-terms-macroevolution-and-microevolution/.
Peachey, R. (2005c, September). Do Examples of “Microevolution” Provide Support for Macroevolution?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/do-examples-of-microevolution-provide-support-for-macroevolution/.
Peachey, R. (2014a, March). Do You Believe in Magic? — A Blog Interaction. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/do-you-believe-in-magic-a-blog-interaction/.
Peachey, R. (2014b, June). Does “Creation Science” Equal “Belief in the Bible as the Word of God”?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/does-creation-science-equal-belief-in-the-bible-as-the-word-of-god/.
Peachey, R. (2010d, December). Eight Pillars: A Biblical/Christian Approach to the Origins Controversy. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/eight-pillars-a-biblicalchristian-approach-to-the-origins-controversy/.
Peachey, R. (2009g, October 16). ev•o•lu•tion (evil — you — shun) n.. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/evolution-evil-you-shun-n/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ac). Evolution and the Bible: A Blog Interaction. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/evolution-and-the-bible-a-blog-interaction/.
Peachey, R. (2009k, November 13). Evolution’s Biggest Problem!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/evolutions-biggest-problem/.
Peachey, R. (2012b, September). Evolutionary Thinking leads to Retarded Science. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/evolutionary-thinking-leads-to-retarded-science/.
Peachey, R. (2009c, September 17). Evolutionists and E x t r a p o l a t i o n. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/evolutionists-and-e-x-t-r-a-p-o-l-a-t-i-o-n/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ae). Explaining Away the Genesis “Days” — Two Favourite Techniques (an email exchange). Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/explaining-away-the-genesis-days-two-favourite-techniques-an-email-exchange/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ba). False, Flawed, and Unrepeatable — How “Science” is Losing its Aura. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/false-flawed-and-unrepeatable-how-science-is-losing-its-aura/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.t). Five Arguments for Genesis 1 and 2 as Straightforward Historical Narrative. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/five-arguments-for-genesis-1-and-2-as-straightforward-historical-narrative/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.v). Five Arguments for Genesis 1 and 2 as Straightforward Historical Narrative. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/five-arguments-for-genesis-1-and-2-as-straightforward-historical-narrative/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.z). Four Reasons Why You Can’t Believe Both Genesis And Evolution At The Same Time. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/four-reasons-why-you-cant-believe-both-genesis-and-evolution-at-the-same-time/.
Peachey, R. (2008a, March). Genesis 2:4 and the Meaning of “Day” in Genesis 1. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/genesis-24-and-the-meaning-of-day-in-genesis-1/.
Peachey, R. (2010, March). HOLES IN EVOLUTION! (as described by my university Invertebrate Zoology textbook). Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/holes-in-evolution-as-described-by-my-university-invertebrate-zoology-textbook/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.bc). How a Literal Understanding of Genesis Promoted the Rise of Modern Science!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/how-a-literal-understanding-of-genesis-promoted-the-rise-of-modern-science/.
Peachey, R. (2008b, June). How Darwinism Contributed to Modern Views on Abortion, Infanticide, and Euthanasia. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/darwinism-contributed-modern-views-abortion-infanticide-euthanasia/.
Peachey, R. (2005b, June). How Evolutionists Ought to Teach Evolution. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/how-evolutionists-ought-to-teach-evolution/.
Peachey, R. (2013a, June). How to Argue Against the Obvious Meaning of “Day” in Genesis 1. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/how-to-argue-against-the-obvious-meaning-of-day-in-genesis-1/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.w). How Was Genesis Composed?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/how-was-genesis-composed/.
Peachey, R. (2003b, September). Is a “Day” Really a Day in Genesis 1? Here’s What the Hebrew Scholars Say!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/is-a-day-really-a-day-in-genesis-1-heres-what-the-hebrew-scholars-say/.
Peachey, R. (2010a, March). Is Evolution Really So Central to Biology?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/is-evolution-really-so-central-to-biology/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.u). Is Genesis Poetry? (response to a high school student). Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/is-genesis-poetry-response-to-a-high-school-student/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ad). If Jesus Was Wrong: The Implications. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/if-jesus-was-wrong-the-implications/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.aq). Is Peripatus a Valid Evolutionary Intermediate?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/is-peripatus-a-valid-evolutionary-intermediate/.
Peachey, R. (2009m, November 27). Let’s Be Realistic: You Can’t Logically Have it Both Ways!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/lets-be-realistic-you-cant-logically-have-it-both-ways/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.az). Life On Mars?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/life-on-mars/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ak). Major Nineteenth Century Theories of Evolution: Lamarck and Darwin. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/major-nineteenth-century-theories-of-evolution-lamarck-and-darwin/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.am). Major Twentieth Century Theories of Evolution: The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis and Punctuated Equilibrium. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/major-twentieth-century-theories-of-evolution-the-neo-darwinian-synthesis-and-punctuated-equilibrium/.
Peachey, R. (2009n, December 4). Medieval “Flat Earth” Belief: Another Evolutionist Fallacy!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/medieval-flat-earth-belief-another-evolutionist-fallacy/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ax). Mistaken Microfossils! (And Other Erroneous Evidence of Early Earthlife). Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/mistaken-microfossils-and-other-erroneous-evidence-of-early-earthlife/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.y). Nine Reasons Why the “Days” in Genesis 1 Must Be Understood as Normal (24-Hour) Days. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/nine-reasons-why-the-days-in-genesis-1-must-be-understood-as-normal-24-hour-days/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.as). Not “Junk”!. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/not-junk/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.j). Noted Atheist Critiques Neo-Darwinism!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/noted-atheist-critiques-neo-darwinism/.
Peachey, R. (2010b, June). On Being Labeled “Extreme”. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/on-being-labeled-extreme/.
Peachey, R. (2009h, October 23). On Restoring Science to its “Rightful Place”. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/on-restoring-science-to-its-rightful-place/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.bb). Personalities in the Evolution/Creation Conflict. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/personalities-in-the-evolutioncreation-conflict/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.i). PhD Study Finds: Evolution is Incompatible with God!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/phd-study-finds-evolution-is-incompatible-with-god/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ay). Planet Earth — A Well-Designed Place to Live!. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/planet-earth-a-well-designed-place-to-live/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ah). Pluperfect: The Right Solution for the Genesis 2:19 “Problem”. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/pluperfect-the-right-solution-for-the-genesis-219-problem/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ai). Positive Scientific Evidence for Creation!. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/positive-scientific-evidence-for-creation/.
Peachey, R. (2011b, September). Resisting an Overused Argument for Evolution (Antibiotic Resistance in Bacteria). Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/resisting-an-overused-argument-for-evolution-antibiotic-resistance-in-bacteria/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.o). Response to Governor General Julie Payette. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/response-to-governor-general-julie-payette/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.m). Response to Spencer Boersma’s article “Why Genesis One Does Not Teach Creationism”. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/response-to-spencer-boersmas-article-why-genesis-one-does-not-teach-creationism/.
Peachey, R. (2015a, March). Right-Handed Amino Acids: Can They Smack Down the Evolutionist’s Chirality Problem?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/right-handed-amino-acids-can-they-smack-down-the-evolutionists-chirality-problem/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.be). Science: Child of the Biblical Worldview. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/science-child-of-the-biblical-worldview/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ap). Sickle-Cell Anemia: Example of a “Beneficial Mutation”?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/sickle-cell-anemia-example-of-a-beneficial-mutation/.
Peachey, R. (1999, September). Sir John William Dawson: A Great Canadian Creationist. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/sir-john-william-dawson-a-great-canadian-creationist/.
Peachey, R. (2005d, December). The “Big Bang” Explains Nothing!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-big-bang-explains-nothing/.
Peachey, R. (2015d, September). The Bible & The Shape of the Earth — A Blog Exchange. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-bible-the-shape-of-the-earth-a-blog-exchange/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.n). The British Monarchy: Contrived History?. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-british-monarchy-contrived-history/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.b). The Coffee News Ads. Retrieved from https://www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-coffee-news-ads/.
Peachey, R. (2007b, September). The Eight E’s of Evolution!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-eight-es-of-evolution/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ao). The Galápagos Finches: Prime Example of Evolution?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-galapagos-finches-prime-example-of-evolution/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.p). The Genesis Debate: Richard Peachey’s speeches. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-genesis-debate-richard-peacheys-speeches/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.aj). The Giraffe: A Favourite Textbook Illustration of Evolutionary Theories. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-giraffe-a-favourite-textbook-illustration-of-evolutionary-theories/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.an). The Peppered Moth Story: Prime Example of Evolution?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-peppered-moth-story-prime-example-of-evolution/.
Peachey, R. (2012a, June). The Peppered Moth Story: Vindicated!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-peppered-moth-story-vindicated/.
Peachey, R. (2009i, October 30). The Reality of God (in response to Peter Raabe). Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/the-reality-of-god-in-response-to-peter-raabe/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.at). The “Science” of Paleoanthropology (Human Fossils) — Exposed!. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-science-of-paleoanthropology-human-fossils-exposed/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ag). The seventh day in Genesis 2:1–3 — a long, indefinite period of time?. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-seventh-day-in-genesis-21-3-a-long-indefinite-period-of-time/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.ab). The Uniqueness of Human Beings: “In the Image of God”. Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/the-uniqueness-of-human-beings-in-the-image-of-god/.
Peachey, R. (2003a, March). Theistic Evolution: Can this “Marriage” be saved??. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/theistic-evolution-can-this-marriage-be-saved/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.h). Trinity Western University’s Statement on Creation: A Critique (detailed version). Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/trinity-western-universitys-statement-on-creation-a-critique-detailed-version/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.g). Trinity Western University’s Statement on Creation: A Critique (short version). Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/trinity-western-universitys-statement-on-creation-a-critique-short-version/.
Peachey, R. (n.d.r). Was Christ a Creationist? (One-Page Summary). Retrieved from www.creationbc.org/index.php/was-christ-a-creationist-one-page-summary/
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Peachey, R. (2006c, September). What I Taught my Science 9 Students this Summer!. Retrieved from https://creationbc.org/index.php/what-i-taught-my-science-9-students-this-summer/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/15
‘Ayaz Nizami’ is a part of a hashtag.#FreeAyazNizami, others, against him, posted a hashtag #HangAyazNizami, i.e., calls for the hanging of a public human rights activist., as reported in 2017.
He is the Vice President of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan. He was placed in an anti-terrorism cell. ‘Nizami’ is an ex-Muslim and has been punished for organizing as one in Pakistan.
This case and its concomitant issues need more coverage and wider activism, as this has been over two years ongoing in terms of imprisonment of him. Obviously, the alias name was for self-protection, as with others who utilize fake names in order to hide identity for safety and livelihood.
As previously reported, “Who is Ayaz, though? He is a religious scholar and ex-Muslim. He pursued religious training after standard, mainstream education. He was admitted to an Islamic studies school. He began to doubt the authenticity of the claims of his faith at the time. I suspect that not being an easy thing to undergo or endure, especially being part of an orthodox religious family. Even with the doubts, he accomplished accreditation in the Islamic studies. He was not only a religious scholar in general, but an Islamic scholar in particular.”
This was part of a larger wave, and an ongoing one, of charges against bloggers and writers. ‘Nizami’ has expertise in Tafseer and the principles of it. Tafseer is the tradition of providing explanations for the purportedly holy Quran. He has an expertise in the Hadith and its principles. It is the words, actions, and implicit approvals of Muhammad.
Furthermore, ‘Nizami’ holds expertise in Fiqh and its principles, as well as philosophy and logic, and the Arabic language. Fiqh is the Islamic Jurisprudence. He has a wide range of expertise and knowledge on the religion, on Islam, and can be a powerful ally in the world of those who may wish to leave the religion. The Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan is the organization of Fauzia Ilyas and ‘Ayaz Nizami.’
Mr. Nizami stated the religious creations seen here. They are not from above, the divine, another transcendent realm, or an otherworldly place that can engrave the messages of the Theity upon the hearts and minds of the prophets.
No, “[They are] a mere creation of the human brain and are a bi-product of culture and civilisations in the world especially the Middle East,” Mr. Nizami said, where he wants to “educate and enlighten his fellow countrymen and share his findings with them.”
This mission can be a basis for human rights activism and secularization of the nation-state in the midst of a troublesome setup. Problem: his communication, with me — and presumably others, went dark.
As noted at the time:
It seemed suspicious. The common knowledge in the educated secular community is bloggers with critiques of religion or religious patriarchs, or practices, can be killed, given lashings, or stigmatised and ostracised in their communities.
So the answer to the latter two questions: no, and no. Answer to the former query: as far as I can tell, he existed as a non-believer, especially an ex-Muslim, with self-confidence rather than acculturated diffidence and spoke out on religion and Islam, and with highly educated, scholarly authority in the relevant subject matter. It was taken as terrorism and blasphemy.
Whether or not the statements are true or not, and whether or not you’re religious or not — and especially if you’re religious take the parable of the hypocrite and the Golden Rule into account, ask, “Should someone be imprisoned on blasphemy or terrorism charges — even threatened with a hashtag hanging campaign (#HangAyazNizami) based on belief, in particular non-belief, in the public arena?”
There were comments with the #HangAyazNizami hashtag on social media with calls for hanging him in a variety of forms. Some of these went alongisde a claim of “fuck with freedom of speech” from Sardar Waqar, an admission with “call us terrorist or extremist or whatever by Daniyal Ahmed, that first “he must be drag in the streets” prior to the proposed justice of hanging by Nida Ahmed, and so on.
These claims of violence over doubts and founding a non-religious organization — one for atheists and agnostics — seems fundamentally unjust, unfair, and the root of the attitudes of religious privileges within societies to openly call for violence with no reprisals in kind other than requests for respect for freedom of expression and reversal of arbitrary imprisonment.
I think the original query from over two years ago still stands:
At root, some subset of Pakistani Muslims are offended, and some non-Muslims. But does this justify the sentiments and the very real consequences on the life of Mr. Nizami? No, and take the footnote about the hypocrite and the Golden Rule into account, I get it.
But if in his situation, if something you did was that offensive, would others be justified in imprisoning or threatening to hang you? I feel offence at the offence around Mr. Nizami. Does this justify blasphemy charges and imprisonment, and public threats of hanging? No, and I would not condone it, as I do not condone the same for the offence — which from that perspective, I can feel sympathy for — felt by some Pakistani Muslims, and others.
These are environments for cyber-dissidents. These are the lives some will live. Some will be killed. Others imprisoned for years or even life. Still others, they will not see the light of day due to mob justice, as we found in some of the cases of the Bangladeshi bloggers. This is the world in which the Internet provides a space for freedom of expression and a furtherance of the destruction and emaciation of the lives and livelihoods, respectively, of those in difficult circumstances. Lives of the arbitrary precarity of health and wellbeing. This can be stopped. It has to start one at a time, to show how these cases can pass, how the authoritarian efforts and regimes are, in fact, fragile, and, therefore, can be overcome.
This is why ‘Ayaz Nizami’ deserves a whole lot more attention now and into the future until he is released.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Dr. Mir Faizal and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/13
Dr. Mir Faizal is an Adjunct Professor in Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge and a Visiting Professor in Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan.
Here we start the cosmology educational series on the differences between the classical and the quantum worlds.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We have heard terms like classical physics and quantum physics. What do these terms mean in simple words, and what is the difference between them?
Dr. Mir Faizal: We have evolved at a certain scale, and our intuitive understanding of the world is also limited to that scale. Now common sense is the expression of this intuitive understanding of the world in languages like English or French. If this intuitive understanding of the world is expressed in mathematics, we naturally will obtain a mathematical description of common sense. This mathematical description of our intuitive understanding is called classical physics. However, there is no fundamental reason why such a description will hold at a different scale. In fact, now we have known that the classical description does not hold at very small scales, and common sense seems also to break at such a scale. It is hard to accurately describe the world at such a small scale using languages like English or French, as these languages have not been evolved to describe the world at such a scale. However, it is still possible to mathematically describe the world at such a small scale, and this mathematical description of a small scale is called quantum physics. Even though it is not possible to describe the world at such a small scale in common language, it is possible to use analogies to understand physics at such small scales.
Jacobsen: We see the world around us, and know how it behaves, and this forms a basis for our common sense. You mentioned that our common sense breaks in quantum mechanical. Can you give some examples of such a breaking of common sense in quantum mechanics?
Faizal: Let us start by a simple example, to understand how the common sense breaks in the quantum mechanism. If there are two paths between your home and your office, and you are travelling between them, you can take any one of these two path at one time. However, you will infer that it is impossible to take both these paths at the same time. Even if you are really tiny, you cannot take two paths at the same time. The main reason for this is that it is impossible for you to be present at two different places at the same time. This seems to be something that you know from common sense. However, this description of the world does not hold at much smaller scales. In quantum mechanics, you go to your office from both those paths. In fact, you will take all the possible paths between your home and office, and we have to mathematically sum these path to describe your behaviour of going between your home and office. This is actually how things are calculated for quantum mechanical particles. This description of quantum mechanics (where a particle takes all possible path between two points) is called the Feynman path integral approach.
Jacobsen: We have seen people commute between their home and office. In fact, as more simple system, we have seen a stone fall down, and it does not appear to take many paths between two points. We have also never seen a particle present at two places at the same time. How does the quantum mechanical fit with these observations?
Faizal: In quantum mechanics, as soon as someone makes a measurement on some object, it instantaneously collapses to just one of those paths. Now it is possible to calculate the chance of an object to be collapse to a certain path in quantum mechanics. For large enough objects, this almost coincides with the path that the object is expected to take based on classical mechanics. However, as the objects gets smaller, the deviations between the two paths becomes significant. It may be noted to calculate the position of an object at any point in future, you need to know about two things. You need to know where that object is present at a given time, and you need to know how fast it is travelling in a certain direction. If you know both these things, then you can know where that object will be present in future. However, in quantum mechanics, it is impossible to measure both the position of a particle and how fast it is travelling, at the same time. Thus, in quantum mechanics it is not possible to accurately measure the position of a particle in future. What we can measure is the chance for a particle to be present at a certain point in time. So, in quantum mechanics causality is also only probabilistically true. As it is impossible to obtain certain knowledge of cause, the effects can be only probabilistically predicted.
Jacobsen: It is possible to exactly predict the future position of a particle by improving our technology and inventing better devices?
Faizal: Technological development cannot be used to predict the future position of a particle beyond what is allowed by quantum mechanics. This is because for such quantum system certain knowledge is actually not present in nature, and so we can only get probabilistic knowledge of such system. This is the main difference between the classical and quantum description of the world. In classical mechanics, at least in principle, it is possible to know the behaviour of a particle with certainty. In other world, the world is totally deterministic in classical mechanics. It might be difficult to exactly calculate such a behaviour, but such a knowledge exists in nature. In fact, even in classical mechanics, we usually use probability to describe the world. This is the basis of statistical mechanics. However, such a use of probability is epistemological as certain knowledge exists at an ontological level in classical physics. It is just very difficult for us to obtain such knowledge accurately for many systems. However, in quantum mechanics there is an ontological use probability as certain knowledge is absent at an ontological level from nature.
Jacobsen: Can you give a simple analogy of this difference to make it easy to understand?
Faizal: Let us again use a simple example to understand this difference. Someone is going to a coffee shop, and he usually likes to drink coffee but sometime orders tea. As it is a coffee shop they keep running out of tea. Now if it is known that he takes tea about twenty times in hundred days, then you can calculate the chance of him drinking tea of coffee. You cannot predict accurately what he will take on a given day, as such a knowledge is not present in this system. However, knowing what he is more likely to order, you can predict his behaviour over a large number of visits. So, for the next ten days you can save two tea bag for him. This is an example of an ontological absence of knowledge, and this is how probabilities work in quantum mechanics. Now consider another example, in a group of ten people, two of them like tea and the rest like coffee. Also they have a rule that they will not visit the coffee shop more than once in ten days. Now if you do not bother to ask them who like tea and who likes coffee, and just know how they behave in a group, you can again predict the probability of them drinking tea. However, in this case, the knowledge exists in form a hidden variable, which you did not bother to measure. This is an example of an epistemological absence of knowledge, and this is how probabilities work in statistical mechanics.
Jacobsen: I can understand that certain knowledge of the particle is not present, but where is the particle actually present.
Faizal: The particle is present at every possible point it can occupy, till it is measured. However, when it is measured, it instantaneously collapses to a single point, and we can measure the chance of it collapsing to a certain point. This is an important feature of quantum mechanics. In classical mechanics, two different contradictions cannot be simultaneously existing. In quantum mechanics, all possibilities simultaneously exist, till they are measured. However, when they are measured, only one of them is instantaneously observed, and the system ceases to exist in the other possibilities. This principle has been illustrated by the famous thought experiment of Schrodinger’s cat, in which a cat is killed by a quantum mechanical process. There are two possibilities, as the cat can be dead and alive. Now if the system is not observed, then the cat can exist in a state being dead and alive at the same time. As soon as an observation is made, the system instantaneously collapses to one of the two possibilities, so the cat is actually observed to be dead or alive. However, if no observation is made, the cat is in a state of being dead and alive at the same time.
Jacobsen: Can these quantum effects be observed in our daily life?
Faizal: A important requirement of quantum mechanics is that it should coincide with the classical physics at our scale, for all the system that have been described using classical mechanics. This means these quantum effects become so small at our scale that they can be neglected, and cannot be observed. There are few phenomena like superconductivity and superfluidity where quantum effects can change the behaviour of certain system at large scale. However, most quantum mechanical effect, which break common sense, can be neglected at our scale, and the world at our scale can described by classical mechanics. It is possible that there are some systems, where other quantum effects become important even at large scale, and their behaviour is very different from the behaviour predicted from classical mechanics.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Faizal.
Faizal: My pleasure.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Angelos Sofocleous and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/03
Religious Education (RE) classes in Europe can spark controversies in a number of ways. One is the endorsement of a particular religion or life philosophy in the process of teaching the materials to a diverse student body coming from a variety of different faiths and cultures. Another can be the outing of students’ individual faith or parents’/household faith of the student in the context of discrimination or prejudice within the larger culture or in the school for children of other faiths.
A further controversy may occur with the standard educational reason for insufficient teaching of the RE curriculum for various reasons, akin to skimming over evolutionary biology because of the legitimate fear of backlash from religious-creationist parents. A more obscure one, but not necessarily uncommon, can happen when the education minister and theologians come into conflict with one another. In Greece, recently, the controversy centred on the need for parents to submit a Solemn Declaration for their children to opt-out of the RE class.
The National Secular Society reported on a recent case in some depth. The NSS stated that five Greek students and parents brought forth a case to challenge the requirement of a solemn declaration for opting out of RE classes. They would be required to stipulate that they – the students – were not Orthodox Christians in the request for opting out of the RE class. This can carry social risks with 81-90% of the population self-identifying as Greek Orthodox Christian.
The students, if required to stipulate their faith tradition differing from the Greek Orthodox Church, may be exposed to intrusion and coercion from the school authorities and their classmates. In addition to this, the exemption viewed individual belief structures as bound to belief groups and, therefore, neglected the rights of individuals in the light of the freedom of religion and freedom of belief. Both amount to sovereign individual rights, not collective rights seen in the assumption of belief groups as homogeneous as if one mind.
More importantly, making it necessary for students to reveal their religious beliefs in order to receive an exemption from Religious Education classes is unconstitutional. In a unanimous ruling, on Thursday the 31st of October, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), Europe’s top human rights court, ruled that Greek authorities do not have the right to oblige students to reveal their religious beliefs for any reason. “The authorities did not have the right to intervene in the sphere of individual conscience, to ascertain individuals’ religious belief or to oblige them to reveal their beliefs,” the ECHR’s ruling said.
The Education Minister of Greece, Niki Kerameus, pledged to abide by the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and alter the ways in which RE classes take place in Greece as well as revise the procedure to ask for an exemption from the course. This ruling essentially puts in practice changes which the former Minister of Education, Nikos Filis, under the left-wing SYRIZA government, sought to make. In particular, Filis attempted to make RE in Greek schools more secular, diverse, and less focused on Christianity.
As it is currently the case, the nature of RE classes is catechistic and indoctrinates students in the Greek Orthodox religion. Because of this, Nikos Filis put forward certain proposals through which he hoped to modernize RE and enable students to learn about religions other than Christianity. However, the proposed changes were deemed unconstitutional by Greece’s Council of State on the grounds that the government’s plan “distorted the purpose of [religious] teaching, which is, according to the Constitution, to develop pupils’ Orthodox Christian conscience”. The Council of State’s stance and its focus on developing “pupils’ Orthodox Christian conscience” is not surprising given the fact that Greece is one of the few countries in Europe which has a state religion.
In fact, religion plays a major role not only in the everyday lives of Greek people and in the political scene but also in the education system. It is common for schools in Greece to have compulsory morning prayer, religious icons in classes, to take trips of religious context, or to host ‘blessing rituals’ at the start of the academic year. Sometimes, it takes regional human rights cases to bring this to light.
In the end, Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights was ruled as breached in the ECHR court case with Article 2 of Protocol 1 protecting the right to an education. It states:
No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the state shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.
The NSS stated, “The article requires states to ‘respect’ parents’ rights to ensure education and teaching is “in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions… The court ruled that the declaration requirement risked ‘placing an undue burden on parents’ and exposing ‘sensitive aspects of their private life.’”
The intervention portion from the NSS was drafted by Professor Ronan McCrea of UCL with input from Harry Small and Sadikur Rahman. With the efforts of the students and the parents, and the support of the NSS and its drafters of the NSS intervention, individual religious and belief rights have remained more respected than before.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/11/01
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the British and the Americans, and the American Revolutionary War.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The British Empire produced some of the prominent Western philosophers, empiricists, and others. Obviously, the Americans and the British had a strained relationship for some time. What were some of the statements and ideas of the freethinkers on the American and the British sides during the American Revolutionary War? What were the different reactions to the American Revolution of the 13 colonies and the British Empire? What happened to the secular, men and women, during this time of war – common in American history?
Dr. Herb Silverman: The term freethinker emerged towards the end of the 17th century in England to describe people who stood in opposition to Christian churches and literal belief in the Bible. These people believed that they could understand the world through consideration of nature. In the United States, freethought was an anti-Christian and anti-clerical movement to make an individual politically and spiritually free to decide for himself on religious matters.
John Toland, an Irish philosopher and freethinker in the 18th century, was the first person called a freethinker (by George Berkeley, a Bishop in Ireland). Toland wrote over a hundred books, mostly dedicated to criticizing ecclesiastical institutions. In Christianity Not Mysterious, the book for which he is best known, Toland challenged not just the authority of the established church, but all inherited and unquestioned authority. Because of this book, he was prosecuted by a grand jury in London. The Parliament of Ireland proposed that he should be burnt at the stake, and in his absence three copies of the book were burnt by the public hangman.
British deists and freethinkers including John Toland, Anthony Collins, and Matthew Tindal focused on the human roots of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and ancient Paganism. They advocated tolerance and freedom of thought and fought against the influence of Christian doctrine on political and social life. They also denied the supernatural foundations of Christianity and analyzed the Bible with the aim to promote the free search for truth. They helped bring about Enlightenment views of religion and the secularization of Europe.
John Locke, who was British, inspired both the American and French revolutions. His arguments concerning liberty and the social contract motivated written works by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and other founding fathers of the United States. One of Locke’s passages is reproduced verbatim in the Declaration of Independence, the reference to a “long train of abuses.” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Bacon, Locke, and Newton. I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived.”
Locke’s theory of the “social contract” influenced the belief of many founders that the right of the people to overthrow their leaders was one of the “natural rights” of man. He also argued that all humans were created equally free, and governments therefore needed the “consent of the governed.” Many scholars trace the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in the American Declaration of Independence to Locke’s theory of natural rights. At the time of the American revolution, the belief that rights came from God was widespread. British citizens believed in the divine right of kings.
Unlike many American founders, Locke was not a deist or a freethinker. He was a theist who accepted the cosmological (first cause) argument for the existence of God. Had Locke been born in our time, he might well have been an atheist.
Locke also had a strong influence on the French deist Voltaire, who called him “le sage Locke.” Voltaire’s major contribution to our founding fathers was his tireless quest for civil rights and his support for freedom of religion as well as separation of church and state. Voltaire’s reasoning may be summed up in his well-known saying, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” But my favorite quote of Voltaire is, “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
Many Americans at the time of the Revolution were attracted to “secular millennialism,” a belief that we would someday be transformed into a utopian world of peace, justice, prosperity, and fellowship. The focus is on “worldly” transformation as opposed to “other-worldly” promises of spiritual salvation after death. Such predictions of America’s destiny came from people like Thomas Paine and his enormously influential pamphlet Common Sense. The pamphlet’s millennial-style passages include “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.” Paine added, “The birthday of a new world is at hand.” In Paine’s view this new world would be far from theocracy, grounded not on ecclesiastical authority, but on the principles of a democratic republic and equal rights.
While religious ideology was an important inspiration for many Americans, the military of the new American nation had no religious policy. Soldiers mostly appeared to have been indifferent to the religious consequence of the Revolutionary War. The war was over the birth of a new nation, rather than a new nation-with-church. Both the British and American sides tried to recruit Americans from every background for their cause. For many Americans, the ecclesiastical tyranny of tax-supported religious establishments was another form of oppression they were fighting against
The American Revolution hurt the Church of England in America more than any other denomination because the King of England was the head of that church. Anglican priests in America swore allegiance to the King. The Book of Common Prayer offered prayers asking God to give the king victory over all his enemies. In 1776, the King’s enemies were American soldiers and loyalty to that church could be construed as treason. So, Anglicans in America revised The Book of Common Prayer to conform to political realities, eliminating allegiance to the king.
The Franco-American Alliance brought thousands of French troops onto American soil, exposing American soldiers to advanced forms of freethinking and anticlericalism. The American Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution of the United States also inspired the French revolutionaries of 1789, offering an example of liberty for the world and an example for modern constitutional democracies. The French Revolution motivated people to put irreligious ideas of the Enlightenment into practice and later extended beyond France to other European countries, and to the American colonies. For Americans at that time, irreligion more often took deistic rather than an atheistic form.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/22
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about minority religions and the American nation-state.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Christian mythology pervades so much of the American landscape in the present day. It does the same for much of the long-term history of the United States too. Our references in the series look at mostly Christians, deists, pantheists, or the indigenous, whether the leadership or the population. Numerous minority religious belief systems exist in America today.
Many minority religions existed in America in the past. They have had interactions with the dominant religion and must have influenced the secular and freethought community over time. Islam and Judaism have had impacts on the political and social landscape of the United States of America. What have been impactful or important minority religions in the development of religion in America?
How have those religions been positive for secularism in America? How have those religions been negative for secularism in America? What has been the interplay between the dominant religion, minority religions, and the secular and freethought communities in the ongoing struggle for motion towards the proposed ideals of the United States with equality for all – in this case equality for the religious and the non-religious, the secular and the non-secular, or the naturalists and the supernaturalists?
Dr. Herb Silverman: Religious freedom, guaranteed by the United States Constitution, allows individuals to practice and promote any religion or no religion without government interference. Our founders supported freedom of religion because they understood that such religious diversity would help our new country avoid the kinds of wars that had plagued Europe, where hundreds of thousands of people had been tortured and killed over religious differences.
I view the existence of many minority religions as a “blessing.” Christians are wrong when they claim America is a Christian nation. It’s a Christian nation in the same way that America is a white nation. The majority of Americans are both white and Christian. However, America is not now, nor has it ever officially been, a white nation or a Christian nation.
One of my favorite minority religions is the Satanic Temple. Its members are mostly atheists. These Satanists might be having a little fun with the name, but their primary purpose is to promote secularism. They hit on a clever name to get publicity for promoting rational thought and separation of religion and government. But these “Satanists” especially trouble some religious believers because the name engages in their own religious narrative. The Satanic Temple has gained international attention for asserting equal rights for Satanists when other religious privileges have been granted, primarily to Christians. They have successfully applied for equal representation when religious monuments are placed on public property, opposed religious exemption and legal protection against laws that unscientifically restrict women’s reproductive autonomy, exposed fraudulent harmful pseudo-scientific practitioners and claims in mental health care, and they have applied to hold clubs alongside other religious after school clubs in schools besieged by proselytizing organizations.
In addition to being an atheist, a humanist, an agnostic, a freethinker, and other labels (depending on definitions), I’m also a Jew. The definition of a Jew is a person born of a Jewish mother. There is no requirement for a Jew to believe anything special. Many, if not most, Jews in America are atheists. I am a member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, a nontheistic religion with atheist rabbis. Other religions consistent with being an atheist include Buddhism and Hinduism. Some Buddhists and Hindus believe in reincarnation, but that is not a requirement.
Many of us non-religious types like to collaborate with religious people to achieve common goals. An added bonus is that negative stereotypes might change when religious people and atheists get to know each other better. I’ve participated in a number of interfaith dialogues, though I would prefer a different term (perhaps “interfaith and values”). I think it’s terrific when interfaith groups invite atheists to join and work with them. These interfaith dialogues have mostly been with progressive religionists who are comfortable engaging with people of other faiths and none. They can more easily collaborate with us on good works than with conservative religionists, whose primary interest in those outside their narrow belief system is to proselytize. These interfaith religious believers seem to value behavior more than belief, and find in their holy books an obligation to advocate for social justice. The more conservative religious believers tend to place belief above behavior, and think of this life as preparation for an imagined afterlife.
Aside from deciding who allegedly goes to heaven, there have been countless claims by so-called experts about the specifics of an afterlife. How do we determine who the experts are? The number of experts on any given topic is inversely proportional to the evidence available on that topic. And by that criterion, we are all experts on the afterlife because there is absolutely no evidence for its existence. Anyone can make up stuff about heaven or quote stuff from books made up by others.
I think there is a lot of value even in religions I dislike because they help us maintain a pluralistic society. I’ll mention just two of many.
First, Islam. Given the high-profile atrocities committed by some Muslims in the name of their religion, a number of Americans oppose giving complete religious freedom to Muslims. They point to passages in the Quran that can be interpreted to justify atrocious acts. But the same can be said about passages in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. If you can find an interpretation in one holy book to justify an atrocity, then you can likely find a comparable interpretation and justification in the other holy books. These include genocide, holy wars, slavery, misogyny, death for crimes like blasphemy, homosexuality and worshipping the wrong god or even the right god in the wrong way. We need to distinguish between peaceful religious believers and those who are inspired by their holy books to commit atrocities. It becomes Islamophobia when we lump all Muslims into the same category.
Pope Francis once said that faith and violence are incompatible. Not if you read a comprehensive history of religion, including the history of the Catholic Church. Ironically, conservative Christians who seem most worried about Sharia agree with more tenets of Sharia law than do atheists like me. Sharia opposes abortion, contraceptives, and sex education, considers being gay a sin, has little tolerance for other religions, and treats women as subservient to men while claiming women are privileged within the religion.
I don’t much care for the beliefs of Mormons, now called Latter Day Saints, especially their effective political opposition to same-sex marriage, opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and to physician assisted suicide. For nearly 150 years, the Mormon Church had taught that all blacks were cursed, which was why a black Mormon male could not become an LDS priest or enter the Mormon Temple. In1978, LDS President Spencer W. Kimball claimed that God had removed the curse on blacks and that worthy black men could now become priests.
One amusing story about Mormons is that they baptize dead people. Many Jews, myself excluded, are upset that Mormons have sometimes focused on Jewish Holocaust victims (perhaps even my dead relatives) for posthumous baptism. This practice, however ludicrous, is fine with me. It does no harm to my deceased relatives or to me. In fact, I take this as an expression of good will, much like, “I’ll pray for you.” I believe in its positive sentiment, if not its efficacy.
In a debate I had in North Carolina with well-known Christian apologist William Lane Craig, I asked him during the debate what he thought of a different resurrection story believed by many Christians. After Jesus died, but before he went to heaven, Jesus stopped in the United States. This story was chiseled on gold plates in Egyptian hieroglyphics and buried in Palmyra, New York. In 1827, the angel Moroni led Joseph Smith to the gold plates and a magic stone. When Smith put the magic stone into his hat and buried his face in the hat, he was able to translate the plates into English. I asked Craig if he believed the Book of Mormon was true, and if he thought Mormons were Christians. Craig didn’t respond during the debate. But after the debate, I asked Craig if he thought Mormons were real Christians, and he said, “No. They are a cult.”
The word “cult” is not well defined. Christianity was once a cult of Judaism that eventually had enough members to rise to the status of sect. It became a separate religion when they added their own holy book, the New Testament. The difference between a religion and a cult seems to be the number of adherents. I once saw a cartoon showing a bearded guru at a table on the sidewalk holding a sign-up sheet. A giant thermometer in the cartoon marked off increasingly larger categories of religion, starting at the bottom with “handful of wackos,” and moving up the thermometer with “bunch of nuts,” “cult,” “faction,” “sect,” and at the top— “mainstream religion.” The poster next to the guru read, “Join us and help us reach our goal!”
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, once said, “The most unusual thing in my church is that we believe there was once a flood upon the earth, and that a man took a boat and put two of each animal inside the boat, and saved humanity.” Romney essentially said that his holy book is no more preposterous than other holy books. I think he has a point.
I’m just pleased that we tolerate all kinds of beliefs, as long as they are not forced on those who are not devotees or harm minors. I support the 1971 Supreme Court decision in the three-pronged “Lemon Test,’ named after the lead plaintiff Alton Lemon. It says that government action must have a secular legislative purpose, must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and must not result in an excessive entanglement with religion.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/17
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about American freethinker, or not, presidents.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Over time, I have heard or more often read repeated mumblings and murmurings from some American freethinkers of the possibility of major leaders, including presidents, of the United States being closet atheists or agnostics. However, most of the former presidents lived in even more religious times than America now. In that social climate, they remained quiet because citizens – a hunk of them – vote via political affiliation in association with religion.
If a Christian candidate, and open about it, a large sector of Americans seem to vote for them, as a Christian, as a Christian seen as a good person, and so on. How has the secular and philosophical landscape of Americans been influenced, impacted, by the voting records on religion? How many presidents, statistically, in American history were or are, probably, atheists or agnostics? What would be the fate of an open atheist or agnostic president for their political life? I recall the retort if you won the governorship, “Demand a recount!”
Dr. Herb Silverman: Religious beliefs of American presidents are difficult to determine, perhaps indeterminable. We can learn what they profess to believe and what church they attend, but I am often skeptical about what they truly believe. Let’s look at the last two presidents, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, both of whom are professed Christians.
Barack Obama had an atheist father and was raised by a secular humanist mother whose values he embraced. He used to say he was an agnostic, but he became a Christian when he ran for public office. At least Obama embraces some positive values of Christianity, like concern for immigrants and the poor, caring about your neighbor, honesty, and respect for the environment.
What Christian principles does Donald Trump embrace, unless you consider it Christian to nominate judges put forth by conservative white evangelicals? I know he disagrees with Luke 6:29: “If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer your other cheek.” I couldn’t find a biblical passage that says, “Slap him back ten times harder.” Nor does Trump follow Luke 14:1: “He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Many of us wish Trump would heed Proverbs 12:15: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”
Trump refused to disclose his tax returns because he claims they are under audit. He added, “Maybe I get audited so much because I’m a strong Christian.” Really? How much faith does that statement require? I think Donald Trump is an atheist because I can’t picture him believing in a power higher than himself. On the other hand, Trump might think that he is a god.
Given that presidents are usually smart and thoughtful people, I would think that quite a few who called themselves Christians did not believe most of the doctrines of their faith. There are at least 18 non-Christian presidents: George Washington (Deist), John Adams (Unitarian), Thomas Jefferson (Deist), James Madison (Deist), James Monroe (Deist), John Quincy Adams (Unitarian), John Tyler (Deist), Millard Fillmore (Unitarian), Abraham Lincoln (probably Deist), William Howard Taft (Unitarian), Dwight D. Eisenhower (no church until he became president). Many Unitarians also considered themselves Deists. Unaffiliated presidents are Ulysses S. Grant, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson, and Rutherford B. Hayes. Probable nonbelievers include Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, and Chester A. Arthur. If you include Quakers as non-Christian (which many Christians do), we can add Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.
Should the religious beliefs of a politician matter? They should if the person’s religious faith interferes with the duties and oath of office. I like what John F. Kennedy, the only Catholic president, said during his campaign: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” And Kennedy governed as if he were an atheist, which I suspect he might have been because it appeared that he did nothing more than follow certain rituals. While I would like to see President Trump impeached and convicted, I worry about his successor. It would be Christian fundamentalist VP Mike Pence. At the Republican national convention, Pence said, “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican in that order.” This sounds like he would govern by imposing some of his unconstitutional Christian values on the rest of us.
When now-Senator Jamie Raskin (D-MD) testified at a Maryland State Senate hearing in 2006 in support of gay marriage, Republican State Senator Nancy Jacobs said: “Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?” Raskin replied: “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”
I would much rather see a non-religious American president than a religious one, who might pledge his or her highest allegiance to religion instead of to the oath of office. Religious conviction must never interfere with the purely secular responsibilities associated with holding the highest office in America.
While politicians are reluctant to come out of the closet as atheists, there have been some non-religious gains. A Congressional Freethought Caucus was formed in 2018. This was a milestone for nonreligious Americans in our continual struggle for inclusion in the political process and recognition as a constituency. The Caucus promotes public policy formed on the basis of reason, science, and moral values. It protects the secular character of our government by adhering to the strict separation of church and state. It opposes discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, religious and nonreligious persons, and champions the value of freedom of thought and conscience worldwide. The Caucus also provides a forum for members of Congress to discuss their moral frameworks, ethical values, and personal religious journeys. The Caucus started with four members, and now has twelve, with more likely to join.
For people who want to contribute financially to local and national candidates who support secular values, there is now a Freethought Equality Fund PAC, which helps increase the number of nonreligious Americans running for public office. See http://freethoughtequalityfund.net
Scientific advancement isn’t just making people question God. It’s also connecting those who question. There are many atheist, agnostic, and humanist groups, along with Internet discussion groups and Meetups. “Nones,” those with no religious affiliation, is the fastest growing “religious” group in America, especially among younger Americans. The latest survey shows that over 23 percent of Americans are “Nones,” a higher percentage than for either Catholics or evangelicals.
In August 2019, the Democratic National Committee passed a resolution acknowledging the “value, ethical soundness, and importance” of non-religious Americans. The resolution mentioned that we advocate for rational public policy based on sound science and universal humanistic values. In addition, Sarah Levin, Director of Governmental Affairs of the Secular Coalition for America, was recently elected as a Co-Chair of the DNC Interfaith Council (not representing the nonpartisan Secular Coalition). In 2020, Democrats will need all the votes they can get, and they understand that they have more to gain by embracing the growing number of secular Americans than worrying about who might complain if they do.
There have been at least seven democratically-elected world leaders who have been atheists: Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia; Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Greece; Francois Hollande, President of France; Zoran Milanovic, Prime Minister of Croatia; John Key. Prime Minister of New Zealand; Elio di Rupo, former Prime Minister of Belgium; Milos Zeman, President of the Czech Republic. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future we will have an American president who is an open atheist. Skeptical? Did you really expect to see a black American president in your lifetime?
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/10/14
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about African-American and American History.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: African-American history, akin to the creation of Native American history after the creation of The United States of America, is American history. Certainly, as far as I can tell, it is a distinct facet of American history, making American history a pluralistic affair. Nonetheless, as we covered some of the Native American pre-American and American history in the US, let’s cover some African-American secular history.
Certainly, we can see several prominent and respected black freethinkers in the United States tackling on-the-grounds issues and others now. They did not emerge out of the aether. What is the history of freethought in America? How did some of this link to other freethought movements in America? Who were the important players? How did these individuals provide a context in which the African-American community could free themselves from the shackles of fundamentalist ideologies? At the same time, how did the church give some refuge for them?
Dr. Herb Silverman: I should first acknowledge some positives for African-American churches. Aside from giving people hope, they have often been a center for civil rights activism and a place that blacks could gather in large numbers without being harassed. I live in Charleston, South Carolina, just three blocks from Mother Emmanuel AME church, now internationally known because nine African Americans were murdered there by white nationalist Dylann Roof. This church was once a secret meeting place for African-Americans who wanted to end slavery at a time when laws in Charleston banned all-black church gatherings.
Some slaveowners and white Christian ministers in the nineteenth century read biblical verses to slaves as part of the worship services they allowed them to attend. They wanted to show that the Bible condones and supports slavery. The biblical curse of Ham (Genesis 9:25), one of the sons of Noah, was for Ham to be a servant to his brothers. This curse was used to justify slavery of black Americans on the ground that black Americans were descendants of Ham.
Other biblical justifications for slavery and why slaves should obey their masters include:
(1 Peter 2:18) Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.
(Ephesians 6:5) Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and sincerity of heart, just as you would Christ.
(Colossians 3:22) Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
(Titus 2:9) Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them.
And here’s how they thought they were showing mercy to slaves, because of possible punishment to the slave owner: (Exodus 21:20-21) When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.
The experience of slavery and the degradations of proslavery Christians led some enslaved blacks to varieties of unbelief. The most influential African American at that time was Frederick Douglass, who devoted his time, talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, noted for his oratoryand incisive antislavery writings. He was described by abolitionists as a living counter-example to arguments of slaveholders that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.
Of his escape from slavery, Douglass said, “I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” He said of pro-slavery Christian clergymen: “Welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! In preference to the gospel as preached by those divines! They convert the very name of religion into a barbarous cruelty.”
Frederick Douglass was a good friend of the agnostic orator Robert Green Ingersoll. Douglass once remarked that Ingersoll and Abraham Lincoln were the only white men in whose company “he could be without feeling he was regarded as inferior to them.”
Believing that all people are equal, Douglass supported the women’s suffrage movement in addition to black emancipation. In 1848, he spoke at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, which sparked the nineteenth-century woman’s suffrage movement. Douglass was the only male to speak at the convention, drawing parallels between black men and American women as equally disenfranchised.
Here are a few other African American leaders who were also freethinkers:
W. E. B. Du Bois was a historian, civil rights activist, and a founder of the NAACP. His books include The Souls of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction in America. When he became head of the department at historically black Atlanta University in Georgia, the engagement was held up because he refused to lead a prayer. He also said, “I refused to join any church or sign any church creed.”
James Baldwin was an American novelist, playwright, and activist. He described himself as not religious. Baldwin accused Christianity of “reinforcing the system of American slavery by palliating the pangs of oppression and delaying salvation until a promised afterlife.” He wrote, “If the concept of God has any use, it is to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God can’t do that, it’s time we got rid of him.”
Yosef Ben-Jochannan was an American writer and historian, author of 49 books. He said, “The churches can’t help the people when the chips are down because their interest is with the power structure.” He added, “The black man has called upon Jesus Christ for so many years in America, and now he starts calling on Mohammed, and there are many who are calling on Moses, and in no time within this period has the black man’s situation changed, nor has the black man any freedom. It is obvious that someone didn’t hear his call or isn’t interested in that call, either Jesus, Mohammad, or Moses.”
Alice Walker, civil rights activist and author of The Color Purple, said, “The only reason you want to go to heaven is that you have been driven out of your mind and off your land.” She also said, “All people deserve to worship a God who also worships them. A God that made them, and likes them. That is why Nature, Mother Earth, is such a good choice. Never will Nature require that you cut off some part of your body to please It; never will Mother Earth find anything wrong with your natural way.”
Actress Butterfly McQueen, who played an enslaved maidservant in Gone with the Wind, was an atheist, saying in 1989, “As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion.”
Though Martin Luther King, Jr. was religious, he advocated for the separation of religion and government, and supported the Supreme Court’s decision to prohibit government-sponsored prayer in public schools. He also said, “I would be the last to condemn the thousands of sincere and dedicated people outside the churches who have labored unselfishly through various humanitarian movements to cure the world of social evils, for I would rather a man be a committed humanist than an uncommitted Christian.”
Bayard Rustin, who helped organize freedom rides, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and King’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was an atheist. So was A. Philip Randolph, who also helped organize the March on Washington, where King gave his “I have a dream” speech. Randolph said, “We consider prayer as nothing more than a fervent wish; consequently, the merit and worth of a prayer depend upon what the fervent wish is.”
Other black freethinkers who also played significant roles in the Civil Rights movement include leaders James Forman, Eldridge Cleaver, and Stokely Carmichael, all of whom rejected Christianity.
Anthony Pinn is the author/editor of over 30 books, including numerous volumes related to African American humanism. He received the 1999 African American Humanist Award from the Council for Secular Humanism and the 2006 award for Harvard University Humanist Chaplaincy Humanist of the Year.
And, of course, there is Neal deGrasse Tyson, well-known astrophysicist and science popularizer. He calls himself an agnostic, and said, “There is no common ground between science and religion. Religion only starts where scientific knowledge ends.”.
In 1989, Norm Allen Jr. founded African Americans for Humanism, the first explicitly secular organization for blacks. Then came Black Atheists of America and Black Nonbelievers Inc., as well as local groups such as Black Skeptics of Los Angeles. Black atheists today are not content to personally reject religion, but instead have a goal of spreading freethought to the broader black community. For example, author Sikivu Hutchinson and Mandisa Thomas, founder of Black Nonbelievers, argue that religion hurts the black community by promoting sexism, patriarchy, and homophobia.
In addition to denying the existence of God, encouraging the teaching of evolution in schools and fighting for the separation of church and state, black atheists want to find solutions to practical problems. Many have embraced Black Lives Matter, a secular movement unaffiliated with black religious institutions and ideology. They look for ways to improve the situation for blacks, and also to promote a more just, democratic, and less racist American society.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about colonization and its aftermath.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If we look at the early American experiment apart from the leaders of the nation at the time and the framers of the Constitution, there still existed, and still remain extant, the Native American populations scattered throughout the bounded geography known as the United States of America.
The same story playing out throughout the world amongst conquered peoples, whether by Europeans with Christianity or otherwise. In this massive instance, the wiping out of the indigenous population of North America. Charlie Hill, who had a set on The Richard Pryor Show, in later interviews before death spoke of “stuck on stupid” in terms of some of the mentalities of some of the white folks (culture and social attitudes in mind), of Euro-Americans (often associated with this American ethnic group).
Another time, Hill elaborated, “Americans are stuck on stupid. It’s not a skin color, it’s an attitude. And, the only way they’re going to get right with everything is to get right with Indians. The way it should be done–with honor and respect.” How did the project of colonization destroy the early possibility of relations between foreigners of the time, Europeans, and the original inhabitants of the land, the Native Americans? How did this get worse in some ways and better in other ways over time?
What seem like a means by which to deal on equal terms rather than Christian, Euro-American, or white folk terms and standards in modern relations? How can humanist and freethought communities provide a better ethical foundation for this? How has the project of colonization influenced the members of the freethought community who leave traditions or enforced religions if they have a Native American heritage insofar as you know as an American – as I am Canadian?
Dr. Herb Silverman: I think most Americans agree that in the past both European settlers and later generations of Americans treated Indians (now called Native Americans) very badly. Treaties between the U.S. and sovereign Indian tribes were unequal or broken. The government sought to replace the population of Indian territories with a new society of white settlers. As white settlers spread westward across America after 1780, armed conflicts increased between the settlers and Indians. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the U.S. government to enforce the Indian removal from east of the Mississippi River to the West, even though many tribes had extensive territories in that area. As American settlers kept expanding their territories, Indian tribes were relocated to specially designated territories.
This policy was known at the time as Manifest Destiny, the belief that the settlers in the United States were destined to expand across North America because of the special virtues of the American people and their institutions, including the Christian religion. This was nothing new. Beginning with Christopher Columbus, many Native Americans were enslaved and forced to convert to Christianity. They lost their land and were later forcibly put onto reservations, leaving the rich land they had lived on for Christian settlers ready to work for God and Country.
The Mexican-American War of 1846 resulted in the annexation of 525,000 square miles of Mexican territory, about half of Mexico. While not primarily about Native-Americans, Captain John Reid, from Missouri, was praised by the mayor of Parras in Mexico during the war for his “noble soul” and his determination to defend “Christians and civilized beings against the rage and brutality of savages.
Many of these actions probably come from so-called “American Exceptionalism,” the questionable notion that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world due to its historical evolution and its political and religious institutions and origins. I wish it were about supporting human rights around the world, but now it seems more about promoting the perceived interests of America. Some Americans believe that God particularly blesses America and that we represent the biblical city on a hill. One of the many differences between evangelical Christians and atheists in the United States is that the majority of evangelicals believe that America is the greatest country in the world, compared with only 20 percent of those without religion who agree with that statement. When I think of American exceptionalism, I think of our being the first country with a godless constitution, governed by “We the People,” not “Thou the Deity.”
What seems strange to me is why so many Americans want all countries to emulate America, yet we currently (and in the past) have created so many barriers for those desperately seeking a better life here. Other than Native Americans, all Americans come from families who were immigrants. President Donald Trump has no good arguments for excluding immigrants, but had Native Americans initially known what European immigrants would do to them and their culture, they would certainly have wanted to keep such immigrants out.
Few American are aware of the California Genocide of Native Americans (1846-1873). Following the U.S. conquest of California, the government waged genocide against the Native Americans in that territory. California state and Federal authorities incited, aided, and financed miners, settlers, ranchers, and people’s militias to enslave, kidnap, murder, and exterminate a major proportion of displaced Native Americans. The California Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, enacted in 1850, provided for apprenticing or indenturing Indian children to Whites, and also punished “vagrant” Indians by “hiring” them out to the highest bidder at a public auction if the Indian could not provide sufficient bond or bail. This legalized a form of slavery in California.
United States federal law contains no statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide, so lately some people have called for a genocide tribunal to investigate such past human rights violations and ethnic cleansing. In a speech before representatives of Native Americans in June 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom apologized for the genocide. Newsom said, “That’s what it was, a genocide. No other way to describe it. And that’s the way it needs to be described in the history books.”
This is an indication that we may be ready to show some respect to Native Americans and treat them better. Many Americans read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, which includes the 1890 Battle of Wounded Knee in South Dakota, a massacre of several hundred Lakota Indians, mostly women and children, by soldiers of the United States Army.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a Native American grassroots movement that was founded in the United States in July 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. AIM was initially formed in urban areas to address systemic issues of poverty and police brutality against Native Americans. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to include many Indigenous Tribal issues that Native American groups currently face, such as treaty rights, unemployment, education, cultural continuity, and preservation of Indigenous cultures. Organization like AIM are helping to improve the lives of Native Americans.
Nevertheless, the situation for many Native Americans is dire, much worse than for African Americans. Approximately 90,000 Native American families are under-housed or homeless, and only 13 percent have a college degree. About 22 percent live on tribal lands or reservations.
I think the freethought community has always been supportive of rights for Native Americans. We mostly agree that Columbus Day is not a cause for celebration, and that we should reflect on what happened to Native Americans if we celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. We are probably disproportionately represented among non-Native Americans at protests organized by Native Americans. Of course, we should all look for ways to volunteer and contribute to this beleaguered community.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/23
Deniece Milinette Cornejo is the CEO at Demico Global Solutions, Chairman at the National Congress for Young Filipinos, National Project Director at Miss Tourism Philippines, Regional Development Council Chairman at Junior Chamber International Philippines, a Goodwill Ambassador, Senior Vice President for Southeast Asia at AI Trades, Ambassador at the International Martial Arts Academy, and President at Association of Women’s Rights Advocates.
Here we talk about gender equality within the Philippines.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Your work for women’s rights tends to remain important in Canadian society and to, probably, most non-religious or secular people throughout the country. What differentiates the SEA region’s concerns with gender equality compared to North America and Western Europe or the “West’s”?
Deniece Cornejo: I am inspired and grateful to learn that my work is able to contribute to our society. In the Southeast Asian region, recent years show that the number of women holding public office has increased, especially in local government. So far, only in the Philippines has female representation in national government risen above 10 per cent. When women do manage to enter the political arena, they often find themselves marginalized in a male-dominated culture, with real power remaining in men’s hands. The few individuals who have attained the highest political offices (such as President in the Philippines and Indonesia) have done so because they are the daughter or wife of a famous man. There was a time when it was difficult to become advocates of women’s issues, for this would risk alienating their male colleagues or the male electorate. Today, more and more advocates have risen from the comforts of their own homes. Be it in the West or Asia, greater female involvement in politics is impeded by the way candidates are recruited as well as inculcated attitudes that see women’s primary role as that of wife and mother. Gender stereotypes that favor males over females are often reinforced in school textbooks and are sometimes encouraged by religious teachings. Against this backdrop, it is clear that discrimination against women, especially in the economic sector and in the case of violence against women, is still persistent in every country.
Jacobsen: What issues on gender equality and women’s rights has the Philippines gotten right and wrong on gender equality?
Cornejo: One issue the Filipinos got right on the grounds of gender equality is that advocates are lobbying for more opportunities for women. This implied that we are fighting for more jobs, more freedom, more budget allocations and for more acceptance as an equal in the society. One misconception that Filipinos always have when it comes to discussing gender equality is that when we say “women’s rights,” they automatically think that it means less rights for men. I want to emphasize that more rights for one gender does not mean less rights for the other side of the scale. It’s not a pie. No receives less when the share or division is fair. It’s a situation where both male and female receive equal opportunities and advancement of interests.
Jacobsen: What has the West gotten correct and incorrect on women’s rights?
Cornejo: As I mentioned before, our Western neighbors practice a more liberal and democratic thinking where everybody is free to express their thoughts at their own will with less hindrances. The disadvantage is with more liberalism comes judgement and ridicule. I believe the answer for this question is the same as the above because whether we are in the Western or Eastern arena, the society is plagued with the same misconceptions on women’s rights. I believe both hemispheres of the globe are lobbying for access to similar opportunities.
Jacobsen: What may be a means by which either region – SEA and previously defined West – learn from one another?
Cornejo: The most effective means I deem fit is to engage in a meaningful conversation especially during the ASEAN Summit, G7 summit and the like. If they may invite us a seat at the table for discussion, it will be incredibly monumental. It is during these international conferences or conventions that the most powerful countries come together to discuss matters like this. This could be an opportunity to exchange healthy dialogues on the issues of advancing the interests of women.
Jacobsen: How can the Roman Catholic Christian faith provide a unique framework for gender equality? How can the hierarchs of the Roman Catholic faith learn from the laity, and vice versa?
Cornejo: The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country. I suppose the Church can refine their views to make the theories and ideals of equality more accessible and understandable for everyday Filipinos. The time is fast-changing and if adjustments could be made, it would be easier without necessitating rallies or demonstrations.
Jacobsen: How can a secular or non-religious framework provide a unique vision of gender equality? How can the secular leading intellectuals and social organizers learn from ordinary secular people, and vice versa?
Cornejo: The non-religious sector of our society can address issues and present their vision of a modern approach to equality by, as most political sectors do, establishing or supporting organizations whose mission and vision they identify themselves with. I previously mentioned how an organization like the UN women has inspired me to found an organization of my own, the AWRA (Association of Women’s Rights and Advocates) that seeks to spread awareness and prevent violence and all forms of abuse against women. The answer to this always begins at the grassroots level. It is by supporting these organizations at a humble manner or by educating ourselves and by taking the initiative so we can ask the right questions that the secular intellectuals and ordinary people can learn from one another.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ms. Cornejo.
Cornejo: Once again, thank you for your time as well. It has been an honour and privilege to give you my thoughts on this matter. I believe the quest for accessing equal opportunities for women does not end here. The fight continues even after this interview.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/21
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the founders and beliefs.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As you noted the anti-Catholic nature of some of the framers of the American Constitution, you provided some insight into the ways in which the nature of the deism of the brightest American minds of the time represented something more akin to non-religion or a nearly modern notion of secularism in America with the base separation of church and state.
My suspicion: if in an alternate universe in which Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species (by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) in the era of the framers of the American Constitution, then the established-as-deists would have identified and affirmed an atheist viewpoint of the world because biological, organic life must have seemed utterly incomprehensibly complicated and functional without the modern and fundamental theoretical basis for all life sciences.
You and I live as modern secular and freethought people with due credit to the deists and pantheists of the previous generations. I decline any sentiment or argument as anti-Catholics or anti-religious-people – to individual religious believers, hierarchs, intellectuals, scientists, theologians, or similars, but affirm anti-Catholicism and anti-religion – to abuses of power, belief structures, beliefs, ideological stances, institutional orthodoxy, institutions, purported authority and inspiration of holy texts, supernatural and magic powers, and the like – and also affirm non-religion as in secularism within a more modern interpretation.
When did anti-Catholicism and anti-religion wane amongst the framers or their descendants leading more into non-religion if there was any distinct set of moments or period in time? How were the seeds of modern atheist and non-religion movements set at the founding of America? How did the massive influx of religious immigrants change the landscape of America – its demographics? What amendments to the American Constitution have been important to the establishment equality of freethought and secular American citizens?
Dr. Herb Silverman: I agree with you that many eighteenth-century Deists might have been atheists had they been familiar with the work of Charles Darwin. However, Darwin’s theory of natural selection only explains that we have a variety of species, including human animals, because they adapted to their environment. Evolution says nothing about how life began. Many Deists would probably still have believed in a Creator who started the process, and then let nature take its course.
Later scientific discoveries would probably have turned these Deists into atheists. We now know that our universe did not begin with a Creator, but with a “Big Bang” approximately 13.8 billion years ago. We still don’t know how life began, although abiogenesis is a reasonable hypothesis. This is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. It’s interesting that Bible believers refuse to believe this hypothesis about life arising from non-life, though they believe that the first human was made from dirt and the second human from the rib of the first. Did God run out of dirt?
Since we don’t know for sure how life began, I understand why some people attribute life to a Creator. I can’t prove they are wrong, but I can prove that those who regard the Bible as a scientific book are wrong. I’m an atheist because I see no evidence for the existence of any gods, not because I can prove there are no gods.
You mention that you affirm non-religion. I do, too, but I would rather say that I affirm nontheism, meaning no gods. There are religions without gods or supernaturalism. As an atheist, some people assume I must be anti-religion. Not so. By one measure, I might be the most religious person in America. You see, I have not one, not two, but three different religions: I’m a member of the American Ethical Union, with Ethical Culture Societies; I’m a member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, with atheist rabbis; and I’m a member of the Unitarian Universalist Humanists. All three religions are nontheistic and are active participants in the Secular Coalition for America.
When our nation was founded, not just anti-Catholicism flourished. There were 150 attacks against Baptists in Virginia between 1760 and 1778, many by leaders of local Anglican churches. In the seventeenth century, Massachusetts hanged people for being Quakers. The first “War on Christmas” was initiated by Puritans because the Bible did not sanction the holiday, and they believed Christmas was invented by Catholics and pagans, who engaged in too much merriment and drinking. The Puritans promoted Protestantism, the religion invented to protest Catholicism.
At America’s founding, 98 percent in the colonies were Protestant, but the divisions among Protestant sects and between Protestants and Catholics were intense. Some people were Protestant in name only, while others were fervent believers in their sect. Only 17 percent in 1776 attended church, so not many were passionate about their religion. Such indifference might indicate a large number of freethinkers in the colonies, including Deists and maybe even atheists.
Some of our framers, including James Madison, wanted the “no religious test” clause in the United States Constitution to apply to all states. That failed to pass. Initially, eleven of the thirteen states had religious tests, stipulating that only Christians, or in some cases only Protestants, could hold public office. A notable exception was Pennsylvania, founded by the Quaker William Penn. He decreed that Pennsylvania would be a “Holy Experiment” in toleration. All sects, including freethinkers, were welcome. Penn also founded Philadelphia, my birthplace, which is known as the city of brotherly love. Philadelphia is Greek for “brotherly love.” Philadelphia had the only Catholic church in the colonies that was protected by the authorities.
The influx of immigrants throughout its history has made America more religiously diverse. For that reason, there has always been an anti-immigrant constituency who feared the religion of the immigrants, and how that could change the values of the country. Initially the opposition was to Catholics, and today it is to Muslims. We have an opportunity now to show the world how people of different faiths and none can coexist and thrive. Founder James Madison argued that the best way to promote religion was to leave it alone. Previously, those who wanted to encourage religion had enlisted the government’s help. Without government support, America now has 360,000 houses of diverse worship.
Today Protestants, Catholics, and other Christians put aside some of their theological differences to work together on important political issues, and grab media attention. I disagreed with everything the Christian Coalition, founded in 1989 by Pat Robertson, stood for (preventing women from having access to reproductive health care, promoting that evolution is just a myth, contending that our country was founded as a Christian nation, opposing LGBT rights, demonizing atheists and secular humanists). Nevertheless, they helped change the culture, and made politicians take notice. The Secular Coalition for America is a counter to the Christian Coalition and its successors, and SCA member organizations are working together to keep the country secular, not theocratic.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, the right to practice any faith or none. Some people, including politicians, wrongly say that we have freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion. This is, of course, nonsense. You can’t have “of” without “from.” Giving people the right to believe also guarantees the right not to believe.
Finally, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been important to secular Americans. It says that constitutional rights guaranteed by the federal government must apply to all states, regardless of state laws. The amendment passed in 1868, after the Civil War, and granted citizenship and equal rights to slaves who had been emancipated. This amendment was also the basis of my winning court case when I learned that the South Carolina Constitution prohibited atheists from holding public office, a clear violation of the 14th Amendment because the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious tests for public office.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/20
In today’s polarized climate of discourse in the public square, a consistent target of attack has emerged: enlightenment values of free speech, reason, scientific inquiry, and the separation of church and state. Government-backed suppression and execution of non-believers — particularly in Muslim-majority countries — is at the nexus of attention by human rights organizations around the world. Meanwhile, hardliners from both the regressive left and alt-right political extremes have pursued aggressive stances, advocating violence, bigotry and censorship. Beyond voicing outrage about this overall situation, what can be done?
Armin Navabi is author of Why There Is No God, a secular Muslim from Iran and the founder of Atheist Republic, the world’s largest atheist network — a non-profit organization with over 200 consulates worldwide. Atheist Republic is dedicated to offering a safe community for atheists around the world to share their ideas and meet like-minded individuals.
For event information:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/enlightenment-under-attack-defending-secular-values-against-religious-and-political-extremism-tickets-69588746815
The Humanist Association of Ottawa and Atheist Republic Ottawa Consulate are organizing the talk at Sala San Marco, 215 Preston Street. Tickets are $10 for members and $15 for non-members on eventbrite.com, http://tiny.cc/navabi, or at the door.
Date And Time
Sun, September 22, 2019
2:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT
Location
Sala San Marco Event & Conference Centre
215 Preston Street
Ottawa, ON K1R 7R1
Media Contact
Scott Jacobsen
Press Agent, Atheist Republic
Scott.D.Jacobsen@Gmail.Com
Robert Hamilton
robert.hamilton3@gmail.com
613-325-2400
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019
“The short text divides into three sections with “Introduction to Herb,” “Ask Herb,” and “Ask Dr. Silverman.” Each built in terms of complexity with the first as a biography of Silverman; the second as an educational series on secular activism in a dialogue format with Silverman; and the third as an educational series on the philosophy of mathematics and then moving into some mathematicization of secular activism – in a manner of speaking – in another dialogue format with Silverman. In a natural way, the introductory section of the three provides some basis as to the identity of the “Ask Herb” and the “Ask Dr. Silverman” person (same person). The second section focuses on the public life of Silverman. The mathematics section focuses on some facets of the academic and professional life of him. Herb and I discuss secularism from a variety of angles with an educational and dialogue format in mind. His articles appear in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, Humanistic Judaism, The Humanist, Free Inquiry, The Secular Outpost, and, with Short Reflections on Secularism (2019), Question Time & Canadian Atheist between February 15, 2019 and August 30, 2019, as well as other publications.
Many in the secular movement may not realize the impact of this liberal, Jewish, and Yankee atheist. He was born in Philadelphia and earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Syracuse University. He is the former Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the College of Charleston. He published more than 100 research papers on mathematics and received a Distinguished Research Award. He earned the American Humanist Association Lifetime Achievement Award. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner and Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/18
E.J. Montini in the Arizona Republic reported on the Arizona Supreme Court move to attempt to use religion as a basis for “bigotry and discrimination.” Within the state Court of Appeals, the notion got rejected. However, the Supreme Court could turn either way at the time. Governor Doug Ducey stacked the Arizona Supreme Court with judges more in line with the individuals who prefer his ideology and temperament.
Jessica Boehm, from the Arizona Republic, stated that artists who make cakes do not have to make cakes for LGBTI+ couples because these could convey a message against the cake-makers’ deepest convictions, i.e., Christian beliefs stand against messages for equality in marriage of the LGBTI+ community.
Apparently, there was an ordinance for the city of Phoenix, Arizona, in which discrimination in the “providing [of] goods or services at places of public accommodation based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or disability” is expressly illegal.
Brush & Nib in Phoenix designs custom wedding invitations. On the case, Montini provided a concise and astute observation, “It’s a shame this is even a issue. We can hold any beliefs we want. But discrimination is discrimination. “Heterosexuals only” is the same as ‘whites only.’ Every other argument is smoke and mirrors. The state’s highest court fell for the phony argument in a way that lower courts had not. Brush & Nib is like any other public accommodation. A gas station. A grocery store. A barber shop. A restaurant.”
If the denial of service to African-Americans on the basis of Christian beliefs with the same argument, based on the argument as to what message this will send to the public, and based on their deep religious convictions, we come to the, rather obvious, conclusion of the discrimination against the African-American population in wedding cake services. Similarly, one need merely apply the same argument form with different, LGBTI+, content to make the point more explicitly.
Montini concluded, “The owners and employees of such businesses are free to hold whatever beliefs they wish, and they are free to express them. Denying service is another thing, however. It’s a sad day when the state Supreme Court doesn’t recognize that. Because if it’s okay to discriminate against same-sex couples by claiming some devout religious beliefs then anyone can make similar claims to justify discriminating against … anyone.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/18
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the drafts of the American Constitution and personal beliefs behind it.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: During the writing of the American Constitution in its first drafts, and after its completion after the Declaration of Independence, when considering the histories of the framers, what statements in these documents contradicted the personal beliefs or the individual biographies of the framers?
Dr. Herb Silverman: The religious faith of our founders is irrelevant because they erected a wall of separation between religion and the government they created in our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. However, since you ask, and since there is curiosity about the personal beliefs of our founders, here are some interesting tidbits.
Many of our founders were anti-Catholic. John Adams called Catholicism “nonsense, a delusion, and dangerous in society.” Thomas Jefferson called Catholicism “a retrograde step from lightness to darkness.” (I agree with these founders and would add, as Thomas Paine did, all the other religions.) John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, drafted language for the New York Constitution proposing tolerance for everyone except Catholics who refuse to renounce papal authority. At the time of the American revolution only about 1.6 percent of the population in the colonies were Catholic. It wasn’t until the immigration waves of the nineteenth century that Catholics began arriving in America in large numbers. This led to the aptly named “Know Nothing” party, formally called the American Party, an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant party formed in 1850. I was raised in Philadelphia, home of the 1844 “Bible riots” where both Catholics and Protestants were clubbed to death over which version of the Lord’s Prayer should be recited in public school. Protestants won the political battle, and Catholics responded by forming Catholic schools nationwide by 1860.
In a letter to John Adams in 1823, Thomas Jefferson said: “And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” He told his nephew in 1787 to “question with boldness even the existence of God.” Jefferson considered reason and science, not superstition and supernaturalism, to be his guides. He wrote his own version of the Christian Bible, leaving out miracle stories and including only what made sense to him. Jefferson referred to what remained as “Diamonds in a dunghill.”
Deism was a rational challenge to orthodox Christianity. Deists believed that the world was the work of a non-intervening Creator. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and other founders expressed religious views that were strongly deistic. Many founders reflected Deist language in their writings. Thomas Paine, in The Age of Reason, argued that Deism should replace all revelation-based religion. Most of our Founding Fathers were religiously liberal for their time, and thought of the new country as an experiment in secular democracy. Producing a God-free Constitution showed their disdain for intermingling religion and government. George Washington refused to take communion (even though his wife did), reflecting his Deistic tendency to avoid supernatural ritual. He did make some religious gestures to conform to the religious expectations of the times, though he refused to have a priest or religious rituals at his deathbed.
Christian Deism stressed morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, often viewing him as a sublime, but entirely human, teacher of morality. Instead of accepting the entire Bible as divinely inspired, many believed that reason was the ultimate standard for determining which parts of the Bible were legitimate revelations from God.
The Declaration of Independence was a call for rebellion against the British Crown. It does mention a higher power four times, as in Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, Supreme Judge of the world, Creator, and divine Providence. In each case it is an appeal to human dignity. It emphasizes people having inalienable rights. No appeal is made in this document to a god that has authority of any kind. No powers are given to religion in the affairs of man. The founders never cited biblical principles during the Constitutional Convention and ratifications. Both the Declaration and the Constitution source the legitimacy of political rule exclusively in the consent of the governed. Benjamin Franklin, a co-author of the Declaration of Independence with Thomas Jefferson, decried Christian church services for promoting church memberships instead of “trying to make us good citizens.”
Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, believed that the Christian religion should be preferred to all others, and that every family in the United States should be furnished, at public expense, with a copy of the Bible. The founders rejected this idea. Orthodox Christians among the Founders include the Calvinistic Samuel Adams, John Jay (who served as president of the American Bible Society), Elias Boudinot (who wrote a book on the imminent second coming of Jesus), and Patrick Henry (who believed in Evangelical Christianity and distributed religious tracts while riding circuit as a lawyer).
As a member of the Constitutional Convention, George Mason strenuously opposed the compromise permitting the continuation of the slave trade. Although he was a Southerner, he called the slave trade disgraceful to mankind. “God” stayed out of the Constitution, but slavery remained in order to keep the Southern colonies as part of this new nation.
The forces opposed to adoption of the Constitution argued that the “no religious test clause” would lead to Catholics, Jews, Mahometans (Muslims), and pagans obtaining office. That is the point of including the clause.
The phrase a “hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world” was first used by Baptist theologian Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island. It was later employed by Jefferson as a commentary on the First Amendment and its restriction on the legislative branch of the federal government. Thomas Jefferson refused to issue Proclamations of Thanksgiving sent to him by Congress during his presidency. After retiring from the presidency, James Madison argued for a stronger separation of church and state, opposing the very presidential issuing of religious proclamations he himself had done, and also opposing the appointment of chaplains to Congress. James Madison said, “Religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.”
The absence of an establishment of religion did not necessarily imply that all men were free to hold office. Most colonies had a Test Act. Charles Carrol from Maryland, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration, guaranteed full rights to Protestants and Catholics, but not to Jews, Freethinkers, or Deists. He said, “When I signed the Declaration of Independence I had in mind not only our independence of England, but the tolerations of all sects professing the Christian religion, and communicating to them all equal rights.” Several states had these religious tests for a short time. In my state of South Carolina, Protestantism was recognized as the state-established religion. This stood in contrast to the Federal Constitution, which explicitly prohibits the employment of any religious test for federal office, and which, through the Fourteenth Amendment, later extended this prohibition to the States.
There were many attempts by state ratifying conventions to amend the Constitution and subvert the intent of the preamble by declaring that governmental power was derived from God or Jesus Christ, but the proposed religious amendments were defeated.
Though there was some debate about possibly including “God” in the congressional oath, the nation’s first lawmakers instead decided on strictly secular language. It was signed into law by George Washington on June 1, 1789, making it the first law passed by the new United States government.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/13
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the revisionist attempts on American history.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Another issue comes in the form of the historical revisionists in the current period from Evangelical Christian fundamentalists who amount to selective literalists with the intent to ‘correct’ the American historical record – from their point of view – into an Evangelical Christian ethos and framework for looking at the world. How far back does regressive activism exist in America? How can this obscure the American record? How has the history of America been damaged by this form and branch of fundamentalism? How did American fundamentalism erase some traces of pre-American, Native American, history, permanently, to the detriment of the possible knowledge base of the Americas about human history? Who might count as the first Native American freethinker who went against the grain of the traditions of the Native American religions or ways of life with supernaturalisms assumed in them, though different as described? Who might count as the first American freethinker at or after the founding of the nation?
Dr. Herb Silverman: Why do some Christian fundamentalists claim that our founders wanted America to be a Christian nation? Most efforts to connect the United States with Christianity rely on quotes and opinions from a few colonial-era statesmen who professed a belief in Christianity, but their statements of beliefs say nothing about Christianity as the source of the U.S. government.
Patrick Henry proposed a tax to help sustain “some form of Christian worship” for the state of Virginia, but Thomas Jefferson and other statesmen did not agree. In 1779, Jefferson introduced a bill for the Statute for Religious Freedom which became Virginia law. Jefferson designed this law to completely separate religion from government. None of Patrick Henry’s Christian views ever got introduced into law in Virginia or our national government.
Unambiguous language from our founders really should settle this debate over whether America is a Christian nation. In 1797, the Treaty of Tripoli was negotiated by George Washington, signed by John Adams, and ratified unanimously by the Senate. It stated in part: “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” I wonder what part of “not” that Christian-nation advocates don’t understand.
There have always been people who erroneously believe the Founders intended to establish a Christian nation, but the framers were careful and thoughtful writers. Had they wanted a Christian republic, it seems highly unlikely they would somehow have forgotten to include their Christian intentions in the supreme law of the land. And I challenge anyone to find the words “God” or “Jesus” in the U. S. Constitution.
In debates I’ve had with those who think America was founded as a religious country, my opponents sometimes point to words in the Declaration of Independence as evidence of religious intent. However, the Declaration preceded the Constitution and does not represent the law of the land. The Declaration was a call for rebellion against the British Crown. The emphasis on people having inalienable rights was a way for our founders to distinguish us from an empire that asserted the divine right of kings. The Declaration mentions “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” and does not endorse Christianity or religion. “Nature’s” view of God agrees with the Deist philosophy. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration, was a Deist and opposed to orthodox Christianity and the supernatural.
Another argument I’ve heard supposedly supporting religion in government is the constitutional requirement that elected officials take an oath or affirmation before they can serve. Oaths are not necessarily a call to God. At that time, kings would swear oaths by their crowns and knights would swear oaths by their knighthood, so the concept of swearing an oath to something other than God goes back a long time and was well-known when the Constitution was adopted in 1787. Had our founders wanted officeholders to invoke God, they could have worded the oath to accomplish that objective. Instead, the oath or affirmation to uphold the Constitution contains no reference to God, need not be administered on the Bible and need not even be considered an oath. The option to either swear an oath or make an affirmation was written into our Constitution for the purpose of including those who did not feel comfortable swearing an oath to anything, let alone to God or some other deity.
An even weaker argument is that the Constitution was signed with the words “in the year of our Lord.” But that was a standard way of dating important documents in the 18th century. Its use was conventional, not religious, just as today we may use B.C. (Before Christ) or A.D. (Anno Domini, Latin for “the year of our Lord”) without having any religious intent.
While the federal government was not a Christian nation, it didn’t initially prohibit states from establishing their own state churches. Some early state constitutions limited holding public office to Christians or even to the correct religious denomination. Such provisions represented a more intolerant time in our history. States with government-favored religions gradually began moving toward separating religion and government, with the last state disestablishment occurring in Massachusetts in 1833.
The best-known Freethinker Founder was Thomas Paine. He influenced more early Americans than any other writer. In his pamphlet Common Sense, Paine made a case in clear and persuasive prose for independence from Great Britain, using arguments that had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration. Paine marshaled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. Common Sense was published at the beginning of the American revolution, and in proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history.
Nonetheless, Paine hasn’t received the credit he deserves, being mostly ignored in American history. The reason is because of his irreverentbook called The Age of Reason. In it he says, “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church.” And furthermore, “Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity.” Many contemporary politicians sympathized with the views of Paine but didn’t openly support him for fear of the Religious Right of that day.
Years later, President Theodore Roosevelt referred to Paine as a “filthy little atheist” even though Paine considered himself a deist. Thomas Jefferson, who was sympathetic to Paine, got in trouble when he said, “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” It is only recently, with more open Freethinkers today, that Thomas Paine’s accomplishments have been given the credit they deserve.
Another unknown leader in the American Revolution was Philip Freneau, recognized as the poet of the American Revolution, and America’s first atheist poet. See a fine article about him in Free Inquiry, August/September 2019. Freneau’s definition of theology is “the study of nothing.” He also said that the profession of priest is “little better than that of a slothful Blockhead.” Freneau denied the existence of an afterlife and viewed death as “a sleep that has no dreams.”
I know of no Native Americans promoting atheism, perhaps because there is no doctrine that they are expected to believe or follow. I think the belief that there are no gods began when theism began. On the day that humans invented religion, other humans invented atheism.
A case can be made that the Christian brand of fundamentalism today is a consequence of the Bible Belt mentality during the Civil War. The Baptist denomination split as Baptists in the South broke away from the North and formed the Southern Baptist Convention, so they could continue to promote slavery within their religion. Slave owners did not want a religion that would make them feel guilty about the source of their riches. Their ministers preached a doctrine that their flock wanted to hear—the right of white men to own slaves who owed obedience in return, and a message that promoted the subjugation of women, Native Americans, and others. There are certainly passages of the Bible that condone slavery, and none that oppose it. The rich and powerful took their riches as a sign of God’s blessing on them. They were not interested in social justice.
In their pursuit of worldly power and dominion, conservative American churches today have thrown away the moral authority they once possessed. Now, as their prestige declines and their membership ebbs, they pursue government support. But as Benjamin Franklin said, “When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Congress mandated “In God We Trust” on all currency in 1955, and it was adopted as the national motto in 1956. The original U.S. motto, chosen by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, is E Pluribus Unum (Of Many, One), celebrating diversity, not theocracy.
Although we don’t have an official established religion, the Republican Party has tied Christianity tightly to a narrowly partisan and conservative set of policy priorities. They’ve spent the past several decades insisting that being Christian means politically opposing LGBTQ rights, reproductive choice, and supporting war and tax cuts for the rich. Many Christians want to bring back school-sponsored prayers and demand that sex education classes in public schools teach “abstinence only” instead of preparing teens to avoid pregnancy and disease.
You will not find any support in the Bible for treating with respect those who have different or no religious beliefs. Scientific advances are particular targets. When a science book is found to be wrong, the mistake is corrected in subsequent books. But for biblical literalists, if the scientific evidence contradicts the Bible, it is the evidence that is thrown out.
In 2002, President George W. Bush said, “We need commonsense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God.” But “rights derived from God” is a belief, not an understanding, and judges are supposed to make decisions based on the rule of law, not on their personal religious beliefs. Similarly, President Trump recently said, “In America, we’ve always understood that our rights come from God, not from government.” These are examples of government leaders who want to turn our democracy into a theocracy. If Christian nation advocates were ever to have their way, this would no longer be the secular nation our founders so proudly formed.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
Previous entries in the educational series:
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/09/08
Dr. Herb Silverman is the Founder of the Secular Coalition for America, the Founder of the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, and the Founder of the Atheist/Humanist Alliance student group at the College of Charleston. He authored Complex variables (1975), Candidate Without a Prayer: An Autobiography of a Jewish Atheist in the Bible Belt (2012) and An Atheist Stranger in a Strange Religious Land: Selected Writings from the Bible Belt (2017). He co-authored The Fundamentals of Extremism: The Christian Right in America (2003) with Kimberley Blaker and Edward S. Buckner, Complex Variables with Applications (2007) with Saminathan Ponnusamy, and Short Reflections on Secularism (2019).
Here we talk about the beginnings of American secularism.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Herb, you made American history for the secular communities. This remains the fact of the matter. In the secular world, you exist as an icon and, in fact, a beloved one, as a mild-mannered liberal Jewish Yankee mathematician atheist who found his way, ironically, into the world of politics of Republican owned South Carolina. What is the feeling in the latter half of life in reflection of these facts, these achievements? When did American secularism start? What founding philosophy set this forth? Before America existed as a bounded geography, what Native American traditions seem to reflect secular ideals?
Dr. Herb Silverman: Thank you so much for your kind words. I don’t think of myself as an icon, just someone who stumbled into an unusual situation. When I learned in 1990 that our South Carolina Constitution prohibited atheists from holding public office, I spoke to a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union to see how this unconstitutional provision could be changed. He told me that an atheist would need to mount a legal challenge by running for governor, and he said that the very best candidate would be me. There was no competition, so after giving it some thought, I agreed to be the Candidate Without a Prayer. Finally, in 1997 the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled unanimously in my favour, nullifying the anti-atheist clause in the South Carolina Constitution.
All the credit for my Supreme Court victory belongs to my lawyers. I was just having fun giving talks and writing about my experiences. I also learned about and became engaged with the secular movement, leading me to help organize what became the Secular Coalition for America.
I’m optimistic about the future. The secular movement is growing, both formally through secular organizations and informally through “nones.” The “nones,” those who don’t subscribe to any faith, are the fastest growing “religion” in the United States, especially among young people. Some of the “nones” got fed up with their conservative religion that was anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s rights, and anti-science, with little emphasis on loving their neighbour. Pedophilia has also discouraged people from maintaining their church affiliation.
On the other hand, religious fundamentalists continue to flourish during this period of increasing secularization. Influence of religion at the highest levels of government under Donald Trump has never been stronger. It is up to secularists working with all who favour separation of religion and government to counter the influence of religion in government.
Religious fundamentalists often claim that America is a Christian nation. It is, in the same way that America is predominantly a white nation. The majority of Americans are both white and Christian. However, we are not now, nor have we ever officially been, a white nation or a Christian nation. Those who believe America was once a Christian nation may be hearkening back to the first Europeans who settled here, before America became a nation.
Those Pilgrims and Puritans were religious dissenters from Europe who sought freedom of worship in America for their own religion, but most definitely not for other religions. They had no use for religious liberty. Most of the early colonies made blasphemy a crime, an offence that could be punishable by death. Those colonies were mostly theocracies, where people who believed in the “wrong” religion were excluded from government participation and persecuted. For example, the Puritans, who established the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1630, required all Massachusetts citizens to pay a tax to the Puritan Church. This church-state union led to the Salem witch trials of 1692, based on the biblical mandate: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
In the American Revolution that started in 1776, political leaders began to construct a new federal government. The soon-to-be United States of America not only declared independence from England, but also declared something even more radical—that “Governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Americans rejected kings crowned by bishops, who had been supposedly vested with a God-given authority to rule through “divine right.”
The framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted no part of the religious intolerance and bloodshed they saw in Europe. They wisely established the first government in history to separate religion and government. James Madison, affectionately known as the Father of our Constitution, said, “The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.” Our founders understood the devastating nature of holy wars. They wisely established a secular nation whose authority rests with “We the People” (the first three words of the U.S. Constitution) and not with “Thou the Deity.”
Our founders were products of the Enlightenment. We can consider many of them freethinkers who felt that humans should not be governed by faith in the supernatural, but on reason and evidence from the natural world. Some were deists, believing in Nature’s God who set the laws of nature in motion and then retired as deity emeritus. Before Darwin and what we know of modern science, I, too, might have been a deist at that time.
The founders wrote the Constitution as a secular document, not because they were hostile to Christianity or religion but because they did not want the new federal government to have authority over religion or to meddle in it. Government must not favor one religion over another, or religion over non-religion. That’s why there are only two references to religion in the Constitution, and both are exclusionary. One is Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” The other is in the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” This guarantees American citizens freedom of conscience, the right to practice any religion or no religion.
No one’s religious liberty should feel threatened when the wall of separation between government and religion is kept strong and high. There is only one “religious liberty” Americans lack: The freedom to enlist the government to force others to acknowledge or support specific religious ideas. Unlike what many religious fundamentalists think, government neutrality is not government hostility toward religion. Our secular laws are based on the human principle of “justice for all,” and our civil government enforces those laws through a secular criminal justice system.
Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature, might have foreseen what could happen if the religious right were to triumph in America. In 1939, he made this chilling statement after spending six months observing Hitler’s rise in Germany: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag carrying a cross.”
Beginning with Christopher Columbus, many Native Americans (then called savages) were enslaved and forced to convert to Christianity. They lost their land and were later forcibly put onto reservations, leaving the rich land they had lived on to Christian settlers ready to work for God and Country. The majority of Native American tribes, many of whom were agricultural, had no concept of dominion over the land.
Most Native American religions did not distinguish between the spiritual world and the natural world. Few Native American religions were considered absolutely unchangeable. Traditions varied from group to group, making their spirituality much less rigid than Christianity. What I like about Native American religions is that they don’t try to convert anyone. They accept that people have the religious freedom to believe and practice whatever they want. That’s also true of some religions today, but the most troublesome religious denominations are those that feel they deserve special rights and that they are obligated by God to convince everyone else of their one and only “truth.”
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Silverman.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/31
Professor Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc, FRCP, OC is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
The British Medical Journal or BMJ had a list of 117 nominees in 2010 for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Guyatt was short-listed and came in second-place in the end. He earned the title of an Officer of the Order of Canada based on contributions from evidence-based medicine and its teaching.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and a Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2015. He lectured on public vs. private healthcare funding in March of 2017, which seemed a valuable conversation to publish in order to have this in the internet’s digital repository with one of Canada’s foremost academics.
For those with an interest in standardized metrics or academic rankings, he is the 14th most cited academic in the world in terms of H-Index at 240 and has a total citation count of more than 247,000 as of April, 2019. That is, he probably has among the highest H-Indexes, of any Canadian academic living or dead.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, with respect to some of the media coverage, that has been done recently over several years. Also, as a rule of thumb or maybe a principle of ethics, the media does have a firm responsibility to respect the opinions of experts, in their relevant fields.
As they should be working to build those lines of communication, so that they can serve the public better as communicators of relevant information to the public on issues of concern to many people in the day, so, I want to start from the side of the experts in, for instance, medical fields.
What are some things that medical experts should bear in mind when they are coming forward? To journalists, people who are out in the field trying to get information over particular issues.
Distinguished Professor Gordon Guyatt: So, first, you started out by saying the journalists should have respect and regard for the experts. I would argue that healthy disrespect or not, perhaps not disrespect, but healthy skepticism should be as important as respect and regard.
So, for instance, you start saying, “What should experts bear in mind when they want to get their message out?” One of the problems is that the experts who want to get their message out are invariably conflicted.
So, for instance, the most obvious would be they have done a study, which was funded by the pharmaceutical industry. They inevitably, to some extent, will be carrying the message of the pharmaceutical industry.
That is a fundamental conflict of interest problem, even if you haven’t been funded by a commercial entity. Everybody wants, every investigator wants, you to believe their results. If somebody else has shown different results, they would want you to ignore the other person’s different results and only focus on their results.
Furthermore, even if they would have done a systematic review and are recording everybody’s results, they want you to believe they have an exciting message about their systematic review rather than a less exciting message that may also be consistent with the results. So, you were experts 100% of the time.
An expert who wants to get their message out is to a lesser or greater degree conflicted. So, if I am being cynical, I would say number one, advice to experts: hide your conflicts. It is only so that they won’t be noticed by the journalists. So, certainly do not start off by saying, “Here are my conflicts of interest,” because this will undermine your position.
Then, make it as flashy as possible because journalists are competing for space in there. I am sure you’ve experienced this. They are competing for space and then have a headline: “Possible new finding needs confirmation.” It is not only to get your study highlighted in the popular press.
So, if the true message is ‘new study has findings,’ then “preliminary findings that need confirmation,” you do not say that. You say, “Here is a new study that is exciting and this could be a potential breakthrough,” even though the first message might not be the right message.
So, I will pause here. I did not know what else you would want me to say, but if you want to get your message out and accepted and publicized, those would be my somewhat cynical pieces of advice.
Jacobsen: So, that comes from the perspective of a single expert who may be wanting to send out that flashy, slightly or completely misleading, the headline to that journalist who may not have the wherewithal or the experience to discern properly.
Now, what about when it comes to the information that journalists may be wanting to get that is accurate? That is coming from individual experts, not from associations or organizations that are umbrella organizations.
Guyatt: Organizations and umbrella organizations have their conflicts. Now, the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. has gotten better. Now, I am no expert in this area. I may not be up to date on things, but traditionally their messages have not been screening tests or generally values and preferences sensitive.
In other words, the trade-offs are close between to screen or not to screen. In many instances, now their messages, everybody should be screened. So, organizations have their conflict of interest. If you go to the urologists’ organizations, they will tell you that all older guy should have a screening. If you go to radiologists, they’ll tell you every woman should have a mammogram, et cetera.
So, organizations have their conflicts of interest. Then you go to an organization of gastroenterologists. They will tell you everybody should have a screening colonoscopy. So, organizations have their conflicts.
I would guess. I do not know. But if journalists go to an organization, the person who they will talk to you is a PR person who’s out to make their organization look good.
Jacobsen: With respect to the side of the journalists, not in terms of their skepticism, however, in terms of their reportage, if they want to do a good job and I assume most do, they are not going to be too shady with the way that they are working. When they report on a medical finding, how can they best have that tentativeness about new research findings or that firmness about more established research findings in terms of their language use?
Guyatt: Gosh, it is easy in terms of language. Although, the journalists are conflicted in that regard. However, words: tentative, preliminary as yet unconfirmed, not yet ready for prime time, not yet ready for clinical implementation could be hundreds of such words or phrases that convey the limitations in the evidence.
Jacobsen: Right, and from within your own research, dating back to the ‘90s, with evidence-based medicine, but also, of course, I am extending this to the latter part that was developed, which was the values and preferences factor.
It is still within a Canadian context for Canadian journalists. When they are going to be reporting on medical research around evidence-based medicine, what should they be bearing in mind for the values and preferences of Canadians?
Guyatt: So, values, first, you have to identify this as a value in preference-sensitive situations. So, now, we are only talking about things that are ready for that. That is ready for clinical implementation. So, of the things people will report, things that are promising or a breakthrough that someday might lead to something in a clinic.
The values and preferences come in when you are talking about something that might be implemented right now because that is where it becomes relevant. Then one needs to be clear on what the benefits and risks are and the journalists can think of the desirable and undesirable consequences of doing A versus B.
Would this be valuable in print, or insensitive for the Canadian population? For the Canadian population, I do not know if you were talking relative to the Americans as we’re often in-between the U.S. and Europe.
We are less enamoured of uncertain benefits and more worried about risks than the Americans are, but perhaps less so than Europeans. However, in terms of general values and preferences, studies are limited. We still do not know. A question that could be asked of the investigators is: do we have any information about how Canadians feel about these benefits and downsides?
Canadians and people all over the world, as far as we can tell, are extremely stroke averse, more so than the doctors are as it turns out, for instance.
Jacobsen: So, why?
Guyatt: Because strokes lead to permanent disabilities. So, there is a world-famous study where people with a particular condition, an abnormal heartbeat that caused atrial fibrillation, are at risk of having strokes.
We give anticoagulants to prevent strokes and it is, fortunately, they cause serious bleeding. The question was, “To prevent 10 strokes, how many bleeds would you be willing to tolerate?” Doctors were 10 or less, and patients were more than 20. In other words, the patients with much more stroke averse definitions were much more bleeding averse.
So, there have been for particular conditions. Studies are done looking at what values and preferences people have and in value and preference-sensitive situations. They become important.
Jacobsen: Now, I want to relate a personal story. I had a conversation with an individual who identifies as a fundamentalist Christian. His words not mine, so they are a literal reading of the text, not any political interest.
However, what was noteworthy was what I do know in some, strongly conservative, traditionally religious, I am going to list a “news sources.” It is a form of misinformation and disinformation, where I would point out that, for instance, medical care is a human right.
They would then retort, as they did, “Since when is the government supposed to give you healthcare.” And I said, “As an extension of medical care, it is a right,” and I learned this from you. I said, “Look at further who this started with, which was Tommy Douglas List in Saskatchewan. Canada quickly caught on to that it was a good idea, then we went to other provinces, then federal. There are international documents that stipulate this. They were assigned by a bunch of countries.”
“Because they thought they were good moral principles, exemplified in rights” and this took a bit of a conversation to pin down. What is the line of thinking when people talk about healthcare as a right? Where this individual living in this country received misinformation or disinformation from American “news sources”?
That simply misinformed them about the reasons behind certain things being in place and the ethics behind them that span back to, as far as I know, at least to December 10, 1948, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
How can we as journalists help to combat that deep form of it seems deliberate misinformation?
Guyatt: I guess I am not completely clear. There are no universal ethics. Ethics changed over time between countries, within countries, historically, so because somebody has said, “We think this is a Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
I do not know. It seems to me somebody else’s entitled to say, “Those are not my ethics.” So, if what you are talking about is a claim that ignoring the consensus of most people – and I was going to say, “The consensus that most people think healthcare is a human right?”
But Canadians and Americans have a different attitude about this. You were entitled to healthcare, but what healthcare and under what circumstances, so many Americans do not have their hypertension treated, their diabetes treated.
If they show up on death’s door, then they get treated, but they get treated differentially, according to how much they can pay – even if they show up on death’s door. Most Americans would say, “That is fine, thank you.”
So, where is this? So when we say healthcare is a right, what health care are we talking about?
Jacobsen: In principle, as a right.
Guyatt: What health care are we talking about? That is a right.
Jacobsen: Yes.
Guyatt: Clearly, most Canadians are getting on toward two decades ago. I still think it is the true belief that equitable access to high-quality health care should be a right. It is this specific. Equitable access to high-quality health care is not what the Americans believe. They do not believe in equitable access to high-quality health care. Far from it.
Jacobsen: Yes! However, as you have noted in prior conversations, what is the state of other advanced industrial economies, for instance?
Guyatt: Yes! So, exactly. So, this is the point of values and ethics. Ethics, there is no such animal as uniform universal ethics. So, most European countries think that at least a reasonable standard of healthcare should be accessible without financial barriers, right. So, but not true south of the border, not true in every low and middle-income country where only a few can pay for the optimal care. So, what your rights are as far as health care differ radically across the globe.
Jacobsen: Could it be a function the ideals that are typically exemplified in what I am taking is “universal” are more general or consensus-based? That as a country becomes more industrialized and richer and more liberalized and democratic; it tends to lean more towards the form that has a value system that you would see in Canada or Western Europe.
Guyatt: Yes, there is no doubt about that. The U.S. is hammering in many ways. It is going against the general rule that you stated. So, there are exceptions, but that is certainly the general trend.
Jacobsen: Now, when it comes to the net, does this come out in the outcomes in the United States, or does it also come up in public attitude surveys?
Guyatt: Oh, I am not aware. If you look at who people vote for, and if you look at the resistance to the Obama health care legislation, which wasn’t trying to solve the problem, it was trying to make the uninsured problem less and then the subsequent government does anything it can; everything it can to appeal the whole thing!
The fact that even perhaps we should make the gradients a little bit less get this resistance that tells you about the attitude.
Jacobsen: Yes! Fair enough.
Guyatt: The universal health care, so single-payer, universal health care for 30 years; there has been a relatively small medical organization advocating for this, which for many reasons is the most sensible.
It is a huge gains. Huge gains in equity and efficiency and health outcomes. They have got zero traction. So, that tells you about the American attitude.
Jacobsen: Now given regular life without proper information, inaccurate information as per the individual not having necessarily accurate information. Does this, if people have proper information, would they lean more towards the type of healthcare seen in Canada or Western Europe if they were in America?
Guyatt: So, in regard to aspects of the prior conversation, you are now talking to a highly conflicted individual on this particular matter. However, yes, the fact, there is certain evidence. These are clear. Universal single-payer health care within a high-income environment is much more efficient.
It is much more efficient in other words. Your bang for your buck is much greater and has major equity advantages. Now, it has what people might be referred to as an autonomy disadvantage. In other words, it horrifies Americans to think that you cannot pay for better health care here.
It something that is disturbing to people who put a high value on autonomy. So, it is not everybody. It is, “What value do you put on equity?” Some people do not care about equity at all. What value do you put an efficient healthcare system? You might have less.
“What value do you put on autonomy?” But people who believe in efficient healthcare and equity would certainly, if they knew the facts, choose single-payer. People who do not care much about equity and efficiency and value autonomy. “If I have the money, I want to be able to pay for the best of the best,” they would not make the choice even knowing the facts.
Jacobsen: Looking at that latter group who would be more inclined towards autonomy as the prime value for themselves? Do they tend to be the same group of people, who, who can, who can buy a media outlet?
Guyatt: Yes! Absolutely, which in my view explains why most Canadians do not know that over the last six years the percentage of the GDP spent on health care has decreased. Why do Canadians not know that? Because it is not in the interest of those who control the media. That would be my answer to that particular puzzle.
Jacobsen: So, then, maybe, when it comes to human rights and the, not an objective but, universal or consensus-based ethics shown in things like human rights, could an argument be made that says, “universal except in circumstances of heavy public relations to shift public opinion on particular topics”?
Guyatt: No, to me, “universal” is a bad word as soon as you come near ethics. Before we started, in our conversation prior to starting the tape recording, the issue of abortion came up.
Jacobsen: Yes.
Guyatt: So, that is a great one. There are some people who think it is ethically unacceptable that women do not have access to legal abortion and so die having illegal abortions. They would be horrified.
On the other hand, there are those who believe life starts at conception and think it is horrifying to think we murder. Murder to terminate a pregnancy. One cannot argue on any grounds that one position is right and one position is wrong other than in some fundamental principle that is not a matter of evidence.
Jacobsen: One more last question, this is a question that hasn’t been answered, but from the point from the experts in Canada. What tends to be their view on reproductive health rights for women? Do they think there should be access to it?
Guyatt: An expert, you are talking to who. What do you mean by experts? So the experts, you talk about experts in the evidence about the relative merits of different ways of terminating pregnancies.
Those experts would have no doubt about the ethics of terminating pregnancies. Their only interest is “What is the best way of terminating pregnancies to minimize adverse events and burden?”
On the other hand, experts on education programs talk women out of having abortions, but different experts would have different perspectives. So, the question, when you say, “Experts,” experts in what exactly?
Jacobsen: That is completely fair point and I have to run, so thank you much for the opportunity and your time.
Guyatt: This is fine, take care.
Jacobsen: Take care.
Guyatt: Bye, bye.
We conducted an extensive interview for In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal before: here, here, here, here, here, and here. We have other interviews in Canadian Atheist (here and here), Canadian Science (here), Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, News Intervention (here, here, and here), and The Good Men Project (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/29
I
Values enacted construct societies.
Lenny Bruce once said, “Let me tell you the truth. The truth is what is, and what should be is a fantasy. A terrible, terrible lie that someone gave to the people long ago.”
Before the death of Albert Einstein on April 18, 1955 in Princeton, New Jersey (“New Joi-Zee”), United States of America, he continued to work on the prevention or attenuation of the negative derivative effects of the theories starting 50 years earlier in 1905 with Special Relativity and, in particular, 40 years earlier with General Relativity in 1915 (Nature, 2019). In the former, in Special Relativity, a uniform motion of objects or observers, or non-accelerating objects or observers, means identical referential laws of physics, or “the laws of physics are the same… in all inertial frames of reference” and the speed of light remains the same for all observers or objects in the universe(Tate, 2009; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018a).[1] “Observers,” in this context, does not limit to critters like us or even the category of living things. In this sense of observation, the universe “interacts” with itself or observes itself, or objects within the cosmos function as observers, whether subatomic particles, organic creatures, planets and planetary satellites, or galactic filaments. Stuff interacts. It’s the nature of nature. In the latter, in General Relativity, space and time unify as space-time and matter in the universe warps the curvature of space-time while space-time affects matter in a mutual dance with gravity included in the relativistic due to General Relativity’s advancements of Special Relativity (Kaku, 2019; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018a; Perkowitz, 2019; Physics of the Universe, 2019).[2] Einstein may not have seen the engineering applications in totality of the twin theories with both positive derivatives, e.g., GPS technologies, and negative derivatives, e.g. nuclear weapons in massive stockpiles and the long run of the Cold War – though he lived to see some of the latter. One of the negative derivative effects found in thermonuclear weapons, i.e., the splitting of the Uranium atom in 1938 changed everything (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010; American Museum of Natural History, n.d.).[3] Knowledge of these weapons will haunt the species into the indefinite future as the theoretical foundations for the weapons exist, the engineering knowhow for the weapons exist, the materials for the creation of the weapons exist, and, indeed, the weapons in the current moment exist, and the social and political tensions exist in sufficient spurts, too.
II
Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (National Geographic, 2017).[4] Grossman (2019) stated, “That letter from Einstein triggered the Manhattan Project, an emergency program by the United States to build atomic weaponry — to construct atom bombs before Nazi Germany. And it led to a widening of nuclear technology and ushered in what has been called the ‘Atomic Age.’” Words hold power. Einstein’s letters become multi-million-dollar objects (Jacobsen, 2018b). Einstein’s August 2nd letter to Roosevelt alongside U.S. intelligence operatives’ reports about Adolf Hitler’s scientists working on atomic weapons set forth the nationalist security imperative to construct a massive initiative to race into first place to build a workable thermonuclear weapon called the Manhattan Project (History.Com, 2019). To Einstein’s credit, the Manhattan Project began in late 1941, where Einstein “was not involved in it” based on the denial of a security clearance in July of 1940 because of “pacifist tendencies” (Green, 2015; Atomic Heritage Foundation, 2019a). Prior generations made mistakes; we live with them. Mistakes do not mean evil, necessarily, but show the limits in human beings with restraints in context. Although, Margaret Atwood said, “Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.” This seems correct. As in the other cases, there is simple intent to murder. Grossman (2019) explains Einstein provided robust qualification about the entrance into war effort involvement with the Americans against the Germans regarding the atom bomb.
Even though, anthropogenic climate change remains an enormous problem, looming, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change continues onward with its Sixth Assessment Cycle – in progress (IPCC, 2019).[5] In addition, global population continues well beyond reasonable numbers with current technologies and the birthrates needing lowering, on average, with an increasing required in some areas, e.g., some of East Asia, Western Europe, Oceania, and North America, and decreasing in other areas, the Middle East and Africa, for stability of the global population to maintenance levels at 2.1 children for an average woman (World Population Review, 2019; The World Bank, 2017; Searchinger, T., et al, 2013).[6] Even with these other associated and large problems, nuclear proliferation continues to threaten several nations and, in turn, the world, including potential lethality internal to the state, e.g., the recent explosion, killing several, in Russia, or internationally, e.g., claims of a Russian “Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo by the U.S. government” in development in 2014 with projected deployment (not launching, readiness capacity) by 2020, or simply the 6,490 nuclear warheads of Russia, 6,185 of the United States of America, 300 of France, 290 of China, 200 of the United Kingdom, 160 of Pakistan, 140 of India, 90 of Israel, and 30 of North Korea as of June, 2019 (Reuters, 2019; Sutton, 2019; Davenport, 2019).[7] Nearly 14,000 nuclear warheads, in other words, with 90% in either Russia or the United States, who remain the worst offenders in the over-stocking of nuclear weapons (Davenport, 2019). The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation confirmed the recent explosion and deaths (Roth, 2019a; Roth, 2019b). Iran, correctly, notes the United States as the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons (O’Connor, 2019) while India remains committed to not using them based on some reportage (Miglani, 2019). The Russian Tupolev Tu-154M spotted over the American Midwest, recently, poses no threat as this functioned and functions as part of the Treaty on Open Skies (Law, 2019). This and other documents represent national efforts decrease fear and increase trust; these remain only some of the news notes, too.
III
The Treaty on Open Skies, according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, “established a regime of unarmed observation flights over the territories of State Parties. It specifies, inter alia, quotas for observation flights, the notification of points of entry, the technical details and inspection for sensors” (1992).[8] “States Parties” applies to the states of the United States and Russia here. However, the U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) signed by then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987 remains an enormous concern in the escalation of the possibilities of nuclear war and, thus, nuclear catastrophe. Where climate change is alarming and “looming” and overpopulation is concerning, nuclear catastrophe is regularly and increasingly hair-raising in the reinvigorated Strongmen Era.[9]
Many around the world see a strongman in Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi (Siddiqui et al, 2019; Chaudhary & Dilawar, 2019; Mukherjee, 2019; Asghar, 2019; Crabtree, 2019; Marlow & Chaudhary, 2019). Others see President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping as another one (Branigan, 2017; Tisdall, 2019; Roxburgh, 2019; Hemmings, 2019; Hartcher, 2019; Seidel, 2019). President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, gets the same wrap (Carroll, 2019; Roxburgh, 2019; The Editorial Board, 2019). President Trump of the United States garners the same reputation (Kroll, 2019; Walter, 2019; Walker, 2018). The Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un, earned the same status (Watson, 2019; Nueman, 2019; Saunders, 2019). President of Egypt Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi got the same moniker (DW, 2019; CNN, 2019). President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lives in this coterie of titles as well (Ahval, 2019; Sonmez, 2019; Washington Examiner, 2019). President of Hungary Viktor Mihály Orbán operates within the same name (Whitman, 2019; Than & Szakacs, 2018; Hirsch, 2019; Liptak, 2019). Those who influenced Orban functioned on a platform of myths, of long-time tales, rather trivial and shallow (Robinson, 2018a; Robinson, 2018b). Stories matter; but why not make new ones? President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, got himself the same old title (Rachman, 2018; van Wagtendonk, 2019; Trinkunas; Royden, 2018). Philippines Rodrigo Duterte earned the label to some (Roughneen, 2019a; Todd, 2019; Roughneen, 2019b). Imran Khan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, did too (Waraich, 2018; Bukhari, 2018). Same with the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (Judah, 2018; Zeveloff, 2019). Identical for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Plummer, 2019; Plummer, 2019). These strongmen associate with one another too (Montanaro, 2017). Taking the populations of these countries, more than half of the world’s populations remain under the thumb of strongman politics. Not original now, not original in history, even with the United States, not unique in the 21st or in the 20th century.
At the outset of this current crisis, the United States wanted to retain its absolute control of nuclear armaments at the beginning of the nuclear era. Despite this nationalist imperative, the science and technology of massively destructive weapons took a turn in July, 1945 with the first nuclear test explosion and then the dropping of two atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in August, 1945 (Davenport, 2019). The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test in 1949; the United Kingdom conducted its first in 1952; France conducted its first in 1960; and China conducted its first in 1964 (Ibid.). The threat levels of possible nuclear war increasing and, possibly, with the continued problem of rising competition in the nuclear domain set the United States and “other like-minded states” to negotiate for the creation of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) (Ibid.).
The NPT went into force in March, 1970 with the classification of the world’s states-parties, 191 countries, to the NPT placed into one of two categories: nuclear weapon states (NWS) or non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS), where North Korea announced withdrawal from the NPT on January 10, 2003 with the reneging effective January 11, 2003 (Kimball, 2012). Of those NWS labelled within the NPT, i.e., China, France, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, they agreed to “commit to pursue general and complete disarmament, while the NNWS agree to forgo developing or acquiring nuclear weapons” (Ibid.). The NPT maintains a near universal membership and, thus, one of the broadest adherences of any arms control treaties (Ibid.).[10] The NPT developed an interesting history too (Kimball, 2018).
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was the other treaty founded as a complement to the NPT signed on September 10, 1996 with China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Israel, Pakistan, and United States of America having failed to ratify the CTBT to this date – noting France, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ratified it (Kimball, 2019a; Collina & Kimball, 2010).[11] Besides the NPT and the CTBT, there have been several concerns over the years (Davenport, 2019).[12] The successes outweigh the failures in spite of the difficulties, according to Davenport (2019). The United Nations with several conferences continues to work to expedite the facilitation of bringing into force the CTBT (United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, 2019).
The NPT worked. When it concluded, the nuclear stockpiles of the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia were counted in the tens of thousands compared to the only, relatively speaking, about 14,000 present in all nuclear states mentioned earlier (Ibid.). The United States and Russia, rather than the world multilateral treaties, worked on several bilateral arms control agreements and initiatives with limitations on and reduction of the scale of their mutual nuclear arsenals, including SALT I, SALT II, START I, START II, START III Framework, SORT (Moscow Treaty), New START, and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (Kimball, 2019b).[13] As Davenport (2019) states, “Today, the United States and Russia each deploy roughly 1,400 strategic warheads on several hundred bombers and missiles, and are modernizing their nuclear delivery systems… Scholars globally are feeling the heat from politicians. They should take inspiration from scientists in the 1950s who raised the alarm over nuclear weapons.” Scientists and public citizenry can, and should, raise alarms in all known nuclear states at this time. These following from nuclear proliferation and the threat, ongoing, of nuclear war and, thus, nuclear catastrophe, the Manhattan Project, the letter to Roosevelt with additional warnings of U.S. army personnel, and the original discovery-invention of Special Relativity and General Relativity making this a possibility as a concern in the first place.
IV
Also prior to Einstein’s death, and closer to it, he co-authored a report on avoiding nuclear war (Nature, 2019). Einstein wrote an article in November of 1947 emphasizing several important points in the avoidance of nuclear war as well. He opened, “Since the completion of the first atomic bomb nothing has been accomplished to make the world more safe from war, while much has been done to increase the destructiveness of war. I am not able to speak from any firsthand knowledge about the development of the atomic bomb, since I do not work in this field” (Einstein, 1947). He goes on to note the ways in which the nuclear bombs could become larger, more destructive with the resultant catastrophic effect of radioactive gases, even with a note, to a more modern issue, of the possibility of bacteriological warfare with bacteriological warfare taking the same position as digital warfare as a fifth dimension in war in the present moment as bacteriological warfare took in Einstein’s moment (CIA, 2007; Lockheed Martin, 2019; Ratheon, 2019; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017b). Einstein spoke to the concerns of bombs of a larger size, of the importance of a supranational governing body for control of atomic weaponry or for the mediation of said nuclear armaments, of the lack of initiative of the United States and of the Soviet Union in working towards these aims of mutual benefit, and more.
He affirmed the moral position, “In refusing to outlaw the bomb while having the monopoly of it, this country suffers in another respect, in that it fails to return publicly to the ethical standards of warfare formally accepted previous to the last war. It should not be forgotten that the atomic bomb was made in this country as a preventive measure; it was to head off its use by the Germans, if they discovered it. The bombing of civilian centers was initiated by the Germans and adopted by the Japanese. To it the Allies responded in kind—as it turned out, with greater effectiveness—and they were morally justified in doing so. But now, without any provocation, and without the justification of reprisal or retaliation, a refusal to outlaw the use of the bomb save in reprisal is making a political purpose of its possession; this is hardly pardonable” (Ibid.).
Einstein believed the Americas should “manufacture and stockpile the bomb” in order to deter other nation-states from making an offensive maneuver, an attack, with an atomic weapon. The nuclear armaments, suggested at the time, for development in the United States for this to comprise a deterrence capacity. He affirmed deterrence and diplomatically working on a multilateral level to create a supranational entity for the coaxing of the Soviet Union into working within the international community instead of utilizing fear and war rhetoric because this “only heightens antagonism and increases the danger of war” (Ibid.). He described the emergence from war as an, in a manner of speaking, acceptance of degrading low moral bars with “starting toward another war degraded by our own choice” (Ibid.).
The improved capacity and know-how in the construction of the weapons of mass destruction formed a basis for strategic concern or worry for Einstein as these mean cheap nuclear weapons and widely available, and thus more easily accessible, nuclear weapons. Democracy lies in the hands of the governed. Citizens can demand higher ethical standards of behaviour of the government’s representatives of them as far as the state retains some semblance of representativeness. Einstein stated, “Unless there is a determination not to use them that is stronger than can be noted today among American political and military leaders, and on the part the public itself, atomic warfare will be hard to avoid. Unless Americans come to recognize that they are not stronger in the world because they have the bomb, but weaker because of their vulnerability to atomic attack, they are not likely to conduct their policy at Lake Success or in their relations with Russia in a spirit that furthers the arrival at an understanding” (Ibid.).
American reluctance to outlaw the atomic bomb, in his view, was the reason for a lack of Soviet agreement on nuclear arms control. As one may tell from the CTBT, in the current era, the United States did not ratify the treaty while the Russian Federation has ratified it (Kimball, 2019a; Collina & Kimball, 2010). This reasoning may echo here and remain valid. Einstein (1947) continued, “That the Russians are striving to prevent the formation of a supranational security system is no reason why the rest of the world should not work to create one. It has been pointed out that the Russians have a way of resisting with all their arts what they do not wish to have happen; but once it happens, they can be flexible and accommodate themselves to it.” This becomes the basis for diplomacy at the time. Einstein felt comfortable with the creation of a supranational authority with or without the Russians in 1947.
Although, he noted, “These are abstractions, and it is not easy to outline the specific lines a partial world government must follow to induce the Russians to join. But two conditions are clear to me: the new organization must have no military secrets; and the Russians must be free to have observers at every session of the organization, where its new laws are drafted, discussed, and adopted, and where its policies are decided. That would destroy the great factory of secrecy where so many of the world’s suspicions are manufactured” (Einstein, 1947).
He believed in a requirement of the supranational security system involving the assembly and council including election by the people rather than the government to “enhance the pacific nature of the organization” (Ibid.). He believed democratic institutions are not appreciated by the lands in which they have taken root and harboured the collective will of the people (more or less). Einstein, in admission of the practical limit of the ideals stipulated in the statements, said, “I do not hide from myself the great difficulties of establishing a world government, either a beginning without Russia or one with Russia. I am aware of the risks. Since I should not wish it to be permissible for any country that has joined the supranational organization to secede, one of these risks is possible civil war. But I also believe that world government is certain to come in time, and that the question is how much it is to be permitted to cost. It will come, I believe, even if there is another world war, though after such a war, if it is won, it would be world government established by the victor, resting on the victor’s military power, and thus to be maintained permanently only through the permanent militarization of the human race” (Ibid.).[14]
The catastrophe of the result of nuclear arms stockpiling can come from accidents with apparent miraculous saving of the human species from rapid extinction due to said nuclear obliteration of, likely, all mammalian life of the planet. Einstein did not believe in the power of prayer, rejected a personal God, and, in essence, agreed with the God of Spinoza with a belief in human affairs left to human beings to solve or not; hence, the proposal of a “supranational” entity, not a corporation, rather than the transcendent (Jacobsen, 2018c; Letters of Note, 2009).[15] The word God becomes a product of human weakness rather than a stipulation of faith about the penultimate source of being. Something akin to an ill-defined concept and ill-conceived word where human frailties leave one to mutter, not incoherently but, in one’s inability to coherently explain, “God did it. It was God.” Failures, directly or indirectly, committed by human oversight, ignorance, or general stupidity.
V
These exist in the record of the Nuclear Era too. One came from the NORAD computer chip malfunction(s) between November 1979 and June 1980 (Wright, 2015; Wright, 2016). Here, during the 1945 to 1990 Cold War, and in this malfunction, period mentioned, there were several false alarms of Soviet Union nuclear attacks on the United States (Wright, 2016). June 3, 1980 some consider “by far” the worst of the false flags when the “main US warning centers” were notified of a “large incoming nuclear strike” in which the National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brezezinski, to the American President awoke at 3 am with a phone call stating the urgent need to deal with a large nuclear attack on the United States and the, apparent, urgent need to prepare a call to the President of the United States (Ibid.). Brezezinski did not awaken his wife because he assumed everyone would be dead within 30 minutes (Ibid.). Failure in automated and human-designed equipment with the possibility for the annihilation of humanity if not for human intervention.[16],[17]
The SAC-NORAD communications error was another big issue (Floss Books, n.d.).[18] One means by which to determine if a missile attack will head towards one’s own countries comes from the advanced warning systems built to show this or not. Other ways include proxies of this. The probability of a complete warning systems and communications system shutdown seems low. In this latter case, one may assume aggressive intent from an enemy state. On November 24, 1961, this happened with the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) and NORAD systems (Ibid.). The systems went silent, dead (Ibid.). This cut the SAC system off from the Alaska, England, and Greenland early warning systems with a widespread communications breakdown considered impossible at the time (Ibid.). There were several fail-safes in place and, therefore, the conclusion: Soviet nuclear strike immanent (Ibid.). Subsequently, all SAC bases were placed on alert with B-52 bombers ordered into readiness with planes warmed and on the runways with a final order required for a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union (Ibid.).
Another instance came with a face (Aksenov, 2013). A single individual, Stanislav Petrov, saved the world from nuclear annihilation after midnight on September 26, 1983 with sole control left to Petrov in Moscow, at a command center, in which systems warned of five intercontinental ballistic missiles incoming from the United States, and fast, which implied a standard protocol (Ibid.). The standard protocol stated Petrov should inform higher authorities of an incoming attack from the United States against the USSR with such an action leading to a possible nuclear confrontation and war (Ibid.). Petrov decided to disobey; the original virtue of the species, to disobey (Ibid). As we remain alive here, obviously, we can appreciate the decision of Petrov to disobey because the system malfunction resulted from a solar alignment, which scrambled some of the Soviet radar satellite systems creating a false alarm (Ibid.).
The Cuban Missile Crisis represented another stark moment in the history of the Cold War and of the Nuclear Age in which the world could abruptly come to a halt for the human species (Office of the Historian, n.d.). Many commentators consider this the single most important 13 days of the Cold War because of the possibility for nuclear obliteration, mutually assured destruction, with a single misstep (Ibid.). The Cuban Missile Crisis followed the Bay of Pigs failed invasion with the discovery of Soviet-sanctioned missiles in Cuba 90 miles from the state of Florida (Ibid.; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019c).[19] This violated a nuclear superpower bilateral agreement with a rapid escalation over the next couple of days in which the United States deliberated on whether or not to send an air raid or an invasion to Cuba in order to wipe out the missiles (Office of the Historian, n.d.). This may have resulted in war (Ibid.). With the tense negotiations ongoing at the time, several dangerous moments almost led to an all-out conflict with the implication of death for both superpowers, but President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed on a deal, last minute, for removal of WMDs by the Soviet Union and for the United States to halt possible invasion of Cuba (Ibid.).
Another potential global catastrophe was averted with the training tape accident on November 9, 1979 (Wright, 2016). The U.S. Missile Warning Command Center received warning of an incoming attack from the USSR with an immediate high alert warning placed for the entire country (Ibid.). NORAD, the Strategic Air Command, and other organizations went into ready-mode for this incoming nuclear attack from the USSR, and 10 fighter-interceptor planes were launched (Ibid.). President Carter’s plane left the ground as well, and, humorously enough – probably in a panic, without Carter (Ibid.). All this instigated from a training tape placed into the NORAD mainframe, which then broadcast to the command center in North America – distinct error (Ibid.).
Amongst the closest, according to Boris Yeltsin, times the Russians came to a full attack on the United States came from the Norwegian rocket accident where an accident with a missile detected by the Russians along their northern border (Atomic Heritage Foundation, 2018; History.Com, 2009). In 1995, the Russians prepared for high alert, and a nuclear world war, presumably (Ibid.). The missile plunged harmlessly into the Arctic Ocean with the stray missile as part of a Norwegian and American experiment involving the Northern Lights (Ibid.).
Noting the remarkable fact, this began with the theorizing of a young patent clerk who created the theoretical foundations for the weaponry and, in a fit of pressure and a modicum of coercion, fell into writing a letter to Roosevelt to set forth the Manhattan Project and the events such as these. Einstein does not seem responsible here. He invented the theory or discovered the descriptive principles of existence of the universe – some of them, but he did not push for the aggressive use of the atom bomb or its creation except as a deterrent in order for the creation of a “supranational” entity to regulate the production of thermonuclear weapons and control its use if constructed and stored in weapons stockpiles once more as a deterrence strategy in a supranational monopoly or collective nuclear polyopoly as deterrent.
Einstein did not foresee, or more properly expect, the development of the bomb in his lifetime and considered the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima the result of U.S.-Soviet politicking (Green, 2015). He considered the militarism and nationalism as the main issues superseding nuclear weaponry, or superordinate to nuclear weapons (Ibid.). As Green stated, “Einstein hoped that the added threat of atomic weapons might facilitate his broader objective of establishing a supranational authority, and he wanted the ‘secret’ of the atomic bomb to be monopolised by such an authority. He wanted the US to renounce the use of atomic weapons pending the creation of a supranational authority or if supranational control was not achieved” (Ibid.).[20]
Einstein appeared on the NBC News program and spoke of the “mechanistic, technical-military psychological attitude” producing inevitable and, thus, predictable consequences within societies and between them (A. & N., 1950). Einstein cautioned, explained, and judged, “The idea of achieving security through national armament is, at the present state of military technique, a disastrous illusion. On the part of the U.S.A. this illusion has been particularly fostered by the fact that this country succeeded first in producing an atomic bomb. The belief seemed to prevail that in the end it would be possible to achieve decisive military superiority. In this way, any potential opponent would be intimidated, and security, so ardently desired by all of us, brought to us and all of humanity. The maxim which we have been following during these last five years has been, in short: security through superior military power, whatever the cost” (Ibid.). In many ways, this attitude continues into the present. The illusion amongst major nuclear players needs disabusing in order to realize this critique aimed solely at the United States in 1950 – 5 years before the death of Einstein – and more applicable to the whole set of the nuclear armed Member States of the United Nations.
On the internal dynamics of a nation, Einstein commented, “Within the country: concentration of tremendous financial power in the hands of the military; militarization of the youth; close supervision of the loyalty of the citizens, in particular, of the civil servants, by a police force growing more conspicuous every day. Intimidation of people of independent political thinking. Subtle indoctrination of the public by radio, press, and schools. Growing restriction of the range of public information under the pressure of military secrecy.” He saw the tit-for-tat between the “U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.” as assuming a “hysterical character” (Ibid.). “Every step appears as the unavoidable consequence of the preceding one. In the end, there beckons more and more clearly general annihilation,” Einstein said, “…All of us, and particularly those who are responsible for the attitude of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., should realize that we may have vanquished an external enemy, but have been incapable of getting rid of the mentality created by the war” (Ibid.).
He strongly emphasized the need for ridding ourselves of the problems of mutual distrust and fear – there referencing the United States and the then-Soviet Union – connected to a “solemn renunciation of violence,” where this should be applied to the global nuclear players now – more than ever (Ibid.). The risks and threats to human life seem too great, especially with the concomitant problem of anthropogenic climate change exacerbated by excessive human population size and human population growth on the Earth.[21],[22]
Green (2015) concluded on some words in print by Einstein from 1945, 5 years earlier, in which he states, “To give any estimate when atomic energy can be applied to constructive purposes is impossible. … Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a long time, I have to say that for the present it is a menace.” Einstein, a devout pacifist forced by international prominence and bi-national circumstance (“U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R”) into writing a letter to the most powerful man in the world at the time, Roosevelt, leading to the development of a program, the Manhattan Project, and nuclear weaponry and arsenal proliferation, and stockpiling, with severely negative possible implications with the consistent attitude of distrust, fear, and commitment to violence as a universal value and salve. He was a dismayed pacifist (Ito, 2005; American Museum of Natural History, 2019).
VI
Einstein did not live an entire life fighting against the possibility of nuclear catastrophe befalling the human race or species alone, but, rather, worked with some of the most distinguished minds in history and of the time where this included names beyond the bounded geography of the United States with another widely respected, deceased person, a philosopher, Bertrand Russell (Monk, 2019; The Nobel Prize, 2019; Irvine, 2019). An immensely prominent and respected figure in 20th-century history, Bertrand Russell, joined with Einstein in order to produce the Russell-Einstein Manifesto with other prominent signatories including Max Born, Percy W. Bridgman, Leopold Infeld, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Herman J. Muller, Linus Pauling, Cecil F. Powell, Joseph Rotblat, and Hideki Yukawa (Atomic Heritage Foundation, 2019b). The manifesto issued on July 5, 1955 was released months after Einstein’s death (Ibid.).
Einstein thought highly of Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy (1945) saying, “Bertrand Russell’s History of Philosophy [sic] is a precious book. I don’t know whether one should more admire the delightful freshness and originality or the sensitivity of the sympathy with distant times and remote mentalities on the part of this great thinker. I regard it as fortunate that our so dry and also brutal generation can point to such a wise, honourable, bold and at the same time humorous man. It is a work that is in the highest degree pedagogical which stands above the conflicts of parties and opinions” – love at first book, how fitting, or love at Bert sight (Wikiquote, 2019).
An amicable mutual perception of one another with the possibility for cooperation on this basis, where a coordinated effort worked between the two of them to create The Russell-Einstein Manifesto leading to the Pugwash Conferences (Nature, 2019; Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, 2019). Einstein died before the release of the manifesto and, by implication, the founding of the Pugwash Conferences. The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs began with Bertrand Russell, Einstein, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and others of similar stature making urgent appeals for a meeting of scientists to “discuss problems” of “nuclear weapons and world security” in the midst of the “arms race” and the “Cold War” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019b; Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, 2019).[23] These Pugwash Conferences “helped create non-proliferation agreements” (Nature, 2019).[24] Einstein and Russell set forth the Pugwash movement, in other words (Ibid.).
VII
Societies construct values worth enactment.
“I am not a propagandist, but a prophet. I do not say that what I say should come to pass, but what I think is likely to come to pass, and what is inevitable. While I would not be understood as advocating the desirability of such a result, I would not be understood as deprecating it,” Frederick Douglass said.[25]
The values held by and, therefore, practiced through individual citizens with society form the basis for improvements in quality of life, or not, and guide the trajectory of the society in coordination with international discourse for a mutual feedback between international laws & international human rights, and national values, for different overall outcomes and improved net global results (New World Encyclopedia, 2016; Schroeder, 2016; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2015; United Nations, 2019a; United Nations, 2019b; United Nations, 2019c; OECD, 2017; Social Progress Initiative, 2019; WHO, 2019; Jenkinson, 2019; Smith, 2016; OHCHR, 2019a; OHCHR, 2019b; The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018b).[26],[27].[28],[29],[30],[31],[32] Nature and others reported on the continual invisible to the wider public international issue impacting the scientific communities through the imposition of governmental systems to dampen institutions of science or control them in part or whole, which continues to garner expert attention and comprises the fuel of the anger sufficient for popular marches (Tollefson, 2019a; Tollefson, 2019b; Tollefson, 2018; Angelo, 2019; Levin, 2017; Schwagerl, 2016; Andrade, 2019; Mega, 2019). The institutions harbouring the practitioners of the most powerful process, especially if applied with modern tools, in the literal hands of and minds of human beings to the present day, as the late Dr. Carl Sagan, largely and substantially but not entirely[33], correctly observed and commented in his last interview before death on December 20, 1996, due to bone-marrow disease myelodysplasia (Kragh, 2019):
…science is more than a body of knowledge. It’s a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a keen understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we’re up for grabs for the next charlatan political or religious who comes ambling along. (Speakola, 1996)
Science as technical, organized processes mediated by human beings – even amplified by computational engines – and subsequent accumulations of probabilistic points of information about the natural world, including a fundamental attitude of skepticism about human authority or rich and robust acknowledgement of the fallibility of human beings (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019a; Jacobsen, 2019b).[34] The developments of technology come from the successful application of the discoveries of science. Both exist as human endeavours. The former as means of application and the latter as more means of discovery.[35]
VIII
The social and political focus on terms, e.g., “fake news” and “post-truth,” remain rather humorless distractions – not unimportant, but mere symptoms of larger problems in critical thought levels in the general population due to institutional failures over years (Grammarist, 2019; The Learning Portal: College Libraries Ontario, 2019).[36],[37] At the same time, trust in scientists, in the United States, sits at the level of trust in the military while concerns about misconduct and conflicts of interest remain steadfast (Ledford, 2019). The humorless distractions from the real consequences of budget cuts to science around the world, hostile takeover of science by governments, and distrust in science leading to pseudo-religious and dogmatic movements who fill the void of positive popular movements and communicative feedback between the community of the general lay public and the community of expert scientists.
A communicative feedback foundational to an informed populace to decide on important scientific and technological aspects of society in advanced industrial economies and, in many ways, digital pluralistic democracies with some more polyarchies & plutocratic in orientation. As we see in ongoing social and political unrest, governments want to use force, military and police force, to crush autonomy and natural democratic tendencies and thrusts of populations (Post Editorial Board, 2019; Withnall, 2019; Applebaum, 2019).[38] Similarly, governments who observe inconvenient scientific evidences emergent from institutions or whole disciplines work to cut funds or defund them entirely, or, as with Hungary, take them over. As Abbott (2019) notes about the Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Mihály Orbán, international outcries continue in the midst of the (hostile) takeover of the research institutions of the nation by the government with a direct impact on academic freedom and independent intellectual enquiry within Academia and the negative consequences for science and, therefore, for society including its citizens.
In other cases, as in autocratic Russia, new laws impose fines and jail time for acts considered disrespectful, not of individual politicians or public figures but, the state, the government (Van Sant, 2019). In Saudi Arabia, journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered (BBC News, 2019b). UNESCO condemned the killing of journalist in large numbers, in the hundreds since the 1990s and into the 2010s (UNESCO, 2019). The Committee to Protect Journalists tracks individuals murdered or killed as journalists (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2019). Even benign reportage on the environment, journalists get killed with “impunity” and leaders of the world continue to ignore, justify, or command the murders of journalists themselves, as stark attacks on freedom of the press and freedom of expression (or speech if American) through the ending of human life (Garside & Watts, 2019; Mohdin & van der Zee, 2018; Robertson, 2019; The Globe and Mail, 2018; Longman, 2019; Tangen, 2019a).
Journalists expose governmental lies. Government leaders do not like it. Thus, there exists an interest in silencing the journalists, at times in extreme ways. The message: Do not explore this, write about it, or report on it, or else. One could cite hundreds of articles with the headlines and contents covering the murder of journalists. UNESCO (n.d.) views press freedom as a foundation of peace, which seems right. Amnesty International (2019) sees the violent crackdown on mostly peaceful protests as a violation of this principle for citizens’ freedom to express themselves. Article 19 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in theory or as a principle, should protect the freedom of expression of journalists (United Nations, 2019c; Article 19, 2019; ).[39],[40] One global phenomenon, as noted by Adele M. Stan, editor of Right Wing Watch, comes in the form of the far right (Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, 2019), and the rise of the strongman (Mayhew, 2018).
In some of North America, to some home turf, human rights experts consider American President Donald Trump’s attacks on the press a significant problem (OHCHR, 2018). Free expression groups in Canada opposed the province of Ontario move by the provincial government planned for universities and colleges (Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, 2018a), as they opposed the conviction and sentencing of Pelin Unker (Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, 2019). Canadians agree with the protections of journalists’ source material from authorities, from police (Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, 2018b). Apparently, Canadians agree with NWA in “Straight Outta Compton” on this issue. Tanzania approved the “Electronic and Postal Communications (Online Content) Regulations 2018” to restrict online freedom of expression (Canadian Journalists for Freedom of Expression, 2018c). Thankfully, online resources for protection of journalists by others or themselves exist (Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, n.d.).[41]
South Sudan sees restriction on the freedom of expression (UN News, 2018). Indonesia’s Papua region experiences restrictions on freedom of expression (Westerman, 2019). Campus journalists in Indonesia are pushing back (Llewellyn, 2019). Vietnam is experiencing freedom of expression problems (HRW, 2019a). Ukraine experiences some of the same problems (HRW, 2019b). Lebanon has issues around freedom of expression but restrictions found in co-existent laws (Majzoub, 2019). Singapore has free expression issues (HRW, 2019c). Russia sees the same crackdown on freedom of speech (Vladimirov, 2018). Nepal sees the same problem (HRW, 2019d). Same with India, Nigeria, Mauritania, Crimea, Thailand, Cambodia, Kuwait, Malaysia, and elsewhere (HRW, 2019e; HRW, 2019f; HRW, 2019g; HRW, 2019h; HRW, 2019i; HRW, 2019j; HRW, 2019k; HRW, 2019l). We can see this same problem in Iraq (Osman, 2019). One could list many, many other countries or the same countries with multiple, ongoing cases of the violation to freedom of expression. Not only in freedom of expression, we can see in the study of the natural world from the strongmen with weakman politics innervation of and restriction of scientific investigation and the dissemination of the findings to the public.
In 2018, Malaysian forces arrested a Danish man, critical of the police, through anti-fake-news laws (Domonoske, 2018). Predatory journals on the periphery of the academic system peddle false science or faux credibility with India working to fight against the “determined and adaptable” foe (Patwardhan, 2019). Other cases come with gender equality initiatives abused to the point of appearance or surface improvements, even intentions, only, as Tzanakou (2019) states, “A department looks at gender-equality data not as an opportunity to gain insight and improve the working environment for all, but to present itself in a certain light in order to secure the award; it must assert that inequality is not really that bad within their unit, but that it can make clear improvements. There is a temptation to think more about what can be demonstrated than about what needs to be done.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists reports (2019a) on “disappearing data, silenced scientists, and other assaults on scientific integrity and science-based policy… many other moves by the president and Congress degrade the environment for science and scientists in this country. For example, the president’s Muslim ban hurts science and scientists, including those working for the federal government and the president’s rescinding transgender protections is damaging to the ability of all young budding scientists to reach their full potential” (Halpern, 2017a; Halpern, 2017b). Brazil’s space director was sacked and spoke out (Daley, 2019). Americans are horrified at the denial of science (Gustafson & Goldberg, 2018). All this in the midst of genetic engineering as a science moving forward (Saey, 2019). Important scientific and borderline previous science fiction questions stand before us in a long queue.
Quality production of data impacts sustainable development, as noted by Espey (2019). Loring (2019) describes the ways in which promising medicines, e.g., stem cell therapies, become occluded to the public in efficacy and obscured in reality via fakes with important work done by Elena Cattaneo and Gilberto Corbellini (2014), as noted by others too (Bianco & Sipp, 2014), especially with the selling of products prior to full efficacy shown as sufficiently evidentiarily backed (Bianco, 2013). Piantadosi (2019) notes universities fail in their institutional upholding of values purported in public if comprised, or axed on the altar, of legal liabilities.
According to Goldman (2019), the curse of budget cuts to advisory panels will outlast the first/last term of the American president, as she emphasizes “scientists must sound the alarm.” Gunsalus states, correctly, the need to make research misconduct public, which should extend to public servants, politicians, and policymakers making ethics breaches public (2019). Brazilian military invaded 20 universities in Brazil to confiscate materials on ideological grounds (The Guardian, 2018). As stated by Freedom House in Attacks on the Record: The State of Global Press Freedom, 2017–2018 (2018), “Today, populist leaders constitute a major threat to free expression in these open societies. Ambitious politicians around the world are increasingly willing to dispense with the norms of behavior that held their predecessors in check, in some cases blatantly undermining press freedom.”
Take, again, the singular issues of nuclear proliferation, and associated risks & anthropogenic climate change/human-induced global warming and excessive levels of the human species on the planet with current technologies, several collectives continue to note the importance of literal survival of the species within the necessary immediate, deep, and comprehensive work on a colossal scale. There are several contraints, including limited time, collective will, general scientific ignorance, financial conflicts of interest, and some who hope for the cleansing of this world for the actualization of a new (hypothetical and highly unlikely) wondrous one – for them and a few co-selected.
Human-induced rapid climate warming or heating becomes a political issue as politics halts, silences, and defunds scientific investigation, findings, and practitioners and academic disciplines posited as epistemologically sound or on a firmer footing than empiricism pervade academic and, eventually, public discourse to attack scientists and scientific validity (Dillen, 2018; Kreighbaum, 2018; One Faculty One Resistannce, 2019; Polansky, 2019; Sabine Center for Climate Change Law, 2019; Showstack, 2019; Stenger, n.d.; Union of Concerned Scientists, 2019b; Webb & Kurts, 2018). Some amusing salvage of the catastrophes in the increase in bird attacks on people (Weston, 2019).
Cultures require a literate public and a press corps open to making the directing attention to governmental failures. Populism and populist leadership can create problems because of the continual charges on the part of the populist of the problem with the media, especially as the media makes factual claims of the failures of the leadership. The people can begin to doubt the media and then resent it, placing full embrace in the statements, lies, exaggerations, and outright buffoonery of the charismatic populist leaders. This becomes an attack on a pillar of democracy in real journalism and, in turn, decreases the possibility of evidence-based and factual decision-making by the public for a real democratic society. A society begins to resemble a polyarchy more and more over time. Targets become the journalists as a first salvo – and their productions found in the news – in the main war against democratic institutions with the second salvo towards the judiciary and other places (Freedom House, 2018).
Sarah Repucci, in 2019, provided a wonderful reportage on freedom of the press/media. Entitled Freedom and the Media: A Downward Spiral (Repucci, 2019) in which the key findings comprise the deterioration of the media around the world, the populist leaders arising in some of the most influential democracies the world has ever seen, the dangerous restriction and retraction of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of the press throughout the world in spite of the “basic desire for democratic liberties (Ibid.). More fully, Repucci (Ibid.) stated, “Experience has shown, however, that press freedom can rebound from even lengthy stints of repression when given the opportunity. The basic desire for democratic liberties, including access to honest and fact-based journalism, can never be extinguished.”
IX
Positive notes exist with some of the international secular and freethought communities providing some basis for working together as unified social and economic, and technological, oriented community to reduce the problems of anthropogenic climate change. One initiative comes from Humanists International, the European Humanist Federation, and Young Humanists International in the Reykjavik Declaration on the Climate Change Crisis (2019) proposed by the Board of the three aforementioned organizations (Humanists International, 2019; European Humanist Federation, 2019; Young Humanists International, 2019).[42] Humanists International dealt with ecological and environmental issues in other documents in its history, too: in 2015, in 2000, in 1974, and in 1971 (Humanists International, 2015; Humanists International, 2000; Humanists International, 1974; Humanists International, 1971).[43] Important to note, the title of Humanists International (HI) changed from the former title of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) with an associated change in the youth organization.[44] Humanists seem prone to or to have a penchant for declarations and manifestos: “Humanist Manifesto I (1933), Amsterdam Declaration (1952), Humanist Manifesto II (1973), A Secular Humanist Declaration (1980), A Declaration of Interdependence (1988), Humanism: Why, What, and What For, In 882 Words (1996), IHEU Minimum Statement on Humanism (1996), Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call For A New Planetary Humanism, The Promise of Manifesto 2000, Amsterdam Declaration (2002), Humanist Manifesto III/Humanism and Its Aspirations (2003), Manifeste pour un humanisme contemporain/Manifesto for a contemporary humanism (2012),” as noted in What is Canadian Humanism? (Jacobsen, 2019g).
In addition, in On Climate Change (Jacobsen, 2018a), NASA including 18 listed major scientific societies (2016), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2015), The Royal Society (2016), and innumerable others, whether directly or indirectly, agree on anthropogenic climate change, if not simply global warming without human inducement, for the importance of dealing with the issue together (NASA, 2019).[45] Skeptical Science provided a concise and thorough rundown of the idea and facts about anthropogenic climate change and scientific consensus (2017). Also, Watts (2019) provided a nice statement, “Previous studies have shown near unanimity among climate scientists that human factors — car exhausts, factory chimneys, forest clearance, and other sources of greenhouse gases — are responsible for the exceptional level of global warming… The pushback has been political rather than scientific.”
This seems to reflect socio-political, not empirical, controversies between Young Earth Creationism and Evolution Via Natural Selection, as Professor Kenneth Miller notes (Jacobsen, 2019a; Jacobsen, 2014).[46],[47] The controversies do not come from the consensus of the debating experts and practitioners, but, rather, from the socio-political context of the nation. Of course, these issues overlap with one another, e.g., larger populations contribute more, on average, to the net carbon output than smaller ones (Scientific American, 2009). The COP21 and associated conferences become important in collective action against the impacts of human industrial activity on the planet with European, North American, and Asian Member States as more culpable because of the higher per capita contributions to global warming (European Commission, n.d.; The World Bank, n.d.). Important to note, continual reports, even local ones, state the ominous situation, we may live at the end of the human species because of a lack preparedness (The Canadian Press, 2015; Timperley, 2019; Uptime Institute, n.d.; Roston, 2019; Science News, 2019; Parry, 2011; Pyper, 2011; Parry, n.d.; Wherry, 2017; Environmental Defense Fund, n.d.; C40, n.d.). We may not have a frown ever with “Golden Brown,” but we may when the skies turn as such.
X
All this history and political context can neglect to discuss the effects of nuclear war. As with anthropogenic climate change or human-induced global warming, the problem of nuclear war run amok – basically, any amount – comes from the literal cooking of the environment. The environmental interconnected systems necessary for the maintenance of, at a minimum of individual self-interest, personal survival. If more inclined in a larger perspective, national and species survival even, if more broad minded, much of the biosphere poorly adapted to the rapidity of the warming of the Earth seen in the current moment due, in large part, to human contributions beginning with the first Industrial Revolution (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019b; EPA, 2017; Government of Canada, 2019; American Chemical Society, 2019; Committee on Climate Change, n.d.).[48],[49],[50],[51],[52] One of the strong negative effects of the possibility of nuclear war comes from the infusion of radioactivity into the immediate vicinity and then the general “light, heat, blast, and radiation,” which have been known to scientists since the 70s with further predictions of millions of tonnes of dust launched into the stratosphere with the return of dust within 24 hours to the Earth – dust, stones, and pebbles returned as radioactive material (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017a; Martin, 1982).[53] One outcome of widespread nuclear war comes in the form of a “nuclear winter” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2017a). Nuclear winter results from several nuclear warhead explosions resulting in numerous nuclear fireballs leading to uncontrolled fires or “firestorms” gusted over “any and all cities and forests within the range of them” leading to massive smoke plumes in which soot and dust would launch with their own heating, lifting the irradiated materials into high altitudes drifting for weeks on average before “being washed out of the atmosphere onto the ground” (Ibid.). Nuclear attacks, regardless of the size, come with short-term and long-term impacts (Department of Homeland Security, 2005).[54] According to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (2018), these come alongside instantaneous and near-immediate effects to the local populations and the local environment.[55] Rather bluntly, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament stated, “There is currently no international plan in place to deliver humanitarian assistance to survivors in the case of a nuclear attack. Most casualties would receive at best minimal, palliative treatment. The best they could hope for would be to die in as little pain as possible” (2019). This reflects similar sentiment with the lack of preparedness of major nuclear states in the world (Jacobsen, 2019c). Fates, before death, exist worse than death.
Nuclear winter, for the human species, would create one such nightmare as daymare. “The extreme cold, high radiation levels, and the widespread destruction of industrial, medical, and transportation infrastructures along with food supplies and crops would trigger a massive death toll from starvation, exposure, and disease,” The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica stated, “A nuclear war could thus reduce the Earth’s human population to a fraction of its previous numbers” (2017). Of course, we have other urgent issues. Our society values these as important endeavours alongside of the international community. One in the form of gender equality, in particular in the labour force of Canada.
According to the Government of Canada (2018), Canadian society’s labour market experienced a rapid surgence of globalization, automation, the gig economy, and economic emergence of trading partners, since the 1950s with massive players in the global market garnering more ground, i.e., India and China.[56] As Url (2018) argued, one should not deploy politics on science, but, rather, inform politics with science and then formulate differences in policy and socioeconomic solutions through the politics informed by science.[57] An international issue given the power, ubiquity, and assumed-credibility given to communications technologies and information received from them (Starbird, 2019).
As globalization, automation, the gig economy, and other trends continue to become entrenched in the international systems, there will be other associated effects of scientific discovery implemented as technology erodes old industries and creates new ones, not all nation-states will make it.
The Canadian environment for the labour force participation rate of women appears better at the lower levels and worse at the higher levels, where “lower” and “higher” represent the relative status of the positions for the jobs in terms of income and prestige.[58] The Canadian Women’s Foundation reported on the low levels of women in the executive positions through the country (Canadian Women’s Foundation, 2019). 27% of the seats of the House of Commons are held by women (House of Commons, 2019). Approximately 20% of the board members of Canada’s top 500 companies are held by women (CBC News, 2013). Also, “8.5% of the highest-paid positions in Canada’s top 100 listed companies are held by women” (CBC News, 2015). According to the Government of Canada (2018), the labour market for Canadian society has seen a surge since the 1950s with automation, globalization, the gig economy, and economic emergence of trading partners, including India and China – holding over 1 billion citizens per country in the present period.[59] Globalization increases cultural diversity, the levels of earnings for different types of workers, increases the need for diversity training, increases the standards of the workforce while on site or on the job, and influences particular types of job losses (Mcfarlin, 2019; Hoffman, 2017).[60] Automation will increase GDP of nation-states open to the market of computers and artificial intelligence connected to robotics in industries linked to Moore’s Law and the decreasing cost with an associated power in complexity and computing power for the industries succumbing, almost inevitably, to the pull of workers who do not unionize or complain, or sleep (McKinsey Global Institute, 2018). The gig economy refers to the temporary and flexible jobs as a commonplace, increasingly common phenomenon throughout the economies of the world including Canadian (Chappelow, 2019; Istrate, 2017).[61] With 2-3 billion global citizens housed in India and China alone, the impacts of the rising economic partners of Canadian businesspeople will impact the future of the economy, the trading relationships, and the workers, including the women at all levels.
These reshape the global economy, the nature of international trade, and the state of life in Canadian society, even amongst the other OECD or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. Although, the numbers of workers who have unionized jobs, jobs covered by sponsored pension plans, or manufacturing jobs has fallen while the number of Canadian workers with a formal education has increased since the 1950s. As this continued from the 1950s into the present period, the current era exists with a massive spike in the numbers of educated women compared to the current generation of educated men in entrance into postsecondary institutions, performance in the postsecondary environment with lower GPAs for the men, more extracurriculars for the women, and even with the lower entrance into the university arenas the lower rates of graduation for men. An unprecedented era in formal education and in the women’s movement; as Canadian society – and global civilization – moves into new territory in formal education, this will, undoubtedly, change the nature of the world in which men and women study, work, and partner and mate (if they so choose). A valid problem with a concerted effort is the labour force participation of women.
Simultaneously, if we neglect the fact of three gargantuan issues hovering over this and far above this, we may regret this at the peril of the species. The issues of anthropogenic climate change and overpopulation are two of them. With recent escalations, the immediate concern seems the possible threat of nuclear war or a second cold war, which few want now or ever. Our values in practice will determine the course or directions in which we want to take global society, destruction or survival. Everything else is secondary, even noble initiatives.
We best pick values worthy of our global civilization.
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Footnotes
[1] What is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity? (2009) states:
The special theory of relativity was published in 1905, in Annalen der Physik (“Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper“, in the original German; “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” is its English translation), and the general theory of relativity published in 1915, in the Minutes of the Meetings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin) (“Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation” in the original German; “The Field Equations of Gravitation” is its English translation).
In its original form, special relativity is based on just two postulates (or assumptions); namely, that the speed of light (in a vacuum) is constant – no matter who measures it, or when, or where – and that the laws of physics are the same for in all inertial frames of reference (basically, for all observers who are not accelerating) … there are other, logically consistent, ways to construct SR, from different postulates, but they are equivalent to Einstein’s original.
See Tate, J. (2009, November 18). What is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?. Retrieved from https://www.universetoday.com/45484/einsteins-theory-of-relativity/.
[2] General Theory of Relativity (2019) states:
As we have seen, matter does not simply pull on other matter across empty space, as Newton had imagined. Rather matter distorts space-time and it is this distorted space-time that in turn affects other matter. Objects (including planets, like the Earth, for instance) fly freely under their own inertia through warped space-time, following curved paths because this is the shortest possible path (or geodesic) in warped space-time.
This, in a nutshell, then, is the General Theory of Relativity, and its central premise is that the curvature of space-time is directly determined by the distribution of matter and energy contained within it. What complicates things, however, is that the distribution of matter and energy is in turn governed by the curvature of space, leading to a feedback loop and a lot of very complex mathematics. Thus, the presence of mass/energy determines the geometry of space, and the geometry of space determines the motion of mass/energy.
See Physics of the Universe. (2019). General Theory of Relativity. Retrieved from https://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_relativity_general.html.
[3] The Manhattan Project (2019) states:
In December 1941, the government launched the Manhattan Project, the scientific and military undertaking to develop the bomb.
A Letter to the President
In August 1939, Einstein wrote to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt to warn him that the Nazis were working on a new and powerful weapon: an atomic bomb. Fellow physicist Leo Szilard urged Einstein to send the letter and helped him draft it.
Einstein: A Security Risk
In July 1940, the U.S. Army Intelligence office denied Einstein the security clearance needed to work on the Manhattan Project. The hundreds of scientists on the project were forbidden from consulting with Einstein, because the left-leaning political activist was deemed a potential security risk…
… In an interview with Newsweek magazine, he [Einstein] said that “had I known that the Germans would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, I would have done nothing.”
See American Museum of Natural History. (n.d.). The Manhattan Project. Retrieved from https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/peace-and-war/the-manhattan-project.
[4] Einstein’s Letter to President Roosevelt – 1939, in full, states:
Albert Einstein
Old Grove Road
Peconic, Long Island
August 2nd, 1939
F.D. Roosevelt
President of the United States
White House
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Some recent work by E. Fermi and L. Szilard, which has been communicated to me in manuscript, leads me to expect that the element uranium may be turned into a new and important source of energy in the immediate future. Certain aspects of the situation which has arisen seem to call for watchfulness and if necessary, quick action on the part of the Administration. I believe therefore that it is my duty to bring to your attention the following facts and recommendations.
In the course of the last four months it has been made probable through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America–that it may be possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future.
This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable–though much less certain–that extremely powerful bombs of this type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory. However, such bombs might very well prove too heavy for transportation by air.
The United States has only very poor ores of uranium in moderate quantities. There is some good ore in Canada and former Czechoslovakia, while the most important source of uranium is in the Belgian Congo.
In view of this situation you may think it desirable to have some permanent contact maintained between the Administration and the group of physicists working on chain reactions in America. One possible way of achieving this might be for you to entrust the task with a person who has your confidence and who could perhaps serve in an unofficial capacity. His task might comprise the following:
a) to approach Government Departments, keep them informed of the further development, and put forward recommendations for Government action, giving particular attention to the problem of securing a supply of uranium ore for the United States.
b) to speed up the experimental work, which is at present being carried on within the limits of the budgets of University laboratories, by providing funds, if such funds be required, through his contacts with private persons who are willing to make contributions for this cause, and perhaps also by obtaining co-operation of industrial laboratories which have necessary equipment.
I understand that Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over. That she should have taken such early action might perhaps be understood on the ground that the son of the German Under-Secretary of State, von Weizsacker, is attached to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, where some of the American work on uranium is now being repeated.
See Einstein, A. (1939, August 2). Einstein’s Letter to President Roosevelt – 1939. Retrieved from www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Begin/Einstein.shtml.
[5] If you put the heater on in the room, and if you go to bed without turning the heater off, then you will likely awaken in a sweat. This amounts to the situation with continual efforts to ignore serious work needing doing on human-induced global warming.
[6] For an introduction to some of the basics of the study of populations or demography, please see some of the currently published “Ask Dr. Weld…” series.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2018d, October 30). Ask Dr. Weld 1 — Demography 101. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-dr-weld-1-demography-101-d2f42eada524.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2018e, November 7). Ask Dr. Weld 2 — These Are That Which Malthusian Dreams, Or Nightmares, Are Made. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-dr-weld-2-these-are-that-which-malthusian-dreams-or-nightmares-are-made-c5f1f6631667.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2019d, January 14). Ask Dr. Weld 3 — The Demographic Rap: Terms and Definitions. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-dr-weld-3-the-demographic-rap-terms-and-definitions-2636582cb106.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2019e, June 6). Ask Dr. Weld 4 — Malthus King’s Demographic Men (and Some Women). Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-dr-weld-4-malthus-kings-demographic-men-and-some-women-621a9bdfb738
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2019f, June 6). Ask Dr. Weld 5 — Complete Suite: Patois for the Demographic Categois. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-dr-weld-5-complete-suite-patois-for-the-demographic-categois-cfa51aad98ad.
[7] Threats of nuclear war continue in the modern period, cannot stay ignored, and need diplomatic measures for a continual international reduction in their number for the safety of nation-states’ civilian populations and the stability of the international community. Nuclear Weapon: Who Has What at a Glance (2019) states the desired aims of several countries, of their mutually consistent and independent nuclear targeted objectives:
China, India, and Pakistan are all pursuing new ballistic missile, cruise missile, and sea-based nuclear delivery systems. In addition, Pakistan has lowered the threshold for nuclear weapons use by developing tactical nuclear weapons capabilities to counter perceived Indian conventional military threats. North Korea continues its nuclear pursuits in violation of its earlier denuclearization pledges.
See Davenport, K. (2019, July). Nuclear Weapon: Who Has What at a Glance. Retrieved from https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat.
[8] The Open Skies Treaty at a Glance (1992) states:
Signed March 24, 1992, the Open Skies Treaty permits each state-party to conduct short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the others’ entire territories to collect data on military forces and activities. Observation aircraft used to fly the missions must be equipped with sensors that enable the observing party to identify significant military equipment, such as artillery, fighter aircraft, and armored combat vehicles. Though satellites can provide the same, and even more detailed, information, not all of the 34 treaty states-parties1 have such capabilities. The treaty is also aimed at building confidence and familiarity among states-parties through their participation in the overflights.
President Dwight Eisenhower first proposed that the United States and the Soviet Union allow aerial reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory in July 1955. Claiming the initiative would be used for extensive spying, Moscow rejected Eisenhower’s proposal. President George H.W. Bush revived the idea in May 1989 and negotiations between NATO and the Warsaw Pact started in February 1990…
…Territory: All of a state-party’s territory can be overflown. No territory can be declared off-limits by the host nation.
See Arms Control Association. (2012, October). The Open Skies Treaty at a Glance. Retrieved from https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/openskies.
[9] If we look into the definitions of the strongmen provided in ssome standard political orientations, we can see. If we look at the individuals who represent this well, we see . By calculation of the populations of the countries in which these men lead, the total provides some idea of the claim the majority of the world exists under a dangerous and technologically powerful form of strongman and associated politics.
[10] India, Israel, Pakistan, and South Sudan are the only states parties who function outside of the Treaty on Open Skies. Articles I and II of the NPT state NWS will not help NNWS develop or acquire nuclear weapons with the NNWS never, as a national promise or oath based on the NPT, to pursue the acquisition of nuclear armaments or thermonuclear capacity grade weapons technologies. Article III set the International Atomic Energy Agency the task of inspecting the nuclear facilities of the NNWS while providing safeguards for the “transfer of fissionable materials between NWS and NNWS. Article IV “acknowledges the ‘inalienable right’ of states-parties to research, develop, and use nuclear energy for non-weapons purposes. It also supports the ‘fullest possible exchange’ of such nuclear-related information and technology between NWS and NNWS.” Article V is listed as “effectively obsolete.” Article VI states states parties should “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” Article VII permits for the establishment of nuclear weapons free zones in regions, which remains an important and intriguing, and extremely useful, article as a tool for peace. Article VIII sets a “complex and legnthy process to amend the treaty, effectively blocking any changes absent clear consensus.” Article X gives the grounds upon which states parties to the NPT may withdraw from the NPT.
[11] Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at a Glance (2019) states:
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) prohibits “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion” anywhere in the world. The treaty was opened for signature in September 1996, and has been signed by 184 nations and ratified by 168. The treaty cannot enter into force until it is ratified by 44 specific nations, eight of which have yet to do so: China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Iran, Egypt, and the United States. The U.S. Senate voted against CTBT ratification in 1999, and though in 2009 President Barack Obama announced his intention to seek Senate reconsideration of the treaty, he did not pursue the initative, though the United States did see through UN Security Council Resolution 2310, which was the first UN Security Council resolution to support the CTBT.
The 2018 Trump administration Nuclear Posture Reviews notes, “Although the United States will not seek ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, it will continue to support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Committee as well as the International Monitoring System [IMS] and the International Data Center [IDC]. The United States will not resume nuclear explosive testing unless necessary to ensure the safety and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and calls on all states possessing nuclear weapons to declare or maintain a moratorium on nuclear testing.”
In order to verify compliance with its provisions, the treaty establishes a global network of monitoring facilities and allows for on-site inspections of suspicious events. The overall accord contains a preamble, 17 treaty articles, two treaty annexes, and a protocol with two annexes detailing verification procedures.
See Kimball, D. (2019, February). Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty at a Glance. Retrieved from https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/test-ban-treaty-at-a-glance.
[12] Nuclear Weapon: Who Has What at a Glance (2019) states:
India, Israel, and Pakistan never signed the NPT and possess nuclear arsenals. Iraq initiated a secret nuclear program under Saddam Hussein before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003 and has tested nuclear devices since that time. Iran and Libya have pursued secret nuclear activities in violation of the treaty’s terms, and Syria is suspected of having done the same.
See Davenport, K. (2019, July). Nuclear Weapon: Who Has What at a Glance. Retrieved from https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat.
[13] The INF treaty represents the one in the news with Russia and the United States, recently.
[14] Atomic War or Peace (1947) concluded:
But I also believe it can come through agreement and through the force of persuasion alone, hence, low cost. But if it is to come in this way it will not be enough to appeal to reason. One strength of the communist system of the East is that it has some of the character of a religion and inspires the emotions of a religion. Unless the cause of peace based on law gathers behind it the force and zeal of a religion, it hardly can hope to succeed. Those to whom the moral teaching of the human race is entrusted surely have a great duty and a great opportunity. The atomic scientists, I think, have become convinced that they cannot arouse the American people to the truths of the atomic era by logic alone. There must be added that deep power of emotion which is a basic ingredient of religion. It is to be hoped that not only the churches but the schools, the colleges, and the leading organs of opinion will acquit themselves well of their unique responsibility in this regard.
See Einstein, A. (1947, November). Atomic War or Peace. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1947/11/atomic-war-or-peace/305443/.
[15] The famous Einstein letter sold for several million dollars in 2018. It represents the historical significance of the man and the mind within the context of the modern period, in the cascade of events based on the world made by him. The letter amounts to some short correspondence between one man, Mr. Gutkind, and himself, in which Einstein remained rather gentle with Mr. Gutkind while holding to his own comprehension of the physics of the universe and some speculative metaphysical considerations about the universe as well.
[16] How Could a Failed Computer Chip Lead to Nuclear War? (2016) states:
By far the most serious of the computer chip problems occurred on early June 3, when the main US warning centers all received notification of a large incoming nuclear strike. The president’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezezinski woke at 3 am to a phone call telling him a large nuclear attack on the United States was underway and he should prepare to call the president. He later said he had not woken up his wife, assuming they would all be dead in 30 minutes.
Like the November 1979 glitch, this one led NORAD to convene a high-level “Threat Assessment Conference,” which includes the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and is just below the level that involves the president. Taking this step sets lots of things in motion to increase survivability of U.S. strategic forces and command and control systems. Air Force bomber crews at bases around the US got in their planes and started the engines, ready for take-off. Missile launch offices were notified to standby for launch orders. The Pacific Command’s Airborne Command Post took off from Hawaii. The National Emergency Airborne Command Post at Andrews Air Force Base taxied into position for a rapid takeoff.
The warning centers, by comparing warning signals they were getting from several different sources, were able to determine within a few minutes they were seeing a false alarm—likely due to a computer glitch. The specific cause wasn’t identified until much later. At that point, a Pentagon document matter-of-factly stated that a 46-cent computer chip “simply wore out.”
See Wright, D. (2016, June 6). How Could a Failed Computer Chip Lead to Nuclear War?. Retrieved from https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/how-could-a-failed-computer-chip-lead-to-nuclear-war.
[17] The word God is a product of human weakness (2009), in full, states:
Dear Mr Gutkind,
Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an “unAmerican attitude.”
Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual “props” and “rationalization” in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes,
Yours,
A. Einstein
See Letters of Note. (2009, September). The word God is a product of human weakness. Retrieved from http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/10/word-god-is-product-of-human-weakness.html.
[18] 7 close calls in the nuclear age (n.d.) states:
On Nov. 24, 1961, all communication links between the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) and NORAD suddenly went dead, cutting off the SAC from three early warning radar stations in England, Greenland, and Alaska. The communication breakdown made no sense, though. After all, a widespread, total failure of all communication circuits was considered impossible, because the network included so many redundant systems that it should have been failsafe. The only alternative explanation was that a full-scale Soviet nuclear first strike had occurred. As a result, all SAC bases were put on alert, and B-52 bomber crews warmed up their engines and moved their planes onto runways, awaiting orders to counterattack the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Luckily, those orders were never given. It was discovered that the circuits were not in fact redundant because they all ran through one relay station in Colorado, where a single motor had overheated and caused the entire system to fail.
See Floss Books. (n.d.). 7 close calls in the nuclear age. Retrieved from https://theweek.com/articles/443900/7-close-calls-nuclear-age.
[19] Bay of Pigs Invasion (2019c) states:
Bay of Pigs invasion, (April 17, 1961), abortive invasion of Cuba at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs), or Playa Girón (Girón Beach) to Cubans, on the southwestern coast by some 1,500 Cuban exiles opposed to Fidel Castro. The invasion was financed and directed by the U.S. government…
… An invasion of Cuba had been planned by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since May 1960. The wisdom of proceeding with the invasion had been debated within the newly inaugurated administration of President John F. Kennedy before it was finally approved and carried out…
…The captured members of the invasion force were imprisoned. From May 1961 the Kennedy administration unofficially backed attempts to ransom the prisoners, but the efforts of the Tractors for Freedom Committee, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, failed to raise the $28,000,000 needed for heavy-construction equipment demanded by Castro as reparations. The conditions for the ransom changed several times during the next several months; after painstaking negotiations by James B. Donovan, Castro finally agreed to release the prisoners in exchange for $53,000,000 worth of food and medicine. Between December 1962 and July 1965 the survivors were returned to the United States.
Some critics thought that the United States had not been aggressive enough in its support of the Bay of Pigs invasion and had left an impression of irresolution, while others later questioned U.S. misjudgment of the Cubans’ fighting prowess. The incident was crucial to the development of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962.
See The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019c, April 10). Bay of Pigs Invasion. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Bay-of-Pigs-invasion.
[20] This may be a more relevant in the current period with some of the recent developments covered in the next portions of this production
See Green, J. (2015, April 23). Albert Einstein on nuclear weapons. Retrieved from https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/802/albert-einstein-nuclear-weapons.
[21] Often, the media representation comes from climate change or global warming. However, these phrases or stipulations, or framings, of the problem grossly leave out the main actors or species responsible for this problem, the human race. Either should reference anthropogenic or human-induced at some point.
[22] Einstein concluded in Albert Einstein Warns of Dangers in Nuclear Arms Race (1950), “In the last analysis, every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondly on institutions such as courts of justice and police. This holds for nations as well as for individuals. And the basis of trust is loyal give and take”
See A., A. (Reporter), & N., N. (Anchor). (1950, February 12). Albert Einstein Warns of Dangers in Nuclear Arms Race. [Television series episode]. NBC News. Retrieved from https://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/browse/?cuecard=39895.
[23] Pugwash Conferences: International Meeting of Science (2019b) states:
Pugwash Conferences, in full Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, series of international meetings of scientists to discuss problems of nuclear weapons and world security. The first of the conferences met in July 1957 at the estate of the American philanthropist Cyrus Eaton in the village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, in response to an appeal by Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and other prominent scientific figures. Subsequent conferences were held in many countries, including the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Yugoslavia, India, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Sweden, and the United States.
The chief concern of Pugwash was to bring together leading scholars from many countries to discuss ways of reducing armaments and tempering the arms race. During the Cold War it was one of the few lines of open communication between the United States and the Soviet Union. Another purpose was to examine the social responsibility of scientists toward such world problems as economic development, population growth, and environmental damage.
See The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019b, March 14). Pugwash Conferences: International Meeting of Science. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Pugwash-Conferences.
[24] Scientists must rise above politics — and restate their value to society (2019), in full, states:
Albert Einstein and the philosopher Bertrand Russell created a manifesto warning of the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. This led to the first Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, a meeting of researchers from many countries and political ideologies to discuss the hazards of nuclear weapons.
More meetings — formal and informal — followed. What became known as the Pugwash movement gave a global voice to researchers working in, or supporting, non-proliferation, and served as a channel of communication between the superpowers. Pugwash eventually contributed to international nuclear non-proliferation agreements, culminating, in 1995, in a Nobel Peace Prize.
The researchers feeling the heat today face different and more varied challenges. That means that any attempt to use a Pugwash-style approach to address today’s pressures should be strengthened by recent understanding of the importance of inclusivity — with a meaningful role for public engagement — and a place at the table for researchers from diverse backgrounds and from across disciplines, not only science and engineering.
But there are key similarities to Pugwash, too, including the need to re-emphasize the value of scholarship in solving society’s problems and for a channel of communication between governments and their research communities.
As with Pugwash, crucial to any effort to give scientists a bigger voice will be the ability of international researchers to stand apart from political arguments, and to assert that support for scholarship is not an issue of left versus right, but of the very survival and prosperity of humanity itself.
See Nature. (2019, August 7). Scientists must rise above politics — and restate their value to society. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02379-w.
[25] Noam Chomsky said, “Prophet just means intellectual. They were people giving geopolitical analysis, moral lessons, that sort of thing. We call them intellectuals today. There were the people we honor as prophets, there were the people we condemn as false prophets. But if you look at the biblical record, at the time, it was the other way around. The flatterers of the Court of King Ahab were the ones who were honored. The ones we call prophets were driven into the desert and imprisoned.”
This applies to the Douglass quote as a prophet, an intellectual. Douglass spoke on race issues, but the principle behind the statement applies here, too.
[26] A field does exist within philosophy – comprised of aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, law, metaphysics, political philosophy, and social philosophy – for the consideration and determination of values called axiology, where axiology exists within aesthetics and ethics as a two-form branch of philosophy by implication with content and style of study dependent on the branch in question. Axiology (2016) states, “Axiology (from Greek ἀξίᾱ (axiā) translated as “value, worth”; and λόγος (logos) translated as “science”) is the philosophical study of value. The term was first used in the early twentieth century by Paul Lapie, in 1902, and E. von Hartmann, in 1908. Axiology is the philosophical study of goodness, or value, in the widest sense of these terms.” In the sense of the possibility of a value set in a society derived from the universal set of societal-cultural values possible, so the overarching ethic of a culture, in theory in other words, of human society, in societies only constructable by human beings, axiological studies becomes a wide-ranging philosophical conceptualization of value with applicability in the sense of the study of the values of a society, of an analysis of a culture’s values. Those values seen as the Good and the Bad in a society or a culture. This applies to individual values too. In this way, Plato’s notion of the society reflective of the individual and the individual reflective of the society as trivially true at the level of values, of an axiological ethical evaluation. When we come to the considerations of societies without values or value, or individuals without values or value, these become nihilistic in some fundamental sense, where the study of values applied to non-value – or the aforementioned nihilism – becomes near-illogical/futile and a one-step domain of study for the budding axiologist as to study the value of that without value becomes near pointless as an endeavour, as if a research project into the Empty Set from this Universal Set with the simple acknowledgement of the Empty Set as the intersect of all subsets, sets, and power sets of the Universal Set. On the other hand, an axiological analysis of societies and then the outcomes of those societies may provide some insight into the values to wellbeing outcome measurements of society. This becomes technical and concrete, empiric in other words, rather than some mystical and emotional examination of values and life outcomes of societies, even civilizations. The commentary in the footnote on standard of living and quality of life provides some more insight into the aspects of outcomes of societies.
See New World Encyclopedia. (2016, May 4). Axiology. Retrieved from https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Axiology.
[27] The United Nations in Human Rights (2019a) states:
Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status…
… International human rights law lays down the obligations of Governments to act in certain ways or to refrain from certain acts, in order to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals or groups…
… The foundations of this body of law are the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in 1945 and 1948, respectively…
… The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected…
… Human rights is a cross-cutting theme in all UN policies and programmes in the key areas of peace and security, development, humanitarian assistance, and economic and social affairs. As a result, virtually every UN body and specialized agency is involved to some degree in the protection of human rights.
As one may surmise from these straightforward and firm statements as to the nature of human rights and international human rights law, all institutions within the global body known as the United Nations functions within a framework of human rights protection “to some degree.” Any enquiry into human rights begins with the United Nations and then moves into the institutional framework in which the United Nations functions alongside the Charter and the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights for universal human rights and international law, in which consensus orientations and processes within a global context provide a non-absolute and universal outcome of ethics for the naturalized inclusion of multiple valid and non-contradictory frames within a larger edifice made by human beings for human beings. On occasions of contradiction or disagreement, the discourse begins in a collecitve way, ideally; of course, the international scene does not play out this way in every single instance, especially in long-standing human rights violations involved in the Israel-Palestinian issue beginning at the literal foundations of the United Nations in 1948. I suspect, as more of the global population comes online and become empowered to speak their voices into the collective chorus of humanity, the nature of the definition of “rights” to change to some degree to better approximate “universal” in a human sense, in which human nature becomes better approximated and instantiated in international documents and institutions. National power plays will continue to enforce narrow versions of ‘universal’ against the internationally democratic ideal of universal. I see no inevitable trajectory in one direction or the other here as these rely in a fndamental manner on human decisions – to invoke such an explanatory framework, even in a secular context, implies a teleological view of that which must be or inevitably come to be, at some amorphous, unstipulated time in the future. This form of secular teleology exists as a dogma in some secular circles, not necessarily the same as those assumed in the death, burial, and resurrection of and eventual return of Christ for redemption of Mankind in the Rapture or the overthrow of the Bourgeosie by the Proletariat for the creation of a workers’ paradise seen in some interpretations of Marx but similar in a brand of teleology.
See United Nations. (2019a). Human Rights. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/human-rights/.
[28] Several metrics exist for the measurement of the quality of life and the standard of living of a nation-state. Quality of life and standard of living differ in some fundamental aspects in terms of scope and depth with quality of life as more meaningful in a humanistic sense and standard of living in terms of an economic one. For standard of living, this can mean the goods and services aspirations of an individual or group within a society or the level of consumption of an individual or group within a society. What can an individual or a group purchase, this becomes the basis for the level of living with the desired level of living as the standard of living with an interplay between actuality and aspirations, respectively, for the two and the individuals and groups within a society. One metric for standard of living is the GNI or the Gross National Income, as defined by Chappelow (2019) as the alternative means by which to calculate GNP or the Gross National Product through GDP and net income from overseas. However, either GNI, measuring foreign and domestic incomes, or GNP, measuring domestic income sources, limit to the frame of income, this excludes non-tangible aspects of life, including life expectancy and happiness for a better metric of wellbeing. Standard of living makes sense in a narrow way; quality of life makes sense in a broader manner. Quality of life, according to the World Health Organization (2019), is defined as something “affected in a complex way by the person’s physical health, psychological state, personal beliefs, social relationships and their relationship to salient features of their environment” with the implied “environment” as one’s nation, culture, and local community, even, in an extended sense, one’s internal mental and psychological fitness. This means income as part of it, but not all of it or even most of it. Smith (2016) from the World Economic Forum defines quality of life as akin to this in some ways, but posits a Social Progress Index comprised of three separate parts and measured on a scale of 0 to 100. Jenkinson (2019) noted, “Examples of quality-of-life measures include the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Sickness Impact Profile (SIP), and the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36)…Disease-specific measures, such as the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales (AIMS), the 39-item Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39), the Endometriosis Health Profile (EHP), and the 40-item Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Assessment Questionnaire (ALSAQ-40), are designed for use with specific patient groups.” Quality of life is subjective and objective, but wide in applicability. In other words, the forms of quality of life metrics focus more on the dimensions relevant to direct human wellbeing rather than economic indicators, e.g., income, for the measurement of the health and wellness of a society, though income matters to some of the human wellbeing outcomes important for measurement of quality of life as opposed to standard of living alone.
See Jenkinson, C. (2019, July 15). Quality of life. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/quality-of-life.
[29] Metrics for measuring human rights came in the form of the UHRI or the Universal Human Rights Index. In other words, the universal human rights of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights do not exist as some abstract notion alone, but come with concrete measurements and outcomes in the real world if applied in a responsible and correct way. Welcome to UHRI (2019a) states:
The Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI) is designed to facilitate access to human rights recommendations issued by three key pillars of the United Nations human rights protection system: the Treaty Bodies established under the international human rights treaties as well as the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights Council.
The UHRI aims at assisting States in the implementation of these recommendations and at facilitating the work of national stakeholders such as National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), non-governmental organisations, civil society and academics as well as the United Nations.
See OHCHR. (2019a). Welcome to UHRI. Retrieved from https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/.
[30] Human Rights Indicators (2019b) states:
Human rights indicators are
essential in the implementation of human rights standards and commitments, to
support policy formulation, impact assessment and transparency.
OHCHR has developed a framework of indicators to respond to a longstanding
demand to develop and deploy appropriate statistical indicators in furthering
the cause of human rights.
One of the recommendations of the
World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna was the use and analysis of
indicators to help measure progress in human rights.
Several years of research and consultation went into the development of this
tool. It was guided by the principles of universality, impartiality,
objectivity and cooperation to strengthen the capacity of Member States in
meeting their human rights obligations.
See OHCHR. (2019b). Human Rights Indicators. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Indicators/Pages/HRIndicatorsIndex.aspx.
[31] The World Health Organization (2019) states in full:
The Constitution of the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “A state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being not merely the absence of disease . . .”. It follows that the measurement of health and the effects of health care must include not only an indication of changes in the frequency and severity of diseases but also an estimation of well being and this can be assessed by measuring the improvement in the quality of life related to health care. Although there are generally satisfactory ways of measuring the frequency and severity of diseases this is not the case in so far as the measurement of well being and quality of life are concerned. WHO, with the aid of 15 collaborating centres around the world, has therefore developed two instruments for measuring quality of life (the WHOQOL-100 and the WHOQOL-BREF), that can be used in a variety of cultural settings whilst allowing the results from different populations and countries to be compared. These instruments have many uses, including use in medical practice, research, audit, and in policy making.
WHO defines Quality of Life as an individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns. It is a broad ranging concept affected in a complex way by the person’s physical health, psychological state, personal beliefs, social relationships and their relationship to salient features of their environment.
See WHO. (2019). WHOQOL: Measuring Quality of Life, Introducing the WHOQOL instruments. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/healthinfo/survey/whoqol-qualityoflife/en/.
[32] Smith in These countries have the highest quality of life (2016), in full, states:
Scandinavian nations scored highly in the “Social Progress Index,” but more surprising are the very large countries which came lower down the list — suggesting that a strong GDP per capita is not the only gauge for a high standard of living.
Despite this, all of the top 10 countries are developed nations — so having a strong economy clear has an impact.
The “Social Progress Index” collates the scores of three main indexes:
- Basic Human Needs, which includes medical care, sanitation, and shelter.
- Foundations of Wellbeing, which covers education, access to technology, and life expectancy.
- Opportunity, which looks at personal rights, freedom of choice, and general tolerance.
The index then adds the three different factors together, before giving each nation a score out of 100.
See Smith, M.N. (2016, July 1). These countries have the highest quality of life. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/these-countries-have-the-highest-quality-of-life.
[33] A live interview format creates problems for the comprehensive statement about most things, not a critique on this level given the nature of a live interview format for Dr. Sagan at the time. At the same time, one distinction may be between general authority and authoritative authority in which questioning authoritative authority, e.g., evolutionary biologists speaking on evolutionary theory, becomes less reasonable most of the time compared to questioning general authority, e.g., a politician known to not listen to science or scientific bodies’ leaders on relevant, appropriate, and important scientific questions impacting the lives of citizens with import to public policy, political platforms, and the engineering of society based on the common interest of the pubic as decided, hopefully, democratically by the general polis. Other breakdowns can ensue here, which will not be the focus of the article and, therefore, I will stop here.
[34] Ask Dr. Silverman 5 — Limits of Mind: Possible Human Science (2019b) in full states:
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In one view, the limitations of the human mind set boundaries on possible human science. Human empirical methods with the inclusion of artificially constructed structures can extend the reach of the human mind, whether computational constructs, e.g., algorithms or data collection systems, or tools to manifest the world with greater precision to the senses, e.g., telescopes and microscopes. However, these translate the information back into the range of experience and processing of human beings.
In another perspective, the discoveries about the world reflect the tendencies in thought, and so the limitations, of the human mind, whether individuals or groups. What we know to various degrees, seem to know, and think we know, these reflect the form of information processing of human beings at large. Hills and valleys of fidelity and complexity reflecting the internal mechanics of the mind.
Pure mathematics seems to reflect this the most exquisitely. Some discoveries would, probably, remain impossible without the aid of technology. In particular, the world of large data sets, powerful computational systems, and to-the-task algorithms to help teams of professional mathematicians.
As technology advances, and as a practical philosophical inquiry, how will science advance? Where will possible human science hit a wall? Will machines launch independent scientific enquiries in the future to make discoveries barely comprehensible to most human beings?
Professor Herb Silverman: Aristotle pioneered the scientific method in ancient Greece alongside his empirical biology and work on logic, rejecting a purely deductive framework in favor of generalizations made from observations of nature. Modern science began to develop in the scientific revolution of 16th- and 17th-century Europe when the scientific method was formalized.
At this point in 2019, I’m not too worried about the possibility of human scientific discoveries hitting a wall. Based on the progress of the history of science and technology, it is not unreasonable to expect that means will be found to circumvent what appear to us now to be absolute limitations.
Look at all the scientific progress we’ve made in just the last century. People once said that we would never fly, before the Wright brothers did. People said we would never make it into space, until we did. And then that we would never make it to the moon, but we did.
Interstellar travel is one of those future innovations that many people believe will never happen. It won’t happen tomorrow or in the next year, but eventually, if we last long enough, I think we will get to Alpha Centauri, the closest star and closest planetary system to our solar system. It is 4.37 light-years from the sun. Using current spacecraft technologies, crossing the distance between our Sun and Alpha Centauri would take several millennia, which would require generations of people in spaceships. But scientists are now investigating nuclear pulse propulsion and laser light sail technology, which might reduce the journey time between our sun and Alpha Centauri to decades.
Some scientists think there will be an end to physics if a “Theory of Everything” (TOE) is discovered. This would entail an all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework that fully explains and links all physical aspects of the universe. In particular, such a theory would reconcile general relativity and quantum field theory. General relativity only focuses on gravity for understanding the universe in regions of both large scale and high mass: stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc. Quantum field theory only focuses on three non-gravitational forces, (strong, weak, and electromagnetic force) for understanding the universe in regions of both small scale and low mass: sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, etc. At present, there is no candidate for a TOE that includes the standard model of particle physics and general relativity.
A number of scholars claim that Gödel’s incompleteness theorem suggests that any attempt to construct a TOE is bound to fail. Gödel’s theorem, informally stated, asserts that any formal theory sufficient to express elementary arithmetical facts and strong enough for them to be proved is either inconsistent or incomplete. Stephen Hawking, originally a believer in a TOE, after investigating Gödel’s theorem, concluded that a TOE was not attainable.
In fact, Gödel’s theorem seems to imply that pure mathematics is inexhaustible. No matter how many problems we solve, there will always be other problems that cannot be solved within the existing rules. So, because of Gödel’s theorem, physics is inexhaustible too. The laws of physics are a finite set of rules, and include the rules for doing mathematics, so that Gödel’s theorem applies to them.
Also, just about any problem solved in mathematics or science seems to raise additional questions that we would like to solve. So I expect there are infinitely many questions that we would like answers to, which won’t be found in a finite amount of time. There might even be infinitely many possible theories, not all of which humans can ponder. With or without machines, even now the majority of scientific discoveries are barely comprehensible (or incomprehensible) to most human beings.
The limitations on human scientific and mathematical discoveries, I expect, will be based on the limits to human life — which might end from climate change, an asteroid, nuclear war, or for some reason we don’t yet know about. Now that’s what should probably be a priority for us to address.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2019b, June 16). Ask Dr. Silverman 5 — Limits of Mind: Possible Human Science. Retrieved from https://medium.com/question-time/ask-dr-silverman-5-limits-of-mind-possible-human-science-a9fc20cbe27e.
[35] Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson reflects an amusing point of view. In an old lecture, he spoke about the philosophy of discovery and the philosophy of ignorance with science as reflective of the philosophy of discovery and religion as the philosophy of ignorance. With some further thought, this seems wrong. Some, including the Sufis and meditative branches of, religions orient with something akin to systematic introspection.
See [MrBrittish]. (2011, September 13). Neil deGrasse Tyson: The Perimeter of Ignorance. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1te01rfEF0g.
[36] Fake News?: What is Fake News? (2019) states:
Fake news is made-up, false information packaged and shared as real news. Fake news:
- Presents ‘facts’ that can not be verified, and may be hard to find anywhere else
- Is usually created to advance a political agenda, for profit, mischief, or attention-seeking
- Appeals to emotions, hoping you’ll be scared or angry enough to share without checking
- Is usually created by people who are not experts on the topic or even journalists
See The Learning Portal: College Libraries Ontario. (2019). Fake News?: What is Fake News?. Retrieved from https://tlp-lpa.ca/digital-citizenship/fake-news.
[37] Post-truth (2019) states:
Post-truth describes a situation in which the importance of actual facts is supplanted by appeals to emotion and personal prejudices in influencing public opinion.
See Grammarist. (2019). Post-truth. Retrieved from https://grammarist.com/new-words/post-truth/.
[38] Beijing is prepping for a massacre in Hong Kong: time for the West to put human rights ahead of free trade (2019), in full, states:
A quarter-century ago, the West wagered that welcoming China into the world economy would seduce the Communist Party into allowing ever-more freedom. That bet’s been lost.
There’s precious little ideology to China’s “communism” anymore and no hint of seeking economic justice. But the party will allow no challenge to its rule. Since Xi Jinping took over as president in 2013, he’s rolled back freedom after freedom.
Christian churches are smashed and worshippers jailed; Xi has even bullied Rome into letting him choose Catholic bishops in China. Re-education camps house 1 million Uighers in a province teeming with hi-tech surveillance. Twelve million other Muslims suffer stepped-up repression and systematic abuses, notes Human Rights Watch. Buddhists deemed members of the Falun Gong movement pack prisons that provide involuntary “organ donors.”
And Hong Kong’s promised “high degree of autonomy” has become a joke. The mainland has even begun to databank its residents’ biometrics (DNA, fingerprints, voice samples, etc.), the obvious basis for eventual Big Brother surveillance.
See Post Editorial Board. (2019, August 3). Beijing is prepping for a massacre in Hong Kong: time for the West to put human rights ahead of free trade. Retrieved from https://nypost.com/2019/08/03/beijing-is-prepping-for-a-massacre-in-hong-kong-time-for-the-west-to-put-human-rights-ahead-of-free-trade.
[39] The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2019c) states:
Article
19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
See United Nations. (2019c). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/.
[40] Safety of journalists and human rights defenders (2019) states:
Journalists and human rights defenders around the world face major risks as a result of their work. Governments and other powerful actors, seeking to escape scrutiny and stifle dissent, often respond to critical reporting or activism with attempts to silence them.
Threats, surveillance, attacks, arbitrary arrest and detention, and, in the most grave cases, enforced disappearance or killings, are too often the cost of reporting the truth. The protection of journalists and human rights defenders, and ending impunity for attacks against them, is a global priority for safeguarding freedom of expression.
States are under an obligation to prevent, protect against, and prosecute attacks against journalists and human rights defenders. Creating a safe and enabling environment for their work necessitates legal reform, the creation of special protection mechanisms, and protocols to guide effective investigations and prosecutions where attacks occur. A free press and active civil society are essential to ensure the public’s right to know, so that governments and institutions can be held accountable.
See Article 19. (2019). Safety of journalists and human rights defenders. Retrieved from https://www.article19.org/issue/safety-of-journalists-and-human-rights-defenders/.
[41] Journalists in Distress: Securing Your Digital Life (n.d.) states:
Digital technologies have become extremely important to journalism work, but this also means there is a growing number of tools and platforms that can be used against journalists as means of surveillance, identification and harassment by States and non-State actors alike. Protecting yourself can no longer mean just securing your physical safety; it must also include securing your digital safety. Any breaches to your online life also put your physical life at risk.
When journalists are persecuted for their work, they often seek help from organizations around the world that operate emergency assistance programs specifically for them. If you find yourself in this precarious situation, it is important to be aware of the digital security risks that you face even when contacting these programs. Taking steps to eliminate or mitigate these risks will not only protect yourself during your search for help; it will also improve your digital security overall.
See Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. (n.d.). Journalists in Distress: Securing Your Digital Life. Retrieved from https://www.cjfe.org/journalists_in_distress_securing_your_digital_life.
[42] Humanists International (2019) in the Reykjavik Declaration on the Climate Change Crisis, in full, states:
Proposed by the Boards of the European Humanist Federation, Humanists International, and Young Humanists International
Human beings are part of the natural world, but have a disproportionate effect on the global environment and biodiversity. Throughout history, our species has used the natural world to increase individual and collective wellbeing, and the impact we have is no longer sustainable. Policies adopted by governments should be informed by scientific findings. Governments need to respect the overwhelming conclusions reached by the international scientific community, including that the overuse of natural resources and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions is driving catastrophic climate change, threatening the diversity of life on Earth and the sustainability of human societies. Indeed, extreme scenarios pose an existential risk to humanity. The world must act with urgency and in a globally coordinated way to reduce and prevent human contributions to climate change, to mitigate climate impacts and adapt to them.
We recognise:
- The overwhelming scientific consensus that human beings are contributing to the climate change trend of global warming;
- That climate change will adversely affect human communities, non-human animals and natural ecosystems;
- The threat to ecosystems caused by land-use and resource extraction, including commercial deforestation and unsustainable farming;
- That investment in new renewable energy technology must happen alongside a massive reduction in the use of carbon-intensive fuels, such as coal, oil and gas;
- That all countries need to work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to preserve habitats and species.
- That economic development resulting from industrialisation has historically advantaged countries as they develop, and that wealthier countries should assist developing countries in meeting environmental obligations.
We support:
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the resulting work of the 2017 Paris Agreement, and the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23);
- The urgent work of the scientific, engineering and activist communities to research and deploy new technologies and strategies to mitigate the risks to civilisation and biodiversity;
- The need for a global transition to new ways of using resources and new means of generating energy that will be socially and environmentally sustainable.
We call upon all humanist organizations, civil society in general, and all individuals around the world to:
- Highlight to their governments and regional bodies the need for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make land-use and resource extraction sustainable, and to protect and conserve wild habitats;
- Foster a social and political commitment to urgent action and long-term policymaking to mitigate and prevent climate change.
This policy supersedes the following Humanists International policy statements, and they will therefore be archived:
- ‘Ecology’, Humanists International, Regional Congress, Australia, 2000
- ‘The extermination of birds of passage’, Humanists International, World Humanist Congress, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1974
- ‘Ecology’, Humanists International, Executive Committee, 1971
See Humanists International. (2019). Reykjavik Declaration on the Climate Change Crisis. Retrieved from https://humanists.international/policy/reykjavik-declaration-on-the-climate-change-crisis/.
[43] General Statement of Policy: 4. Human development and the environment (2015) states:
We realise that we are all totally dependent on the natural world for our life and well-being. Furthermore we acknowledge an obligation to bequeath to our descendants an earth that offers as good or better an environment for living as we enjoy. But unless we learn to take better care of the Earth’s environment we will put at risk the health and well-being of many living today, and the very survival of those who come after us. Caring for the environment requires attention to the advice of scientists who have studied the ecology of the planet and is likely to include control of the size of the population and reduction of the emission of “greenhouse gasses” and management of resource extraction and use, with a view to the long-term survivability of life on Earth.
See Humanists International. (2015, May). General Statement of Policy: 4. Human development and the environment. Retrieved from https://humanists.international/policy/general-statement-of-policy/.
[44] Proper spelling of “Organisation” in “International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation” rather than “Organization” – easy mistake to make but, also, easily rectifiable, in the past and in historical statements. IHEYO, short for International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organisation,” changed to YHI for Young Humanists International. The proper titles for the organizations are Humanists International and Young Humanists International with a strong preference, in terms of outreach, for full spelling of the names instead of simple initialisms in HI and YHI.
[45] NASA (2016) in Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate is Warming, in full, states:
AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES
Statement on Climate Change from 18 Scientific Associations
“Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.” (2009)
American Association for the Advancement of Science
“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society.” (2006)
American Chemical Society
“Comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem.” (2004)
American Geophysical Union
“Human‐induced climate change requires urgent action. Humanity is the major influence on the global climate change observed over the past 50 years. Rapid societal responses can significantly lessen negative outcomes.” (Adopted 2003, revised and reaffirmed 2007, 2012, 2013)
American Medical Association
“Our AMA … supports the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth assessment report and concurs with the scientific consensus that the Earth is undergoing adverse global climate change and that anthropogenic contributions are significant.” (2013)
American Meteorological Society
“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide.” (2012)
American Physical Society
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.” (2007)
The Geological Society of America
“The Geological Society of America (GSA) concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse‐gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s.” (2006; revised 2010)
SCIENCE ACADEMIES
International Academies: Joint Statement
“Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring. The evidence comes from direct measurements of rising surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures and from phenomena such as increases in average global sea levels, retreating glaciers, and changes to many physical and biological systems. It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities (IPCC 2001).” (2005, 11 international science academies)10
U.S. National Academy of Sciences
“The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” (2005)
U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
U.S. Global Change Research Program
“The global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Human ‘fingerprints’ also have been identified in many other aspects of the climate system, including changes in ocean heat content, precipitation, atmospheric moisture, and Arctic sea ice.” (2009, 13 U.S. government departments and agencies)
INTERGOVERNMENTAL BODIES
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
“Warming of the climate system is
unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are
unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed,
the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.”
“Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent anthropogenic
emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in history. Recent climate
changes have had widespread impacts on human and natural systems.”
See NASA. (2016). Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate is Warming. Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/.
[46] Interview with Professor Kenneth Miller – Professor, Brown University (2019a) states:
Jacobsen: In terms of the opposition to the teaching of evolution by natural selection, broadly speaking, what has been their efforts to distort the reality of evolution by natural selection, miseducate the young, or simply lie for socio-political points?
Miller: These efforts have taken many forms, some of them attracting very little public notice. Teachers everywhere report informal pressure from parents and occasionally from students to skip or water down their treatment of evolution, despite state standards requiring it to be taught. Anti-evolution organizations like the Discovery Institute and Answers in Genesis churn out a steady stream of anti-evolution talking points, which are occasionally picked up by state and local groups hoping to challenge the teaching of evolution in their local schools. And I have already mentioned the “academic freedom” bills that regularly appear in state legislatures.
Very few of these efforts are overtly religious. Rather, they do their best to sound scientific by arguing that evolution is disproven on the basis of thermodynamics, information theory, the complexity of the genome, or by gaps and inconsistencies in the fossil record. Then, while they provide absolutely no evidence supporting special creation or intelligent design, they argue that these “theories” must be considered since they are the only possible alternatives to the theory of evolution. In effect, they have placed their ideas, without any scientific support, as the default explanation in the event evolution is rejected.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2019a, March 25). Interview with Professor Kenneth Miller – Professor, Brown University. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2019/03/miller-jacobsen/.
[47] Dr. Kenneth Raymond Miller: Professor of Biology, Brown University (Part One) (2014) states:
7. Have intelligent design theories made any predictions? Have any intelligent design theories yielded experimental results? What falsifies intelligent design?
First, it’s worth noting that the arguments advanced by ID are entirely negative. Think about the claims made by Behe and Dembski. They point to a characteristic of living systems (biochemical complexity or specified information) and then argue that evolution could not have produced these characteristics. They are wrong in their arguments, of course, but the remarkable thing is that neither of these arguments actually produce anything in the way of positive evidence for ID. They simply argue that evolution couldn’t do it.
“Design,” therefore, is assumed to be the default explanation in the absence of an adequate evolutionary mechanism. But that is a very weak argument, even if their critiques of evolutionary mechanisms were correct. By assuming a priori that the only mechanism for living things is special creation by a “designer,” they are ruling out, for no reason, a host of other possibilities. These possibilities include, incidentally, as yet undiscovered genetic mechanisms. Since the last two decades have seen several such discoveries, including RNA interference, epigenetic modification, and RNA editing, it would be foolhardy to assume that we have run the table in that respect.
Not surprisingly, a negative critique of evolution, like ID, makes no predictions of its own except that living things will have some characteristics that we cannot yet explain. If that were not true, of course, there would be no need to do research, because we would understand everything. And the “design hypothesis” has proved to be almost completely unproductive in the scientific sense.
It is also worth noting that almost nothing can falsify every claim made for “design” in the strict sense. But that’s actually ID’s greatest weakness. You can invoke “design” to explain anything, from the structure of the ribosome to the winner of last year’s World Series, but that proves absolutely nothing. Whenever we lack a detailed explanation of a biological structure, pathway, or process, you can always throw up your hands and say “it must have been designed,” and that’s that. But that’s not an explanation. It’s really an appeal to ignorance. And my greatest problem with ID is that it proposes that we be satisfied with ignorance rather than continuing to search for answers.
See Jacobsen, S.D. (2014, July 1). Dr. Kenneth Raymond Miller: Professor of Biology, Brown University (Part One). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/07/01/dr-kenneth-raymond-miller-professor-of-biology-brown-university/.
[48] The Causes of Climate Change (2019) states:
Carbon dioxide (CO2). A minor but very important component of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is released through natural processes such as respiration and volcano eruptions and through human activities such as deforestation, land use changes, and burning fossil fuels. Humans have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution began. This is the most important long-lived “forcing” of climate change.
See NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (2019). The Causes of Climate Change. Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/.
[49] Causes of Climate Change (2017) state:
This record shows that the climate system varies naturally over a wide range of time scales. In general, climate changes prior to the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s can be explained by natural causes, such as changes in solar energy, volcanic eruptions, and natural changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations…
… Since the Industrial Revolution began around 1750, human activities have contributed substantially to climate change by adding CO2 and other heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. These greenhouse gas emissionshave increased the greenhouse effect and caused Earth’s surface temperature to rise. The primary human activity affecting the amount and rate of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels…
… Nitrous oxide is produced through natural and human activities, mainly through agricultural activities and natural biological processes. Fuel burning and some other processes also create N2O. Concentrations of N2O have risen approximately 20% since the start of the Industrial Revolution, with a relatively rapid increase toward the end of the 20th century.
See EPA. (2017, January 19). Causes of Climate Change. Retrieved from https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climate-change-science/causes-climate-change_.html.
[50] Causes of climate change: What is the most important cause of climate change? (2019) states:
Human activity is the main cause of climate change. People burn fossil fuels and convert land from forests to agriculture. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people have burned more and more fossil fuels and changed vast areas of land from forests to farmland…
… Small changes in the sun’s energy that reaches the earth can cause some climate change. But since the Industrial Revolution, adding greenhouse gases has been over 50 times more powerful than changes in the Sun’s radiance. The additional greenhouse gases in earth’s atmosphere have had a strong warming effect on earth’s climate…
… Changes in solar irradiance have contributed to climate trends over the past century but since the Industrial Revolution, the effect of additions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has been over 50 times that of changes in the Sun’s output…
… Climate change can also be caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and the conversion of land for forestry and agriculture. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, these human influences on the climate system have increased substantially. In addition to other environmental impacts, these activities change the land surface and emit various substances to the atmosphere. These in turn can influence both the amount of incoming energy and the amount of outgoing energy and can have both warming and cooling effects on the climate. The dominant product of fossil fuel combustion is carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. The overall effect of human activities since the Industrial Revolution has been a warming effect, driven primarily by emissions of carbon dioxide and enhanced by emissions of other greenhouse gases.
See Government of Canada. (2019, March 28). Causes of climate change: What is the most important cause of climate change?. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/causes.html.
[51] What are the greenhouse gas changes since the Industrial Revolution? (2019) states:
These increases in greenhouse gas concentrations and their marked rate of change are largely attributable to human activities since the Industrial Revolution (1800). The increases and current atmospheric levels are the result of the competition between sources (the emissions of these gases from human activities and natural systems) and sinks (their removal from the atmosphere by conversion to different chemical compounds–for example, CO2 is removed by photosynthesis and conversion to carbonates).
See American Chemical Society. (2019). What are the greenhouse gas changes since the Industrial Revolution?. Retrieved from https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html.
[52] What is causing climate change? (n.d.). states:
Evidence that CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming is very robust. Scientists have known since the early 1800s that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat.
Global CO2 emissions from human activity have increased by over 400% since 1950. As a result, the concentration of CO2 in the air has reached more than 400 parts per million by volume (ppm), compared to about 280ppm in 1750 (around the start of the Industrial Revolution).
See Committee on Climate Change. (n.d.). What is causing climate change?. Retrieved from https://www.theccc.org.uk/tackling-climate-change/the-science-of-climate-change/climate-variations-natural-and-human-factors/.
[53] The global health effects of nuclear war (1982) stated:
If the bomb is exploded at or near the surface of the earth, a large amount of dust, dirt and other surface materials will also be lifted with the updraft. Some of the fission products will adhere to these particles, or onto the material used to construct the bomb. The very largest particles – stones and pebbles – will fall back to earth in a matter of minutes or hours. Lighter material – ash or dust – will fall to earth within a few days, or perhaps be incorporated in raindrops. The radioactive material which returns to earth within 24 hours is called early or local fallout. It is the most dangerous.
See Martin, B. (1982, December). The global health effects of nuclear war. Retrieved from https://documents.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/82cab/.
[54] Nuclear Attack (2005) states:
Short-term Effects
Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) may develop in those who are exposed to radiation levels of 50- 100 rad, depending on the type of radiation and the individual. Symptoms of ARS include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and reduced blood cell counts. Radiation, especially beta radiation, can also cause skin burns and localized injury. Fatalities begin to appear at exposures of 125 rad, and at doses between 300-400 rad, about half of those exposed will die without supportive treatment.2 At very high doses, greater than 1000 rad, people can die within hours or days due to effects on the central nervous system. Radiation exposure inhibits stem-cell growth; for those who die within weeks to months, death is usually caused by damage to the gastrointestinal lining and to bone marrow where stem cell growth is crucial. Fetuses are more sensitive to radiation; effects may include growth retardation, malformations, or impaired brain function.
Long-term Effects
Radiation exposure increases the risk of developing cancer, including leukemia, later in life. The increased cancer risk is proportional to radiation dose. The survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs have about a 10% increased risk of developing cancers over normal age-specific rates, some occurring more than 50 years following the exposure. A long-term medical surveillance program would likely be established to monitor potential health effects of survivors of a nuclear attack. There is no evidence of genetic changes in survivors’ children who were conceived and born after the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
See Department of Homeland Security. (2005). Nuclear Attack. Retrieved from https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/prep_nuclear_fact_sheet.pdf.
[55] The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (2018) stated:
Instantaneous
The heart of a nuclear explosion reaches a temperature of several million degrees centigrade. Over a wide area the resulting heat flash literally vaporises all human tissue. At Hiroshima, within a radius of half a mile, the only remains of most of the people caught in the open were their shadows burnt into stone.
Near-immediate
People inside buildings or otherwise shielded will be indirectly killed by the blast and heat effects as buildings collapse and all inflammable materials burst into flames. The immediate death rate will be over 90%. Various individual fires will combine to produce a fire storm as all the oxygen is consumed. As the heat rises, air is drawn in from the periphery at or near ground level. This results in lethal, hurricane force winds as well as perpetuating the fire as the fresh oxygen is burnt. Such fire storms have also been produced by intense, large scale conventional bombing in cities such as Hamburg and Tokyo.
People in underground shelters who survive the initial heat flash will die as all the oxygen is sucked out of the atmosphere.
Outside the area of total destruction there will be a gradually increasing percentage of immediate survivors. However most of these will suffer from fatal burns, will be blinded, bleeding from glass splinters and will have suffered massive internal injuries. Many will be trapped in collapsed and burning buildings. The death rate will be higher than in a normal disaster since most emergency services will be incapable of responding due to their equipment being destroyed and staff killed. The sheer scale of the casualties would overwhelm any country’s medical resources. The International Red Cross has concluded that the use of a single nuclear weapon in or near a populated area is likely to result in a humanitarian disaster that will be “difficult to address”.
See Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. (2018, April 3). The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. Retrieved from https://cnduk.org/the-effects-of-nuclear-weapons/.
[56] According to Trading Economics in “India Population,” the population circa 2017 was 1,283,600,000, approximately. The Word Bank reports the total population for China, in 2018, at about 1,393,000,000. Both over 1 billion by probably 2 to 4 hundred million citizens at this time.
See Trading Economics. (2019). India Population. Retrieved from https://tradingeconomics.com/india/population.
See World Bank. (2019). Population, total; China. Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN.
[57] Url (2018) in Don’t attack science agencies for political gain stated:
Three changes would help elected officials and regulatory agencies to do their separate jobs. First, questions about societal values should be framed ahead of and outside scientific work. The EU must equip itself with a legal and regulatory framework for food production that accounts for citizens’ opinions on intensive agriculture, pesticide use, GM organisms and other biotechnology, and the importance of biodiversity. This will provide a forum for open, honest debate.
Second, regulatory and legal guidelines should be drawn up to govern how regulatory bodies interact with industry and handle transparency of the data that they use.
Finally, politicians need to decide whether they are willing to allow risk assessment of regulated products, such as glyphosate and food additives, to continue to be based on safety studies commissioned and paid for by the industry, as has been the case for decades. If so, politicians must have the courage to support the regulatory bodies charged with implementing these rules. If not, they must find funding for these studies elsewhere. Only once these steps have been taken will regulatory agencies be free from allegations of bias when their scientific conclusions are at odds with the political agenda of one interest group or another.
In the end analysis, these public officials harbour the title “public” because of the need to function on behalf of the public.
See Url, B. (2018, January 24). Don’t attack science agencies for political gain. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01071-9.
[58] Labour Force Participation Rate defined by the Government of Canada (2018) as the following:
Labour force participation rate: Total labour force expressed as a percentage of the population aged 15 and over. The participation rate for a particular group (age, sex, marital status, geographic area, etc.) is the total labour force in that group expressed as a percentage of the population 15 years of age and over in that group.
See Government of Canada. (2018, May 17). The surge of women in the workforce. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2015009-eng.htm.
Also, occupational prestige defined by the Oxford Reference as the following:
Occupational prestige refers primarily to the differential social evaluation which is ascribed to jobs or occupations. What people know about jobs, or how people view occupations, is to a greater extent a given; much more variation exists in the value that they ascribe to them.
To ask how people rate the ‘general standing’ of an occupation (the most common question) is taken to be a measure of occupational prestige and hence of the social status of occupations, though many other criteria have been proposed, including ‘social usefulness’ as well as ‘prestige’ and ‘status’ themselves.
See Oxford Reference. (2019). occupational prestige. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100244553.
[59] According to Trading Economics in “India Population,” the population circa 2017 was 1,283,600,000, approximately. The Word Bank reports the total population for China, in 2018, at about 1,393,000,000. Both over 1 billion by probably 2 to 4 hundred million citizens at this time.
See Trading Economics. (2019). India Population. Retrieved from https://tradingeconomics.com/india/population.
See World Bank. (2019). Population, total; China. Retrieved from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN.
[60] The Effects of Globalization in the Workplace states:
The full impact of globalization in the workplace has yet to be realized, but as more companies embrace this trend and become more diverse, certain changes are emerging. While many of these changes are good, others may not be as positive. Small business owners are learning that they have to adopt new policies and new guidelines to keep up with these changes.
See McFarlin, K. (2019, March 12). The Effects of Globalization in the Workplace. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-globalization-workplace-10738.html.
[61] Gig Economy (2018) states:
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The gig economy is based on flexible, temporary, or freelance jobs, often involving connecting with clients or customers through an online platform.
- The gig economy can benefit workers, businesses, and consumers by making work more adaptable to the needs of the moment and demand for flexible lifestyles.
- At the same time, the gig economy can have downsides due to the erosion of traditional economic relationships between workers, businesses, and clients.
See Chappelow, J. (2019, June 25). Gig Economy. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gig-economy.asp.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/08/21
By Pamela Machado and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Developments of autocratic governmental tendencies emerge from the deleterious effects of nationalism bolstered around prejudice, bigotry, hatred, suspicion amplified by anxiety, conspiracy theories, denialism of fundamental concepts of science, rejection of facts, and the celebration of a powerful figure in a strongman, applicable to men or women but, mostly seen in men as demagogues provoking the worst sentiments in the population. There are few leaders in the world nowadays that could represent this idea more accurately than Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.
The election of Jair Bolsonaro into the presidency of Brazil created a new era in the political landscape for Brazilian citizens with the alignment of Evangelical Christian fundamentalism and strongman negative populism. The autocratic tone in Bolsonaro’s government is no longer a surprise for those worrying about the waning status of democracy around the world, and of civil liberties internationally. Since taking office in January of 2019, the Brazilian president has made tens of international headlines starring his homophobic rhetoric, lack of diplomacy, poor social media etiquette, and disastrous handling of environmental degradation, amongst some of a litany of faux pas moments and real political scandals.
Week after week, Brazil’s president has shown signs pointing to a tyranny being instituted in Brazil under his rule. The latest recurrences involve the Amazon, with the international community funding the Amazon removing financial support because of the deforestation ongoing within the country, including by Norway and Germany. In response, Bolsonaro said, as a childish tease helpful in ascertaining his character, “Isn’t Norway that country that kills whales up there in the north pole?… Take that money and help Angela Merkel reforest Germany.” Bolsonaro shows no intention to take on criticism from the international community and scientists, and then act to curb deforestation.
As a matter of fact, Bolsonaro has strong allies in Brazil pushing him to disregard environmental discussion as a ‘conspiracy from the left’ and ‘fake news’. One of the strongest lobbyists in Bolsonaro’s government is indeed the agribusiness sector, which is among the most powerful industries in South America. The agribusiness model, which leaves soils impoverished and lands devastated, is at the opposite side of environmentalism and indigenous land advocacy; and Bolsonaro’s intentions are to open the Amazon for agribusiness lords. Conservation of the Amazon is one of the key aspects in establishing international alliances, especially with countries in the European Union, where the green influence has grown in the political realm since the last EU elections last May. Bolsonaro’s stance can only lead to Brazil’s isolation in a global scenario in times when cooperation is a fundamental virtue to avoid a global ecological collapse.
Bolsonaro has caused outrage after sacking the director of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) at the beginning of the month. Ricardo Galvão, the previous director of INPE, had called out Bolsonaro’s government on skyrocketing deforestation in the Amazon after data showed that deforestation was 88% higher in June compared to a year ago. To compound this, Bolsonaro is a major climate change denier and sees the science of climate change as a Marxist plot. He claimed INPE’s latest report is lying and the methodology of the study is not trustworthy, even as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change continues in its Sixth Assessment Cycle. Bolsonaro and his coterie have a history of climate change denial, not even skepticism. He was clear about destroying the Indigenous environments and the ties between them. Bolsonaro is not informed or does not want to believe the realities and seriousness of the climate crisis facing us, where he proposes citizens, not himself, eat less and defecate every other day in order to help the climate while working to destroy the environment. Citizens should become active and involved in the political process, as they have become increasingly active and involved in the political process based on these atrocious attitudes, statements, and opinions on science.
Also, he made clear the intent, if elected, to leave the Paris Climate Agreement from 2015, mimicking US President Donald Trump. Ed Atkins, from the University of Bristol, has stated that leaving the Paris Agreement is not really in the hands of Bolsonaro: “Ultimately, his power to reverse the decision is limited, however. This is because the Paris deal was approved via the Brazilian congress, which is currently divided between 30 parties, and Bolsonaro would face the tricky task of convincing a broad church of conservatives.” However, Bolsonaro seems to care little about the rules of democracy and the institutions he should respect.
If only environmental concerns were the only thing to worry about – but the president’s latest scandal about the Amazon are only another indicator of the autocratic turn taking place in Brazil.
Bolsonaro is surely familiar with fake news tactics that undermine the strength of democracy: this is his strongest weapon to keep his electorate faithfully supportive as the economy continues to wade in Brazil leaving almost 14 million unemployed, worsening criminality or increasing the number of “cockroaches” in his opining, and quality of life – among other atrocities such as censoring LGBTI+ films and cutting funding to federal universities.
The far-right president is progressively turning himself into an authoritarian force in Latin America’s major country – and he is quite proud to be so. The stance of dehumanization against one’s own most vulnerable citizens simply shows to the public in glaring and gory detail an arrogance fit for authoritarian rule.
Bolsonaro has a long-lasting and widely reported passion with authoritarian leaders in South America. Like attracts like, one may assume here. He also has an open disgust to democracy and state institutions: “My pen is mightier than yours,” he told the lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia earlier this year, implying that congressmen are not as powerful as him.
At a worrying speed, Bolsonaro takes steps closer in his vision to turn Brazil into a country where those who appreciate diversity and show respect to nature have no voice. Brazilian democratic institutions, where corruption is deeply ingrained, seem to get weaker by the hour and there is dooming scenario about the next three years until the next election is held make it looks like an obscure endless era.
This political cascade of anti-democratic leaders and forces contains racial elements to it. According to the latest data available, Brazil’s population is mostly non-white. The portion of Brazilian identifying themselves as whites fell from 53.7% in 2000 to 47.7% in 2010, when the latest statistic was released. Issues of self-identification or self-report in the collection of the data aside; the result is collective actions taking place all over Brazil to educate about ethnicities and gender rather than an actual decrease in the number of white people, as seen in the number of mixed-race which rose from 38.5% to 43.1%. Thanks to open conversations about racial questions and structural racism, a larger number of Brazilians have become more literate on identity politics and the issues following from them.
Bolsonaro’s contempt towards mixed-raced and non-white communities is escalating. Even more explicit comes from the majoritarian authoritarianism of the statements, Bolsonaro, in 2017, said, “Minorities have to bend down to the majority… The minorities [should] either adapt or simply vanish.” The rhetoric of dehumanization creates the basis for autocratic and tyrannical orientation leading to an easy denial of civil liberties for minorities and other, typically, vulnerable populations within Brazil. The demagoguery around denial of the real world, of living in a fantasy concocted of delusions of mass and widespread conspiracy theories, forms the basis for decoupling popular discourse from facts, common Brazilian values and shared identity, and democratic orientation of the government. There needs to be rapid damage control and broad activism to begin to solve the problems created, the fires started, by the Brazilian president and his coterie.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The tropical ecosystems contain massive stores of carbon with a high vulnerability to anthropogenic climate change. With the “sparseness of ground-based measurements,” the estimates as to how much carbon has been sunk into the topic and how much has been released retained a great margin of error.
A lot of uncertainty for an important metric of a pressing global problem. As noted in the Nature Communications article, the knowledge of the net sink or net contributor to atmospheric carbon levels remains uncertain. These labelled +ve and -ve, respectively, for net annual source or net annual sink for carbon.
By “sink,” this means something akin to the oceans be sinks. In that, the oceans and the tropics absorb more carbon than they emit. They hold the carbon as opposed to releasing it. The release contributing to the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, as noted at levels of parts per million.
The paper published, based on independent – rather than dependent – satellite data sets, shows the land tropics to be +ve as opposed to -ve, or net annual sources rather than net annual sinks of carbon – not a positive finding for those wishing for easier solutions to the problem of human-induced global warming.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the North Africa region are higher than previously estimated in other words.
As stated, “These pan-tropical estimates reflect unexpectedly large net emissions from tropical Africa… The largest carbon uptake is over the Congo basin, and the two loci of carbon emissions are over western Ethiopia and western tropical Africa, where there are large soil organic carbon stores and where there has been substantial land use change. These signals are present in the space-borne CO2 record from 2009 onwards.”
References
Palmer, P.I. et al. (2019, August 13). Net carbon emissions from African biosphere dominate pan-tropical atmospheric CO2 signal. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11097-w.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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His Lordship of Roscelines, Graham Powell, earned the “best mark ever given for acting during his” B.A. (Hons) degree in “Drama and Theatre Studies at Middlesex University in 1990” and the “Best Dissertation Prize” for an M.A. in Human Resource Management from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England in 1994. Powell is an Honorary Member of STHIQ Society, Former President of sPIqr Society, Vice President of Atlantiq Society, and a member of British Mensa, IHIQS, Ingenium, Mysterium, High Potentials Society, Elateneos, Milenija, Logiq, and Epida. He is the Full-Time Co-Editor of WIN ONE (WIN-ON-line Edition) since 2010 or nearly a decade. He represents World Intelligence Network Italia. He is the Public Relations Co-Supervisor, Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and a Member of the European Council for High Ability. A previous comprehensive interview in parts through In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal here.
Krystal Volneyis the new Journal Editor of United Sigma Korea. Volney is known for her computing interviews for WIN ONE Magazine (World Intelligence Network) as a tech writer, Co-Editor and publications in Award-winning/bestselling educational books that can be found in bookstores and libraries around the world, journals, blogs, forums & magazines such as Thoth Journalof Glia Society and City Connect Magazine since 2012-present. She is the author of Cosmos and Spheres poetry book and the ‘Dr. Zazzy‘ children’s series.
Here Powell and Volney took some time to describe the nature of editing a high IQ publication, whether from a veteran position of Powell or a fresh perspective of Volney, for the largest Umbrella high IQ organization, World Intelligence Network, journal in the entire world, WIN ONE.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was the original point of high IQ journals?
Lord Graham Powell: High IQ journals are a medium for displaying the talents and thoughts of the society members. They unify interest and are a means for expressing the current initiatives and ethos of participatory societies – most journals represent more than one society.
Krystal Volney: To provide the very intelligent with a place to publish their ideas, essays, articles, poetry and be interviewed.
Jacobsen: What have been some notable successes of high IQ journals in the past?
Powell: The journals have helped forge friendships and when friends collaborate to produce not only articles, but aide participation in conferences and get-togethers as well, I think that a hugely positive corollary of journal collaboration.
Volney: Celebrating the work of geniuses around the world.
Jacobsen: Some prolific authors can be known as part of the high IQ community, though dead, e.g., Isaac Asimov. Who have been lesser-known and fruitful writers in the high IQ community?
Powell: Both Krystal and I have produced books. Some more are being planned now. Yet, other authors who spring to mind are: Thomas Hally, Jason Betts, Greg Grove, Liliana Alam, Anja Jaenicke and Elisabetta di Cagno. Greg Grove founded a society for poets, all of whom had to be within the top one percent of IQ scores. One influential poet within that society was Thom Hadley, though his influence on me mainly stemmed from the utterly noble way he faced death from cancer. I will never forget him. His humility and resignation towards the inevitable and his supreme dignity in that, for me, made him a great man.
Jacobsen: General intelligence as the basis for societies and umbrella organizations presents issues. Within the context of the journals or magazines happening to arise within some, we can note the ways in which the content sets an average bar to access of the content in comprehension disregarding background knowledge or interest in the subject matter, or persistence, for the moment. Graham, we have talked about some of this before. What should the creators of a high IQ journal, whether linked to a society or independent of one, bear in mind regarding expectations – positive and negative – about the size of the and quality of the readership?
Powell: The potential readership is increasing, not only due to demographics, but other factors such as the Flynn Effect (I.E., that IQ scores are increasing over time, though that is now slowing) and access to technology. The high IQ community is, however, even more transitory in interest than the average (in my opinion) so magazines, or, indeed, anything pitched towards the high IQ community, has to change, evolve and stimulate to a high extent. It has to undergo criticism, stark analysis and, at times, fierce debate. It has to face rejection as a medium, then react and resurface with gusto. In the modern world, the concept of a magazine seems almost anathema to the ever-changing flow of ideas and discussion. They are fixed moments in time, even if they express universal, long-term concepts and beliefs. This can of course be a positive aspect, the journal becoming a historical document and record of the thoughts, even the zeitgeist, of a particular moment in human existence. The creator has to maintain a broad view of what they are doing and why.
Jacobsen: What forms of content seem more affected by the singular factor of general intelligence: brief articles, interviews, philosophical essays, poetry, or others? Different types of submissions would seem, intuitively, effected in different ways and to different extents by the level of general intelligence expected by the readership (if connected to a society, then, more often, the membership).
Powell: Puzzles, conundrums, quizzes: these stimulate readers in this realm of society and members enjoy creating them. Any article with precise language and a well backed-up, scientific or philosophical thesis will appeal and hold interest too. Mathematical theses, discussions and explanations are esoteric, but of interest to the high IQ community, especially to those members who are extraneous to the academic community, yet have an in depth knowledge of mathematics and physics. The Leonardo journal, which I text edit for the AtlantIQ Society, has some recurring themes, these expressing the focus of that society on art and science, with the interests of the main compiler, Beatrice Rescazzi, taking precedent. She is primarily a scientist, with a particular passion for 3D printing and robotics, though we also have many poets in the society, so poetry also appears in each edition. The focus of the editorial teams that I form a part of is shifting these days, the perceived need for the high IQ community to be actually doing something positive for humanity becoming ever more fervent. The dominant ethos within the high IQ world has been for self-promotion (even by proven charlatans) yet this is being countered now by a few who are intent on being genuinely philanthropic and altruistic. Gradually, this will appeal to more and more of the high IQ community, many of whom have felt subjugated by the more egocentric members. It is restoring a balance, one which, I think, reflects more closely other sectors of society.
Jacobsen: How did this editorial relationship start for the two of you?
Powell: Krystal was a stalwart supporter of the book “The Ingenious Time Machine” – which I edited and produced for the World Intelligence Network (WIN). I already knew Krystal from the WIN and I was contacted by her to write some reviews of her creative writing. Recently, I felt her innate enthusiasm ideal to help rekindle interest in the WIN On-Line Edition, the WIN’s magazine. I suggested that she help me and was pleased to hear that she accepted.
Volney: I discussed the collaboration with Lord Graham and he saw it as a very good idea. Doing the first issue as Co-Editor was very pleasant with him. I am looking forward to the second magazine because I expect it to contain more submissions from High-IQ members as well as guest contributors.
Jacobsen: What were the pluses and minuses of collaborative versus solo editing for the two of you?
Powell: This first edition under our collaborative umbrella was almost entirely procured by Krystal, at least in terms of the content for it. I issued adverts to attract participation, but was too busy to spend hours and hours creating and soliciting submissions. For me, the arrival of content was refreshing because it did just that: arrive. It was only after looking closely that I realised that almost all of the content this time consisted of poetry. I was hoping for some in-depth articles, but they weren’t amongst the contributions. That resulted in the ‘Poetry Edition’ coming out, which was not a bad thing, but it was different from expectation. Krystal and I have, however, vowed to work harder and over an extended period of time so that the next edition will have more variety within it. Krystal was also a useful commentator on what was prepared by me, especially because I had to do it quickly. We agreed on adjustments efficiently and effectively, which was a positive factor in the collaboration. I think my experience of the post-production process also helped because the uploading of the magazine took a long time, which disheartened Krystal at first. We managed to get the magazine released in the Facebook groups (which was a first) and I think the next magazine will be something progressive and diverse from anything previously produced for the WIN.
Volney: I did not have any minuses. A plus was that we got along working together on the first issue for World Intelligence Network’s magazine and there were not any arguments. This connotes that we are both easy to work with.
Jacobsen: Where can people find the work edited by the two of you – in the past and into the future?
Powell: As already noted, the www.iqsociety.org/interactions/winone page shows all the magazines produced for the World Intelligence Network. The Leonardo magazine is on the AtlantIQ society website: www.atlantiqsociety.com/leonardo-magazine.html and both are accessible by the general public. The book The Ingenious Time Machine can be bought from the Amazon site. Just type in the title and it will come up! It is also on the “Goodreads” website.
Volney: On the World Intelligence Network’s site- https://www.iqsociety.org/.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Graham and Krystal.
Powell: Any time, Scott.
Volney: Not a problem Scott. It was lovely!
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Beach and Sugarman (2019) provided an analysis of the SDM or shared decision-making framework in clinical practice, in which clinicians are encouraged to engage patients on the values and preferences of the patients.
“Professional societies and other groups generating screening and treatment guidelines specifically recommend SDM. In 2015, reimbursement from Medicare for lung cancer screening was made contingent on SDM,” the authors of the JAMA article stated.
If the values and preferences of the patients sit on morally firm foundations, then there can a more reliable process moving forward for the benefits of the patients. It respects the cultural and individual variations in values and preferences while also dignifying the independent judgment of the patient about their own health and welfare.
Even so, SDM, as a practice, is “rarely achieved in practice.” The reasons provided for this theory and practice gap is the multifactorial nature of the problem. There are many factors leading to reduced implementation of it.
“Studies show that patients tend to think they have been involved in making decisions when direct observation suggests they have not,” Beach and Sugarman reported, “This may be because patients are unaware that a decision was made, the measurement standards for observed behavior are too dogmatic, or both.”
Then the coding of the information can be problematic as well as creating an environment in which patients know their role in decisions and processes with the medical professionals. Further time placed into the hands of the medical professionals to explain to the patients may be wasted time better spent on other medical issues or medical duties. Benefits of more time explaining remain uncertain.
The positions of the author of the paper is that SDM should be implemented in medical settings more in spite of the lack of clarity in the reportage. They provided solutions includng more specificity for the task in the calls for SDM, the use of decision aids to become more routine and available, the prioritization of decisions requiring SDM over others to increase its prevalence, the facilitation of engagement with a better interpersonal environment, and the importance of the communication models of practitioners more conducive to the independence of the patients and the giving of recommendations by the medical professionals with a modicum of prudence.
“SDM is a means to an end. The principal goals of SDM are to respect patients as individuals and to deliver care consistent with their values and preferences. Achieving these goals will sometimes involve explicitly engaging patients in decision-making. But decision-making can be emotionally demanding, and imposing a standard by which patients are expected to engage in all (or even most) decisions is not only unrealistic and inefficient, but also potentially burdensome to patients and clinicians,” the authors concluded.
Reference
Beach MC, Sugarman J. Realizing Shared Decision-making in Practice. JAMA. Published online July 25, 2019. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.9797
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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TORONTO – July 18, 2019 – PRLog — Humanist Canada continues to join a growing chorus of denunciation of the Government of Pakistan in its treatment of human rights campaignerGulalai Ismail, including Humanists International and other human rights groups. Denunciation followed by calls to drop the sedition charge against Ismail.
Once more, we call on the Government of Canada to request and urge the Government of Pakistan to drop the charges of sedition against Ismail, as she worked, in a peaceful protest, to bring attention to the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl, Farishta. Now, Humanist Canada extends the call to stop the (alleged) harassment of Ismail’s family.
“If the reports about Ismail and her family stand as sufficiently factual and accurate, the charge of sedition against Ismail remains suspicious, even potentially contrived, and the harassment, or state discrimination, of the family remains unjust and unfair with the appearance of the conscious punishment of Ismail’s family in the light of a possible spurious sedition charge against Ismail,” Humanist Canada Board Member and Young Humanists International Secretary-General, Scott Jacobsen, explained. “For example, according to reportage, the family of Ismail continues to suffer threats and harassment, a raid of the family home, with Ismail’s parents, recently, booked under First Information Reports (FIRs) with accusations of involvement in and monetary support of anti-state and terrorist organizations.”
Martin Frith, President of Humanist Canada, echoed the sentiments, saying, “The intransigence of the Pakistani authorities means that Gulalai’s only hope is public pressure from the international community. The Canadian government voiced support for human rights in the past. We urge the Government of Canada to act on the principles of support for human rights defenders and protection of human rights by publicly intervening in the case of Gulalai with the appropriate Pakistani officials.”
“They are under serious threat of arrest and in-custody torture. These are extremely serious allegations, [and] can cause their immediate arrest and long term [imprisonment]. It is [meant] to [torture] Gulalai Ismail and her family for being Human Rights Defenders and peace activists… Gulalai Ismail’s mother is a house-wife and has been dragged [into] the matter to torture Gulalai Ismail and her family,” Saba Ismail, Gulalai’s younger sister, said.
We urge members of the Canadian public and the international freethought community to email support to the Pakistani embassy in Ottawa at parepottawa@rogers.com. Human rights defenders and campaigners fight for the rights of others. Often, this comes with risks to themselves. Sometimes, they need defenders and campaigners, too.
“Ismail represents one of those rare and rarefied individuals known as human rights campaigners and defenders with the resilience, persistence, and moral courage to speak out on instances of unfairness and injustice with the full knowledge of the difficult circumstances in which this happens and the probable legal, penal, and livelihood consequences of voicing unpopular and uncomfortable truths on fundamental issues of human rights important for the protection of the weak, often voiceless, and vulnerable,” Jacobsen stated.
For more information from Humanists International, please see here:
About Humanist Canada
Humanist Canada is a national not-for-profit charitable organization promoting the separation of religion from public policy and fostering the development of reason, compassion and critical thinking for all Canadians through secular education and community support.
Contact Information
Scott Jacobsen
Board Member, Humanist Canada; Secretary-General, Young Humanists International
Info@HumanistCanada.Com; Sec-Gen.Young@Humanists.International
1-877-486-2671
Martin Frith
President, Humanist Canada
President@HumanistCanada.Ca
1-877-486-2671
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is the founder of Ideas Beyond Borders and Bayt Al-Hikma 2.0, Global Secular Humanist Movement, and a columnist for Free Inquiry
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are some other milestones?
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: There have been some pretty amazing milestones since our last conversation. Over the last few months, we have Wiki groups in the Levant mainly.
We have a number of translators and people focused on different subjects emphasizing the Arabic language. Unfortunately, the Wikipedia Arabic used to be the 18th language.
But, fortunately, we were able to translate more than a 1,000 articles as we speak. These articles never existed before in Arabic. This would be the Civil Rights movement figures.
Today, I was reading a story about how Saudi women’s rights activist for driving was inspired by Rosa Parks. That has been translated into Arabic by our group.
Also, the library of evolution has been translation. It is a banned subject in many education systems across the Arabic world. I have been focusing over the past few months until now on the building of a full library of evolution.
It would be from the beginning to the end. It is already gaining us a lot of momentum with partnering with groups in the Middle East. We are really definitely creating and institutionalizing a movement that is very helpful for new ideas.
The Wikipedia Arabic project has been working really well. We have expanded our translation efforts to expand to Kurdish too. We have expanded beyond just the Arabic language.
Now, we have included articles in Kurdish and about 15 or so in Farsi. These have been in subjects including freedom of the press, pluralism, John Stuart Mill and the concept of liberty, progressive values, and also the values of the Enlightenment.
Many of these articles did not exist in these languages before. We are happy to be a part of this movement. We are expecting other countries in the Middle East, including Iran and the Northern part of Iraq and Kurdistan.
It has been going perfectly. We are releasing our books very slowly as we are trying to make sure that the reach and the partnerships that we are building in the region will help distribute them, to make sure it is a success and the quality of the translation is the highest possible in the organization.
We are very happy to work with experts in translation.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faisal.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is the founder of Ideas Beyond Borders and Bayt Al-Hikma 2.0, Global Secular Humanist Movement, and a columnist for Free Inquiry
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What should a North American audience, global audience, or Indian audience, know about Bay Al-Hikma 2.0? How can they replicate its efforts in advocating for science, humanism, and enlightenment values through translation projects – Arabic, Kurdish, etc.?
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: One of the things that we function as is a bridge. One of my friends is a Princeton professor in South Asian Studies. He has helped to identify progressive voices there.
Many people in the Arab world do not know that they exist. When people look at the stuff that we translate from English writings of authors coming from South East Asia and Asia.
People, generally, the main thing that we always need to do to continue our translation project is funding and donations to keep the translation going. Also, if people have skills that we need, there are many people who help connect us to many people, e.g., graphic designers, audiovisual editing, video editing, and so on.
If people have skills in social media marketing, all of these things; we need these to help expand our project. When it comes to South Asia, as we expand more and more, and build more successful programs across the Arab world, and we focus on there because I am from there, we have the translators and all of that.
We plan to expand to Urdu. I heard of many of my friends from Pakistan. Many Pakistanis speak English and are educated, but much is coming from the British.
At the same time, there are many people in Bangladesh that do not speak English in a professional way or in an advanced way. So, that way, the knowledge that we care about in terms of Enlightenment values and others are not available for these people who speak only one language.
So, we have had a very successful program so far, with the Arab world. I hope it will be successful as we expand to Bengali and Urdu.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faisal.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Professor Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc, FRCP, OC is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
The British Medical Journal or BMJ had a list of 117 nominees in 2010 for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Guyatt was short-listed and came in second-place in the end. He earned the title of an Officer of the Order of Canada based on contributions from evidence-based medicine and its teaching.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and a Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2015. He lectured on public vs. private healthcare funding in March of 2017, which seemed a valuable conversation to publish in order to have this in the internet’s digital repository with one of Canada’s foremost academics.
For those with an interest in standardized metrics or academic rankings, he is the 14th most cited academic in the world in terms of H-Index at 240 and has a total citation count of more than 247,000. That is, he probably has among the highest H-Indexes, of any Canadian academic living or dead.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, you’ve also done some work with regards to fractures of bones. Now, it is not necessarily your main stream of research. We were talking off tape about two particular narratives.
One with regards to the pluses and minuses of a big nail and a small nail with the regards to the tibia. Another with regards to an ultrasound device. You noted the devices have a less strict qualification system to get them certified than do pharmaceuticals or drugs.
Distinguished Professor Gordon Guyatt: Yes! It is dramatic. The standards to get a drug on the market are moderately high. They are not as tough as they used to be, and that is an area of controversy, but they are still substantially more stringent than devices.
Devices can get out there much easier than you can drugs. The review process and the barriers you have to jump over are much less with devices than drugs.
Jacobsen: That also leads to of question that is a preface to all of this. Why did the strictures for pharmaceuticals go down? Why are devices less strict than pharmaceuticals in general?
Guyatt: In terms of the first question, there is a controversy, so there is a trade-off. So, some people would say, “Let’s get new drugs out to people, where previously it took too long.” We had these drugs that are beneficial.
There are all these obstructions and the poor patients are suffering because the drugs are not coming out soon enough. On the other hand, there is another argument that it is not infrequent that drugs come out. We find out bad things about them later; that even apparent benefits do not benefit people. So, on the one hand, good drugs get out, and do not make people wait.
On the other hand, be appropriately cautious, make sure that people are benefiting, and make sure and be more careful about the potential adverse effects, that is the argument back and forth. I am not sure that there is any definitive right or wrong.
But there are many of us who have concerns about the pharmaceutical industry and the way the pharmaceutical industry operates. We are on the side of, “Come on. Wait. Do not do it too soon. Make sure it is right, and better too. There are lots of good drugs on the market now.”
“Unless, something is a real breakthrough. Wait to make sure that it is a breakthrough,” it is more of an small incremental game. Let’s test it before it gets out. So, that is the tension as far as that is concerned.
Jacobsen: To the second question, it had to do with devices having much lower standards.
Guyatt: It is a historical accident. So, way back in the early 60s, what changed the landscape with respect to drugs was thalidomide, it was given to women to prevent the nausea of pregnancy. It ameliorated the problem.
However, it caused these horrible limb abnormalities in the kids. People said, “Oh! You’ve got to do things differently here. This is bad news.” So, it changed the environment as far as drugs. Where I suppose, there haven’t been any particular catastrophes in terms of devices.
They are seen as potentially less dangerous and the culture of tough regulation has never grown up.
Jacobsen: Now with regards to fractures of bones, what is the background with regards to doing some side research with Jason W. Busse regarding?
Guyatt: First, there is Mohit Bhandari. So, Mohit Bhandari is an orthopaedic surgeon who came to me when he was still in his training as an ambitious young guy. He came to me wanting to train in research methods, which is what I train people in. He said, “I’d like to do a big orthopaedic trial.”
So, I said, “I tell you what. Here is the trial you want to do,” and it was this trial of when people fractured their tibia. You need to put a nail in to hold the pieces of the tibia together again properly.
There are two ways of putting the nail in. You put in a little nail that maintains the blood supply in the bone marrow. Or you put in a big nail that requires reaming out the bone marrow and the little nail has the advantage of maintaining the blood supply, which is promoting healing.
The big nail has the advantage of the structural bed being a better structure. So, Mohit said, “It is a real controversy whether we should be using these big nails or small nails. We should sort that out.”
So, I said, “Okay, tell you what, tell me who the leading guy in North America is in this field. Let’s see if he would be interested in heading up a trial where we do this.”
So, we got in touch with him. He is in the States. Let’s talk to him. So, we talked to him. We said, “We are want to do clinical trials. Would you be interested in leading the trial because we need some established authority to lead to trial?” So, he said, “Sure.”
So, he helped us gain access to leading orthopaedic colleagues.” Eventually, we got the trial funded in part in Canada and in the States. Mohit led the trial. By the time the trial was finished, he was on faculty as an investigator and ended up leading the trial to completion and getting the appropriate credit as the leader of the trial.
So, we enrolled over twelve hundred patients, which was a big trial at the time. It was one of the biggest in orthopaedic trauma that had previously been done. It found out that, overall, it did not make much difference whether you used a big nail or the small nail, but possibly a small nail was better in the more severe fractures.
The big nail was better in the less severe fractures and ended up as one of the first big major orthopaedic trauma trials.
Jacobsen: Why the small nail for big fractures and the big nail for the small fractures?
Guyatt: The theory: surgeons before they started had this suspicion. They said, “In the cases of the more serious fractures, the maintaining of the blood supply may be more important. In the less serious fractures, the maintaining of the blood supply is not as important.”
That was the rationale beforehand. They had the idea. So, it became more credible because they had the idea in advance when we found that the small nail seemed to be better in the more serious fractures. The big nail in the less serious.
It made us more inclined to believe that because that was the hypothesis that the surgeons stated and they had some biology for it before the trial started.
Jacobsen: with regards to the last part of the research which regards to fracture bones at least that we have talked about on tape one of them has to do with an ultrasound device.
Guyatt: Okay! So, story, there is so a guy named Jason W. Busse. Another guy who did a Ph.D. with me. By training, he is a chiropractor, but he got interested in research. He came to work with us. He was also working closely with Mohit.
So, the opportunity came along; I am sure through Mohit. I do not remember the details. It was with a company that makes an ultrasound device, which was reportedly enhancing the healing of fractures and in keeping with the lower standards of evidence for our devices.
This device has been licensed for use on the basis of some evidence – not convincing, not strong. These are not high quality studies. It is based on the enhanced radial x-ray healing of fractures and the company then said, “We think our device is great. Let’s get some randomized trials strong and randomised trial evidence about the effect of the device.”
So, we arranged. We made a deal with the company. Jason W. Busse was leading the trial. He set up a randomized trial of this ultrasound device. We got some funding from the industry. We got some funding from the Canadian Institute of Health Research. So, off we go, we are doing our trial, early on when we were doing the trial.
Jason did a systematic review of all the evidence that was available thus far. The evidence said, “We are not so sure of this radiological healing. There is no evidence at all that anybody functionally benefits from this. Because if your x-ray looks better, and if you cannot walk sooner or have less pain or something like this, who cares if the x-ray looks better?”
We published this in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), this review. The company was not thrilled. In fact, Jason was the first author of this. The company told Mohit, “We want nothing more to do with Jason, get rid of this Jason. He has stabbed us in the back.”
However, Jason was the principal investigator in the study. We were not going to Jettison Jason. So, although, the company did not want in on meetings and so on. Anyway Jason continued to lead the trial. So, usually with these studies, we are committed to go to the end to get as definitive an answer as possible.
We do not go looking at the data partway. However, the company had access to the data part way. They looked at the data. They find nothing good is happening. They say, “Let’s stop the trial.”
So, we fought with them. We managed to continue longer than we would otherwise. However, eventually, they stopped the trial, but not before we would have enrolled 500 patients. That was enough to get a reasonable conclusion.
Then we did not get the complete follow up. Some because they stopped it, but not bad. So, the trial is finished. No benefit whatsoever either on fracture healing or on function in the patients. One of the issues was there was only about 70% or 80% compliance with the device not bad.
What about in terms of what you would expect out in the real world anyway, they obviously did not get the result. So, the first thing, they made all sorts of arguments about how we should present the results.
Either the results said that this compliance was so low, it is not a problem or there is a subgroup that benefits. Anyway, we went through a prolonged discussion about that. We said, “No, sorry, there are not any subgroups who benefit from this device as far as we can tell. It does not do any good.”
So, they tried. They delayed us. They threatened us all with a couple of years between when we would have had to publish and when we published. Because of all their obstruction and so on. Then, of course, they fund going to meetings and say, “Do not pay any attention to this trial and so on.”
But eventually, we published that in the British Medical Journal. In addition, we have another initiative that tries to get ground-breaking evidence that might be practiced, changing out to clinicians as soon as possible.
Then we published one of these rapid recommendations about do not use this ultrasound along with the trial. So, that was an adventure.
Jacobsen: Thanks for the opportunity, anytime.
Guyatt: A pleasure.
We conducted an extensive interview for In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal before: here, here, here, here, here, and here. We have other interviews in Canadian Atheist (here and here), Canadian Science (here), Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, News Intervention (here and here), and The Good Men Project (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/07/02
Professor Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc, FRCP, OC is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
The British Medical Journal or BMJ had a list of 117 nominees in 2010 for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Guyatt was short-listed and came in second-place in the end. He earned the title of an Officer of the Order of Canada based on contributions from evidence-based medicine and its teaching.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and a Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2015. He lectured on public vs. private healthcare funding in March of 2017, which seemed a valuable conversation to publish in order to have this in the internet’s digital repository with one of Canada’s foremost academics.
For those with an interest in standardized metrics or academic rankings, he is the 14th most cited academic in the world in terms of H-Index at 240 and has a total citation count of more than 247,000. That is, he probably has among the highest H-Indexes, of any Canadian academic living or dead.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When it comes to some of the issues with regards to bleeding in hospitals, what are the forms of being in hospitals that you have looked into?
Distinguished Professor Gordon Guyatt: The main areas that we have explored have been two major ones. One is bleeding related to surgery and the other is bleeding in the intensive care units. So, those are the major ones. The bleeding, the bleeding in surgery, has been the reason we have been interested in it because it is related to prevention of thrombosis.
There are two major forms of thrombosis. One is in the venous system. So, the veins that bring blood back to the heart. Clots in the veins in the legs is a common problem. It is a problem when people sit around and do not move. So, it is a post-surgical problem. As a result, it has been now routine in many forms of surgery. Any surgery that involves prolonged mobilization of any sort to give anticoagulants or anti-platelet agents.
Anticoagulants, the clotting system platelets are a little thing circulating in the blood that get the clotting process started and drugs like aspirin inhibit the platelets. Then we have anticoagulants that inhibit the clotting system.
So, we give these to people around surgery to prevent clots, but, unfortunately, anything that prevents clots causes bleeding. We also are worried about clots on the arterial side, so the most awful consequences of clots in the arterial side are strokes.
So, lots of people, lots and lots of people, around the world are using medication to prevent clots on the arterial side. People prevent it. People with heart attacks are, sometimes, using three medications to prevent clots. People who have strokes are using anti-platelet agents to prevent further strokes.
So, there are lots of people walking around taking these things. All of them increase bleeding. In the peri-operative setting, when people come into hospital, they are taking these medications to reduce thrombosis clots on the arterial side. The question is, “Should they continue through surgery or should they not continue through surgery?”
So, I have been involved in work around this tradeoff between bleeding and clotting in patients undergoing surgery.
Jacobsen: Canada has an older population than many places in the world. How does this factor into that as a consideration? People as they get older are more likely to get surgery.
Gordon Guyatt: Yes, a couple of things. First, Canada has an older population than developed countries, but they are compared to what are called developing countries or low income countries. However, it has a younger population than, for instance, Japan and Europe.
So, we are far from the oldest of the oldest. However, our populations have been getting older. People are living longer. Lifespan is increasing. Not only older people need more surgery, but we are doing surgery on older people than twenty years ago.
We would not have been doing surgery on them, simply because we would have said, “Sorry, you are too old. We almost, almost can do it.” It is rare that we say, “You are too old to anybody now.”
We are certainly doing surgery on people in their 90s. We would not have been doing that before. So, we do not turn down people who need surgery because of age much anymore. So, and clearly, the older you are, the more you are at risk of bad things happening, be they clots or bleeding.
Jacobsen: So, when it comes to the types of medications, what are some of the standard medications? What are some of the risks associated with that?
Gordon Guyatt: Commonly, aspirin is a good agent for decreasing clotting, but it is also a good agent for increasing bleeding. So, that is one. Then there is another class of drugs. Another class of anti-platelet agents, of which examples are Lipitor.
These are even more potent anti-platelet agents than is the aspirin. Then there are anticoagulants for many years’ including Warfarin or Coumadin. It was the only anticoagulant around. But in the last decade, we now have a whole army of new anticoagulants that have a major advantage from warfarin.
You needed to check the level of anti-coagulation in the blood all the time, regularly. With these new anticoagulants, you do not have to do it. You can check it. So, they have these convenience antigens.
So, these are the major drugs we are using in terms of preventing clots but causing bleeding.
Jacobsen: What is the statistical difference when someone does use an anticoagulant as opposed to when they do not – or at least when you use different ones over another or none? What are the comparative statistics in terms of the bleeding rates that would be a concern?
Gordon Guyatt: So, typically, anti-platelet agents increase or individually increase bleeding less than the anticoagulants. However, if you are taking two of them together, you are getting to a bleeding risk that might be similar to the anticoagulants.
Jacobsen: Okay, where you are going to be taking this research at present or in the future?
Gordon Guyatt: Oh! It is interesting. All sorts of things are interesting to us. It might not be interesting to other people. But one thing, there has been a huge evolution in the way people have been treating patients around surgery.
We are mobilizing much less quickly. So, this has been most dramatic in the case of hip and knee replacements, where people usually sit around. They gave them plenty of time to develop nice clots that would kill them, when the clots develop in the leg. Then they break off into the heart, into the lungs.
But the mobilized surgical technique is getting better. Now, we are getting more people out of bed right after their surgery getting them to walk around as soon as possible. It has markedly decreased the risk of clotting after surgery.
So, this question, “Do we need any of this?” So, for instance, the standard is to give an anticoagulant for up to a month after a hip replacement. However, it is not at all clear that this is necessary anymore. As a matter of fact, I am getting a hip replacement. I am going to walk.
I expect to be getting out of bed and walking around on day one. If I am lucky, I want to use an anticoagulant, aspirin, which is less effective against clotting but also causes less bleeding.
I am going to talk to my surgeon, but I am going to be using aspirin. So, because I am going to get myself up, it hurts, but I am going to walk. I am going to decrease my risk of clotting. So, that is the evolution of what is happened around surgery.
So, it is changing the way we think about things.
Jacobsen: I want to give a decades long perspective or even half century perspective to people reading this.
Gordon Guyatt: 50 years ago, people would die of their clocks. Maybe, it was same after heart attacks. Maybe, going back 60 or 70 years, we used to think it was all you. I had a heart attack. You better rest, you better stay in bed for a while. Anyway, the result was people developing all these clots and dying on their Venous Thromboembolism (VTE).
Then we decided that is not such a good idea. Now, we are getting people up. We can even be more aggressive in getting people up than we have it now. We do not have people sit around. Then maybe 40 years ago, people were still sitting around longer than we would think reasonable now.
People said, “Okay, we are the people developing all these clots. We better prevent them.” Then all of the prevention strategies came in. Now, we are saying, “Okay, got people out and maybe, we do not have to be so aggressive about preventing the clots as mobilizing. They will decrease.”
Jacobsen: Now, you gave a side comment there. You would be more aggressive. Ideally, what would be moving your most aggressive stance in terms of getting people out?
Gordon Guyatt: I am not sure. I am not sure that we cannot have people walking around the wards on the same day; they are having their heart attack, but, maybe, that is being too, maybe, aggressive.
Jacobsen: What would be a response from someone within the field to that recommendation?
Gordon Guyatt: Oh my goodness, you are having a heart attack. Please give the person a day’s rest anyway.
Jacobsen: Let’s project this project this 10 year forward, it is with things that you would know better than most of people, in terms of whether it is a new set of drugs or new evidence in terms of practice. For example, we can take on board: same day getting up, for instance, after a heart attack. What would things look in 10 years from now? Approximately.
Gordon Guyatt: It is difficult. We get surprised. So, I do not know what is going to happen in terms of drug development. I am no expert on what is the latest, even now, in what is going on in drug development.
So, a small thing that we are thinking now. One of the trials we would first is asking the question, “Do you need any anticoagulants at all?” However, if you are going to give it the traditional methodology, you would give it right after surgery.
However, the big bleeding risk is in the 48 hours after surgery, maybe 72 hours, the first day. The most in the second day, after that, the bleeding risk falls off. But the thrombosis risk goes on for a month.
So, if you are going to give anti-thrombic agents, maybe, you should wait for a couple of days before you start. On the other hand, maybe, those days are crucial in terms of setting the stage for clots that happen later.
We do not know. So, that is one of the things that I would want to sort out if you are going to use anticoagulants in surgical situations that are higher risk. When should they start? So, perhaps, one way is to view it as a trivial question, but, potentially important, in terms of minimizing bleeding risk while still getting the benefits of clot reduction.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Professor Guyatt.
We conducted an extensive interview for In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal before: here, here, here, here, here, and here. We have other interviews in Canadian Atheist (here and here), Canadian Science (here), Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, News Intervention, and The Good Men Project (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/30
Professor Gordon Guyatt, MD, MSc, FRCP, OC is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact and Medicine at McMaster University. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
The British Medical Journal or BMJ had a list of 117 nominees in 2010 for the Lifetime Achievement Award. Guyatt was short-listed and came in second-place in the end. He earned the title of an Officer of the Order of Canada based on contributions from evidence-based medicine and its teaching.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012 and a Member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2015. He lectured on public vs. private healthcare funding in March of 2017, which seemed a valuable conversation to publish in order to have this in the internet’s digital repository with one of Canada’s foremost academics.
For those with an interest in standardized metrics or academic rankings, he is the 14th most cited academic in the world in terms of H-Index at 240 and has a total citation count of more than 247,000. That is, he probably has among the highest H-Indexes, of any Canadian academic living or dead.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, you have some areas of more applied research as opposed to guideline research. One of them deals with non-cardiac surgery leading to heart problems or creating extra problems. What is going on there?
Distinguished Professor Gordon Guyatt: So, first, to acknowledge that one of the guys who trained with me, he has now become an international research superstar. I am privileged to be working with him. His name is P.J. Devereux. He works at our institution here at McMaster University. He has become by far the leading worldwide investigator.
Jacobsen: What about the work that he’s done? Where is it going?
Guyatt: So, the first thing was that he recognized. There was a problem that we had not paid of attention to, and that problem is people undergoing surgery – not for their heart. So, they get a hip replacement. They get a colonoscopy. They may have a gall bladder problem. They have surgery for an ulcer. They have surgery for cancer.
All these non-cardiac surgeries. More and more, we do these surgeries in older people. So, in the past, if you were 90 years old, no way anybody would think of doing a hip replacement. Nowadays, 90-year-olds get hip replacements, appropriately, if they are active.
So, the population in whom we do surgery is older than it used to be, we do more extensive surgery. So, Albert Einstein died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Everybody knew he had an aneurysm. Nobody could do anything about it. Today, we have major surgery for people with ruptured aneurysms. We replaced their aorta the biggest blood vessel in the body. They do okay.
Jacobsen: Wow!
Gordon Guyatt: So, whereas, we are taking older people and with bigger surgery. The result of all that is some people have described it as a major surgery. That the stress it puts your body through is like running a marathon.
If you are 70-years-old and sedentary, that is probably not going to be such a great thing to suddenly be running a marathon. So, what happens is people have cardiac complications, heart attacks, they die of their heart attacks.
So, this non-cardiac surgery is the cardiac complications of non-cardiac surgery are a huge worldwide problem. It was a neglected problem, not too many people paid much attention to it. Dr. Devereux came along. He has a suspicion. The first thing he noticed as he checked it out. He was suspecting is that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
The reason we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg was you go in and have surgery afterward and after surgery you come out; you your body has been assaulted in this major way. Inevitably, you have pain. You are given major pain-killers, narcotics.
They put you to sleep for a couple of days. You get through it. However, if you have had a heart attack during those couple of days, you may not have noticed it because you were under the narcotic. Then Aspirin was never the last. You suffer from the consequences of that heart attack, maybe even die from a cardiac arrhythmia of the heart.
The heart is not beating regularly or you end up with heart failure with your heart not pumping properly. You are short of breath. Your activities go down, and so on.
So, nowadays, we have what we call cardiac enzymes. So, when you have a heart attack, when your heart tissue dies because a blood vessel has closed off, the heart releases these enzymes. We can measure them sensitively nowadays.
What Dr. Devereux found out, we were missing 80 percent of the heart attacks. 80 percent of the heart attacks because the people were too sedated to tell us they were having one. So, normally, you are walking around. I have got chest pain. Right, so, you go to emergency. We do a cardiogram.
We check your enzymes. We say, “Yes, you are having a heart attack.” We might do emergency putting in of a stent in one of your blood vessels and giving drugs, and so on and so forth.
What happens when you have these narcotics after surgery, you are not awake enough to say, “Oh, I am having chest pain.” Nobody notices, nobody does the enzymes. Nobody notices that you’ve had a heart attack.
So, the first thing that Dr. Devereux did is he started looking to measure the enzymes after people had non-cardiac surgery. He found that we are missing 80 percent of the heart attacks. So, that was a big deal.
So, now, the world is changing its practice as we speak in response to Dr. Devereux’s work. Now, people are starting to look, but we do not know what to do with those heart attacks. They are different from the heart attacks coming through the emergency room.
So, 70s with a heart attack. What do we do? We could treat them the way we do. The people coming to emerge, but we were not so sure about it anyway. Devereux ‘s latest study has shown that giving these people anticoagulants thinning blood thinners, as we call them, after their non-cardiac surgery reduces their major cardiac events.
It strongly suggests that we should be giving aspirin, for instance; that we give it to people with heart attacks in the emergency room after you’ve had these heart attacks after cardiac surgery. He is in the start of his program.
We will be thinking of how to prevent these heart attacks. He’s already done one of his first studies showing that a drug that everybody thought would prevent heart attacks, prevented the heart attacks, but caused strokes.
It, in fact, probably increased deaths, which is not such a good idea. So, he’s leading the world in this work. Eventually, it is changing worldwide practice. In the end, people are going to do much better in terms of not having heart attacks or having them treated properly, when they have non-cardiac surgery.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Professor Guyatt.
We conducted an extensive interview for In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal before: here, here, here, here, here, and here. We have other interviews in Canadian Atheist (here and here), Canadian Science (here), Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Conatus News, Humanist Voices, and The Good Men Project (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/15
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar is the founder of Ideas Beyond Borders and Bayt Al-Hikma 2.0, Global Secular Humanist Movement. He is an Iraqi refugee, satirist, and human rights activist. He is also a columnist for Free Inquiry. Here, we continue to talk about the recent work.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is new? What is new within the mission and mandate of Ideas Beyond Borders?
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: There are many things. I want to focus on a few. We have assembled a team of editors and translators to make many of the articles that were not available to be available on Wikipedia.
Only a small portion of the articles are available in Arabic, for a language spoken by more than 400 million people. We have successfully moved the Arabic language to the 16th. There is a lot of work to be done.
But I am confident in the team that is constantly growing. We have translated roughly one million words in less than 6 months. We have a team from all over the region who constantly are trying to fill in the missing elements or information.
That the closed societies try to deal with. We have secured a partnership with Wikimedia Levant. Wikimedia is the mother of Wikipedia and other projects. In partnerships with other wikis, we are able to issue certificates, so that they can advance in their own career.
That element of empowerment that we deal with. On other subjects, on the books, we have translated roughly 10 so far. We are acquiring more and more to be released in our digital library. It is designed by the company of WordPress itself, which has generously featured us in their campaign for doing anything.
For people interested, they have listed IBB as one of their success stories. They have designed our website. They are also designing our library website, which is Bayt al-Hikma 2.0. It will be where there will be most of the content in terms of books.
People can also go to IBB Wikipedia to see the list of articles translated and are translating. It is constantly growing. We are tapping it, to start new programs and features and more stories of some of the heroes – I would say.
Those who are on the day-to-day basis fighting extremism, not necessarily with a gun. They are sharing a positive counternarrative that is enlightening and counter to the way the extremists tell us how the world is going badly – and the only way to change it is via extremist ideology.
It is why we are glad to have Stephen Pinker in the Advisory Board, who is about the counternarrative. It is Enlightenment values and a positive outlook. That the world is getting much better than the extremists show.
2018 was a tremendous year. It was a year of foundation, of trying to figure out who is who, building relationships, building partnerships, and so on. I see 2019 as the year of growth and constantly trying to expand our team, expand our network, expand our impact.
Our page grows roughly 1,000 likes a day. We have multiple social media managers working all across the region. Today, I got the statistics. We have roughly 5,000 likes from Iraq, 10,000 from Algeria, 7,000 from Egypt. We have an impact all across the world.
That impact is constantly increasing. I am pretty happy. This year is going to be the year of creating more content. As we also continue to do more on the ground, we have campus programs from last year expanding from the east coast to the west coast.
We are partnering in the creation of workshops. Those are trying to fight extremism through culture, through arts, through positive ideas. Stephen Pinker on the AB said that ideas can change the world.
Extremism is an idea. It can change the world. We are trying to counter the narrative with a positive image. I am pretty excited about what is coming.
Jacobsen: If we are looking at the global threat of extremism and terrorism, according to the 2016 UN Arab Human Development Report within the IBB Annual Report 2018, what does this indicate about the Middle East-North Africa region and work IBB does in terms of education and other means?
Al Mutar: The development report is an important element. It is why we mentioned it in the report. For a region that is very small, it is a source of constant conflicts. It has produced a lot of attacks and a lot of refugees.
On The Rubin Report, I said, “The Middle East is like Las Vegas, but happens in the Middle East doesn’t say in the Middle East.”
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Al Mutar: What helped as a pre-requisite, it is the language. It is helpful. We are developing these educational projects because many of the wars launched against the region have been dealing with the iceberg.
Some have been dealing, even with the region defeat of ISIS, with a lot. I definitely celebrate the defeat. But the environment that permits groups like ISIS to exist is still there. The issue of extremism is multilayered, so is the issue of extremism.
It is multilayered, so is the issue of terrorism. The ideological and ideas element is important. That is why I think we can have the most impact by making the ideas of the Enlightenment accessible in that region.
Russia has its narrative in the Arab world. The extremists have their narrative in the Arab world. There is no institutionalized narrative of Enlightenment in the Arab world. I think that is what IBB can do. That is what we have been successful in doing over the past year.
I think we will continue to do that.
Jacobsen: In terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 speaks to freedom of expression, which is more general than freedom of speech – especially in an international context.
How does arguing for freedom of expression as one of the most important rights stop the spread of extremism?
Al Mutar: That is a very good question. There is a distinction, in my mind, between conversation and violence. When conversation stops, violence, in general, is the only outlet that people use to justify the spread of their ideas and ideals.
If you look at many of the countries with censorship across the Middle East, you will see this in many extremist groups. Because when you censor or kill anybody who disagrees with you, as many of these dictatorships do, extremists and the people who do not care about life.
They will the only people to show disagreement and most often violently. We take freedom of speech for granted in the Western world. Even though, it is being challenged here. We always have to remember that the element of freedom of expression and combatting censorship in that part of the world.
It is an extreme element of combatting extremism. When people find a way to express themselves through outlets and newspapers, there can always be differences of opinion. I do not think people go to violence as the first route.
I often think violence is the last resort. I think most issues can be resolved through conversation. It might be heated. It could be the dislike between people with different opinions. But I think the resort to violence will be much less if we allow all the other options for democratic participation.
People with the right to freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of thought. I was, recently, in a conversation with a representative from a Syrian group in Iraq. He was telling me for ages. Many of their Syrians have existed peacefully in Iraq. But many of them, because of the conflict, are picking up arms to defend themselves.
When there was a peaceful situation in which people were considered citizens and then there were no attacks against them, one of the oldest groups in Iraq have existed in peace and never resorted to violence.
Now, they are doing it, forming militias. When there is a conversation, when human rights are respected, when civil societies can participate and protect rights and advocate for these rights, then, definitely, something positive can happen here. It is a counter to extremism.
Jacobsen: What would be the biggest thing IBB can do, and other individuals and groups can support IBB in doing, in 2019 to further the advancement of the Article 19 right to freedom of expectation from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in addition to the empowerment of individuals on the ground in the Middle East-North Africa region who may not have access to rights and the information that people, such as ourselves, simply have as a privilege?
Al Mutar: One of the main things that we’re incorporating as part of our growth is building a global network. Building a global network has a lot of positives in which a lot of other people try to help other people achieve their goals, as I say, one of the main elements of IBB is the institutionalization and building the network.
There are many missing elements in the ideas world. There are many individuals working by themselves. They are not getting enough advice. Having one institution, it is allowing things to grow. As you can see, our AB is constantly growing.
This is in addition to the ambassadors and employees. All of these people, they work together. Everybody can play a major role, whether they can donate their skills within the getting involved section of our website or in donating money.
I think building the network is what makes IBB helpful. It is what has been missing in most of these networks. There have never been any successful attempts to bring a network together. I think IBB is doing this already.
I think it will do this successful more and more. I have seen more and more people from the region getting involved.
Jacobsen: If we look at individuals such as Malala Yousafzai, and other human rights activists, what is the importance of women coming forward and adding their voices and being given platforms to add their voices to this progressive work, human rights activism, and advancement of freedom of expression in the Middle East-North Africa region?
Al Mutar: Very good question, I think it is important. There is an Arab proverb that comes from poetry. If we empower women, then we empower the next generation. Women are also not just mothers. But they are also teachers, doctors, and all of that.
If you look at one of the main things that extremists have been trying to express across the Middle East, they are the number one victim of extremism. One of the major conversations happening right now in Afghanistan is what would a Taliban return to Afghanistan look like.
Many people who have been writing articles and advocating the Taliban is women. Because they would be denied human rights by these terrorist organizations. Malala being one from the region. There are also many others across not just the Arab world but the Muslim world, even the whole world. It is to be involved, as a message, and organized.
I think IBB is definitely playing a role in that. Also, in terms of getting more people to know about these ideas, there are several issues in the region, because of the existence of patriarchy in the Muslim world. Males have to be educated.
Within our translation project, it counters some of these elements within societies. It is exposing many people across the region to the idea of women’s rights, human rights, and civil rights, too. We have done multiple campaigns about that.
These societies will start to become more open. Women, hopefully, will be beneficiaries of it. I think it is their fight as much as our fight as well. That struggle is the struggle against extremism.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faisal.
Al Mutar: Thank you, Scott!
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/06/01
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Please let us know a bit about your personal background…
Tarek Fatah: I was born in Karachi, which is now Pakistan. It used to be the capital of the part of British India. I grew up there. I went to a Catholic School. I went to college over there. I went to prison over there. I got thrown out from Pakistan television in 1979.
It was a charge of sedition or treason, but formally “sedition.” I spent about 10 years in Saudi Arabia doing advertising. I have spent 30 years now in Canada, living one day at a time, watching things go down the drain.
Jacobsen: Over those 30 years, in reflection, based on the phrase, “Going down the drain,” can you unpack that for us, please?
Tarek Fatah: When I came here in 1987, you had leaders like Jean Chretien, Brian Mulroney, Joe Clark, the Quebec Separatists, the BQ. Everything was discussed was political in nature, whether the Oka Crisis or otherwise.
It was about ideas across social, political, and economic issues. Mr. Broadbent from Oshawa had one aspect. Mr. Mulroney had a different one. Mr. Clark had a different one. The British Columbians had a viewpoint. Over the last 30 years, it has descended into a very low standard of leadership, where ethnic vote banks have risen.
There always used to be. The Orange Order would determine who ran Toronto. The Catholics must live North of a certain street in Toronto [Laughing]. I used to get bashed by the Orange Order. The Jews got beaten up in a very famous place, a park in Toronto.
All that aside, most were small. It came down to the idea of this as a battle of ideas. All the concepts settled down into a balance, then came the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now, the ideas do not matter anymore.
The background matters more, “I am proud to be from Latvia.” What does that mean?!
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Tarek Fatah: Everyone is proud to be a Lithuanian. How does it matter between Bolivian, and an Ecuadorian, or an Indian and a Pakistani? But the crafty manner, the dumbest of political activists manipulated the nominated system of the political party candidates.
To be very honest, a white person cannot get nominated from any part of Mississauga or Brampton. White people do not have tribes anymore. So, the Sikhs can get anyone elected, even anyone as right-wing as Jagmeet Singh.
By “right-wing,” his thinks in terms of religion. It means he is medieval rather than right-wing and can pose as a left-wing activist. He can afford to say, “Who said what to whom about white supremacy?”
Now, it is the latest. He can become the leader of the NDP. In 1988, can you imagine Broadbent stepping down and being replaced by Jagmeet Singh or Brian Mulroney being replaced by Mr. Scheer who has no personality?
Or the Conservative Party leader who has become a leader in Brampton. You simply must have props with you, to look more exotic. People like me are like circus animals. We need to stand behind politicians. You are younger than me.
You would not know that there was never a time to stand behind politicians as props and not look someone in the face and cheering him. That is the norm today! You have been selected to sit or stand at the back of the person speaking without watching their face and getting enamoured. That is dumb! – Capital D.
That’s where we are today. The mayor of the City of Toronto does not know about the major issue of the Saudi woman landing in her city. He does not know which vote bank to get. It is hilarious.
You can do the Oka Crisis today. You would not know who to deal with. It is like the pipeline. The band councils think it is fine. Then you find out about the other issue o the heritage treaties. No one is interested in factual issues.
It is how you cajole how you were born. The disgrace has been that ideas went away for my DNA. It means a person cannot speak, cannot have ideas. We have dropped that way in 30 years before my eyes.
I ran for politics on the NDP ticket. I voted NDP most of my life. I cannot imagine voting for someone who thinks hair is the most important thing to them in a turban. I cannot say that. What I would be, anti-Sikh?
A high percentage of the Sikhs do not wear turbans. Similarly, I cannot be taken as a Muslim because I am not ugly enough to be considered Muslim so far. To be a Muslim, I must have a beard, no moustaches.
The moment I do that. I will have MPs standing next to me. I can put on a guttural accent. We cannot even stand up and say that a burqa is a disgrace on the face of women. We cannot say that. I can say that. Nobody else can say that.
The layers of the burqa. Someone asked me if it was a choice. I said, “Next time some drug addict walks into a train. You say, ‘Oh, he made a choice. It is a democracy!'” When someone wants to commit suicide, back in Toronto, they made a choice.
A person who disguises a persona, not showing their face, is being tolerated. Because otherwise, you would be called a racist. Nobody wants to be a racist. This is what we are facing as crises.
Jacobsen: If we are looking at the growth of arguments dependent on identity, something that someone was not merited with; they were born with it. It is congenital rather than acquired in this sense.
With this, it makes conversations more difficult, more fraught, and, in the phrase, as if one is ‘walking on eggshells.’ How does this prevent, as you are noting and getting at, more serious political conversations and social dialogues?
Tarek Fatah: We are at war. There is a world war ongoing between international Islamism and secular liberal Western democracy. Effectively, the enemy, which is essentially The Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, or ISIS, there are 50 different bodies that are enemy Muslims within our countries.
They can shut us down. It has become the story. A Muslim woman who is a young student refused to go to the prom but is perfectly happy to become the wife of the jihadis under ISIS. The places like Tunisia have tens of thousands of pregnant women coming back after willingly, accepting, that rape by jihadis as an act of worship.
It is half of a million dead in Syria. They cannot seem to figure out that what we own today has been inherited by those who worked in the far North over 200-300 years ago. They would lay down their workers who did not have central heating.
When people say, “I pay my taxes.” Those assets were invested by people who did not have running water. I lived in a neighbourhood called Cabbagetown in Toronto. It is not a joke there. People over there literally grow cabbages in their front yards.
That is what their food was, Irish, and others. Other than getting beat up by the Orange Order. They made food to make liberal democracy what it is today, especially after the Second World War. The idea of individual liberty got embedded in the United Nations 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This is core to civilization. It is the crystallization of Britain, France, and the United States. Even after Osama Bin Laden comes in a burqa, we say, “Who could that be behind it? Is it a bank robber?” You cannot say it. But that guy wears a leather jacket and rides a motorbike.
Therefore, we better take him down. That is how stupid we are. To sum, we are going downhill. Unless, we recognize the idea that our enemies are in philosophy in a way. The fighting of Nazis before fighting the Nazis.
As with the First World War, how many millions died? We still have not learned. We keep going back to the same thing. 17 times a day, Jews are cursed in Muslim prayer. Every mosque.
It is the opening prayer of Islam. Surah Al-Fatiha, “The path of those on whom You have bestowed your grace, not (the way) of those who have earned Your anger, nor of those who went astray.” [Not the one used, I had trouble finding it, and hearing it properly.]
It is the opening thing. Now, if the mullahs say, ‘We denounce the hadiths.” It becomes a different story. Then it becomes, “Well, the short and straight path,” but not the path of the murderer, of the pedophile, of the smuggler. Right?
But when you publicly say one thing when the microphone is on, then someone asks. You say, “Brother, it is the Jews.” Every Muslim knows that this is going on. On Fridays, we literally pray to Allah to give Muslims the better treatment over the kafirun. That is, you, the kafir.
Nobody is coming to speak out against it, and saying, “Don’t spread hate. We will not finance you with taxpayer money.” The cooperation of the government is funding a situation. There are the issues of anti-Semitism in the 1930s. They would rather have that conversation.
We are focusing on the Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays, and so on. Everyone wearing the same hat. The gladiators who are coming home, the BBQ. People are laughing at us. There is nobody in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, who believes 9/11 happened.
There is nobody. I can tell you 90% of Canadian Muslims, in my community, who openly say, “5,000 Jews didn’t die.” As soon as you ask them, “Do you condemn it?” They say, “Yes, it is very bad.” They say one thing in one context and another thing in another context.
The leaders, no one believes anyone unless they are a Saudi style or other dress. They see this as the Islam way. Most of what is Islam has no relation to any Islamic ideology. There were Muslims before the Quran was written.
There were Muslims who did things before fasting, praying, and the like. How did they become Muslims? The Quran is not a chronological order in which it was revealed. But we shall make you memorize it. It makes it hard to learn. The mullah says, “You do not have read the book in Arabic.”
Because many have memorized it. We can not go back. Because the people who have memorized it will fail the test.
Jacobsen: Right [Laughing].
Tarek Fatah: They have memorized it in an order, which is incorrect. Something fundamental to Islam is no priest class. There is nothing between yourself and the divine. The Pope, the priest, the rabbi, the mullah, this was an attraction; you were free.
The some said, “The Christians have a good thing going. They have a Dome.” This is how this came. There was no Dome in Islam. It was the Eastern Orthodox. The Sikhs took it, too. It is an Eastern Orthodox Church replica from Damascus.
What I am saying, it is historically accurate, but, from the Islamic point of view, blasphemy. To save ourselves from blasphemy, we have been becoming dumber and dumber, day by day.
Jacobsen: By which you mean, more historically illiterate in its development and history.
Tarek Fatah: I have never met an illiterate radical Muslim. 80% of Muslims still cannot read or write. You will never find a terrorist who cannot read or write. It means all jihadis and others come from the educated class.
When Malala says, “Give me a book, give me a book,” nothing! The moment you read the book; you become crazy because you have enemies. You realize, “Th computer, I have nothing to with it. The light, no! The chair, no!” There is no contribution to our community to any invention in the last 200 years.
What do we have? We have the 8th century to look up to. So, should we move forward or put the car in reverse gear? Then we complain. Gear number one should be forward. The Sun does not set in a rule of mud.
It is not fair. I have seen it. Why would I believe in scholars who believe the world was flat? Can some imam ride a bicycle in the 8th century or 9th century? I can; therefore, I am better than him. Just because he had a guttural accent and a long name, a name that never ends.
Who is he? There are 17 diverse types of the same guy. Tell that to a Pakistani, they will say, “Tarek is lying.” Why? Because that person has the imam telling them. Because Islam came to ordinary men from the priests.
Islam’s last verse – it is very interesting – or the last words of the revelation are “I have completed the faith for you.” The Arabs said, “No, no, no.” 100% of the text has been written after supposedly God said, “Today, I have finished everything.”
By the way, what I am discussing with you, there is no place on Earth that this can be discussed.
Jacobsen: Any thoughts on the larger conversation around a single secular public-school system?
Tarek Fatah: It must be. When you started with the Catholic school system, it began some of the vote banks. Then the Indians and the others started their own. Thank goodness for Father [did not get name], who is in his 90s.
He helped us. I did not know that. We learned that there was a subject about character building. We learned how a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew lived together. They are no longer in Pakistan. We learned what was geography, history, mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, and, also, we had character building, where ethics and morals were taught to us.
We were supposed to write about character. We had a thing about doing one good deed a day. It did not matter what. My patrol leader was Catholic. The real victims were the Muslims who were willing to become American aid and tanks, and money, to become the foot soldiers of the United States.
Because the Serbs did not want to fight the Soviets after Vietnam. With Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan have been ruined now, Iran with Khomeini, The Americans got in there. It is not as if Khomeini was with the USSR.
The Americans overthrew the elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. He was socialist. It was people sitting in the House of Representatives [Laughing]. If we do not wake up, we might survive – secular democracy and liberalism, and ethics in government by humanity rather than ordered by the divine.
We can get religion as a moral compass. We can get our guidance. I am not going to get guidance necessarily. I am not a copy. I do not think God wanted me to tell people what to do in their backyard, “No pig rolls there!”
Jacobsen: How do we shift this conversation from where, typically, someone’s own religion is seen as universal into a situation in which humanity is seen as the universal and religion is seen as a flavour – so to speak – or the particulars of that universal?
Tarek Fatah: You cannot change this overnight. Muslims will be 2 billion soon. Most Muslim imams think that the more Muslims there are the better. 1 billion was not enough. So, they want 2 billion [Laughing]. The only way to do this is to separate religion and state public policy and public life.
You cannot respect someone for being stupid. He has a right. She has a right to be an idiot. You are not asking anyone to take away that right. But to fund it?! You give tax breaks to someone who is cursing Jews. Do you see this?
Can you imagine someone having a memorial for Hitler? India has memorials for Muslim invaders that destroyed their cities! I am visiting India very soon. The holiest place in India is the confluence of three rivers.
Every 12 years when Jupiter and Earth are in line; there is a festival. I have calculated that this could be my last time to visit it, as I am 70. I will 82 next time. I better visit this place now. The holiest place in Hinduism. Guess its name?
Allahabad [Laughing], they put “Allah” right in the name.
Over here, the invaders came here, took over the holiest city, named it after their God, and then said, “Anyone who changes it is against India.” Give me another example of it. So, it only stems when people either lose self-respect, which I think many Canadians are losing.
They are losing self-respect. They are embarrassed. They do not know what their parents left for them. They did not get it by working hard. Your parents’ generation is responsible for the Charter or the UN Declaration and the concept of individual liberty and the concept of the man and the woman, the respect for the child, the court system that says that you are innocent until proven guilty.
These are new things. It used to be that you are guilty until you are proven innocent. We, as a civilization, turned this around. We are tolerating a king that killed Turkey. We are calling him a reformer. A murder takes place in a sovereign country.
As soon as Trump got in, he is only a one-term president. What is going to do? It is for the businesses. This is the level at which we have sunk to here. Kudos to our prime minister, I am not much of a liker of the Liberals. But Trudeau gave a kick and stood up; it hurt the Saudis. I salute him for it.
There is one woman. Chrystia Freeland said, “I am getting this girl, giving her citizenship, and making sure that she has full protection. This is Canada.”
Jacobsen: When we look at the literalists in every tradition or the fundamentalists in the secular and in the ideologies, most of the violent offenders, of those literalist fundamentalist interpreters of a faith, which is not necessarily an interpretation, are men.
Why are men more often attracted to these kinds of interpretations – so to speak – or these ideologies?
Tarek Fatah: Men and women are very different, constructed in very different ways. I just bought a book on it. The thought processes are different. The entire biologies are different. Women create people. We create a mess. They are supposed to clean it up.
Therefore, you do not have as many female warriors. They are in the business of nurturing. I am strictly speaking of the biology and the neuroscience. They are wired differently; the female brain is different. You also must understand that the mobility issues for women were being locked up.
A woman could not go about a month’s travel without a problem. On a horse, probably, she had to sit cross-legged. A major development in women’s independence was the pill; I think it was the pad. I think the mobility was it. The lessened restrictedness at that time and now. Where do you go now?
There was nothing to do. This was in the 20th century. They could not do anything. Women were dependent on men. So, men have dominated and exploited and made sure that the woman does not come up. Therefore, you have polygamy, but you do not have polygyny to the same extent.
There are some places. This needs to be studied more. I am not an expert. But the main impediment in Muslim development has been, even in the Christians in this sense, polygamy, multiple wives and this means multiple heirs to the throne and multiple wars over it.
Europe, you must understand; one wife, one prince, two brothers or three brothers maximum, right? In the European empires, there were the issues of 200 princes fighting it out. I am giving you context at that level. Women, how are they subjugated? It is primarily for this reason. It will take a few hundred years for things to change.
Because this is how a gene pool happened and changed, and how certain traits were passed onto men, how we think of our sons, how we think of our daughters, and so on. Why do men go into body building? The odd woman will go to work in wrestling.
The most educated and enlightened woman still wear heels. [Laughing] Women, we saw what happened at 9/11. There were hundreds of thousands of heels left over there. The men ran and then women had to throw their stilettoes and others down, so they ran barefoot. They were impeded in running and escaping.
It is a story ongoing of dependency. It will, it will, come to a balance. In many ways, religion, the moment it goes into being a moral compass, will allow women to be free. Imagine Indian women who love to wear black shrouds voluntarily, all their lives; all their lives. That is a great challenge.
If the world cannot stand up and ban the burqa, then they are cowards.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Tarek.
Tarek Fatah: Thank you! Take care.
*This Interview has been abridged.*
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05/25
Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine Director for Human Rights Watch (Middle East and North Africa Division). Here we talk about rights and law violations, and more.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: With regards to the Israeli and Palestinian conflict or issue, there are violations of international law on both sides. When these violations happen, what are common streams of international law in this conflict? How are they consistently violated?
Omar Shakir: Because Israeli authorities have occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip since 1967, international humanitarian law applies to the situation on the ground. International humanitarian law, otherwise known as the law of war or the law of occupation, provides one layer of protection to the occupied Palestinian population.
But, of course, in addition to international humanitarian law, international human rights law applies to the Israeli authorities, but also to the Palestinian authorities vis-a-vis their own populations and vis-a-vis Israelis.
Different bodies of law will apply depending on the particular circumstances. For example, when there are armed hostilities, missiles fired back and forth between the Gaza Strip and Israel, international humanitarian would apply.
It would also perpetually apply because Palestinians are protected persons. Sometimes, a particular event might trigger a different body of law. For example, when Palestinians in Gaza are protesting or even in Ramallah are protesting, and there are Israeli forces there policing the demonstration, whether across the fence with Gaza or in Ramallah, the body of law that would govern would be human rights law because that body of law applies to policing situations.
So, different bodies of law will govern. When we’re talking about the Palestinian Authority dealing with its own citizens, for example, arrests or conditions of detention, that would be governed by international human rights law, because it is the obligations of a power that has some authority over people within its jurisdiction.
Jacobsen: For those who may hear the basic phrase of “right to self-defense,” what does this mean in the context of the conflict? How is this typically applied in the media? But then, also, how is this properly applied within a legal context?
Shakir: The UN Charter has a prohibition against using force, except as a means to self-defense. There have been different analyses over the years on what exactly constitutes self-defense. Some argue this means only attacking when one has been attacked. Others have stretched the meaning to pre-emptive attacks at different levels of distance from imminence.
There are two main governing bodies of law. There’s what you call jus ad bellum and jus in bello.
Jus ad bellum concerns the legality of using force in general. Then there is jus in bello, which governs how force is used in the context of conflict. Human Rights Watch itself focuses mostly on the latter. We don’t generally make pronouncements on whether or not war, occupation, or the beginning of hostilities is or isn’t justified.
Jus ad bellum is a body of law that’s generally been underdeveloped.
Most of our focus is on when force is used: is the use of force legitimate regardless of whether the war, occupation, or hostilities itself was justified?
Most of HRW’s focus is on research pertaining to abuse of all parties pertaining to the laws of war, which is, in essence, jus in bello versus jus ad bellum – which would concern a decision whether to go to war or ignite hostilities is itself justified.
Jacobsen: For those organizations like HRW, and others, covering several sides of the issue in terms of human rights violation and breaches of international law. You can get bad press from all sides.
You might get credit from one side for critiquing one side in terms of application and human rights violations and pointing out breaches of international law, and vice versa.
What would be a proper response to those who may be critiquing what seems to me like a very legitimate work that you’re doing in terms of having a comprehensive perspective in the application of human rights and international law?
Shakir: Certainly, one of the most common critiques of HRW in the nearly 100 countries that we operate in across the world is one side or the other claiming that we underfocused on the other side’s abuses while focusing on them. That we have a bias.
I used to cover Egypt for HRW. When we were covering the abuses of Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood when they were in power in 2012-2013, we were accused of being against them.
Then when there was a coup, and the military government was gunning down protestors and arbitrarily arresting thousands, we were accused of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is a similar pattern everywhere. Israel-Palestine, we have seen the same dynamic. The Israeli government says that we are biased against them.
When we released reports, as we have done for more than two decades, on arbitrary arrests by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, or the unlawful use of force by them, we are accused by of being part of an agenda of Israel and the United States to undermine them.
Even in the last year, we have seen accusations from both Israelis and Palestinians. I think the way to respond to that is to be methodologically consistent, to use the same tools, and to document the abuses of all parties.
That doesn’t mean that we have a ledger and then count how many reports we issued on each party’s abuses to make sure that it is equal, because human rights abusers are not equal in the amount of the abuse that they inflict on the others.
But it means that you bring the same tenacity and bring the same seriousness and rigour and approach, and use the same tools, to measure abuse, and the consistently reach the same conclusions for the same abuses in different contexts.
That’s the work that we try to do in the nearly 100 countries that we operate in, including every country in the Middle East and North Africa.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Omar.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05/21
Newsweekreported on a massive dossier, at 1,200 pages, listing several priests and seminarians who are labelled as “actively gay” in Italy alone.
This was sent to the Vatican via the archdiocese of Naples. Francesco Mangicapra created the document. He is a gay male escort and did not like the hypocrisy of the priests and decided to do something about it.
He said, “The aim is not to hurt the people mentioned, but to help them understand that their double life, however seemingly convenient, is not useful to them or to all the people for whom they should be a guide and an example to follow.”
Now, an Italian Cardinal and the Archbishop of Naples, Crescenzio Sepe, stated that none of the named priests are currently stationed in Naples. Note, this does not deny the veracity of the claims in the large dossier.
Now, this is simply adding to the pile of accusations against members of the Catholic hierarchs around the world but, this time, focused on Italy in particular.
As reported, “Last month, an Italian court issued a 14-month suspended sentence to a Vatican tribunal judge for sexual molestation and possessing child pornography. Monsignor Pietro Amenta, a judge on the Rota (a court that hears mostly family cases), was arrested last March for publicly fondling an 18-year-old man in Rome.”
With the examination of the computer, the authorities found pornographic images of the young on the person computer. Then there was a plea bargain accepted by Paloma Garcia Ovejero, Vice Director of the Vatican Press Office. In an email from the Catholic News Service, it stated that he had “resigned as the prelate auditor of the Roman Rota.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The Toronto Star reported on statements by a Canadian politician from a pro-life perspective, which created some stir and a tad of controversy.
The Progressive Conservative MPPs, according to Ford, will have the opportunities to speak as they deem fit. But the government of the province of Ontario will not touch the issue of abortion anymore.
Ford said, “I don’t dictate to anyone what their beliefs are.” This was following statements of Sam Oosterhoff of Niagara West. He spoke at a pro-life or anti-abortion rally. Those who wish deny the right of abortion to women through some measures including illegality in many, most, or all respects.
Ford continued, “Can any of my members speak their mind? Yes, they can speak their mind, because not everyone in this legislature thinks the same… We have a big tent there.”
However, Ford was clear on the orientation of the provincial government not taking part in the opening of the abortion debate any longer. Oosterhoff and others stood to applaud the statements by Ford.
The article stated, “The MPP, who was also in the news last week after his constituency office called Niagara region police on a senior citizen’s book club that was protesting library budget cuts, told the crowd of hundreds of protesters last week he will work to make abortion ‘unthinkable’ and later quoted a children’s author to explain his position.”
The children’s book author was Dr. Seuss mentioning the mattering of someone no matter their size or “how small.” Oosterhoff has been an outspoken pro-life or anti-abortion politician in his early career to date.
One concern amongst the New Democrats is that the funding for the abortion services funded by the province could be cut to some degree in the midst of budgetary cuts by the government of Ontario under the premiership of Doug Ford.
“In the PC leadership race last year, Ford raised concerns he was cosying up to social conservatives by questioning why teens need parental consent notes to go on school trips but not to get abortions,” the Toronto Star stated.
MPP Suze Morrison stated that women have taken a long fight for bodily autonomy; with the cuts to the budget, this becomes a major concern for the women who rely on the health care system in Ontario for some of the services regarding reproductive health rights, including abortion services. All remain fundamental human rights.
The denial of the rights to abortion, for one, becomes a human rights violation as this would deny the fundamental right to abortion for women. Thus, this would become a violation of the right stipulated for decades by the United Nations.
“Ford referred the question to Children and Community and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod, who noted she supported legislation passed by the previous Liberal government to have 50-metre safety zone outside abortion clinics so women can enter free of harassment,” the article concluded, “‘This government will continue to stand up for women’s rights across this province, despite the rhetoric from the members opposite,’ said MacLeod, adding, ‘We respect debate internally within our caucus.’”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Education with regard to science in the US has just deteriorated. It’s shameful. (Jacobsen, 2017)
James Randi
I am sentimentally attached to the Jewish tradition, which I was raised in. But I don’t take seriously the truth value of my own tradition or of other religious traditions. (Institute of Physics, 2013)
Edward Witten
We are far more impressed by stories than by studies, we are so good at pattern recognition that we see patterns that aren’t real (like the Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich), we tend to jump to conclusions before we have all the evidence, and we let emotions trump reason. Science and critical thinking don’t come naturally to us; it requires a lot of education and effort to overcome our brain’s default thought processes, and not everyone can do it. (Jacobsen, 2016)
Harriet Hall
Science is the engine of prosperity. From steam power to electricity to the laser to the transistor to the computer… However, the information revolution has a weakness. The weakness is precisely the educational system. The United States has the worst educational system known to science. Our graduates compete regularly at the level of third world countries. So, how come the scientific establishment of the United States doesn’t collapse? If we are producing a generation of dummies, if the Stupid Index of America keeps rising every year… (Dr. Kaku’s Videos, 2016)
Michio Kaku
Probably 95% or more of all biological scientists accept the board outlines of the theory of evolution. In the National Academy, the percentage is probably even higher… I do not have proof of God, and I am sceptical of those who claim otherwise. But I find something remarkable in the very fact that we, as a species, have been able to learn so much about the universe and the nature of existence. (Jacobsen, 2014a; Jacobsen, 2014b)
Kenneth Miller
Like everyone participating I’m what’s called here a “secular atheist,” except that I can’t even call myself an “atheist” because it is not at all clear what I’m being asked to deny. However, it should be obvious to everyone that by and large science reaches deep explanatory theories to the extent that it narrows its gaze.
…As for the various religions, there’s no doubt that they are very meaningful to adherents, and allow them to delude themselves into thinking there is some meaning to their lives beyond what we agree is the case. I’d never try to talk them out of the delusions, which are necessary for them to live a life that makes some sense to them. These beliefs can provide a framework for deeds that are noble or savage, and anywhere in between, and there’s every reason to focus attention on the deeds and the background for them, to the extent that we can grasp it. (Chomsky, 2006)
Noam Chomsky
Evolution and creationism pose particular challenges.
The religious stuff, that’s layered on top of it there. I think there are understandably people who feel threatened by natural selection because they feel, rightly or wrongly, that it threatens some of their cherished religious beliefs.
I think that’s something that those of us who are skeptics communicating with a public, I think we have to be very sensitive to that and realize that we are potentially threatening people’s worldviews. (Jacobsen, 2018b)
Scott O. Lilienfeld
To me, the brain evolved in order to get you to do certain things in certain ways: largely to reproduce. However, along the way, your brain in eating and having sex releases certain chemicals that feel really good. Evolution has modified your brain over time to make you feel good by doing certain things.
What does that mean? That means that our brains get us high. Lots of things that we do get us high.
Watching a good movie, voting for the right candidate that we think will take this country to the next stage, watching the Raptors do as they did, or Milos Raonic doing so at Wimbledon, or swinging on a swing, or watching the birth of your child, these things get us high.
They are incredible experiences. Religious belief is the granddaddy of all highs. (Jacobsen, 2018a)
Christopher DiCarlo
The only way, therefore, that dialogue as a rational experience can take place is that, on the part of religion, the dialogue be limited to the rational foundations for religious belief. Even then, the only way that any such dialogue could have universal significance is that we could assume that there existed common rational foundations across all religious traditions and that is simply not the case. It seems, therefore, that any fruitful dialogue requires that the rational basis for certain specific religious beliefs in certain specific religious traditions be confronted with what is known from the natural sciences. The natural sciences, in particular, have made great advances by adhering rigidly to canons of what is scientifically true. In fact, in recent years the norms for judging the scientific truth of a given theory of life’s origins and evolution have been extended, it appears to me, in the direction of inviting dialogue with philosophy and theology. (Jacobsen, 2014d)
Fr. George V. Coyne, S.J.
Creationists, however, especially the intelligent design creationists about whom I have written so much, deliberately conflate philosophical and methodological naturalism. They argue that leaving God out of scientific explanations is tantamount to personal atheism. So my concern as a researcher has been to clarify the relationship between philosophical and methodological naturalism. I argue that although philosophical naturalism rests on what we have learned about the world through the naturalistic methodology of science, methodological naturalism does not, conversely, require philosophical naturalism as a personal worldview because it does not exclude the logical possibility of the supernatural. I think that this is the most accurate and intellectually honest position to take even though I myself am no longer religious. (Jacobsen, 2013)
Barbara Forrest
President George W. Bush favours teaching both evolution and “Intelligent Design” in schools, “so people can know what the debate is about.” To proponents, Intelligent Design is the notion that the universe is too complex to have developed without a nudge from a higher power than evolution or natural selection.
To detractors, Intelligent Design is creationism — the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis — in a thin guise, or simply vacuous, about as interesting as “I don’t understand,” as has always been true in the sciences before understanding is reached. Accordingly, there cannot be a “debate.”
…So far, however, the curriculum has not encompassed one obvious point of view: Malignant Design.
Unlike Intelligent Design, for which the evidence is zero, malignant design has tons of empirical evidence, much more than Darwinian evolution, by some criteria: the world’s cruelty. (Chomsky, 2005)
Noam Chomsky
I think that comes down to a fundamental question, “Is there any objectivity to our moral ideals?” The answer to that is, “No. Either you empathize with humanity or you do not. If you empathize with humanity, you feel an imperative.” Now, that does not mean you cannot use reason against your opponents. Most of them are, or would at least claim, that they share this bond with humanity and would try and make a case that what we are doing makes no difference.
That leads directly from ethics to science. If what we are doing makes no difference, then there is no moral choice, is there? However, if science shows there are important choices that could be made, then you have to take a stand. Either you possess humane ideals and think all human beings are worthy of moral concern. Or you think this will not happen for 20 years. I am 80 now, so I do not think I will live to see the consequences, and assume I have no grandchildren – so to hell with everyone. Moral imperatives arise out of moral commitments. If you have no commitment that gives you a bond with humanity, I cannot open your mouth and thrust one down your throat. (Jacobsen, 2014c)
James Flynn
Of the notable natural science education moments in North American history is the Scopes Trial or the Scopes “Monkey” Trial, an important point to reflect on, especially as newer survey data indicates a consistently large minority of Canadians would fall within a standard categorization of Young Earth Creationist (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018; NCSE Staff, 2008; CROP, 2017). The Scopes Trial represented a moment of grotesque ignorance on display, enshrined in law and protected in its enforcement, and presented the intrusion of religion into law for the prevention of critical thinking and science education from entering into the educational system.
H.L. Mencken, deceased and famous American journalist, who brought this trial particular fame – and himself mind you, on June 29th stated:
It is common to assume that human progress affects everyone — that even the dullest man, in these bright days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption is quite erroneous. The men of the educated minority, no doubt, know more than their predecessors, and of some of them, perhaps, it may be said that they are more civilized — though I should not like to be put to giving names — but the great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge. (Mencken, 1925a)
Mencken would continue in much the same tone throughout the trial, even coining the title of the “Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial” [Foster, n.d.]. The trial lasted from July 10 to July 21, 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee, in the United States. There was a charge on a specific school teacher for teaching evolution via natural selection, where this implied breaking state law (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). Mencken joked, “…it is believed that settlers will be attracted to the town as to some refuge from the atheism of the great urban Sodoms and Gomorrahs” (Mencken, 1925b).
Bearing in mind, of course, Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, and the trial happened several decades later. The continuance of non-scientific or proto-modern scientific theories do not happen within a vacuum. Indeed, Mencken commented, scathingly, on the context for Tennesseans there:
Prayer can accomplish a lot. It can cure diabetes, find lost pocketbooks and restrain husbands from beating their wives. But is prayer made any more efficacious by giving a circus first? Coming to this thought, Dayton begins to sweat. (Mencken, 1925b, July 9)
Primitive beliefs, forms of life, and ways of thinking fester without some aspects of the light of modernity. Forms of magical thinking representative of a community, probably, in poverty-level conditions. A bad life can lead to hopes for a better one in another transcendent realm in an instant with enough pleading, begging, and solicitation to the highest choir of divine. A few months prior to the official trial in July, the legislature for the state of Tennessee determined unlawful the teaching of anything but the literal idea of the creation of man and woman as taught in the Bible in the Book of Genesis (Ibid.).
In preparatory remarks, Mencken sniped with derision stating, “Two months ago the town was obscure and happy. Today it is a universal joke” (East Tennessee State University, n.d.). In the height of the reportage, Mencken declared, “As for the advertising that went out over the leased wires, I greatly fear that it has quite ruined the town. When people recall it hereafter they will think of it as they think of Herrin, Ill., and Homestead, Pa. It will be a joke town at best, and infamous at worst” (Mencken, 1925k).
The Butler Act was introduced by John Washington Butler on January 21, 1925 and then became effective on March 13, 1925 and remained in force for 40 years, passing in the House by near unanimity with 71-6 while the “Tennessee Senate approved it by nearly as overwhelming a margin, 24-6” (Scoville, 2018).[1] Butler, himself, was a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives (Ibid.). Mencken thought little of the citizens surrounding the trial, where he reported:
Whatever lies above the level of their comprehension is of the devil. A glass of wine delights civilized men; they themselves, drinking it, would get drunk. Ergo, wine must be prohibited. The hypothesis of evolution is credited by all men of education; they themselves can’t understand it. Ergo, its teaching must be put down. (Mencken, 1925a)
Also stating, “Dayton, of course, is only a ninth-rate country town, and so its agonies are of relatively little interest to the world” (Mencken, 1925k). This set the basis for a pivotal moment in the ongoing and still current, given the demographics, sociopolitical controversies of the teaching of a philosophy of discovery (and substantiated knowledge frameworks) and a philosophy of ignorance (and loosely knit together and self-inconsistent faith tenets), where evolution represents the former and creationism the latter. Mencken did not think highly, at all, of the context of Tennessee or the system of jurisprudence in place.[2]
In line with the tenor of this ‘debate’ through time, the proceedings of the trial garnered “world attention” with a “promised confrontation between fundamentalist literal belief and liberal interpretation of the Scriptures” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). In Impossibility of Obtaining Fair Jury (1925c), Mencken opened commentary on the trial of John T. Scopes, opining:
The trial of the infidel Scopes, beginning here this hot, lovely morning, will greatly resemble, I suspect, the trial of a prohibition agent accused of mayhem in Union Hill, N.J. That is to say, it will be conducted with the most austere regard for the highest principles of jurisprudence. Judge and jury will go to extreme lengths to assure the prisoner the last and least of his rights. He will be protected in his person and feelings by the full military and naval power of the State of Tennessee. No one will be permitted to pull his nose, to pray publicly for his condemnation or even to make a face at him. But all the same he will be bumped off inevitably when the time comes, and to the applause of all right-thinking men. The real trial, in truth, will not begin until Scopes is convicted and ordered to the hulks.
The defense was Clarence Darrow, originally a corporate lawyer and later a “champion of labor, proponent of the poor and defender of the most-hopeless of death row cases” (Frail, 2011). The prosecution was William Jennings Bryan (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). Interestingly, the two men, Darrow and Bryan, were aligned in the 1896 presidential election (Frail, 2011).[3] Apparently, Darrow didn’t care for Bryan as a person at the time, even seeing the man as hyper-religious and excruciatingly idiotic (Ibid.). Mencken took this same attitudinal stance of Bryan (Mencken, 1925m).
Straight with the opinion, cutting with the remarks, cunning with the wit albeit cruel, the Mencken tenor continued throughout the coverage of the Scopes Trial by Mencken. He saw the trial as determined before and during the proceedings.[4] The 1920s trial, in a way, reflected the changing mores and tensions between the traditionalist Victorian types fearing the change of ways in the nation and the modernist intellectuals who wanted to flourish more in their mentalities about the ways of the world, in this case the natural world (Linder, n.d.). Even in spite of some citizens’ disbelief, they feel the need to believe, at the time. In Sickening Doubts About Value of Publicity (1925b), Mencken speaks of Bryan in distrust and as, fundamentally, a charlatan:
The trial of Scopes is possible here simply because it can be carried on here without heat — because no one will lose any sleep even if the devil comes to the aid of Darrow and Malone, and Bryan gets a mauling. The local intelligentsia venerate Bryan as a Christian, but it was not as a Christian that they called him in, but as one adept at attracting the newspaper boys — in brief, as a showman. As I have said, they now begin to mistrust the show, but they still believe that he will make a good one, win or lose.
The showdown, purportedly, of the time came in the form of the Scopes Trial between the traditionalists and the modernists, or the creationists and the evolutionists (Linder, n.d.). By the end of the trial, the judge in the case decided “any test of the law’s constitutionality or argument on the validity of the theory” should be ruled out (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). As noted by Mencken in Trial as Religious Orgy, Dayton, Tennessee was not a favorable location for Scopes, “…evangelical Christianity is one hundred per cent triumphant… It may seem fabulous, but it is a sober fact that a sound Episcopalian or even a Northern Methodist would be regarded as virtually an atheist in Dayton. Here the only genuine conflict is between true believers” (Mencken, 1925d).
He continued to remark on the prejudicial nature of the whole affair with the “local primates” in support of a man who “confessed that he was prejudiced against evolution” via “hearty round of applause from the crowd” (Ibid.). He described the situation as “resolving itself into the trial of a man by his sworn enemies,” where one “local pastor led off with a prayer calling on god to put down heresy” and the judge, himself, “charged the grand jury to protect the schools against subversive ideas” (Ibid.). Mencken reported on the basic inability of the Evangelical Christian community to imagine an individual who does not accept the “literal authority of the Bible” and who must, if he rejects the divine Word of the Lord, be misunderstanding the basic written word of He on High (Ibid.).
Indeed, and as one may expect in a sufficiently large enough population, he described a person for who the Bible became the light of their life, and the cloud of their intellect, stating, “One of these holy men wears a sign on his back announcing that he is the Bible champion of the world. He told me today that he had studied the Bible four hours a day for thirty-three years, and that he had devised a plan of salvation that would save the worst sinner ever heard of, even a scientist, a theater actor or a pirate on the high seas, in forty days” (Ibid.).
He saw few genuine skeptics ever combatting with the locals; if a true skeptic exists in these parts, and during those times, Mencken would consider these individuals simply amongst those who keep mostly or only to themselves (Ibid.). Rumours abounded, as written, “Darrow himself, indeed, is as much as they can bear. The whisper that he is an atheist has been stilled by the bucolic make-up and by the public report that he has the gift of prophecy and can reconcile Genesis and evolution,” where “Darwin is the devil with seven tails and nine horns” (Mencken, 1925e). Humorously, Mencken told a coda tale in miniature:
…and there arose out of the darkness a woman with her hair pulled back into a little tight knot. She began so quietly that we couldn’t hear what she said, but soon her voice rose resonantly and we could follow her. She was denouncing the reading of books. Some wandering book agent, it appeared, had come to her cabin and tried to sell her a specimen of his wares. She refused to touch it. Why, indeed, read a book? If what was in it was true then everything in it was already in the Bible. If it was false then reading it would imperil the soul. Her syllogism complete, she sat down. (Mencken, 1925e).
A whole series of individuals akin to this self-trotting out woman sprinkle the news work of Mencken.[5] He remarked in Darrow’s Eloquent Appeal (1925f) on the iniquity befalling the locals through the speech of Darrow, who, in essence, never had a chance. But in his peculiar wisdom, Mencken cautioned:
I sincerely hope that the nobility and gentry of the lowlands will not make the colossal mistake of viewing this trial of Scopes as a trivial farce. Full of rustic japes and in bad taste, it is, to be sure, somewhat comic on the surface. One laughs to see lawyers sweat. The jury, marched down Broadway, would set New York by the ears. But all of that is only skin deep. Deeper down there are the beginnings of a struggle that may go on to melodrama of the first caliber, and when the curtain falls at least all the laughter may be coming from the yokels. You probably laughed at the prohibitionists, say, back in 1914. Well, don’t make the same error twice. (Mencken, 1925f)
We will come back to this point on efficacy and wariness of the methodology, though right in the arrow and sufficient with the quill, potentially, wrong in the weapon. Nonetheless, from top-to-bottomless pit, the State of Tennessee, now headed by Haslam, retained at the moment of the trial astonishing protections against the better educated peoples of the legislature and state. By July 15, 1925, the trial began to heat up (Mencken, 1925g).
The police were present more. Mencken reported, “The cops have come up from Chattanooga to help save Dayton from the devil. Darrow, Malone and Hays, of course, are immune to constabulary process, despite their obscene attack upon prayer. But all other atheists and anarchists now have public notice they must shut up forthwith and stay shut so long as they pollute this bright, shining, buckle of the Bible belt with their presence” (Ibid.). His interaction with an officer was interesting enough, where they reflected the observation of “the ordinary statutes… reinforced by Holy Writ, and whenever there is a conflict Holy Writ takes precedence” (Mencken, 1925g).[6]
“The cards seem to be stacked against poor Scopes, but there may be a joker in the pack. Four of the jurymen, as everyone knows, are Methodists, and a Methodist down here belongs to the extreme wing of liberals. Beyond him lie only the justly and incurably damned,” Mencken, in some sense, hoped and lamented at the same time (Mencken, 1925g).
But he, Mencken, also remarked on obedience to the words of Bryan, who went into the mess for fame and other forms of value in notoriety. He spoke of the ways in which Bryan during the trial, not after, became a vanguard of the faithful and the Christ-bitten. Mencken stated:
…the old mountebank, Bryan, is no longer thought of as a mere politician and jobseeker in these Godly regions, but has become converted into a great sacerdotal figure, half man and half archangel — in brief, a sort of fundamentalist pope. The other is that the fundamentalist mind, running in a single rut for fifty years, is now quite unable to comprehend dissent from its basic superstitions, or to grant any common honesty, or even any decency, to those who reject them. (Mencken, 1925h)
In this, both the inability to accept the critique and facts of the theory of evolution, even propounded in an educational institution or uttered in the Tennessean court of God Almighty. Bryan, as the one heading the charge, at the time, against Darrow and Scopes, became someone automatically instilled into the halls of the respectable, trustworthy, and almost those worthy of worship. However, as this progressed and the trial continued onward, Mencken would not mince words about Bryan, who appeared to begin to have health problems during the trial or after it.[7]
Mencken stated, “A typical Tennessee politician is the Governor, Austin Peay. He signed the anti-evolution bill with loud hosannas, and he is now making every effort to turn the excitement of the Scopes trial to his private political uses” (Mencken, 1925i). That is to say, Mencken notes the basic ways in which ignorance becomes the fashion of the fancy and the fanciful alike, but of utility to the political types. There was even stunning giveaway as to the nature of the entire ‘legal’ enterprise with the leading lady of light, and ‘truth’ and ‘justice,’ could reign supreme.[8] When Stewart was queried by Hays about the opportunity to give the other side a chance to present its evidence, the statement from Stewart, “That which strikes at the very foundations of Christianity is not entitled to a chance” (Mencken, 1925i).
In a moderated and somewhat serious, and almost out of character pedagogic, state of mind, Mencken, ever the feminine and a well-formed realist, starkly said:
Darrow has lost this case. It was lost long before he came to Dayton. But it seems to me that he has nevertheless performed a great public service by fighting it to a finish and in a perfectly serious way. Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid sense and devoid of conscience. Tennessee, challenging him too timorously and too late, now sees its courts converted into camp meetings and its Bill of Rights made a mock of by its sworn officers of the law. There are other States that had better look to their arsenals before the Hun is at their gates. (Mencken, 1925j)
This triumph of faith over fact, of non-science over science, of emotional appeals over reasoned argument, and of literature over evidenced presents one of the central problems of the current period and of the time of Mencken’s harsh criticism and most well-known journalistic work. The law bent towards injustice and the incorporation of religion into it, in violation of basic principles of secularism, but with the raucous approbation and approval of the Dayton and, indeed, majority of the Tennessean public.
Mencken remarked on the simplistic view of the world and the basis in consolation of hell for the unbelievers and heaven for the true faithful.[9] He also spoke to the ways in which the Butler Act would lead to the immediate detriment of the educational system for Tennessee, and how its enactment would steadily erode and degrade – in quality and respect – the educational system of the state, explaining, “With the anti-evolution law enforced, the State university will rapidly go to pot; no intelligent youth will waste his time upon its courses if he can help it. And so, with the young men lost, the struggle against darkness will become almost hopeless”(Mencken, 1925k).
The stark limits of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial came down to a singular, not even inquiry but, query: did Scopes teach the heathen evolution by natural selection? By all levels of the public, the law, the cultural mores, state attitudes, educational standards, and judicial enforcers, the answer: indeed, Scopes did commit the crime. Convicted of the crime of science education of the young in the state of Tennessee, Scopes earned the fine of $100 (Linder, n.d.).
Of the more scathing comparisons of the forms of mind possible amidst the trial, Mencken (1925a) opined:
The popularity of Fundamentalism among the inferior orders of men is explicable in exactly the same way. The cosmogonies that educated men toy with are all inordinately complex. To comprehend their veriest outlines requires an immense stock of knowledge, and a habit of thought. It would be as vain to try to teach to peasants or to the city proletariat as it would be to try to teach them to streptococci. But the cosmogony of Genesis is so simple that even a yokel can grasp it. It is set forth in a few phrases. It offers, to an ignorant man, the irresistible reasonableness of the nonsensical. So, he accepts it with loud hosannas, and has one more excuse for hating his betters.
His coverage, though rather biased and humorous, notes the starker differences in attitudes and opinions about unguided evolution by natural selection amongst those given a formal higher education. Given the current statistics in the United States, the number of Young Earth Creationists, though an extreme view as seen in the Ark Encounter or Answers in Genesis, remains high even in the current period.
With an appeal, the state Supreme Court acquitted Scopes on a technicality – to their credit – while also upholding the law against the teaching of evolution – to their demerit, where the acquittal was based on being “fined excessively” (Ibid.). However, the law was only finally repealed in 1967 (Ibid.). In a single move, in less than a year, barely over half of one, almost half a century of students remained ignorant of the reality of evolution in its full breadth and grandeur.
Quoting Mencken, not all, but many Americans, including and especially Tennesseans in this case, got it good and hard for forty years after the trial, he remarked:
Once more, alas, I find myself unable to follow the best Liberal thought. What the World’s contention amounts to, at bottom, is simply the doctrine that a man engaged in combat with superstition should be very polite to superstition. This, I fear, is nonsense. The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. (Mencken, 1925l)
But with typical acuity of rendering the heart of the matter into text, Mencken described the misinterpretation, in standard cultural parlance of the time, of the meaning of freedom of religion or “religious freedom (Mencken, 1925l). He sees the common misunderstanding as viewing not only the freedom to believe and preach the religion but also to have, in some manner, an immunity from public opinion and governmental control in any regard; whereas, Mencken stated:
A dunderhead gets himself a long-tailed coat, rises behind the sacred desk, and emits such bilge as would gag a Hottentot. Is it to pass unchallenged? If so, then what we have is not religious freedom at all, but the most intolerable and outrageous variety of religious despotism. Any fool, once he is admitted to holy orders, becomes infallible. Any half-wit, by the simple device of ascribing his delusions to revelation, takes on an authority that is denied to all the rest of us. I do not know how many Americans entertain the ideas defended so ineptly by poor Bryan, but probably the number is very large. They are preached once a week in at least a hundred thousand rural churches, and they are heard too in the meaner quarters of the great cities. Nevertheless, though they are thus held to be sound by millions, these ideas remain mere rubbish. Not only are they not supported by the known facts; they are in direct contravention of the known facts. No man whose information is sound and whose mind functions normally can conceivably credit them. They are the products of ignorance and stupidity, either or both. (Ibid.)
Concluding the reportage, “But it was Darrow who carried the main burden, and Darrow who shaped the final result. When he confronted Bryan at last, the whole combat came to its climax. On the one side was bigotry, ignorance, hatred, superstition, every sort of blackness that the human mind is capable of. On the other side was sense. And sense achieved a great victory” (Mencken, 1925l). In this unabashed and impossibly positive reportage and opining, Mencken gives the method its form and, thus, its content, where the enemy, Bryan, must be destroyed and the ally, Darrow, shall be haloed.
This, probably most clearly, can be observed in the multiple publications and statements about Bryan immediately and then shortly after death. Mencken, in Darrow’s Eloquent Appeal, made an incorrect prediction, too, by the way, speaking of Bryan “He may last five years, ten years or even longer” (1925f). In fact, Bryan died shortly after the trial; Mencken gave him a rather cruel and direct obituary, where Mencken excoriated the late Bryan – more than once:
Has it been duly marked by historians that William Jennings Bryan’s last secular act on this globe of sin was to catch flies? A curious detail, and not without its sardonic overtones. He was the most sedulous fly-catcher in American history, and in many ways the most successful. His quarry, of course, was not Musca domestica but Homo neandertalensis…
Bryan lived too long, and descended too deeply into the mud, to be taken seriously hereafter by fully literate men, even of the kind who write schoolbooks… The truth is that even Bryan’s sincerity will probably yield to what is called, in other fields, definitive criticism… This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses…
… The artful Darrow led him on: he repeated it, ranted for it, bellowed it in his cracked voice. So, he was prepared for the final slaughter. He came into life a hero, a Galahad, in bright and shining armor. He was passing out a poor mountebank.[10](Mencken, 1925m)
Although, these forms of ridicule and statement can come out into the public domain.[11] Publications will accept them. The adoring fan base and public will love them. The hurt via religion may even sadistically enjoy the scolding. However, these may not help with the outreach to the mislead or the infuse critical thought as a way of thinking rather than simply as a set of empirical productions in the play of science, as only a body of naturalistic knowledge.
Let’s take the modern case of Kirk Cameron, a Biblical Literalist, Evangelical Activist, and Fundamentalist Christian Documentarian, he argues for working around the critical faculties of the non-believer, as, obviously, this works less and less with modern education and the infecting of the public mind with scientific rationalism, where Cameron’s colleague, Ray Comfort, agrees with the tactic (Comfort, 2003; Powderwombat, 2010). Mencken’s technique can be done. One can take the diverse vocabulary of Mencken and clever display of mockery, to his sagacity-in-witticisms and high-snark-wordplay – in other words, to (exaggerated) wit:
—
*The Young Earth Creationist movement belies a certain proficiency in forced, and celebrated, unknowing – as if an unbirthday, where the presents for every day, save one to be ignored and hidden in the attic to gather dust at all costs, of the year comes wrapped in illogic, tied-up and bowed in stupefying bromide-full decoys and terror-tactics, and, upon opening of the ‘gift,’ shows itself containing the dullest-senses observations and among the more childish theories ever invented in the history of the human species – with secured ignorance and an admirable efficiency in deluding the minds of the young, and the more uninformed and already misinformed sectors of the general public, comes in armies of the brainless and spine-full of humanity.
Who knew corals and jellyfish could exist in human form? Those in whom dumb becomes not only congenital & acquired but also super-descriptive, as in a super-set trait to provide an explanatory framework for all other outputs, behaviourally and verbally – and, indeed, mentally, though unknown to the harbourer of this diligent, thorough, conscientious, and ever-present and persistent master of mind. But this also indicates a peculiar acumen in assured, triumphal ignorance, and oafish, immature certainty of a mule ensemble in targeting the vulnerable sentimentalities and soft-spots of the public conscience instead of intellectual capacities.
Kirk Cameron, well-known ignoble steed, of whom much can remain unsaid while some may be stated, he, once, spoke of circumnavigating rational faculties – of “circumnavigating the intellect” – as if this equates to a virtuous act or a reflection of virtue in character, which only tells the tall and, likely, lifelong tale of a man incapable of deep reflective thought, and so needing to resort to such measures in attempts at conversion of the heathen-out-yonder in the outlying lands of sin within Sodom and Gomorrah while also lacking the intelligence to pull off the dishonest conversionary liar-and-dim-stone stunt.
Known for his intellectual steam power in the electronic age, this enchinodermata Homo Sapiens sans Descartian cogito, or perhaps “Homo Boobiens,” represents a person for who the Hero’s Journey is not seventeen steps but one – and to whom the Tragicomedian’s Journey remains more appropriate as this is every step ever taken, where all paths for this eternally archetypal tragicomic hero lead to robust certitudes and ignorance as our wayward would-be Jonah adventurer gets stuck in the belly of the whale unwilling to be pooped out – possibly because the ‘food’ for the poor gargantuan cetacean amounts to among the most intellectually non-nutritive collocations of atoms ever amassed and agglomerated – and thereby unmetamorphosed and still unsurprisingly made of the self-same excremental material, always landing in the same position whilst continually spinning in circles, as if a top, in the mastery of the far-flung-imaginary and with the high-falutin’ stature of the foolhardy fool leaving not himself but everyone else in dizzying confusion as to what was just uttered with, all the while, a smile of a simpleton’s blank face tinged with the hardy scent of hometown dustbowl emptiness, the senseless and ignorant of sense ignoramus – albeit an honest, sincere, and striving donkey, in effortful, besweated, and dull proselytizing, where even the grass grows weary of his prickish advances.
A stultifying display of the highest ignobles and a man among the greatest viceroys of the basest vices with bold pride binding to anti-Faustian bargains, where the man manages to make the hefty bet, gain nothing and also lose nothing, and still thinks he acquired something, already knows everything, and remains perfectly wrong on both counts as surely as a cube has twenty-four right-angles, i.e., overt arrogance, inked ironically in a theology of the humble-virgin born-and-sacrificed carpenter, and illusory comprehension tied with inescapable jackassery and dunderheadedness, matched only in his Tennessean creationist tenacity as in his own dumbassery.
By the powers vested through Castle Greyface and Palace Numskull, he wields the power of the Major General at the heights of Mount Zion’s cloud-headed; a man who is the leader of the pack of Mount Olympus heading the charge of the Godly know-nothings; an admiral with an ocean’s worth of sunk intellectual costs, based on words said, reaching the depths of the Marianas Trench; a man who never even knew the man who knew too much, and was a man who never knew much, too; a mathematician tabulating his cognitive contents in at the invention of zero; a philosopher of the first-rate in empty phrases and deep inanities, who when finished in their evacuation from his tiresome mouth and dispensing in endless vacuities leaves Cameron’s clodhopper skull to implode with stunning quickness that collapsed stars doomed to become black holes can only aspire to and even blush in reflection upon the swiftness of the eventuality, and where neutron stars only dream of the thickness of his skull in the first place.
As clownish as this act and ideas may seem in the instant gloss of the moment, there can also appear the base metal underneath the fool’s gold coating of the uttermost fool; Cameron intends this not only as high-minded and under-handed personal tactics of conversion of Satan’s fiendish lost – coming from a low intellect even over-rated then – but also as clear, down-home, chummy, brotherly, and deranged advice for fundamentalist religious believers in Christ Almighty to intake on faith and to reach out to the unsaved Pagan peoples of Mordor and followers of the faithless Sauron and incarnation of evil, Melkor. Where is Eru when you need Him? Pray, then tell.
If it weren’t for his ineradicable dopiness and hopelessly clumsy demeanour, and empty-faced – and headed – naivety, the sheer act and behaviour of reaching out in his own manner would harbour something akin to southern charm from a mental mute and donnish deaf-dork, without the south or the charm. A tremendous talent for tactless tact; an undeniable ability in blatant nuance and blowhard whispers, and platitudinous wisdom; someone not bound to the phrase “unfathomably stupid” because the depths can be plumbed, roundly, and many times with stunning and astonishing rapidity, based on their distance from veracity and fathomable shallowness and sheer audacity of idiocy, in whose dopiness secures his own derision in public – and deservedly so in private as well.
Snark, in this Mencken manner, even of He-Haw the Asshat Cretin-King unable to even rise to the level popular sophistry and anti-intellectualism, becomes cheap-shot, though imaginative, while also, unfortunately, uncivil in contradistinction to the elitist wordsmith-bootsniffing and Gibraltarian climbing and posturing of Mencken, reflexively indicative to the male weakness not of sentimentality in this case but of vanity, as noted by none other than Mencken himself (In Defense of Women).
He also noted the strength in women as non-sentimentality, in realism – indeed, as the supreme realists of the species, potentially overlooking or missing the deeper historical context for most women for hundreds and thousands of years: not much to feel nostalgic about, exactly, especially in the precarious nature of women’s lives under Christendom and other dominant religions read as instruction manuals, in part or whole, for the construction and maintenance of patriarchal culture, where women not only get listed as but, in literal fact, are property, chattel. The closest intimation for the poor young fool, Cameron, of this reality for women in general may come only in the form of himself as the Bell-Dame of the Bamboozled. Chesterton took on the same view, “Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men,” as a mirror of the chrestomathic pithy life axioms of Mencken.
The perspicacious vulgarity and mean nature of this snarkiness technique in word simply brings about an inefficacious and, indeed, counterproductive means by which to reach the minds and feelings of the wider public in the general populace and the specific public in one’s (supposed or purported) opposition and enemies. Plus, of the chief weaknesses of personal attacks, no matter how contrived, retains a substructure of the cheap and easy, and a representation of a shallower and more stunted than necessary emotional life.
Aggressive and, at times, deserved taunts and jeers will not change the attitudes of the individual, including Cameron, or garner the sympathies of the speaker’s audience or, more properly, stimulate critical faculties, but may, in rarer instances, engender, in its more noble manifestations, wider general public skepticism about the mountebanks and modern Pharisees marked by worship of Mammon and feigned devotion to God on High, so does not, at root, amount to an effective means by which to extricate and extirpate the utterly sincere religious fanatics bound by fears of hell and promises, nay hopes, of heaven with the tremendous to-the-death motivational propulsion system of unquestioned zeal and unquery-able fervor.
The only means by which to change the current state, whether the end to slavery or women’s suffrage, or better working conditions, comes from mass public organization and pushes for improvements in the awareness of the public, and, in this particular instance, changes to the educational systems that currently are producing motivated, indoctrinated, and ill-informed spokesdolts for fundamentalist ideologies, which points to a weakness in the critiques of Mencken in some sense: the Nietzschean elitism linked to racism – thus anti-humanist, who sees an imaginary crime in the pseudoscientifically-premised act of miscegenation, and somewhat detached disdain for general welfare, in addition to the remarkable leap of faith for an unbeliever sufficient to jumpstart what would become Objectivism with laissez-faire economic, social, and political views.
Of the views presaging the movement of the computerized ideologues writ Randroids seeing others simply as losers, clingers, parasites, a national majority tribe and international collective of the deserved penurity, worthy of dishonor and miseducation as they are petulant hangers-on, and selflessly deluded Christian sheep of the lower castes of humankind bound to their delusions and fate in poverty worthy of ridicule, distrust, and given a predetermined lowly estate in life, for ever, until death does them – and the higher class of ubermenschen who hold fast to the utmost industriousness, assiduous work ethic, and titles as maverick-nobles, as the downtrodden American Businessman standing against the masses of the insolent and lazy – a favour of ridding the Earth of them.*
—
The work here seems easy to some degree. Mocking not only the beliefs of the public, Mencken also took the time to lay out the objections. Ridicule, at times, may work. However, the tactic will, more often than not, raise emotional walls and intellectual defenses. This cannot be ignored, as human beings are not simply floating thinkers. The techne of Mencken, though done to a relatively high level, does not represent the best means by which to reach the wider public, to educate as well as inform, or to instill the protective measures of critical thinking, where this would help in critiques of fundamentalist ideologies, whether coming from literal religion or defenses of state violence, aggression, and rights-violations around the world.
In this sense, the pattern of emotions runs a course of hilarity at the surface impression, horror as the reality sets in, and pity and compassion for the individuals, and anger at a failed educational system; in an information age, individual citizens, and the young especially, do not want ignorance, or worse the illusion of knowledge, but, rather, remain kept ignorant by dubious and deliberate work by fundamentalist religion and its, often male, handlers.
The American public’s educational system, and in this case the legal system as well, disserved the general populace’s ability to know about the world abounding around them and the reality of far more unanswered than even marginally answered queries, even so-called ‘big questions,’ in the disciplines carved in the humanities and the sciences. The general public has been wronged with bad education, not only in America but elsewhere. A healthier proactive approach to teaching modern science would be more helpful than elitism, mockery, and disdain – how ever entertaining.
References
[Dr. Kaku’s Videos]. (2016, November 5). Age of Abundance – Dr. Michio Kaku #MichioKaku. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/WsUG6MWYEE4?t=1549.
[Powderwombat]. (2010, October 15). Crazy Christian Advertisement. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eM5GZuB-UA.
Chomsky, N. (2006, December 9). An Edge Discussion of BEYOND BELIEF: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival. Retrieved from https://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html.
Chomsky, N. (2005, October 6). Intelligent Design?. Retrieved from https://chomsky.info/20051006/.
Comfort, R. (2003, May). How to Circumnavigate the Human Intellect: The Key to Reaching the Lost. Retrieved from https://www.khouse.org/articles/2003/468/print/.
CROP. (2017, October 2). 40% of Canadians believe that life on Earth was created in six days (The ideal prelude to Wagner’s Das Rheingold!). Retrieved from https://www.crop.ca/en/blog/2017/138/.
East Tennessee State University. (n.d.). Mencken Finds Daytonians Full of Sickening Doubts About Value of Publicity by H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 9, 1925. Retrieved from faculty.etsu.edu/history/documents/menckendaytonians.htm.
Foster, J.C. (n.d.). Scopes Monkey Trial. Retrieved from https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1100/scopes-monkey-trial.
Frail, T.A. (2011, June 10). Everything You Didn’t Know About Clarence Darrow. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/everything-you-didnt-know-about-clarence-darrow-14990899/.
Institute of Physics [Institute of Physics]. (2013, March 20). Newton Medal winner (2010): Edward Witten. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/06yXsnTFF-U?t=169.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018a, October 15). An Interview with Dr. Christopher DiCarlo (Part Five). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/dicarlo-five.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2016, November 15). An Interview with Dr. Harriet Hall, M.D.. Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-dr-harriet-hall-m-d.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017a, February 15). An Interview with James Randi (Part Three). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-james-randi-part-three.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014d, August 22). Dr. & Fr. George V. Coyne, S.J.: McDevitt Chair of Religious Philosophy, Le Moyne College. Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/08/22/dr-fr-george-v-coyne-s-j-mcdevitt-chair-of-religious-philosophy-le-moyne-college/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2013, November 1). Dr. Barbara Forrest: Philosophy Professor, Southeastern Louisiana University & Member, NCSE Board of Directors. Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2013/11/01/dr-barbara-forrest-philosophy-professor-southeastern-louisiana-university-member-ncse-board-of-directors/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014, August 1). Dr. James Flynn: Emeritus Professor, Political Studies and Psychology, University of Otago, New Zealand (Part One). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/08/01/dr-james-flynn-emeritus-professor-political-studies-and-psychology-university-of-otago-new-zealand/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014a, July 1). Dr. Kenneth Raymond Miller: Professor of Biology, Brown University (Part One). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/07/01/dr-kenneth-raymond-miller-professor-of-biology-brown-university/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2014b, July 8). Dr. Kenneth Raymond Miller: Professor of Biology, Brown University (Part Two). Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2014/07/08/dr-kenneth-raymond-miller-professor-of-biology-brown-university-part-two/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2018b, July 1). In Conversation with Professor Scott O. Lilienfeld. Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2018/07/01/scott-lilienfeld/.
Linder, D.O. (n.d.). Scopes “Monkey” Trial (1925). Retrieved from http://www.famous-trials.com/scopesmonkey.
Mencken, H.L. (1925l, September 14). Aftermath. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925n, July 27). Bryan. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925f, July 14). Darrow’s Eloquent Appeal. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925h, July 16). Fair Trial Is Beyond Ken. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925j, July 18). Genesis Triumphant. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925a, June 29). Homo Neanderthalensis. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925m). In Memoriam: W.J.B. Retrieved from history.msu.edu/hst203/files/2011/02/Mencken-In-Memoriam-WJB.pdf?mod=article_inline.
Mencken, H.L. (1925g, July 15). Law and Freedom. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925i, July 17). Malone the Victor. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925b, July 9). Sickening Doubts About Value of Publicity. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925e, July 13). Souls Need Reconversion Nightly. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925k, July 20). Tennessee in the Frying Pan. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Mencken, H.L. (1925d, July 11). Trial as a Religious Orgy. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
NCSE Staff. (2008, August 8). Polling creationism in Canada. Retrieved from https://ncse.com/news/2008/08/polling-creationism-canada-001375.
Scoville, H. (2018, February 25). Tennessee’s Butler Act. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-butler-act-1224753.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2018, August 1). Scopes Trial. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Scopes-Trial.
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Photo by Oscar Toledo on Unsplash
[1] Tennessee’s Butler Act (2018), in part, states in a quotation:
…it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.
Scoville, H. (2018, February 25). Tennessee’s Butler Act. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-butler-act-1224753.
[2] Sickening Doubts About Value of Publicity (1925b), in part, states:
The basic issues of the case, indeed, seem to be very little discussed at Dayton. What interests everyone are its mere strategy. By what device, precisely, will Bryan trim old Clarence Darrow? Will he do it gently and with every delicacy of forensics, or will he wade in on high gear and make a swift butchery of it? For no one here seems to doubt that Bryan will win — that is, if the bout goes to a finish. What worries the town is the fear that some diabolical higher power will intervene on Darrow’s side — that is, before Bryan heaves him through the ropes.
Mencken, H.L. (1925b, July 9). Sickening Doubts About Value of Publicity. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[3] Everything You Didn’t Know About Clarence Darrow (2011) states:
You had the growth of the Populist movement—a widespread feeling out in the West and Midwest that the financiers of the East were using the gold standard to keep the average farmer and the average working man in poverty. For the first time, in Chicago in 1896 [at the Democratic National Convention], you had a major party declare that it was going to represent the poor. That was Bryan’s amazing feat of political rhetoric: he was this young, unknown congressman and he stood up there and he captivated that convention hall and brought the Populists and the Democrats together.
Darrow was part of that same movement, but he never particularly cared for Bryan as a person. He thought Bryan was too religious and basically too stupid to lead a major party, and it really grated on him that Bryan got the presidential nomination three times. So their rivalry began to simmer and fester, and when Darrow had a chance to ambush Bryan in the courtroom in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925, he took full advantage of it.
Frail, T.A. (2011, June 10). Everything You Didn’t Know About Clarence Darrow. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/everything-you-didnt-know-about-clarence-darrow-14990899/.
[4] In Impossibility of Obtaining Fair Jury (1925c), in part, states:
There is absolutely no bitterness on tap. But neither is there any doubt. It has been decided by acclamation, with only a few infidels dissenting, that the hypothesis of evolution is profane, inhumane and against God, and all that remains is to translate that almost unanimous decision into the jargon of the law and so have done. The town boomers have banqueted Darrow as well as Bryan, but there is no mistaking which of the two has the crowd, which means the venire of tried and true men. Bryan has been oozing around the country since his first day here, addressing this organization and that, presenting the indubitable Word of God in his caressing, ingratiating way, and so making unanimity doubly unanimous.
Mencken, H.L. (1925c, July 10). Impossibility of Obtaining Fair Jury. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[5] Souls Need Reconversion Nightly (1925e), in part, states:
There followed a hymn, led by a somewhat fat brother wearing silver-rimmed country spectacles. It droned on for half a dozen stanzas, and then the first speaker resumed the floor. He argued that the gift of tongues was real and that education was a snare. Once his children could read the Bible, he said, they had enough. Beyond lay only infidelity and damnation. Sin stalked the cities. Dayton itself was a Sodom. Even Morgantown had begun to forget God. He sat down, and the female aurochs in gingham got up.
Mencken, H.L. (1925e, July 13). Souls Need Reconversion Nightly. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[6] Law and Freedom (1925g), in part, presented an interested dialogue reported by Mencken between an enforcer of the law and himself:
The captain in charge of the squad now on watch told me frankly yesterday that he was not going to let any infidels discharge their damnable nonsense upon the town. I asked him what charge he would lay against them if they flouted him. He said he would jail them for disturbing the peace.
“But suppose,” I asked him, “a prisoner is actually not disturbing the peace. Suppose he is simply saying his say in a quiet and orderly manner.”
“I’ll arrest him anyhow,” said the cop.
“Even if no one complains of him?”
“I’ll complain myself.”
“Under what law precisely?”
“We don’t need no law for them kind of people.”
Mencken, H.L. (1925g, July 15). Law and Freedom. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[7] Fair Trial is Beyond Ken (1925h), in part, states:
Bryan sat silent throughout the whole scene, his gaze fixed immovably on the witness. Now and then his face darkened and his eyes flashed, but he never uttered a sound. It was, to him, a string of blasphemies out of the devil’s mass — a dreadful series of assaults upon the only true religion. The old gladiator faced his real enemy at last. Here was a sworn agent and attorney of the science he hates and fears — a well-fed, well-mannered spokesman of the knowledge he abominates. Somehow he reminded me pathetically of the old Holy Roller I heard last week — the mountain pastor who damned education as a mocking and a corruption. Bryan, too, is afraid of it, for wherever it spreads his trade begins to fall off, and wherever it flourishes he is only a poor clown…
It is a tragedy, indeed, to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon. But let no one, laughing at him, underestimate the magic that lies in his black, malignant eye, his frayed but still eloquent voice. He can shake and inflame these poor ignoramuses as no other man among us can shake and inflame them, and he is desperately eager to order the charge.
Mencken, H.L. (1925h, July 16). Fair Trial Is Beyond Ken. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
In a note mixed with charity, pity, ridicule, and degradation in one, in Malone the Victor (1925i), Mencken explained and opined:
Bryan has been roving around in the tall grass for years and he knows the bucolic mind. He knows how to reach and inflame its basic delusions and superstitions. He has taken them into his own stock and adorned them with fresh absurdities. Today he may well stand as the archetype of the American rustic. His theology is simply the elemental magic that is preached in a hundred thousand rural churches fifty-two times a year. These Tennessee mountaineers are not more stupid than the city proletariat; they are only less informed.
Mencken, H.L. (1925i, July 17). Malone the Victor. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Malone the Victor (1925i), in part, states:
The old boy grows more and more pathetic. He has aged greatly during the past few years and begins to look elderly and enfeebled. All that remains of his old fire is now in his black eyes. They glitter like dark gems, and in their glitter there is immense and yet futile malignancy. That is all that is left of the Peerless Leader of thirty years ago. Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the coca-cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor half-wits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards. His own speech was a grotesque performance and downright touching in its imbecility.
Mencken, H.L. (1925i, July 17). Malone the Victor. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[8] Malone the Victor (1925i), in part, states:
Yet even Stewart toward the close of yesterday’s session gave an exhibition that would be almost unimaginable in the North. He began his reply to Malone with an intelligent and forceful legal argument, with plenty of evidence of hard study in it. But presently he slid into a violent theological harangue, full of extravagant nonsense. He described the case as a combat between light and darkness and almost descended to the depths of Bryan. Hays challenged him with a question. Didn’t he admit, after all, that the defense had a tolerable case; that it ought to be given a chance to present its evidence? I transcribe his reply literally: “That which strikes at the very foundations of Christianity is not entitled to a chance.” Hays, plainly astounded by this bald statement of the fundamentalist view of due process, pressed the point. Assuming that the defense would present, not opinion but only unadorned fact, would Stewart still object to its admission? He replied. “Personally, yes.” “But as a lawyer and Attorney-General?” insisted Hays. “As a lawyer and Attorney-General,” said Stewart, “I am the same man.” Such is justice where Genesis is the first and greatest of law books and heresy is still a crime.
Mencken, H.L. (1925i, July 17). Malone the Victor. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[9] Tennessee in the Frying Pan (1925k), in part, states:
They believe that they are not mammals. They believe, on Bryan’s word, that they know more than all the men of science of Christendom. They believe, on the authority of Genesis, that the earth is flat and that witches still infest it. They believe, finally and especially, that all who doubt these great facts of revelation will go to hell. So they are consoled.
Mencken, H.L. (1925k, July 20). Tennessee in the Frying Pan. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Tennessee in the Frying Pan (1925k), in part, states:
The Tennesseeans have tolerated their imbeciles for fear that attacking them would bring down the derision of the rest of the country. Now they have the derision, and to excess — and the attack is ten times as difficult as it ever was before.
Mencken, H.L. (1925k, July 20). Tennessee in the Frying Pan. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
In Memoriam: W.J.B. (1925m), in significant part, states:
Has it been duly marked by historians that William Jennings Bryan’s last secular act on this globe of sin was to catch flies? A curious detail, and not without its sardonic overtones. He was the most sedulous fly-catcher in American history, and in many ways the most successful. His quarry, of course, was not Musca domestica but Homo neandertalensis…
Bryan lived too long, and descended too deeply into the mud, to be taken seriously hereafter by fully literate men, even of the kind who write schoolbooks… The truth is that even Bryan’s sincerity will probably yield to what is called, in other fields, definitive criticism… This talk of sincerity, I confess, fatigues me. If the fellow was sincere, then so was P. T. Barnum. The word is disgraced and degraded by such uses. He was, in fact, a charlatan, a mountebank, a zany without sense or dignity. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses…
…He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the barnyard. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not. What animated him from end to end of his grotesque career was simply ambition – the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes. He was born with a roaring voice, and it had the trick of inflaming half-wits. His whole career was devoted to raising those half-wits against their betters, that he himself might shine. His last battle will be grossly misunderstood if it is thought of as a mere exercise in fanaticism – that is, if Bryan the Fundamentalist Pope is mistaken for one of the bucolic Fundamentalists…
…When he began denouncing the notion that man is a mammal even some of the hinds at Dayton were agape. And when, brought upon Clarence Darrow’s cruel hook, he writhed and tossed in a very fury of malignancy, bawling against the veriest elements of sense and decency like a man frantic – when he came to that tragic climax of his striving there were snickers among the hinds as well as hosannas. Upon that hook, in truth, Bryan committed suicide, as a legend as well as in the body. He staggered from the rustic court ready to die, and he staggered from it ready to be forgotten, save 3 as a character in a third-rate farce, witless and in poor taste. It was plain to everyone who knew him, when he came to Dayton, that his great days were behind him – that, for all the fury of his hatred, he was now definitely an old man, and headed at last for silence. There was a vague, unpleasant manginess about his appearance; he somehow seemed dirty, though a close glance showed him as carefully shaven as an actor, and clad in immaculate linen. All the hair was gone from the dome of his head, and it had begun to fall out, too, behind his ears, in the obscene manner of Samuel Gompers…
…When I first encountered him, on the sidewalk in front of the office of the rustic lawyers who were his associates in the Scopes case, the trial was yet to begin, and so he was still expansive and amiable. I had printed in the Nation, a week or so before, an article arguing that the Tennessee anti-evolution law, whatever its wisdom, was at least constitutional – that the yahoos of the State had a clear right to have their progeny taught whatever they chose, and kept secure from whatever knowledge violated their superstitions. The old boy professed to be delighted with the argument, and gave the gaping bystanders to understand that I was a publicist of parts…
…His eyes fascinated me; I watched them all day long. They were blazing points of hatred. They glittered like occult and sinister gems. Now and then they wandered to me, and I got my share, for my reports of the trial had come back to Dayton, and he had read them. It was like coming under fire. Thus he fought his last fight, thirsting savagely for blood. All sense departed from him. He bit right and left, like a dog with rabies. He descended to demagogy so dreadful that his very associates at the trial table blushed. His one yearning was to keep his yokels hated up – to lead his forlorn mob of imbeciles against the foe. That foe, alas, refused to be alarmed. It insisted upon seeing the whole battle as a comedy. Even Darrow, who knew better, occasionally yielded to the prevailing spirit. One day he lured poor Bryan into the folly I have mentioned: his astounding argument against the notion that man is a mammal. I am glad I heard it, for otherwise I’d never believe it. There stood the man who had been thrice a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic – there he stood in the glare of the world, uttering stuff that a boy of eight would laugh at. The artful Darrow led him on: he repeated it, ranted for it, bellowed it in his cracked voice. So he was prepared for the final slaughter. He came into life a hero, a Galahad, in bright and shining armor. He was passing out a poor mountebank.
Mencken, H.L. (1925m). In Memoriam: W.J.B. Retrieved from history.msu.edu/hst203/files/2011/02/Mencken-In-Memoriam-WJB.pdf?mod=article_inline.
Bryan (1925n), in part, states:
Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not.
Mencken, H.L. (1925n, July 27). Bryan. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
Aftermath (1925l), in part, states:
Putting the matter blunt and stark, Mencken compared Darrow and Bryan, opining, “Bryan went there in a hero’s shining armor, bent deliberately upon a gross crime against sense. He came out a wrecked and preposterous charlatan, his tail between his legs. Few Americans have ever done so much for their country in a whole lifetime as Darrow did in two hours.”
Mencken, H.L. (1925l, September 14). Aftermath. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
[11] Trial as Religious Orgy (1925d), in part, states:
There is, it appears, a conspiracy of scientists afoot. Their purpose is to break down religion, propagate immorality, and so reduce mankind to the level of the brutes. They are the sworn and sinister agents of Beelzebub, who yearns to conquer the world, and has his eye especially upon Tennessee.
Mencken, H.L. (1925d, July 11). Trial as a Religious Orgy. Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/CoverageOfTheScopesTrialByH.l.Mencken/ScopesTrialMencken.txt.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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According to JAMA, in some recent research published on the life expectancies of the Norwegians between 2005 and 2015, there has been some interesting or intriguing general findings in the decades-long study on life expectancy amongst the general population in accordance with a slice of the economic and social strata of the society.
If an individual is amongst the more wealthy in the country, even in a “largely tax-financed universal health care system and moderate income differences” nation-state, we can see the question asked, “does life expectancy vary with income, and are differences comparable to differences in the United States?”
It becomes an important question too. If we look at some of the issues surrounding the context of Norway, the country should seem healthy and functional in regards to income inequality.
By many metrics, this country appears to be reported as a healthy society on the levels of income inequality within the society and on the provision of a functional healthcare system to its citizenry.
One of the issues seen here is the way in which income differences or social strata differentials can lead to alterations in the life outcomes of individuals within society.
3,041,828 persons at age 40 were studied for the ten year period.
As reported, “…the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest 1% was 8.4 years for women and 13.8 years for men. The differences widened between 2005 and 2015 and were comparable to those in the United States… Inequalities in life expectancy by income in Norway were substantial and increased between 2005 and 2015.”
This may have an application to other advanced industrial economies and Western, socially and culturally speaking, societies.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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According to the Toronto Star, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has taken a position on a comprehensive nondiscrimination bill stated to protect LGBT rights
It gives broad protections. This became the crux of the issue for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the LDS. The representatives of the LDS church stated that the bill, or the Equality Act, will be a direct threat to religion.
In the following senses, it will post a threat to religious employment standards, to religious education, and to the funding of religious charities.
As reported, “The church pointed out the importance of religions and religious schools having the right to create faith-based employment and admissions standards.”
The other religious groups who have stood in solidarity with the LDS in opposition to this have been the Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church.
This legislation adds gender identity and sexual orientation to the current federal nondiscrimination laws in “employment, housing, education, and public spaces and services.”
The Equality Act simply protects vulnerable individuals in society who, as of recently, have begun to have some modicum of respect, dignity, and representation within the society.
“The bill has widespread Democratic backing and seems certain to pass the House, but the chances appear slim in the Republican-controlled Senate,” the Toronto Star stated, “The Utah-based faith, widely known as the Mormon church, said it favours ‘reasonable’ measures to protect LGBT people’s access to housing, employment and public accommodations, but that such efforts shouldn’t erode the right for people to live and speak freely about their religious beliefs.”
The LDS church has been progressing in ways not seen, in terms of rapidity, in other faiths, which took much longer while other have not moved at all (or much).
The LDS church lives with the difficult context of wanting to affirm the rights of the LGBTQ community while also sticking within the boundaries of the faith on homosexual marriage and intimacy of same-sex couples.
This is difficult to straddle this line.
The article informed, “The church points to a 2015 Utah anti-discrimination law it backed. That measure made it illegal to base employment and housing decisions on sexual orientation or gender identity, while also creating exemptions for religious organizations and protecting religious speech in the workplace. The faith said the federal Equality Act doesn’t strike the right balance.”
In the minds of the officials of the LDS church, the difficulty lies between religious liberty and the rights of the LGBT community. They see the proposal in the Equality Act as something that is eroding the free practice of religion while also “preventing diverse Americans of good will from living together in respect and peace.”
U.S. Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee have opposed the legislation.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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According to the South China Morning Post, there was a landmark decision on Friday regarding the equality of same-sex couples within Taiwan, which is a first for the Asian region, apparently.
On the next Friday, gay couples in Taiwan can legalize their marriages within government agencies. It has been hailed by Bruce Chu who campaigned for the passage of the bill as a historic moment and, indeed, a victory for Taiwan.
As the legislature in Taiwan voted in favour of the bill, there was “thunderous applause from some 40,000 supporters.” This, in essence, became an important moment for the legality of same-sex unions as a legal entity and the equality of homosexuals as individuals (and as a category) in Taiwan and, thus, in Asia.
It’s historic and exciting for those interested in equality and human rights. The chief coordinator for Marriage Equality Coalition Taiwan, views the legislation as imperfect but sufficient because this does not meet most of the needs of the same-sex couples.
Lu stated, “Taiwan is moving in line with the world’s trend as it echoes the universal call for rights equality… I believe the disputes over same-sex marriage will soon come to an end. People will find that the day is still bright and the Earth still moves after same-sex people start registering for marriage.”
Most of the rights in Taiwan granted to heterosexual unions in Taiwan will be provided to the homosexual or gay couples within the civil code of the country. In fact, one of the partners in the union can adopt a child who is a blood relative.
The reportage further stated, “In addition, the authorities will recognize marriage between a Taiwanese citizen and a foreign national if the home country of the foreign national has also legalized same-sex partnerships.”
This is in line with some recent changes to the context of Taiwan and marriage since a 2017 constitutional court ruling that stated the laws of the island denying the right for same-sex couples to marry is a violation of the constitution of the island. Some of the areas in discrimination for same-sex couples include the inability to file joint income tax declaration or the inability to give consent for any medical care for their intimate partner.
One legislator from the Democratic Progressive Party, Hsiao Bi-khim, stated, “They don’t need to worry about that any more…After today, there is no need for them to face discriminatory treatment from others.”
President Tsai Ing-wen said that this move shows “kindness and conscience” in Taiwan. Ing-wen stated, “I congratulate our gay friends for being able to win society’s blessing, and I also want to say thanks to those who have different beliefs.”
According to the reportage, the move is disliked by both conservative and Christian groups while also being a fulfilled campaign promise of Ing-wen.
“Opponents of the measure staged protests, some of which ended in violence, and threatened to withdraw support from legislators who back the legislation,” the article stated, “Opposition Kuomintang legislator Lai Shyh-bao and DPP legislator Lin Tai-hua tabled two other versions of the bill, both of which watered down protections for same-sex couples.”
The other alternative propositions failed in a second reading.
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According to a recent report by the British Medical Journal, there is an often unethical misrepresentation of the work of corporations in the work for “social responsibility” or in their “social responsibility activities,” as these present a “sanitized and soft public image.”
This can be detrimental if not devastating to the work of corporations within the context of health and wellness, so wellbeing, of the general public.
Kamran Siddiqi, Professor in Global Public Health at the University of York, in the editorial, stated, “Among its many tactics, the tobacco industry has long been using corporate social responsibility activities to present a sanitized and soft public image while they continue to produce and promote their lethal products.”
This clean representation of that which is not clean creates a cloaked representation to the public compared to the complete reality of the situation. This could lead to “substantial damage to public health” based on the manipulation of public policy for corporate benefit without regard for the health of the general public.
A prime example is given with the Prime Minister (of Pakistan) Imran Khan offered a purported donation to fund a new dam for solving the energy and water crisis of the country.
Siddiqi said, “This happened a few days after the administration took a U-turn on their flagship policy of introducing ‘health levy’ on cigarettes as a way to increase public revenue and expenditure on health.”
About 20% of Pakistani adults consume tobacco on a regular basis. The definition or rate and extent of “regular” is not provided within the article. Nonetheless, this reported as leading to 160,000 deaths every year in Pakistan.
As a signatory of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention to Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), Pakistan put in place some measures in order to reduce the level of harm associated with tobacco.
“…including smoking ban in public places, restricting cigarette sale in packs of 20 only and increasing the size of pictorial health warning on cigarette packs,” Siddiqi explained, “However, the country has taken regressive steps on tobacco taxation, which is generally considered to be the most effective policy tool to curb tobacco use.”
Two years ago, the government of Pakistan implemented a three-level system of taxation. This permitted tobacco companies to alter the popular products from the higher tax to the lower tax, or the second tier to the third tier.
This is correlated with an increase in tobacco consumption by the general Pakistani public linked to more profits, by implication of increased sales, for the tobacco industry relative to Pakistan.
Siddiqi said, “Recently, the government has also allowed companies to start re-manufacturing cigarettes in packs of 10 for ‘export’ purposes, which might be brought back into the internal Pakistani markets, as many anti-tobacco campaigners fear.”
Thus, we come to the rather messy and not-so-clean image of the tobacco industry, in fact, compared to the one in the image. Now, the industry, the tobacco industry, is working to expand the “corporate social responsibility activities” into the Pakistani media, even further.
“These include offering cigarette gift packs to Pakistan Naval Forces and Prime Minister’s house, building a cigar lounge for members of parliament inside the Parliament House, setting up mobile hospitals and computer centers, launching tree plantation campaigns and sponsoring conferences and sign boards for public bodies,” Siddiqi stated.
The article concludes that the slowing progress on control of tobacco and its harmful effects on the public have begun to slow down. The recent legislation is working to increase the warning about the harms of tobacco.
There was a health levy, but this was regressed substantially. Leading to a response by the Federal Board of Revenue, it said the tobacco tax increases may increase the illicit tobacco trade.
More in the article listed in the reference.
Reference
Siddiqi, K. (2019, January 9). The hidden power of corporations. Retrieved from https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l4/rr-4.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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According to Ran Ukashi, National Director of the League for Human Rights or on behalf of B’nai Brith Canada, there was a purported antisemitic attack on the BerMax Caffé in Winnipeg, which turned out to staged.
As with the Jussie Smollett staged attacks and the African-American community, and as with the apparently staged attacks here, there should be, as per the note by Ukashi, a condemnation of the fabrication of a hate crime, especially in a period of a rise in hate crimes based on religion, ethnicity, and so on.
Ukashi stated, “Making false allegations of antisemitism does nothing to quell the rise of racism and discrimination in Winnipeg and across Canada and will embolden the conspiracy theorists and purveyors of anti-Jewish hatred who blame the entirety of society’s ills on the Jewish community.”
False attacks should not detract from the seriousness with which hate crimes on Jewish peoples, Muslims, African-Americans, and so on, are taken in the public discourse, as hate should never be tolerated against the general citizenry or individual citizens in this manner.
These false allegations make human rights work difficult for all human rights organizations, including B’nai Brith Canada and others. There is a unified effort to combat hate and bigotry in all its forms, as it arises, whether in anti-Muslim sentiment, in antisemitism, and others.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Nature reported on a pressing and prescient warning of the dangers of a neutral tool: artificial intelligence. What is the threat of a neutral tool?
Of course, the threat comes in the form of the uses or utility functions provided to the AI by human beings, either as individuals or collectives.
Nonetheless, Benkler reported on the ways in which private industry or industry in general continues to shape the ethic and, thus, the utility functions of a powerful and sophisticated hammer, artificial intelligence.
May 10, 2019, is the due date for letters of intent to the National Science Foundation of the United States constructed for a new funding program entitled Fairness in Artificial Intelligence.
This follows from the European Commission “Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI.” It was described, byan academic member of the commission, as “ethics washing” with the utter industry domination of the content.
Google formed an AI ethics board in March, which fell apart in a week based on controversy. Even earlier, in January, Facebook invested 7.5 million USD into an ethics and AI centre at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.
What does this mean for the direction of the future of AI and its ethic schemata? It means the blueprints are being laid by the chickens of industry.
The input from industry, according to Benkley, remains crucial for the development of the future of AI. However, there should not be a monopolization of the power and the ethics.
Both governments and industry should be transparent and publicly accountable in the development of the ethical frameworks developed for AI.
Benkley stated, “Algorithmic-decision systems touch every corner of our lives: medical treatments and insurance; mortgages and transportation; policing, bail and parole; newsfeeds and political and commercial advertising. Because algorithms are trained on existing data that reflect social inequalities, they risk perpetuating systemic injustice unless people consciously design countervailing measures.”
He provided an example of artificially intelligent systems capable of predicting recidivism. Those who differentially affect black and white, or European and African heritage communities.
In addition, or similarly, this could impact policing and job candidacy of applicants. With the black box of the inclusion of algorithms and systems into an artificial intelligence, these could simply reflect the societal biases, which would be “invisible and unaccountable.”
“When designed for profit-making alone, algorithms necessarily diverge from the public interest — information asymmetries, bargaining power and externalities pervade these markets,” Benkley stated, “For example, Facebook and YouTube profit from people staying on their sites and by offering advertisers technology to deliver precisely targeted messages. That could turn out to be illegal or dangerous.”
More in the reference…
References
Benkler, Y. (2019, May 1). Don’t let industry write the rules for AI. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01413-1?utm_source=twt_nnc&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=naturenews&sf211946232=1.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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For those workers looking for the best place to find some good or solid working experience in an international locale, one of the best places for you to find some work will be within the context of the reports by the World Economic Forum on research.
According to the Boston Consulting Group’s Decoding Global Talent, there appear to be workers more often wanting to head to the United States of America more than any other nation.
In addition, even with the some of the travel bans and antics happening in America, and with the increase in some talent drainage headed for the US going to Canada, the US continues to dominate the overall charts of those places that individuals want to garner some better lives and work in advanced sectors of work.
This has been a strength of America, not its primary and secondary school system. But, rather, the ways in which high-level talent and menial labor – the high and low end, so to speak – funnel into the US and work for applicable wages, where some are illegal and others require the genius passport or the H1-B.
The most appealing for the respondents, according to the WEF, are, in the order presented from most to least desirable, the US, Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Japan.
As reiterated in the article, “Despite recent policy changes that are less than welcoming towards immigrants, the US remains the most attractive country for foreign workers. It is the number one choice of people living in Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa, and second among workers from the Middle East and North Africa and Europe. “
America is the place to be, according to the votes of feet crossing borders to get to it. Canada is a highly desirable for the young and the educated from around the world.
“Germany has replaced the UK in second position. According to the report, workers from countries like Spain, Denmark, Poland, and Romania who were previously keen on the UK, now have their eye on Germany. The country has welcomed many foreigners in recent years, and has a booming economy,” the report stated.
With the fourth spot given to Australia, it made a leap by appearing in the top five for this time. Since 2014, the UK has dropped three spots into fifth. One may speculate as to the relation of this to Brexit.
1/3rd of the non-British workers are looking to leave within 5 years. That’s simply a fact of the political instability of a country and the economic consequences of a country, not in the immediate but in the years henceforth.
“However, despite the UK’s decline in popularity, London remains the world’s number-one city for foreign workers to move to,” the report stated, “Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland and Japan make up the remainder of the top 10, with France and Switzerland both dropping places.”
Over the last few years, the trend has been, in fact, trends with one of them being the set of workers simply not wanting to move. 57% said that they would want to move now. 64% were happy to move in 2014. This is a moderate but noticeable trend if calculated over several economies.
The WEF stated, “This is particularly the case in China, where a booming economy means that workers don’t have to look elsewhere for a job, and also in Eastern European economies that are experiencing stronger growth.”
With more closure of nation-states around the world, this could be influencing the situation, too. At the same time, there was some commentary on the nature of the globalization of work.
There is a rising nationalism and authoritarianism while, in simultaneity, a rise in the global nature of the work, i.e., remote and other means by which to work at a distance.
“However, not every country saw a drop in enthusiasm among workers for a cross-border move. More than 90% of Indians and 70% of Brazilians now say they would be willing to move to another country for the right job, up significantly since 2014,” the report stated.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/05/11
Md. Sazzadul Hoque is an exiled Bangladeshi secularist blogger, human rights activist, and atheist activist. His writing covers a wide range of issues, including religious superstition, critical thinking, feminism, gender equality, homosexuality, and female empowerment. He’s protested against blogger killings and past/present atrocities against Bangladeshi minorities by the dominant Muslim political establishment. He’s also written about government-sponsored abductions and the squashing of free speech; the systematic corruption in everyday life of Bangladeshis; and the denial of the pursuit of happiness.
In 2017, after receiving numerous threats, he was forced to leave Bangladesh out of safety concerns.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We can see the development of ex-Muslim councils around the world. Council of Ex-Muslims of Bangladesh is a new one. Why found one amongst the most dangerous regions, and countries, for ex-Muslims?
Md. Sazzadul Hoque: We do things not because it is easy, but because it is hard (JFK). either we confront the evil now or later, regardless the cost is high relative to the time when it is fought. We must live free or die trying. We must stir and start the process of contradiction in the subjugated mind of Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the ground zero to kill this evil. Historically Bangladesh was Shanatan then Buddhist then turned to Shanatan (Hindu) then to Muslim. If we can change Bangladesh, it will change the surrounding country. Majority of Bangladesh population is growing population, if we can have the right kind of message to these people, they will bring about the change Bangladesh had seen historically. If Bangladeshi changes India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Iran will follow. Just these mentioned countries combined over a billion people.
Jacobsen: How does this council provide a beacon of light in a shroud of some fundamentalist darkness there?
Hoque: Information is power, information is the gateway to freedom, this council will with the help of the right kind of people have the right kind of information to change minds. We as Bengali are not new to this fundamentalism. We must have a platform where people can draw their inspiration seeing other Ex-Muslim in such platform.
Jacobsen: What are volunteer opportunities through the Council of Ex-Muslims of Bangladesh?
Hoque: There many people out there, but there is not a single unified platform from where people can collectively work together. People are working from their point of view and position, to my understanding it is time to act collaborate with Bangladesh and internationally.
Jacobsen: How can ex-Muslims protect themselves?
Hoque: The majority of these people are in hiding, to protect them self-one should write under a pen name in both internet and while publishing on paper, however they must take serious consideration to preserve their identity. If they are using the internet, they may use VPN service to mask their IP address.
Jacobsen: What will be the goals for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Bangladesh in 2019/2020 as it is starting up?
Hoque: The activity of 2019/2020 is to inform people such a platform exists, and we are here to stay.
Our mission to have a platform where we are able to collectively express our views or feelings, most importantly a place where ex-Muslim can safely empathize with one another, a place where we are able to tell the world how we are brutalized by this hate mongering repressive regressive faith that subjugate. Our platform is to convey support to those who are in dire need of psychological support and many other supports that we may be able to offer as we grow stronger in the future.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sazza.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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Dr. Alexander Douglas specialises in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of economics. He is a faculty member at the University of St. Andrews in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies. In this series, we will discuss the philosophy of economics.
Scott Jacobsen: I want to shift the conversation into a brief foray in pseudoeconomics. Things purporting to be economics or some precise notion of international and national finance but, simply speaking, not connecting to the real world and, in fact, doing some time widespread damage. What defines pseudoeconomics?
Dr. Alexander Douglas: I don’t think ‘pseudoeconomics’ is a particularly useful category. To show why, let me say something about pseudoscience in general. Engaging in pseudoscience means aping the concepts and terminology of the sciences without taking on the critical methods that make them reliable. On this definition, to put it bluntly, much of economics is pseudoscience. These are fighting words, so let me try to explain carefully.
The concepts and terminology aped by economists consists mostly of mathematical notions. Since Stanley Jevons, economics has become increasingly mathematical; today it is probably the most heavily-mathematised applied subject with the possible exception of physics. But whereas certain areas of physics, quantum mechanics for example, can boast astonishing powers of predictive precision, economists don’t gain rewards in predictive power in proportion to their mathematical pains. The mathematics seems to be there only for show, or for intimidation. And this is a symptom of pseudoscience; one thinks of the intricate yet, in the end, irrelevant probability equations found in the work of Intelligent Design proponents like Michael Behe.
Alexander Rosenberg explained the lack of predictive precision in economics back in 1994, and I think the explanation holds. Physicists build complex mathematical models based on laws that have been rigorously tested empirically. Observation and experiment confirms that the crucial laws hold, and hold to very precise degrees. Something that really helps for testing a fundamental law is having distinct laws that concern the same properties. Take the Newtonian law, force equals mass times acceleration. To test this, you need to measure mass, but most ways of measuring mass – using scales for instance – presuppose the truth of the law. Happily there are other laws, e.g. Hooke’s spring law, that let you test mass without presupposing the truth of the Newtonian law. By measuring the mass of an object using the spring law – the way we measure it in outer space – you can then measure acceleration and force to see whether the Newtonian law bears out. In economics, however, you have laws that relate human behaviour to ‘utility functions’, yet there is no way to test a utility function except by observing behaviour. To infer a utility function from behaviour, you need a law connecting the two, yet you can’t test how well that law holds up unless you know some utility functions. Thus any alleged law-like connection between utility and behaviour – the assumption of maximisation – is something that we can’t test to any degree of precision. So why build incredibly complex mathematical models around functions representing causal relations that, for all we can scientifically know, might be quite wrong? This, to me, looks like pseudophysics: it copies the style but not the substance.
Economists often reply to me, when I make this point, that not all economists believe in utility-maximisation. There are models, they say, where this assumption is relaxed and replaced with more ‘realistic’ ideas about how people’s utility-functions govern their behaviour. What they don’t realise is that there is no empirical basis for saying that such assumptions are any more or less realistic. Assume that people don’t fully maximise their utility – say they use heuristics and ‘satisfice’. Now we can read a different utility function off their observed behaviour. How do we know that this assumption is ‘realistic’? Certainly not by seeing whether observed behaviour is what we would expect given the ‘satisficing’ assumption. For to know that, we need to know the utility function as well as the observed behaviour. And yet we just saw that we can only get to it by making the assumption we were trying to test.
Utility, said Joan Robinson, is a concept of impregnable circularity: there just isn’t any way for experiment and observation to break into the circle.
Naturally there is a great deal of mathematical interest in, say, decision theory and game theory. Interesting theorems can be proven in these branches of applied mathematics. To apply them to human behaviour in any predictively powerful way, we would need bridge-laws, formulating the degree to which real human behaviour implements the abstract mathematical model described in those sciences. But since human behaviour is the only observable thing, there just isn’t any scientifically respectable way to derive such bridge-laws.
Simply assuming that the results of a branch of applied mathematics have any relevance to the behaviour of a physical system – that’s pseudoscience rather than science. It has the outward elements of much modern science – mathematics and observation. But it fails to connect them together in the manner of a proper science. Since economics is, to this extent, pseudoscience, I don’t think it’s very useful to talk about pseudoeconomics; in a way I’d say that all economics is pseudoeconomics and a proper, mathematically-advanced science of human action lies in the future at best. But I’ll try to answer your further questions about pseudoeconomics by trying to imagine myself in the point of view of a working economist.
Jacobsen: What are some examples of pseudoeconomics in action? Examples of pseudoeconomics on the Left and on the Right, because this may be a non-partisan issue, but something of importance in the light of known damage from pseudoscience and pseudomedicine. How can pseudoeconomics be combatted?
Douglas: Again, I’m sceptical of the whole enterprise of economics, so the best I can do is report what economists say on this. Simon Wren-Lewis has written actively about what he would probably be happy to call ‘pseudoeconomics’; he’s collected this writing into a book called The Lies We Were Told. Some of his examples:
(1) The consensus among macroeconomists at top universities was that austerity was a damaging and unnecessary policy for the UK government to pursue, but the media reported this as a matter of contention among economic experts.
(2) The consensus among academic economists in general, as well as most experts with relevant knowledge, was that Brexit would have serious, harmful economic consequences. Again the media reported this as a balanced debate splitting the experts.
(3) Economic opinion on the economic effects of immigration does not bear out the alarmism that politicians such as Donald Trump exploit during their campaigns.
Note that these aren’t really cases of bogus economics; they are, rather, cases of misrepresentation. You’re not lying, nor even engaging in pseudoscience, if you go against the consensus opinion of academic economists. But you’re lying if you suggest that there is a consensus where there isn’t, or vice-versa. That seems to me to be the sort of thing Wren-Lewis is talking about. I’m happy to defer to his expertise on the question of what academic economists tend to believe.
Those are examples of pseudoeconomics on the Right, I suppose. I think Wren-Lewis could cite a similar example on the Left, in the case of Modern Monetary Theory (some of his posts on it are here). MMT is a school of economics that has a growing following on the blogosphere and is mentioned positively by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among others. Wren-Lewis is a critic of MMT, but his criticism is of what it says about mainstream economics. I think he’d agree with a statement something like this: MMT portrays mainstream macroeconomists, such as Wren-Lewis, as supporting policies that keep the unemployment rate higher than it needs to be, simply because they don’t understand the mechanisms of state spending. Wren-Lewis strenuously denies this, of course, though I don’t think he disagrees with any of the other factual claims made by MMT (he disagrees with MMT economists on policy recommendations, but it’s standard for economists to disagree over those).
Paul Krugman seems, for example in this blog post, to suggest that MMT is ‘pseudoeconomics’ in a stronger sense: it overlooks some crucial facts about how our economic institutions work. Krugman, however, doesn’t seem particularly well-informed about what MMT economists actually claim (one of them, Stephanie Kelton, took him to task on this). This, then, is a case of Krugman doing pseudoeconomics on my modified definition: representing economists as believing things they don’t actually believe.
Pseudoeconomics in this sense is only effective because of the prestige accorded to the opinions of economists. If the ratings agencies of the mind downgraded their opinions, nobody would bother with pseudoeconomics. Nobody bothers misrepresenting an unvalued opinion.
Jacobsen: Similar to the demarcation problem with science and non-science, how can we draw a line between economics and pseudoeconomics?
Douglas: I have no working theory on the demarcation problem. But I’ve tried to explain why I see economics as being on the ‘wrong’ side of the demarcation. To the extent that much successful modern science involves the application of mathematics to the natural world, the application itself is governed by a set of critical, empirical methods. Working on conic sections is amusing and edifying, but only a good track record of predicted observation justifies us in applying parabolas to the motion of projectiles.
Economics tries to skip to the end by working hard on the mathematics and then merely assuming its applicability to a portion of the natural world, namely the one made up by our bodies, our tools, and their various motions around the surface of the globe. This certainly forms a physical system of some sort, and we might one day hit upon a mathematical model that tracks its behaviour. But I see no reason to think that model will have anything to do with rational choice theory, which is really just a mathematical elaboration of our untested intuitions about human rationality, nor with the supposedly more realistic ‘behavioural models’, which are just mathematical elaborations of our untested intuitions about human irrationality.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Alex.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Dr. Alexander Douglas specialises in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of economics. He is a faculty member at the University of St. Andrews in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies. In this series, we will discuss the philosophy of economics.
Scott Jacobsen: With psychology classified as a natural science by you, what are the most substantiated and broad-reaching strong conclusions of psychology relevant to economics?
Dr. Alexander Douglas: I’m no expert on this. Behavioural economics is the main area in which the findings of clinical psychology have been integrated. The major challenge attacks, as Robert Sugden puts it, the notion of ‘integrated’ preferences, according to which each agent is defined by a stable set of preferences that has to be tailored to fit her choice behaviour in all circumstances. So if I choose soup over salad today, and salad over soup tomorrow, then the assumption that I am rational compels us to redefine the objects in my preference-set. It would be irrational to prefer salad to soup and soup to salad tout court, but not, e.g., to prefer soup to salad when I’ve eaten 1000 soups in my life but salad to soup when I’ve eaten 1001 soups.
But is it rational for what I’ve eaten in the past to influence what I choose today? What about the lighting in the restaurant? What about what other people are eating? And then, of course, every soup is unique and every salad is unique: perhaps I prefer this soup to this salad, but not that soup to that salad. But then if the descriptions under which I choose become so specific, economic predictions become impossible: nothing about what I choose today will inform us about what I’ll choose tomorrow, since tomorrow everything will be slightly different.
Economists, it turns out, make a lot of implicit assumptions about what can and what can’t go rationally into what is called the ‘framing’ of a choice: past consumption is permitted to be relevant, but not seemingly extraneous factors like the day of the week on which a choice is made. But who is to say what it is rational to consider relevant to a choice? A lot of behavioural economics is about coming to terms with the importance of framing; people can be found, e.g., to choose to save 98 out of 100 lives but not to condemn two out of 100 people to death. Behavioural economics seeks to know how people typically frame their choices, and how the framing affects what they choose.
In a way, it tries to honour the ideal of ‘value-neutrality’ that underpins modern economics: it looks like a value-judgment to say that past consumption can rationally influence a choice but not the day of the week. Behavioural economists want to get by without even that value judgment. We shouldn’t say that people are irrational just because they take to be relevant what economic theorists take to be irrelevant.
Sugden believes, by the way, that even without identifying people’s preferences as such we can make some judgments about the sorts of economic institutions that they would rationally choose. I’m sceptical. He believes that people will rationally choose an economically liberal arrangement, in which free agents can engage in voluntary exchange in pursuit of a better allocation to themselves – and so they might, under that description. But how about under the sort of description Thomas Carlyle might give to such an arrangement: an unearthly ballet of higgling and haggling, conducted by little profit-and-loss philosophers; an array of pig-troughs where the pigs run across each other in unresting search of the tastiest slops, etc. etc.? Framing matters when agents ‘rationally’ choose institutions, just as much as when they ‘rationally’ choose goods. Public choice theory, I think, must also come to terms with the centrality of framing.
Jacobsen: How might, or are, these most substantiated and broad-reaching strong conclusions of psychology influence the philosophizing about economics?
Douglas: Once we bring framing into the question, I think the whole way of modelling human behaviour has to radically change. I don’t see how this can be avoided. A standard ‘utility function’ in economics will look something like this: U=f(x), where U is the overall utility or wellbeing of an agent and x is some vector of magnitudes, each representing the amount of a certain good consumed. To take framing into account, we’d need to replace x with a vector of descriptions of goods. These can’t be simple magnitudes, and so the whole project of a mathematisation of human behaviour is undermined. Could you not just expand the vector of magnitudes to have one argument for every good consumed under every possible description? You’d have one magnitude for coffee in the morning on my own, one for tea in the afternoon with a friend, one for tea in the afternoon with a work colleague, one for coffee in the evening with my beloved, etc. etc. The problem, of course, is that every good will fall under an infinite number of possible descriptions. And worse, there are descriptions of descriptions: choosing off a menu isn’t the same as choosing from a buffet, and so on.
Moreover, it is hard to see how we can get solid experimental evidence on how people frame choices. We might, using the above example, find that people will choose to accept the loss of two people but not to condemn two people to death. These framing effects matter a great deal, as our spin doctors know well. But how do we define the difference? That too is far from clear – our spin doctors know that too. I think that properly taking these subtleties into account would make economics into a qualitative, hermeneutic, ‘soft’ science – more akin to anthropology than physics.
Behavioural economists are attempting to walk the tightrope between hermeneutic anthropology and quantitative science, but I believe that the tightrope is of infinitesimal width, and sooner or later they’ll topple over onto one side.
Jacobsen: Do any of the aforementioned strong conclusions influence the treatment of time-inconsistency first considered by Spinoza and into the present with professional philosophers such as yourself?
Douglas: Spinoza has an idea of rationality that, I think, sits very badly with economics in general. For him it is irrational to discount the future at all. I might prefer one marshmallow today to two marshmallows tomorrow, but tomorrow I would, if I could, certainly not give up two marshmallows to have had one in the past. It is arbitrary to identify myself with myself at a particular moment in time. Thus he says that the rational person does not value a good differently depending on whether it is past, present, or future (Ethics 4p62).
When modern economists talk about time inconsistency, they mean something much weaker than this. They’re talking about a time-discounting function that is hyberbolic, or generally non-linear. Only a few concede that time-discounting, in general, is irrational; Joan Robinson calls it ‘an irrational or weak-minded failure to value the future consumption now at what its true worth … will turn out to be’ (The Accumulation of Capital, 394).
If agents didn’t engage in time-discounting, economic explanations of interest rate, profit, and so on wouldn’t work. Economists certainly don’t want to say that economic equilibrium depends on profound irrationality in the agents involved. In fact, I think you could argue that their equilibriums depend on forced labour or coercive extraction of some sort. If I take on a loan today, my future self will have to work to pay the interest. He gets no direct benefit from what happened in the past. Or, even if he does, he is unlikely to set the relative value of the past benefit as high as his past self did. But he simply wasn’t consulted in the decision. My past self can be paternalistic or exploitative towards my future selves, but, in any case, there is a dictatorship of the present. Economists treat as coercive a situation in which the preferences of a select group determine the outcomes for everyone. But that is exactly what happens when, in their models, agents at time zero determine what all their future selves will pay and receive, by negotiating with other agents present at time zero.
We could, of course, identify all the future selves of an agent with that agent at time zero, but then we would have an agent with deeply inconsistent preferences. Again: today I prefer to give up the promise of two marshmallows tomorrow for one today, but tomorrow I certainly wouldn’t give up two marshmallows in order to have had one in the past. So a single diachronic agent with a nonzero time-discounting rate would have preferences that are not just ‘inconsistent’ in some weak sense but plainly contradictory.
This isn’t only an academic exercise; it gets to the heart of why markets can’t plan – an issue rendered very palpable in our day by the climate crisis. James Galbraith points this out somewhere in The Predator State. You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that futures markets allow markets to plan: what they allow is for present agents to divide up the spoils of what they plunder from future generations by contractual obligations or irreversible natural processes. In this way, as in many others, Spinoza has never been more relevant.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Alex.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped the Palestinian Authority after torture and imprisonment in Palestine to Jordan and then France. He is an ex-Muslim and atheist. Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France.
There were some issues in the recent history of France. I reached out to Al-Husseini to get a secular perspective on the issue.
Al-Husseini spoke on the fundamentalism as a problem in the headlines. But there is also peripheral, but important, issues around miniskirts. He notes this within the context of the world of social media too.
In the Computer Age, there is, in fact, a problem of bad news making the cut and then travelling through the hotwires of the world faster than other news. The miniskirt moment was one such news item within the French sphere.
Al-Husseini stated, “Every time, you will find something: summer coming soon and so there will be people discussing the issues around the Burkini. You will continue to see these headlines that make it seem like the Dark Ages.”
There are Muslim leaders who would prefer an internal-to-Islam, doctrines and practices, change or reformation. Al-Husseini views this as a problem. In that, many Muslims simply may not want the change. Some individual Muslims would simply prefer to learn fundamentalist forms of Sharia.
“That is why even in this time it’s impossible for reform in Islam. Now, it’s like in reform Nazism, in their time when they have the power. Islam has the power, and the religion has connections and money. So, it is impossible. Maybe later they can!” Al-Husseini said.
He talked about the time of a “revolution of light” with the time of the muʿtazilah. He saw this as a wonderful thing for every one of the time. In that, the Quran was simply viewed as a historical document and nothing more than this.
Now, the problem is that the Quran is viewed as a document for every time
and place. But some in the ex-Muslim community can be part of the movement of the reformers.
“We are the reason of making many Muslims use the term moderate because of us because they just don’t accept to kill us! We know more from the inside. Most of us know the Quran through its original language in Arabic, which is the strongest translation of the Quran!” Al Husseini exclaimed, “And we know the ways of them and will never be in these traps and we showed and explained this, we can be part of a united Muslim from who really want to help against the fundamentalists.”
It was this note of a move to modernity and a modern interpretation of a faith within a naturalistic and moderated framework that can be the basis for the work of some Muslims and some ex-Muslims working together.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped the Palestinian Authority after torture and imprisonment in Palestine to Jordan and then France. He is an ex-Muslim and atheist.
We have been corresponding and conducting interviews for a long time now. I reached out once more to talk about some principles, apparently or to some, seemingly in conflict with one another.
These were the ideas of freedom of expression and secularism and then restricted expression and theocracy. Both stand opposed to one another, including the various tendencies in form for them their arising.
The values of France tend towards secularism and freedom of expression. Al-Husseini holds values more in line with secularism and similar values. He believes in a firm separation between the state and religion.
Al-Husseini stated, “All of these things do not exist in Islam. It only exists when they are all Muslims as part of humanity (‘it’ only exists? What is ‘it’?) But these can then be computed only within the framework of Islam and Islamic values, which is why they are asking for the defence of the hijab in the name of liberty, but then they attack criticism of Islam in the name of racism.”
Al-Husseini makes the distinction between the arguments about race and racism, and Islam and the doctrines, in the criticism here. He views the hijab as an example of slavery and second-class citizenship within the societal framework.
That is to say, he sees this as a means by which to see women as a sexual tool. It becomes a political tool for more fundamentalist versions and interpretations of Islam too.
He does see this form of criticism of Islam as a fundamental human right found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
When I asked about Sharia Law and Sharia courts in some interpretations of Islam, these can exist separate or distinct from universalist traditions of law, wherein a dual-law system can be set and found in a secular society.
Yet, the society will have a dual-law set with one of the two being theocratic-based and, therefore, infringing on the fundamental basis of secularism as the separation of, in this instance, Mosque and State.
“This is what happened in the UK, and that’s why I don’t like “secularism” and prefer the term “laïcité”! With secularism, they make insular communities and everyone lets them do what they want,” Al-Husseini stated, “I remember in 2010, maybe one court released someone who was charged with beating his wife, because he said that it is okay to beat your wife within Islam and our religion!”
He makes this as an argument for the separation of the place of worship and the public & political life of the citizenry. He sees the battle for secularism as a long one ahead of the citizenry who desire a secular state.
Al-Husseini argues the education in secularism should begin in the earliest years of an individual. In that, there should be a stoppage of teaching religion as true or false in schools, but, instead, keeping these battles for the minds of the young as a true education in simply the facts of the faiths: what do individuals all over the world believe?
Al-Husseini continued, “AAlso, we should stop telling kids about jihad and should not separate people into Muslims and non-Muslims! It provides a simplistic view of the world. Let them see all of us as humans of many stripes and shades, and types. And the governments should have a secularism law and work hard for it!”
He observes a common problem not simply in the education but in the people, too. As there can be a problem in the people simply not adhering to the tenets of a secular state, this can create a problem.
Another can be obscurantism about aspects of some parts of a faith. Al-Husseini spoke of terms like Islamophobia, from his point of view, being a problem.
“Because, for example, there are the jihadists or terrorists who physically attack you, but then there are these moderates who also attack you in courts!” Al-Husseini stated. He can see this in the admixture of the definitions between racism, hatred and fear of another because of ethnic background or look, and bigotry against an individual believing Muslim.”
He noted this was something that he talked about in his last book. Al-Husseini concluded on the assertion that e-Muslims know more about Islam and the ways of Islamism than individual Muslims.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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*This is in support of an upcoming Nigerian book, as a Foreword.*
The nature of an education amounts to the preparation of the mind for an independent existence in ideas. In a manner of speaking, this means a philosophical life. A life built from the quest for increased epistemic justification for some fundamental grasp at the ontological structure of the world and its emergent or derivative manifestations seen in the perceived world inhabited by us. Thus, four referents implied with reality, our selves, the relation of reality with our selves, and the relationships of our selves with other selves. Each implying different standard strata of analysis of the world and applying different conceptual frameworks for comprehension. Every area of education deals with a distinct domain of discourse within these four systems.
In a near idealistic context, these would form the basis for a universal education: What defines reality? What defines our selves? What defines the relation of reality with our selves? What defines the relationships of our selves with other selves? A universal education should include these without explicit statement of them. Looking at the selection of the quotations by Olumide in the Mental Development: A Nigerian Child’s Perspective, we can note the Satanic Verses author, Salman Rushdie, who constructed words in such a manner to enflame dogmatic inquisitors’ ire at him, even though among the irascible, granted.
Further examine the terminology used by Rushdie with the word “childish,” the leaving of childish things behind us, in a way echoed speaking. This reflects the notion of Albert Einstein, Steven Weinberg, and 1 Corinthians. Fundamentalist religious belief as childish and a moon to the Sun of humanity’s frailties. As Einstein opined, “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this,” the compilation of immature fables for the human soul with reflection in the parts seen inhumane but ever-so human.
The philosophical life requires questions to terra firma, to the Earth, toward the empirical in addition to the sky, to the heavens, toward the abstract and theoretical. We live in our stories. Also, our narratives live in us. A mutual cohabitation of the soul in spiels. In some sense, the tall tales of old remain important but marginal to much of modern life while important, to most, for some edificative purposes. The more famous, and infamous, individuals with the ability and opportunity to live a philosophical life retain particular misrepresentations.
To the fundamentalist religious view of the world, as American Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson states on several occasions, the ability to manufacture the image of a famous, unimpeachably brilliant individual into their – the fundamentalist religious – ranks creates a peculiar, deliberate, and false cachet of some brands of fundamentalist religious worldviews, where this can apply to fundamentalist ideologies of most or all forms. The operations of fundamentalism remain the same. Take, for example, the notion of Einstein in support of fundamentalist Abrahamic religions or the Abrahamisms – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (and Bábism, Bahá’ísm, Druze faith, Mandeanism, Rastafari, Samaritanism, Shabakism, Yazdânism).
Einstein remarked, “For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”
In this, we can observe the direct explication by Einstein of not only the Abrahamic religions but “all others” as a product ‘incarnate’ of the “childish superstitions” of human beings. Our weaknesses anti-sublimated, superimposed, or superjacent onto the texts and traditions of fundamentalist religion. In particular, we may see the wisdom, too, in the abhorrence or, perhaps, only conscious avoidance of power. The misrepresentation of Einstein remains common, benign in some circles and malicious slander in others, of which he remained aware and spoke firmly against in terms of traditional fundamentalist religious belief.
True education, as affirmed and hinted in Mental Development: A Nigerian Child’s Perspective, permits open inquiry and discovery of the world in minds old and new, especially the true statements of prominent individuals in history. To question, for the current example, the notion of Einstein in some basic sense in support of the fundamentalist religions seen throughout the world with the simple quote, or potentially misquote, stating, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
Indeed, Einstein held fast to a belief in God within the philosophical constraints of the Laws of Nature and the God of Spinoza. Some form of deism or type of pantheism acceptable within the modern scientific discourse and evidence of the 20th century. The inability to distinguish truth from falsehood creates a problem. Olumide explains, “Religious truth, cultural truth, racial truth, political truth, economical truth, to think all these correct and worth considering is to travel in an abyss, an endless and fruitless moral adventure.”
To the misrepresentation of Einstein, as implied in the prior quotations, he stated, “It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” Herein, we find the belief in a Spinozan Deity or Pantheity, and not a Theity – an important distinction, conceived within the constraints of the Laws of Nature while also dismissing the honorable, primitive legends of the Bible as “pretty childish” and the Jewish religion and others as “childish superstitions.”
Saliu states the strange situation of rapid societal alteration with the concomitant stagnation in the upbringing and reading of Nigerian youth. He notes, “…to read and repeat words in languages they don’t understand every day, without provision for independent reasoning, critical thinking and profound education, which could have made them better individuals, great human resources and an asset to our dear country and the whole of humanity.” This reduces education to parroting or repetition, and memorization, rather than individual discovery and enquiry for the benefit of Nigerian civil society.
An honest and universal education may lead to questions about the outgrowths in public life about the superiority and inferiority of one’s own nation and associated dominant faith. As Steven Weinberg, in the Atheist Tapes, said, “I’m offended by the kind of smarmy religiosity that’s all around us, perhaps more in America than in Europe, and not really that harmful because it’s not really that intense or even that serious, but just… you know after a while you get tired of hearing clergymen giving the invocation at various public celebrations and you feel, haven’t we outgrown all this? Do we have to listen to this?”
Note the phrase of “outgrown all this” as a query of someone feeling weary of tiresome activities, to grow out of something means to become unlike a child or to develop from the contractive to the expansive horizon and vision of the world, this move from the childish to the mature echoes the sentiments of Einstein in other contexts. Education, in some sense, becomes about a philosophical life, where a life of philosophy produces someone with a mature soul.
Olumide directly notes the purpose of the text as conquering the world with courage and placing Nigeria rightfully in its place as one of the beautiful colors that forms the mosaic of world civilization. The text, in many ways, may become a brief introduction to theories about and means by which to nourish the mind of Nigerian youth at crucial periods in their life trajectory from childrearing to diet to limits on environmental influence on biological outcomes, to sex to addictions to critical thinking and more.
To the last example from the outset, even the wise aspects of holy texts speak to the nature of removal from the childish ways of the past, 1 Corinthians in the Bible speaks about this. 1 Corinthians 13:11 speaks about the leaving behind of childish things when thinking as a child, saying, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” (NIV) To speak, think, and ratiocinate as a child, this rephrases the essence of the statements by Einstein, Weinberg, and Rushdie, and the thrust of the overall text of Olumide. The philosophical life, the mature mind, and the universal education come from the passing of childish ways.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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*This interview was conducted in 2018.*
Scott Douglas Jacobson: So in the past, you have been a member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance, with the recent report published in February 2018. How did you come to earn that position?
What are the main propositions within the final report?
Professor Paul Fisher: So, there was a request for nominations at end 2016. I should note that serving on the committee was unpaid, so this is a volunteer committee. I was nominated by Cambridge University as a Senior Associate there. With my background at the Bank of England and working on climate change there, that was probably the basis for it.
The recommendations are comprehensive. We’re expecting them to pretty much endorse everything, to set out their plan for what happens at least over the next year and a half before the next round of European elections.
They’ll be doing groundwork, to be taken forward to the next European Parliament. But we don’t know for sure what will be in the actual plan (editiorial note: subsequently published in March 2018). The recommendations are summarized under ten summary headings, although, there is probably about 100. It is quite difficult to be precise! Let’s say 100 recommendations.
Jacobsen: What are those areas?
Fisher: The first one is to introduce a common taxonomy. Because you cannot start to talk about classifying financial assets without precise definitions. So if you want to know what a green asset is, everyone has to agree on what the definition of green is.
It isn’t about rules at this point. This is about getting the dictionary correct. They’re already working on this, trying to specify this new taxonomy. And once you’ve done that, you can start making policy decisions based on the classifications.
The second area is around clarifying the duties of investors, to look at longer time horizons and bring greater focus on ESG factors (that is environment, social, and governance). This is in particular for investors who invest on behalf of other people.
So in particular, if you have a pension fund, you are investing on behalf of the pensioners, you should have a really long-term focus, which should bring sustainable issues to the forefront. Now, the incentives for asset managers are often shorter term. We’re looking at that.
Also, the duty of other investors managing their own money, companies at least, to think about those sort of issues. Because your duty to your company is not about short term profit making.
To make sure you include future shareholders as well as current shareholders, you need to think about how sustainable profits are.
Third are disclosure rules. We had a report last year from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. Basically, we want a framework that moves as close as we can get to the recommendations from that task force, and get it as close to mandatory as we can. There may not be any new legislation. It is meant to be voluntary rules, for disclosure on a ‘comply or explain’ basis. That disclosure is supposed to be around material exposures. It is proposed to cover things like governance, strategy, risk management and targets and metrics.
The fourth one is around empowering the citizens to connect with politicians. This includes things like improving information on sustainability performance, and financial literacy. It starts getting into having simple labels for retail funds, about sustainability.
Financial advisors should ask their client about their preferences. So, we can make sure that they are recommending what is suitable. That is supposed to happen under current laws. But they do not ask about sustainability.
Fifth is getting into sustainable finance standards, starting with green bonds. These are bonds, which are issued by borrowers with the proceeds promised to go to some specific green purpose. The market has been growing quite rapidly. We have recommended a European green bond standard. So bonds, that meet that standard can have the label.
Sixth, to improve the supply of projects that need investment, we want to start something called Sustainable Infrastructure Europe. Because a lot of the work we’ve been doing is looking at the supply of finance. But it is the demand for finance which is struggling to keep up. There are not enough green projects to go around. We need technical assistance, especially for the public sector. That should help raise money for infrastructure.
Seventh, there is a general point about reforming governance and leadership of companies, sustainable finance competency, particularly within the financial system. The director’s duties and stewardship principles in that regard need to be clarified. So, we think boards somehow should have some competency on these issues. That they should consider things like carbon emissions and other factors. That blends closely with the investor duties, of course. But this recommendation applies to all companies.
Then finally, we want to enlarge the role of the European Supervisory Agencies. There are three of those, in particular, which are the Euopean Banking Association, the European Insurance and Occupational Pension Association and the European Securities and Markets Association. But what those three agencies do is coordinate with national regulators in their areas.
So, basically, first is prudential supervision of banks; the second does insurers and the other one does market conduct and consumer protection. That recommendation has, to a certain extent, been implemented already. Because we already had the clarification last year. They should encompass sustainability, as a result of our recommendations.
So, those are the areas – eight in all, which are the summary of the recommendations. Then there are detailed sections within the Report, which cover all that.
Scott: You are also deeply involved with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and Climate Alliance Australia. How do those particular organizations orient themselves in a similar direction, e.g. sustainability?
Paul: The CISL group, having been going about ten years. What they’re doing is work with companies, various work streams, mainly with the sustainable finance people, in banks, insurance, and asset managers. They look for common problems in the industry, to solve them.
They provide executive education for these companies: bringing big companies up to speed with what the issues are and what they should be doing about it. Policy work, which is where I come in, it is to try and convince the policy setting agenda.
In Australia, its a much smaller group, but similarly, they work largely towards trying to get boards to take climate risks seriously. That has been going for a while in Australia. All of these groups work quite closely together.
They’re very similar outlooks. But in Australia, the problems are somewhat different, in that the politics is toxic because of the importance of the coal industry. There is a lot of superannuation funds who are big investors similar to life insurance companies. They’ve got funds at risk.
Scott: I want to ask about a personal approach question as well. Because you do have several years of experience in these areas. Where others do not have the ability to do it or the skill set built up to know what to do?
So when it comes to working with them, in a policy and sustainable economic framework, how do you go about working to influence decisions, either on your own where you are volunteering or contributing to a larger initiative to make that positive impact?
Also, how does that approach differ from some of the approaches that might be taken in different contexts that are not taking into account a longer-term sustainable perspective?
Paul: Most of the people have a lot more experience than me on the sustainability agenda. I’ve only been working on this for a few years. Some have 20 or 30 years’ experience. But most specialists in sustainability or they were from financial companies – specializing in particular aspects of finance.
My background: I was a macroeconomist and policymaker. I was the only one in the group who was a regulator and doing macro. So what do I bring to the party? It is that experience of how to do policy, how to join things up as a macroeconomist, and what the regulatory issues can be in these scenarios. I am not a campaigner in the way, a lot of green campaigners are, or the sustainability people are.
I am interested in public policy, in good private policy for that matter. So, there is a sense of detachment which being an economist, a policy person, should bring you. I go out to talk to companies in the financial sector, I try to do that when I can. I say: forget the politics and campaigning. Even though this is a social, moral, ethical issue, you have to leave that aside and work with the mainstream business risk issue. If you do that, then you will start making the right decisions.
You will realize what the risks are, what the opportunities are, where the economy is going. Trying to bring that clear-headed view of what the issues are. It is giving people permission to get on and do the right thing, forgetting about the politics – that isn’t important.
Most of the banks have these issues under their head of corporate social responsibility. So, it is seen as something needing doing, because the community wants it. But this should be under a business head, which is a CSR issue.
But you are not going to start transforming your business, taking opportunities and avoiding risks, unless, your heads of business units are on side. So get away from the many years of campaigning, get down to hard economics and the business environment and say, “This is the right thing to do if you want to make money.”
Scott: That is funny.
Paul: Invest in renewable energy if you want to make money!
Scott: That is very funny. I live in Canada. It is on a similar context. I could see an argument. In the short term, people are okay with tar sands, but in the long term may want to reconsider that as their main energy resource.
Paul: Tar sands are a stranded asset already. You should not be investing any more money in tar sands because it would get lost. It is a big black pit to pour money into. They should be investing in wind, solar, wave power, and hydroelectric. All sorts of things, but not fossil fuels.
The cost of renewable energy is now going through, falling below the costs of fossil fuel energy. The costs (of renewables) are still falling at 20 to 40 percent per year. So, this is a very rapid growth. UK energy production is at about 25 percent renewables. Germany over a third.
This is where the world is going. It is where the money is going to be made. Not in tar sands. Or other oil and gas. Gas may have a longer life than oil. But basically, the demand for it is going to see a very sharp drop. For example, we’ll basically have electric vehicles powered by renewable energy, we won’t have petrol/diesel vehicles.
Scott: You do not have an obligation to make a statement here. What might this imply for either provinces or nations as a whole, pushing for things like pipelines in the immediate future?
Paul: They’re wasting their time and their money, basically. They need to be looking at renewable energy sources, not fossil fuels. Fossil fuels will be phased out, in a relatively short time period, I would say.
Renewable energy is getting so much cheaper, in many parts of the globe. It is cheaper to produce certain energy at home than the transmission cost across the grid. So however it is made – electricity – in the first place, there is a cost of transmitting it that is greater than it would cost to produce it at home. That’s becoming increasingly true, everywhere could have solar energy. Other places will have wind energy, whatever the local conditions will supply. We won’t need oil or other fossil fuels at all.
Scott: What was done before the geopolitical situation with countries heavily being exporters and heavily reliant internally?
Paul: Saudi Arabia is frantically trying to come up with a new economic policy. So, they can see the writing on the wall. Countries like India, China, need to jump through and go straight to clean energy. The problem is, they rely heavily on coal.
It is creating terrible pollution. So, they know they have to change, from the smoke and pollution. That was what drives those countries, what will drive all of this overall is the economics of it as well. But the cost of the pollution effects will help drive it.
So, this isn’t any sort of cost, going green. This is a choice for cheap, renewable green energy. This is another example: Tesla are working on roof tiles which are solar panels. So, you replace your regular roof tiles with Tesla tiles. You can have solar energy built into your house. Now, whether Tesla has succeeded making a business out of it, I do not know, but that is the way forward. Solar energy and wind energy, possibly, built into the buildings
We already see commercial buildings doing this, make them much more energy efficient. So, these changes are really happening. The difference will be when they go mainstream, as products.
Scott: What is the predicted time for them to become mainstream?
Paul: I think, usually happens, quickly. 2-5 years, we’ve already got the technology for driverless, electric cars. I’ve been in one. I sat in the middle of a three-lane highway without my hands on the wheel. Electric cars, they’re so quick!
Scott: I was in one in California. You do not hear much because they’re so well-built. At the same time, you feel as though you are going through, or at least I felt as though I was going through, the downswing of the roller coaster – by what I was seeing, rather than feeling.
Paul: It is not quite there yet, too expensive or too heavy. They are supposed to be bringing out the car this year, Tesla, which is half the price. Tesla isn’t a mainstream product yet. Somebody said that Toyota produces more cars in a day than Tesla has ever produced.
So, there is some way to go before it goes mainstream. But we are starting to see a big pickup in hybrid cars, which have some electric capacity. There will be no petrol, diesel cars allowed in cities, in 2030, 2040. People are starting to see the writing on the wall.
This is all going to happen. It’ll happen because of the economics. It’ll be cheaper to be driverless.
Scott: What do you consider the boldest proposal for the next 10 years in terms of renewable energy, sustainable energy?
Paul: I do not think it will take much more than common sense. People are supportive. What we’re going to see will be quite striking, it is not just about policy. The economy will change quite dramatically. It will change because of the economics. That will drive it.
That is going to be the boldest thing to happen. Petrol/diesel cars to electric cars don’t need a policy shift. It will be consumers that drive it.
And we’re now seeing, in the UK and Europe, the big push back against plastics. Or making sure that plastic is recyclable plastic at least. That happened, for me, in the past a month or two, after a television program. So when I think of the boldest thing, I think this is just going to happen by consumer action. It will happen because the economics will drive it.
We’re well on the way to see very big changes in the economy and the way in which people think about those issues. The policy is already mainstream. Since 2015, the Financial Stability Board has changed its policy agenda. The setting up of a G20 Study Group for green finance, which in turn led to the EC Experts Group on Sustainable Finance. So, all these things have come since September 2015. Now, it is an unstoppable policy.
Trump may disrupt, nonetheless. But what you are seeing in the US is cities, states, individual businesses, taking up the reins where the government has stepped back. So, I expect to see big changes. Some will be predictable, but some of them will be unpredictable.
We know big changes are going to happen. We do not know precisely what they’re going to look like. We’ve seen what will happen to the car industry, what will happen to the energy industry. There are many other industries out there.
Scott: Thank you for the opportunity of your time, Mr. Fisher.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/04/04
Famed actress, Jennifer Lawrence, famously stated when she was 25 that she simply could see herself getting married at that point in her life. Although, she could see herself as someone who could become a mother.
This was in a prominent interview with none other than Diane Sawyer. Given the context of Ms. Lawrence’s relational life at that time, in intimate life, she had split with the British actor Nicholas Hoult, which was after a 5-year relationship. A significant period of time for someone in this age bracket.
Lawrence, at the time, opined, “I was also in a relationship with somebody for five years and that was my life… Being 24 was this whole year of…‘who am I without this man?’”
At that time, at 25, she never saw herself as someone who would ever need to walk down as the aisle, saying, “I don’t know if I ever will get married and I’m OK with that… I don’t feel that I need anything to complete me. I love meeting people, men, women, whatever, I love people coming into your life and bringing something.”
It was a time in her life when she, probably, felt a need to rediscover herself and assert her identity, which, for someone with a life in the public eye, is all the more difficult, of course. To state, that she does not need a relationship to feel complete.
It is in this sense that public statements like those can provide emotional support for women who feel questioning themselves and where the larger culture may, in fact, be pushing a false image and so message; one that women need to speak out about, and, in the case of Lawrence, even in the midst of the pain provides a supportive statement of not needing a partner while still wanting to be a mother.
But, of course, this can also leave room for change. Now, Lawrence is engaged after dating for 6 months, or more, and will be working towards a marriage with her new fiance named Cooke Maroney.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/31
As reported by Nature, in the case of a nuclear catastrophe, the United States of America is woefully unprepared as a nation, because of the current severity of the problem and the statement of the potential response to nuclear threats by the US; this leaves the leadership with unprepared minds and the nation with an unprepared infrastructure and, potentially, will in order to combat this great threat, among the greatest alongside overpopulation and anthropogenic climate change/global warming.
We are in a lot of trouble. We do not need incompetent antics to prevent the work to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation that increase the risks of a nuclear attack. As reported, “The United States is not prepared to deal with the aftermath of a major nuclear attack, despite North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the increasing tensions between nations overall.”
This was the assessment, not the judgment, of public-health experts taking part in a meeting on nuclear preparedness organized and, presumably, hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. An expert in disaster nursing at John Hopkins University, Tener Veenema, described the meeting as “an acknowledgement that the threat picture has changed, and that the risk of this happening has gone up.”
Veenema was the co-chair of the conference. As the reportage notes, with the decline and fall, and collapse, of the former Soviet Union, the central concern since 1991 of the United States in terms of research and preparedness for the possibility of a nuclear strike has been on terrorist attacks. The focus there is with what is called a dirty bomb. Those 1-kilotonne weapons that can then spray radioactive material.
Nature continues, “But North Korea is thought to have advanced thermonuclear weapons — each more than 180 kilotonnes in size — that would cause many more casualties than would a dirty bomb (see ‘Damage estimates’).”
Obviously, this increases the magnitude of the concern and the risk in terms of thermonuclear devastation. With thermonuclear warheads on the development horizon, potentially, the next response, according to Cham Dallas of the University of Georgia, is simply to shrug and then act as if nothing can be done.
“The US government’s spending on nuclear-weapons research and response has dropped drastically over the past few decades — as has the number of health workers with training in radiation medicine and management,” Nature reports, “According to a 2017 study1 by Dallas, more than half of emergency medical workers in the United States and Japan have no training in treating radiation victims.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/30
Josh Johnson is an Administrator of Atheism 411. Here we talk about his life and views.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Within personal and family history, was religion or atheism part of it?
Josh Johnson: A lot of my earlier memories take place on a theological seminary that my mother was attending, and then in and around churches and parsonages. While my mother’s brand of religion was always about as progressive as religion could get, she eventually left the church over their terrible treatment of the LGBTQ+ community – something that I’m still quite proud of.
I was lucky that my parents have always been about as progressive as their generation and upbringing allowed, as if that weren’t true, I’m sure I’d have turned into an entirely different person. Their liberal-slanting brand of worship was considered downright blasphemous by other members of my family, whose “Hellfire and Brimstone” style of theology was certainly trotted out for my benefit on more than one occasion.
Jacobsen: How have your views on religion and non-religion evolved over the years?
Johnson: It was part luck, and partially a genuine effort from my parents that allowed me to see such a wide spectrum of religious faiths as a child. I was a curious kid (on levels), and the more I compared and contrasted the beliefs, the more it became clear that even the seemingly similar denominations had deeply contrasting ideas on the same subjects. Multiple parties all speaking for what is supposedly the same all-powerful entity, each giving different sets of instructions… I don’t think the idea of being a believer ever really “took”.
I can remember trying to pray once as a kid, “testing God” if you will, and when the experience was as empty for me as it appeared for others, being pretty sure the whole thing was a ruse. I functionally gave up belief in any kind of god at about the point I gave up belief in Santa.
I was dragged to church for a few years more, until I started taking an active interest in getting a Sunday school teacher to quit in protest over my non-stop questions, at which point church became optional. I briefly opted to join the Unitarian Universalist church as a teenager, as an open atheist, in an effort to better socialize with folks my own age. While the “religion without a creed” was conceptually interesting, and I met a lot of good people, at the end of the day I still found it unfortunately rife with a more traditional style of church politicking.
Since then, my only interest in anything religious has been academic. It’s harder to talk people out of their baseless superstitions if you aren’t fairly well-versed in them.
Jacobsen: In an examination of the landscape for atheism, there has been a large increase in the numbers of nonbelievers in the advanced industrial economies. Why?
Johnson: For starters, have you ever tried to live your life according to the dictations of an ancient “holy” text? If we just look at the Bible, you’re given a poorly written and contradictory set of rules that discourages rational thought, and encourage every kind of bigotry you can think of.
No kind-hearted person can read any fair translation of the Bible from start to finish without finding it, as a complete work, to be a morally reprehensible tome. It’s pro-slavery, it’s proudly violent, and it calls on you to treat other human beings badly. While I’m far from the first to have noticed, the god of the Bible is a truly evil character that expects horrendous things of his followers.
In my observation, most “believers” don’t even believe most of the insane ramblings that their religions are based on. They just like belonging to a community, and in a great many cases their parents successfully implanted a fear of eternal torture in Hell, which keeps them from asking too many questions. If you think simply calling yourself a “Methodist” and paying lip-service to an invisible all-powerful man on holidays is all you need to protect yourself as you keep on living an otherwise “sin-filled” life, it’s easy enough to imagine how so many people can live “religious-lite” while running on auto-pilot.
Living in an age where practically everyone has some form of access to the internet, it’s become harder to call yourself religious and not feel embarrassed by large portions of what you’re meant to believe. To give a quick example, according to the Bible you’re not meant to go near a woman when she’s on her period. Simply touching a menstruating woman means you become unclean for a week, so says the source document for Christianity.
So why are there less and less religious people, in an increasingly digital age? Because the most ignorant person you know, knows that that’s an unacceptable stance. Sexism, racism, homophobia and more are required of a “good believer”, so says their texts. As self-education becomes as easy as picking up your phone, less and less people are willing to be associated with that kind of willful ignorance.
Jacobsen: However, alongside this increase in the atheist population within the nonbelievers, we have seen a collection of two reactions. Mostly male leaders, often white, in each case.
The one stream is more, stronger, and more literal forms of fundamentalist preaching, especially within North America and often tied to white ethnic nationalism.
Another stream is the attempts to reinterpret the purported holy texts by a collection of unqualified, hyperbolic, and humorless people to make the Bible – as it’s mostly Christian imagery – cool again, where this tends to have thinly veiled rightwing laissez-faire economics and social views built into them.
Do you notice these too? If so, why are these the streams of reactionary ‘movements’ in the religious and religious-curious camps?
Johnson: I have certainly noticed the unfortunate truth that many recognized “atheist leaders” (I don’t like the term, as atheists don’t have a central hierarchy or any kind of clergy analog, but I know what you mean) are white men, and I have certainly seen many white men – including atheists – push grossly unacceptable ideas into the public sphere as of late.
While the “alt-right” infestation currently plaguing the United States has certainly been felt in atheist communities, we (the collective crew at Atheism 411) count ourselves among their staunch opposition. I’ve seen some semi-famous atheist YouTubers and bloggers becoming unapologetically bad people. We’ve even had to throw out a contributor on at least two occasions in the last 6 years for seemingly out of no where throwing out some kind of bigotry – including bigotry against believers in religion themselves.
Before I go any further, I want to clarify my stance on religious people: I love them. Religious people are my family, my friends, my neighbors. Atheism 411 is a humanist group, and the reason I oppose religion is because it hurts people. Tangibly and regularly, religion harms innocent human beings all over the globe… and I oppose that. But humans are awesome, so we have a zero-tolerance policy (both in our public groups, and for our page contributors) for any kind of bigotry. You can disagree with someone without dehumanizing them, and anyone incapable of meeting that reasonable mandate is not welcome among us.
Which unfortunately brings us back to the question: Since atheists are human beings, and a human being can be any kind of person – including a bad one – we have dealt with our share of bigots. While I have seen racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic atheists pop up in our online communities, the response of myself and my admin team is always to remove them from the community ASAP, and usually to address the issue publicly if it affected more people than can be spoken to individually.
This of course opens us up to cries of being a “progressive echo-chamber”… which, to be honest, doesn’t bother me as much as some think it should. Don’t get me wrong; we welcome every kind of atheist into our community, political beliefs aside, as long as they follow a simple set of rules. But those rules include respectfully talking out your differences, and NOT being an openly bigoted bully. Which means that people who believe other human beings are somehow worth less, or entitled to less of a fulfilling life than they are, simply aren’t allowed in the club.
Funny thing about a club for humanists… You have to care about humans, to join. Even the ones who don’t look, love, or even think the way you do. Seems fair enough, to me.
As for people trying to make the Bible “cool”… I’ve not seen any successful attempts, let’s say that.
Jacobsen: How did you become involved in Atheism 411?
Johnson: I’m a marketing consultant by trade, and what finally got me to sign-up for Facebook was a specific client insisting that I start writing their FB ads for them, too.
I was a hold-out on social media as I’ve been creating websites myself since the late 90s, and the appeal/reach of social networking on other people’s websites hadn’t yet bashed me over the head.
I’ve always been an opinionated lad, but around 6 years ago I decided I wanted to start writing on atheistic topics. I found a Facebook page called “Atheism for Beginners” – founded by Matthew Happle – that had a modest following of around 7,000 people, and applied for a spot making content with a rather narcissistic image of myself juggling knives (I do that), with text imposed over it decrying the terrible bigotry that religion has a unique hand in perpetuating around the world.
I got that spot, and over time the page changed. For one, the name got swapped out for “Atheism 411” – which means “Atheist Information”, for those of you who have never experienced U.S. phone codes – and it grew in size considerably (around 46,500, at time of writing).
For a lot of its growth-period, my essays and other original content made up a large percentage of what the page put out, so I eventually took on a partnership with Matthew and became co-owner of A411 and its related Facebook pages and groups.
While Mattie is still my partner and co-owner, I’ve largely taken over the day-to-day “business”, in so much as it exists. Or I should say, the technical responsibility for said; Truth be told, I’d be incapable of keeping it in any kind of order if it weren’t for the small team of admins that selflessly and awesomely dedicate a lot of their spare time to making sure our pages and communities are friendly and entertaining places to visit. They’re my brothers and sisters, I love them, and I can’t thank them enough.
Jacobsen: What is the mission and mandate of Atheism 411?
Johnson: We seek to peacefully talk people out of their dangerous superstitions.
We see copious evidence of religion uniquely influencing the world in a negative way. The holy texts for JUST the Abrahamic religions are still used all around the world to justify slavery, the oppression and subjugation and murders of women and members of the LQBTQ+ community…
True story; because of my position with Atheism 411, people send me videos sometimes of terrible acts perpetrated in the name of gods. This is how I saw my first literal “witch burning”.
Obviously there’s no such thing as magic, so they weren’t real “witches”… but I’ve had the sickening displeasure of watching in confusion a video where people beat frightened men and women unconscious with tree branches, then cover them in branches and light it ablaze.
I probably wouldn’t have chosen to view the video, had I known what it was when I clicked. What it featured wasn’t at all clear to me, even after it started.
It wasn’t until the images were effectively seared into my brain that I realized what it was I was even watching… the violent and terrifying deaths of innocent people, because “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” (Exodus 22:18 KJV)
It is my mission to peacefully talk people out of the ignorant and baseless superstitions that lead to that kind of depravity. Because the people who did that weren’t “twisting the Bible”… they were reading it literally, and applying it to reality. And that’s the same book you’ll find on the back of pews in churches around the world.
To pretend religion hasn’t earned rebuke is intellectually dishonest, to say the very least. And we have always aimed to be one of many good sources you can come to for said rebuke.
Jacobsen: Also, what is its niche? Where can people find it?
Johnson: We aim to be a reasonable voice, even though we know what we’re saying is conceptually offensive to a lot of people. Open dialog is important, sometimes especially when it’s uncomfortable. Religion is definitely one of those times.
You can find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Atheism411/
You can also find the videos I’ve made for our channel discussing atheist topics here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLArlD5f-q46EAEyVNvWpCKefTI6AEg_L-
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Josh.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/30
Angel Sumka is the President of Albert (Canada) Sex Positive Centre. Here we talk about men.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What should men know about a sex-positive lifestyle?
Angel Sumka: All people, regardless of gender, should know that sex-positive culture (which is not a lifestyle, although there are some lifestyles that are sex-positive in nature), is about valuing the diversity of human sexuality, and recognizing that consensual sexual activity is pleasurable and healthy. I think it is important to consider the benefits to our intimate relationships in learning to have this attitude, as when we are accepting and remove shame from our thinking about bodies and sexuality, we create a safe space for our partner to talk to us about their own thoughts and desires.
Jacobsen: How can men be better lovers?
Sumka: All people, regardless of gender, become better lovers when they communicate openly and honestly, and listen to the feedback they receive from their lover(s). There is no one true way, everybody is different, and the situation is different.
Jacobsen: For young men, or inexperienced men at any age, how can they start to have a more sex-positive perspective and skill set?
Sumka: For all inexperienced people (I am sure you are seeing the trend here), sex positivity starts with the self. Think about how you perceive gender and the ways in which that is helpful and not so helpful. Challenge your biases about sex and gender, think critically about what you think you know about sex and pleasure. The best way to improve your sexual skill set is to start by learning about your own body, and how to communicate your own needs, and inviting your lover(s) to do the same.
Jacobsen: What are the principles of safe sex? How often are these not practiced? What are some tips and tricks to make this easy to practice?
Sumka: The principle of safe(r) sex is that we each, as responsible individuals, can take measures to reduce the risk of harm or infection for ourselves and our partners. This starts with communication about our risk profile (do we use condoms? Do we get tested? Are we in a high-risk category, such as i.v. drug use?), includes being regularly tested, and using appropriate barriers. Often missed is that we have the responsibility to continue to be educated about sexual risks, such as learning about the risks associated with unprotected oral sex with various types of genitals.
Jacobsen: What are the main things with sex that men do not get, whether a homosexual or heterosexual?
Sumka: As you may have noticed, I work hard to not lump people together by gender. Society, however, does not get that consent is not optional. Anytime you go to touch another person, regardless of how casually, you should be first ensuring they are 100% ok with that touch. Same with sexual comments. Your sexuality does not negate your responsibility to be sure the person you touch wants that touch. Your gender does not excuse you from requiring consent. It always troubles me that so many of us resist the idea of enthusiastic consent. Why are we ok touching people that do not want our touch?
Jacobsen: What forces are generally sex-negative in society?
Sumka: Humans, ones that feel shame about sex and continue to ensure that others feel the same way, are the ones that drive sex-negativity.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/30
Dr. Alexander Douglas specialises in the history of philosophy and the philosophy of economics. He is a faculty member at the University of St. Andrews in the School of Philosophical, Anthropological and Film Studies. In this series, we discuss the philosophy of economics, its evolution, and how the discipline of economics should move forward in a world with increasing inequality so that it is more attuned to democracy. Previous sessions can be found here in part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.
Scott Jacobsen: With psychology classified as a natural science by you, what are the most substantiated and broad-reaching strong conclusions of psychology relevant to economics?
Dr. Alexander Douglas: I’m no expert on this. Behavioural economics is the main area in which the findings of clinical psychology have been integrated. The major challenge attacks, as Robert Sugden puts it, the notion of ‘integrated’ preferences, according to which each agent is defined by a stable set of preferences that has to be tailored to fit her choice behaviour in all circumstances. So if I choose soup over salad today, and salad over soup tomorrow, then the assumption that I am rational compels us to redefine the objects in my preference-set. It would be irrational to prefer salad to soup and soup to salad tout court, but not, e.g., to prefer soup to salad when I’ve eaten 1000 soups in my life but salad to soup when I’ve eaten 1001 soups.
But is it rational for what I’ve eaten in the past to influence what I choose today? What about the lighting in the restaurant? What about what other people are eating? And then, of course, every soup is unique and every salad is unique: perhaps I prefer this soup to this salad, but not that soup to that salad. But then if the descriptions under which I choose become so specific, economic predictions become impossible: nothing about what I choose today will inform us about what I’ll choose tomorrow, since tomorrow everything will be slightly different.
Economists, it turns out, make a lot of implicit assumptions about what can and what can’t go rationally into what is called the ‘framing’ of a choice: past consumption is permitted to be relevant, but not seemingly extraneous factors like the day of the week on which a choice is made. But who is to say what it is rational to consider relevant to a choice? A lot of behavioural economics is about coming to terms with the importance of framing; people can be found, e.g., to choose to save 98 out of 100 lives but not to condemn two out of 100 people to death. Behavioural economics seeks to know how people typically frame their choices, and how the framing affects what they choose.
In a way, it tries to honour the ideal of ‘value-neutrality’ that underpins modern economics: it looks like a value-judgment to say that past consumption can rationally influence a choice but not the day of the week. Behavioural economists want to get by without even that value judgment. We shouldn’t say that people are irrational just because they take to be relevant what economic theorists take to be irrelevant.
Sugden believes, by the way, that even without identifying people’s preferences as such we can make some judgments about the sorts of economic institutions that they would rationally choose. I’m sceptical. He believes that people will rationally choose an economically liberal arrangement, in which free agents can engage in voluntary exchange in pursuit of a better allocation to themselves – and so they might, under that description. But how about under the sort of description Thomas Carlyle might give to such an arrangement: an unearthly ballet of higgling and haggling, conducted by little profit-and-loss philosophers; an array of pig-troughs where the pigs run across each other in unresting search of the tastiest slops, etc. etc.? Framing matters when agents ‘rationally’ choose institutions, just as much as when they ‘rationally’ choose goods. Public choice theory, I think, must also come to terms with the centrality of framing.
Jacobsen: How might, or are, these most substantiated and broad-reaching strong conclusions of psychology influence the philosophizing about economics?
Douglas: Once we bring framing into the question, I think the whole way of modeling human behaviour has to radically change. I don’t see how this can be avoided. A standard ‘utility function’ in economics will look something like this: U=f(x), where U is the overall utility or wellbeing of an agent and x is some vector of magnitudes, each representing the amount of a certain good consumed. To take framing into account, we’d need to replace x with a vector of descriptions of goods. These can’t be simple magnitudes, and so the whole project of a mathematisation of human behaviour is undermined. Could you not just expand the vector of magnitudes to have one argument for every good consumed under every possible description? You’d have one magnitude for coffee in the morning on my own, one for tea in the afternoon with a friend, one for tea in the afternoon with a work colleague, one for coffee in the evening with my beloved, etc. etc. The problem, of course, is that every good will fall under an infinite number of possible descriptions. And worse, there are descriptions of descriptions: choosing off a menu isn’t the same as choosing from a buffet, and so on.
Moreover, it is hard to see how we can get solid experimental evidence on how people frame choices. We might, using the above example, find that people will choose to accept the loss of two people but not to condemn two people to death. These framing effects matter a great deal, as our spin doctors know well. But how do we define the difference? That too is far from clear – our spin doctors know that too. I think that properly taking these subtleties into account would make economics into a qualitative, hermeneutic, ‘soft’ science – more akin to anthropology than physics.
Behavioural economists are attempting to walk the tightrope between hermeneutic anthropology and quantitative science, but I believe that the tightrope is of infinitesimal width, and sooner or later they’ll topple over onto one side.
Jacobsen: Do any of the aforementioned strong conclusions influence the treatment of time-inconsistency first considered by Spinoza and into the present with professional philosophers such as yourself?
Douglas: Spinoza has an idea of rationality that, I think, sits very badly with economics in general. For him it is irrational to discount the future at all. I might prefer one marshmallow today to two marshmallows tomorrow, but tomorrow I would, if I could, certainly not give up two marshmallows to have had one in the past. It is arbitrary to identify myself with myself at a particular moment in time. Thus he says that the rational person does not value a good differently depending on whether it is past, present, or future (Ethics 4p62).
When modern economists talk about time inconsistency, they mean something much weaker than this. They’re talking about a time-discounting function that is hyberbolic, or generally non-linear. Only a few concede that time-discounting, in general, is irrational; Joan Robinson calls it ‘an irrational or weak-minded failure to value the future consumption now at what its true worth … will turn out to be’ (The Accumulation of Capital, 394).
If agents didn’t engage in time-discounting, economic explanations of interest rate, profit, and so on wouldn’t work. Economists certainly don’t want to say that economic equilibrium depends on profound irrationality in the agents involved. In fact, I think you could argue that their equilibriums depend on forced labour or coercive extraction of some sort. If I take on a loan today, my future self will have to work to pay the interest. He gets no direct benefit from what happened in the past. Or, even if he does, he is unlikely to set the relative value of the past benefit as high as his past self did. But he simply wasn’t consulted in the decision. My past self can be paternalistic or exploitative towards my future selves, but, in any case, there is a dictatorship of the present. Economists treat as coercive a situation in which the preferences of a select group determine the outcomes for everyone. But that is exactly what happens when, in their models, agents at time zero determine what all their future selves will pay and receive, by negotiating with other agents present at time zero.
We could, of course, identify all the future selves of an agent with that agent at time zero, but then we would have an agent with deeply inconsistent preferences. Again: today I prefer to give up the promise of two marshmallows tomorrow for one today, but tomorrow I certainly wouldn’t give up two marshmallows in order to have had one in the past. So a single diachronic agent with a nonzero time-discounting rate would have preferences that are not just ‘inconsistent’ in some weak sense but plainly contradictory.
This isn’t only an academic exercise; it gets to the heart of why markets can’t plan – an issue rendered very palpable in our day by the climate crisis. James Galbraith points this out somewhere in The Predator State. You shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking that futures markets allow markets to plan: what they allow is for present agents to divide up the spoils of what they plunder from future generations by contractual obligations or irreversible natural processes. In this way, as in many others, Spinoza has never been more relevant.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Alex.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/30
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Melissa Krawczyk (Arabic to English Translator)
*The Arabic script is at the bottom.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: In brief, what is your family background?
Ensaf Haidar: I was a Saudi woman before I became a Canadian citizen. I was born to a conservative family in Saudi Arabia.
Jacobsen: What is your personal background?
Haidar: My name is Ensaf Haidar, wife of prisoner of conscience Raif Badawi, imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, mother of three children, and a Canadian citizen living in the Canadian province of Quebec.
Jacobsen: How did these influence your development?
Haidar: Certainly, memorization of the Quran during my studies had a big impact. I even specialized in Islamic Studies in college.
Jacobsen: For those who may not know, who is Raif Badawi?
Haidar: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/what-did-raif-badawi-write-to-get-saudi-arabia-so-angry.
Jacobsen: How long has he been imprisoned now?
Haidar: It’s around 7 years now.
Jacobsen: How are other writers affected?
Haidar: Unfortunately, everyone is afraid and the prisons are full of writers.
Jacobsen: How is Canada’s leadership helping persecuted writers in some ways and not in others?
Haidar: I think that the politicians in Canada are doing a wonderful job. Canada has always been strong and open about defending human rights, not only in Saudi Arabia, but all over the world.
Jacobsen: Why do theocracies fear writers?
Haidar: Your question reminded me of a famous quote by an atheist Saudi writer named Abdullah al-Qasemi, who said that the worst thing about the religious is that they tolerate the corrupt and don’t tolerate the intellectuals.
The pen is more powerful than bullets in the Arab and Islamic world.
Jacobsen: How are you feeling given the distance of the man you love?
Haidar: There are no words in the world that can possibly describe my feelings about Raif and what is happening to him.
Jacobsen: What else can be done to save the lives and protect the rights of writers and dissidents around the world?
Haidar: Speak up loudly – have the conversation everywhere, at every opportunity. Urge politicians to embrace human rights issues.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Ensaf.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/29
As noted by linguist and prominent general atheist — in general terms with specifications based on what is exactly being denied — Noam Chomsky, the nature of the Young Earth Creationism and Evolution controversy simply remains within the sociopolitical realm, in which the controversy should, in fact, shift to that which has a large number of evidence: unlike Young Earth Creationism, which has none.
The shift of the conversation should be into Malignant Design, for which, by some metrics described by Chomsky, has much more evidence than some aspects of either theory, of which the former, Young Earth Creationism, has none and the latter, Evolution by Natural Selection, has plenty.
Malignant Design has more evidence in terms of the level of suffering in the world, whether by human machinations, e.g., conspiracy, war, bad medicine, apparently anti-vaccination now, and so on, or strictly non-conscious mechanical processes of the natural world, e.g., storms, tornadoes ripping through communities, pestilences, deadly diseases, infections, and so on.
Chomsky, in the Khaleej Times, stated, “Unlike Intelligent Design, for which the evidence is zero, malignant design has tons of empirical evidence, much more than Darwinian evolution, by some criteria: the world’s cruelty. Be that as it may, the background of the current evolution/intelligent design controversy is the widespread rejection of science, a phenomenon with deep roots in American history that has been cynically exploited for narrow political gain during the last quarter-century. Intelligent Design raises the question whether it is intelligent to disregard scientific evidence about matters of supreme importance to the nation and world — like global warming.”
The issue of the world’s suffering is tracing the motivations and consequences of the pain and misery seen throughout the world due to human actions and decision, policies, initiatives and programs, and failures to plan ahead and prepare for likely disasters, but also having appropriate scientific investigation and widespread-enough comprehension of the reasons for actions of the material world and then how certain disasters can impact human livelihood; each of these angles is important in order to, in a rational manner, deal with the problems confronting us. The reasons may be irrational, as in human motivations and fear, but the consequences and investigations of the irrationalities can be rational; with the natural world, it is simply not fooling ourselves and having specific tools in place, including the scientific method, to properly know the world to respond in a rational way to the likely consequences of natural phenomenon of the world impacting us.
Malignant design, if one is to notice the world’s suffering, akin to knowledge about mutual aid, is an important adjunct to knowledge of evolution, as a factor in evolution.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/28
Anand Giridharadas, Aspen Fellow/Mckinsey consultant who became, subsequently, anticapitalist, was awarded the Rushdie Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement for Humanism in Culture.
According to Boing Boing, the award was given out by the Humanist Hub and by the Humanist Community at Harvard along with partners. Some of those partners included the Harvard College Community of Humanists, Atheists, and Agnostics (HCHAA) and the American Humanist Association.
The award was presented at the annual “social enterprise” conference via the Harvard School of Government and the business school.. Giridharadas will present the “1000 top leaders, practitioners and students” as a speech for the award.
His book entitled Winners Take All has been an important contribution, apparently, to the critique of the ultra-rich around the world and then those self-same ultra-rich using ‘philanthropy’ as simply a means by which to reputation launder.
Enter Harvard University, whose graduates constitute some of the world’s richest, most sociopathic, most generous donors to any university — the Harvard endowment was selected for study by Thomas Piketty in his Capital in the Twenty-First Century because it is the only privately held,” The article concluded, “…oligarch-scale fortune whose books are open for study. Congrats to Giridharadas, of course, but more important, bravo to the Harvard Humanists!”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/26
The increased prevalence of backlash against ex-Muslims in violation of freedom of belief and freedom of religion at a minimum may represent an opportunity in disguise, especially with the rapid rise of the numbers of councils and groups organizing for their own and others’ safety and activism to use freedom of speech to speak on their own behalfs.
There are a wide range of ex-Muslim groups including Central Council of Ex-Muslims, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Central Committee for Ex-Muslims, Former Muslims United, Ex-Muslims Initiative, Ex-Muslims of Austria, Ex-Muslims of Switzerland, Atheist Republic formerly Orkut, Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan, Council of Ex-Muslims of Singapore, Muslimish, Ex-Muslims of North America, Council of Ex-Muslims of France, Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco, Ex-Muslims of Scotland, Association of Atheism, Faith to Faithless, Humanistisch Verbond: Ex-Muslims of Norway, Atheist Alliance of the Middle East and North Africa, Council of Ex-Muslims of Sri Lanka, Ex-Muslims of Maldives, Alliance of Former Muslims, Council of Ex-Muslims of Jordan, Iranian Atheists & Agnostics, Iranian Humanist Atheists & Agnostics, Council of Ex-Muslims of New Zealand, Central Committee for Ex-Muslims of Scandinavia, and so on.
With this wide smattering of groups of varying sizes, and the inevitable growth of them and others, I would propose an International Coalition of Ex-Muslims, or something like this, in order to form a power base at an international level for solidarity building and centralizing, akin to IHEU, and then, also, for the ability to put sincere and heavy pressure on the United Nations to respect the fundamental freedoms and rights of ex-Muslims all over the world.
And why not?
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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According to the Friendly Atheist, a Republican State Representative, John Ragan, filed a bill called HB 1490 in which taxpayer money would not be permitted to subsidize abortions.
The basic belief, here, is that the funding of abortion will endorse secular humanism in addition to violating the separation of church and state. I will not need to delineate the obvious to the audience here, on those first points of inquiry implied by the strange but expected bill.
The language of HB 1490 states some of the common tropes within the rhetoric amongst pro-life advocates; those who wish to deny safe and equitable access to abortion, which, as described by Human Rights Watch, is a fundamental human right and, in fact, saves women’s lives — literally — and livelihoods.
Important to note, this is not simply about the legislation. The documentation, in terms of rights, is explicit about three criteria. One is accessibility. Another is safety. A third is equity. It should be within the national consciousness.
Women have the human right, in fact, fundamental human right not simply “human right,” to reproductive health services with abortion as an aspect of this. The notion of abortion is to have the ability to get one in a legal fashion, as a fundamental human right.
Think about the opposition case, if women have their access to abortion denied, what will happen to these women who become pregnant with an unwanted child, for an example?
As a friend and colleague and former child violin prodigy, Paul Krassner, noted decades ago, there will need to be underground referral services, where, in fact, Krassner provided some referral services; in other words, women will get those abortions anyway.
When women get them in a legal or illegal context, in which the access is there or not & the state approves it or not, the main consideration becomes the respect for fundamental human rights or not.
By refusing to provide these services, which are far and away one of the least frequent provided services by reproductive health centres anyway, the legal structures, the society, and the opposition actively oppose the right to this fundamental human right and, in fact, the eventual — and statistical — health and wellness of women. It may not be in every single case, but, on average and based on the empirical evidence available to us at an international level, the general principle of heuristic is women will have improved wellbeing, as a group within societies, with the provision of abortion services.
That’s layer one. The basic respect for the right for it, as women will get them anyway. Thus, the best work would be to give this to them anyway. Following from this, we come to the second consideration, which is safety. Once women have it, is it safely available to women? This is a highly relevant question given the context of the United States of America after the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh.
If not, then this violates the fundamental human right. Women will be in only marginally better circumstances getting unsafe abortions in a licit context as they would in an illicit environment. Therefore, the purpose of a legal protection and provision of abortion services under the banner of reproductive health services would be two-fold: 1) the protection of the fundamental human right of women and 2) the increased probability for the improved outcomes for women in the context of a needed medical service, abortion.
The final criterion is equity, or “equitable.” Different sectors of the population of women have different levels of access to these provisions. This requires an explicit statement as to the import of the protection of women of color, rural women, poor women, and so on, in the case of provision of abortion.
With these criteria for the respect and implementation of a fundamental human right, it is simply about safe and equitable access to abortion services. Without these, with these made illegal or women turned into outlaws for needing or even wanting them, women will die or become injured by the thousands, in the former case, and by the millions, in the latter case, according to Human Rights Watch, at an international level.
The language of HB 1490 simply speaks to the talking points of the pro-life stance on this debate. That is to say, there will be references to direct opposition about abortion not being murder, about abortion not being immoral, and abortion not beginning at conception, and so on:
The naked assertions that “abortion is not murder”, “that abortion is not immoral”, and that “life does not begin at conception” are unproven faith-based assumptions that are implicitly religious and are unproven truth claims that are inseparably linked to the religion of secular humanism;
The stance of secular humanism is against religious dogma, where the stance is not dogma, e.g., no holy text, nothing to pray to, no suggested practices, no gods as traditionally defined at least, and so on; thus, the assertion of secular humanism as a religion simply speaks to the indication that religion, in the United States, continues to garner a bad reputation as an idea and as a term, which is cynically being exploited by Ragan in the language here.
This comes from a fundamentalist branch of Evangelicalism within the United States that has been working to demonize secular humanism, and other groups, for some time, including feminists, activists, progressives, and the like.
The statements continue:
That the establishment clause prohibits the state of Tennessee from enforcing, respecting, recognizing, favoring, or endorsing policies that fund abortion facilities with tax dollars because the practices are nonsecular and such appropriations have the effect of excessively entangling the government with the religion of secular humanism, putting religion over nonreligion;
To deconstruct this, the obvious implication of the title “secular” in secular humanism is the endorsement, explicitly if not implicitly, of the separation of church and state, or, more properly, place of worship and state. How does this qualify as a faith, exactly?
As we have seen in the history of the United States, the conservative religious fundamentalist base — not simply old fashioned conservatives — are working with what has worked for progressives in the past and then, non-creatively, attempting to reverse the arguments with their own talking points on the notion of religion interfering in the politics and health provisions of the country, which has been a progressive argument and pro-choice — as in, pro-human right, pro-maternal health, pro-infant health, and pro-women’s reproductive health — argument for years in order to prevent the encroachment of the fundamentalist religion into the reproductive lives of women.
Now, the conservatives realize the loss in the courts, e.g., Roe v Wade from 1973, but then see the utility in the form of the argument of the prevention of religion entering into political life. In this case, the attempt is to fight the ‘evils’ of secular humanism by trying to label secular humanism as a religion and then working to encroach religion into the public sphere, into the domain of reproductive health services and reproductive health rights for women, through the denial of abortion services, but from the opposite angle.
By the implication of this reversal, the pro-life sector represented by Ragan, perhaps not all but many, therefore, become people of politic rather than people of principle and may reflect the general assault on the population by “people of means,” as recently declared as a preference by billionaire Howard Schultz. The principles would be the same, as in the arguments would be consistent. But now, the arguments have reversed for Ragan and, thus, the principle is not principles but the restriction on the rights of women — full stop, by whatever arguments or means in order to do it.
The statements in the reportage continue:
The direct or indirect subsidization or facilitation of abortion with funds distributed by the state of Tennessee constitutes paying for an abortion and, therefore, conflicts with the First Amendment establishment clause of the United States Constitution;
The state of Tennessee may not favor or endorse one (1) religion over another, nor may the state of Tennessee favor or endorse the religion of secular humanism generally over nonreligion.
By the respect for human rights and the provision of a fundamental human right, the notion is the utilization of the First Amendment establishment clause to the United States Constitution in HB 1490 as, in some way, a religious issue from the other side, where, in fact, the basic principle of secular humanism is human rights and the separation of place of worship and state.
The argument for the prevention of abortion services through the labeling of secular humanism as a religion simply restricts the provision of abortion services to women — for the vast majority of cases — in need of one. By default or reflection, this would lean towards and instantiation of the pro-life position, or standard fundamentalist religious position, of the prevention of abortions for women. In either case, the outcome is the same: women simply denied equal status in American society through the denial of respect for their fundamental human rights.
“Not that we should have to waste time debunking any of that, but the assertion that abortion is ‘murder’ or ‘immoral’ and that life begins at conception are all faith-based statements that also have no basis in reality. It’s rhetoric, not science,” Hemant Mehta explained, “To suggest that a pro-choice chance promotes secular humanism but that an anti-choice stance has nothing whatsoever to do with religion is the sort of lie we’ve come to expect from conservative Christians. Keep in mind that the laws have nothing to do with whether abortion is ‘moral.’ That’s your call, not the government’s.”
In addition to HB 1490, Ragan, according to Mehta, is also endorsing, as a co-prime sponsor, a bill with the clear intent to ban abortions based on the detection of a fetal heartbeat, where, not conception, but the heartbeat detection becomes the first point of no abortion possible. As the readers here can tell, and certainly know, the work is to try anything that work, simply to restrict women’s freedom; the sensibility seems to come in the indirect pervasive truth, in some manner: a fear of sexually and economically free women — not a proof of this but a sense of it.
Mehta, properly, notes, “I guess it’s not government overreach when it involves his religious beliefs. In case that point about hypocrisy isn’t clear, Ragan also co-sponsored a resolution just this year that would literally change the state’s Constitution to say our ‘liberties do not come from government, but from Almighty God.’”
As Mehta reasonably and accurately observes, the issue is not about principle; it is about the innervation of a singular interpretation of religion into government rather than the permission of all voices via the denial of religion into public life. No religion in the politics is simply a recognition of the obvious: a respect for the non-religious and the religious across the board through equal treatment. The religious have been in power forever; thus, any movement towards equality feels like oppression.
The issue may seem ambiguous, to some, in the single HB 1490 case, but, if compared across examples, then the conclusions seem clear: the purpose is forced intervention into public life of one denomination of Christian religion in American legal structures and political life in order to have the consequence of the denial of the fundamental human rights of women.
And as this comes down to an individual choice of abortion, if you do not want an abortion, then don’t get one; if you disagree with it, on religious grounds, or for others, then still don’t get one, but, at the same time, don’t deny the safe and equitable access for women, or, if the case may be, other women.
—
Photo by Guillermo Álvarez on Unsplash
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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A young man, 18-years-old, Ethan Lindenberger, has not been vaccinated, pretty much, his entire life, NPR reports.
This is becoming a common phenomenon with the rise of measles cases, for example. Lindenberger is among a cohort of young people who are simply tired of the denial of medical science, in this case, vaccines, that can put their — as young people — health as a real risk.
Now, this cohort of young people, in part, is simply going outside of the dictates of the parents in their lives and getting vaccines themselves; even though, the parents may have been deluded into anti-vaccination hysteria over the years.
It is a sincere, heartfelt, and honorable desire: to protect one’s children. But it comes at a cost when being explicitly exploited by the peddlers of what has been termed junk science, pseudoscience, and non-science depending on the framing of it.
Lindenberger, literally, is being vaccinated for diseases including “hepatitis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, or the chickenpox.” That’s remarkable. The mother of Lindenberger, a Jill Wheeler, is an anti-vaccine advocate, which simply translates into anti-medicine or anti-science advocate based on the firm empirical basis of the efficacy of vaccinations.
This, much or all of it, started with the reiterations of a debunked study. The notion is that the vaccines themselves, somehow, “cause” rather than correlate with autism. Do vaccines cause autism? No. Do vaccines correlate with autism? As far as I know, “No.”
As some have joked, autism may increase chances of interest in science and maths; thus, autism ‘causes’ vaccines. Aside from the lighthearted sideshows, these are serious issues, of which, unfortunately, due to the negligence of the elders in these young people’s lives, the youth are having to take matters into their own hands — to, potentially, save their lives. And that’s no joke.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Prominent actress, Ellen Page, has been more outspoken, recently, about what she sees as injustices, then simply speaks directly on the subject matter. Some of these can include environmental issues, and hateful rhetoric and leadership or racism.
The Progressive Secular Humanist wrote on this calling out of an American actor, Chris Pratt, in an interview with Stephen Colbert. The interview focused on sheep, sheering of sheep, and a diet coming from the Book of Daniel in the Bible called the Daniel Fast. Pratt said that this diet made him feel good.
As reported, “According to its website, the Daniel Fast is ‘based on the fasting experiences of the Old Testament Prophet,’ and serves to help people ‘draw nearer to God.’” Always, always, there should be a “maybe” followed by a comma and a space — and other conceptual necessities — preceding bold pseudohistorical statements like the one there, as in: “…maybe, the Daniel Fast is based on the fasting experiences of the purported Old Testament ‘Prophet’…”
Pratt described to Colbert how this was, in essence, their church’s Lent, to bridge the conceptual gap with Colbert, who is a practicing Roman Catholic Christian. The diet consisted of no meat, no sugar, and no alcohol. The interviewed continued in this chummy way.
Page went on social media to critique Pratt because of the anti-LGBTQ nature of the church that Pratt takes part in now; in fact, Page, at the same time, was critiquing the soft interviewing of Colbert.
A statement (2015) from the church, Hillsong Church, stated, “God’s word is clear that marriage is between a man and a woman.”
Thus, the traditional view is the one purportedly endorsed by a supposed god, where this god is displeased and looks down upon gay ‘lifestyles’ and gay marriage.
That is to say, Hillsong Church views homosexuality as a social lifestyle rather than a reality; an innate tendency within the human species. Why? Because God did not intend things this way, likely. He intended marriage between male and female without homosexuality in the cards.
To their credit, the statement noted a welcoming attitude to everyone coming into the church. However, they do not affirm all — what they non-scientifically assert as — “lifestyles”:
Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid. I recognise this one statement alone is upsetting to people on both sides of this discussion, which points to the complexity of the issue for churches all over the world.
Discrimination in marriage, regressive in social outlook, and bias in hiring all-at-once; this is Hillsong Church circa 2015, where this extends to the non-Australian extensions in which Pratt and other American celebrities take part now. Other promoters of the Hillsong Church have been “Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and the Kardashians.”
America is coming to the head of a huge culture war. One of the linchpins, among many, is the issue of LGBTQ+ acceptance within their society or not. This callout by Page will be among a number of others, as this continues to be just below the surface of public consciousness.
As with the many explosions in American history, the outcome will be further repression of the LGBTQ+ community or further acceptance of them. Hillsong Church is based on Australia but boasts over 100,000 members worldwide. It is a massive church, where the lead pastor, Brian Houston, has been embroiled in media ploys to try to clear the name of infamous misogynist pastors including Mark Driscoll of defunct Mars Hill Church.
The Hillsong Church stands against stem cell research, abortion, supports Creationism, and views homosexuality as against the teachings of the Biblebut Hillsong Church, itself, does not, at the same time, condemn homosexuals. This exists along the lines of “hate the sin but not the sinner” seen in some weaker arguments in the Pentecostal arsenal for social control of homosexuals and theological grounding for marital and sociocultural discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community.
The bottom line is that Houston does not think the Bible can be unwritten or rewritten, as it is the fundamental delivery from He on High, the Creator of the Universe. Pastor Chad Veach of Zoe Church — Pratt’s pastor and church — modeled everything after Hillsong Church. These are not complicated moral issues. These are not complex questions about the nature of human relations. These are basic, elementary even, moral and ethical questions.
Do you, as a leader of a community, want to include sexual orientation and gender identity minorities into your communities as full members or simply as advocates of Christ in the church as members but those members who simply are not permitted the possibility to be real equals based on the contents of the holy text within the fundamentalist Pentecostal reading of the Bible? In short, do you want to include homosexuals in the community as full participants or not?
If you don’t, then you do not believe in equality for all, as in the case of marriage only for heterosexuals in binary units or a male and a female united in the eye’s of God as a husband and wife. If you do, then you believe in the inclusion of these members of the community, not as honorary badges of marginal progressivism.
Furthermore, if the latter, it would be an interesting reflection and observation that the progressive secular communities have already been working on this issue for some time without the need to pray on it, to read the holy text for answers, to go to a higher religious authority or body for detailed theological exegesis, but only to the basic instincts, when unencumbered by too much dogma, for inclusion, general honesty, and compassionate community-building based on mutual respect and camaraderie.
It becomes a basic ethical fact. Either LGBTQ2IA+ are included in the subculture or not. If not, please explain the reason. Because, the reasons, typically, are amoral if not immoral and based on the tacit understanding of a purported holy text in which they may be identified spiritually as equal — whatever that means — but, in the concrete world, the nitty-gritty of everyday life, simply get left out as equals compared to the heterosexual communities. Pratt, Houston, Veach, et al, seem to have failed this base moral question. Pratt et al in terms of implicit endorsement, e.g., attendance and financial in terms of tithing; Houston and Veach in terms of preaching and theology. Page is on point; I look forward to reading her next one.
Get flipping.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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BET conducted an interview with the rapper Killer Mike, recently. In the interview, as outspoken as Mike has been for years, he may have caused a bit of a ruckus with some commentary on Christianity. His baseline argument: Christianity does more harm than good for black people.
In an episode of Trigger Warning With Killer Mike, which is on Netflix, there was further exploration of the world of African-American communities and the cultural taboos within it.
This particular episode covered the belief in a Jesus who was European, Caucasian, or simply ‘white.’ A Middle East holy figure who was white, think about it. Killer Mike considers this an idea needing deconstruction: directly and without recourse to apologetics. The episode was entitled “Church of Sleep.”
As reported, “Using ‘Church of Sleep,’ a recent Q&A with the Atlanta MC further examines white Jesus, the African Diaspora, ancestral devotion, economic self-sufficiency, the current state of affairs for Black people, and more…”
In the interview, Killer Mike reported on how he viewed African-Americans as imprisoned with the image of a white Jesus and that they are in the “bondage of Christianity.”
“What I ended up discovering is that not only is that image oppressive because it denies the identity of myself — all of it hurts the followers,” Killer Mike explained, “Personally, white Jesus is not good for me. And for my community, it’s not good for them. So I went in with the [intention] of destroying this image, a very patriarchal and racist image.”
In the process of this rapid deconstruction of the image, Mike created a new church entitled the Church of Sleep, hence the title of the episode. He noted prayer simply, for him and his family, is talking to oneself and finding their own inner divinity.
Mike has a shrine devoted to his grandmother and mother with an entire prayer room within the household, where there are women divinity figures.
Astutely, Mike stated, “People find community and stability in religious practices and churches, so I get it. Like, I still go to church. I will go to church with my children and their mothers. ’Cause the sense of community and fellowship — I get that. I ain’t giving no money at the end. I don’t buy or need to buy loyalty to talk to God.”
He noted how he has been questioning the faith, asking critical and probing questions, for years, since about the age of 15. Mike stated that he studied religion and philosophy at Morehouse too.
“Without the African diaspora, particularly the East and Horn and formerly South Sudan — without South Sudan, you wouldn’t have religion. You wouldn’t have Abrahamic religions. All of those religions borrow from folklore, from mythology,” Killer Mike explained, “You wouldn’t have — without the Orishas of Africa, you wouldn’t have Greek gods. So without a basis of calling out the attributes of gods of different names and having different powers, the Greeks would never set up what became figures like Zeus and Hercules, so I’m cool with everything that came before those.”
He noted a binary position or set of responses to his critical inquiry. Either the African-American community likes the message or not. By Mike’s thinking on the issue, the indoctrination into Christianity and, in this particular consideration, into the mythology of a white Middle Eastern Jew named Jesus begins at age 4, approximately.
Killer Mike stated, “You’re put in a school or nursery or something, and you’re not free anymore because you have to agree to the structure of that reality. But before that, your imagination is alive. You’re already in tune with God. You’re already talking to the air. No one knows who you are talking to. You’re walking out into the grass, so that’s appreciating God to me. So to me after that, you kind of agree to the system and you spend the rest of your life trying to un-agree and sometimes you don’t.”
BET’s interviewer was an intriguing person, to say the least. They asked good questions, direct queries getting at the heart of it. They asked about the path to personal enlightenment, of which Killer Mike recommended paying closer attention to the internal voice for them. As a youngster growing up, as with most gifted young people, he simply began to question the foundational belief structures handed down to him. He continued to disbelieve it. Now, he is one among many leading a charge of, at a minimum, critical thinking about Christianity and, at least, a white Jesus in African-American communities.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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The Metro reported on Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun from Saudi Arabia, who has been granted asylum to Canada, recently. She fled to Kuwait from alleged abuse and then landed in Bangkok. Following this, she began to seek asylum.
With the surprising effectiveness of the work by al-Qunun and others, and similar social media social justice campaigns including #MeToo, Twitter became a catalytic platform for the improved efficacy of the calls for social justice for Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun.
As some may note, the socio-political left and the socio-political right tend to disagree on what should be the emphasis of the social justice in most instances, and utilize epithets against the opposition in the cases of that which they disagree.
But the possibility of further abuse of a girl and the killing of an ex-Muslim united the internet for social good, a social justice activist effort. Many Canadian voices were in favor of the work there.
The unifying story was the abuse and the context in which men and women live in the culture. Men and women are grossly unequal in Saudi society.
One interesting story is relayed within the article about the way this works for gay men too. The former Muslim man, who left, had to disengage with family, because of the disagreements in belief.
The author described a sympathy, in common experiences, with leaving religion in an area of the world at this time that takes the violent approach to those who leave. One can see this environment with Christian in the centuries past.
Those who leave in these coerced-into-religion contexts become difficult, dangerous, and even life-threatening. The man felt as though — as a gay Muslim man — he had let down the creator and sustainer of the universe.
As opined, “I know of Christians who have left their faith and converted to Islam who talk of pressures from their families, and where some have had their immediate family stop all communication, sometimes for decades. However, what is troubling is that the levels of pressure and intimidation against ex-Muslims rumbles on and that time and time again,”
To attribute this to innate tendencies is wrong, as if one group is a separate species, while, at the same time, to deny this happening disproportionately in Muslim communities is also wrong, it is happening at a higher rate, insofar as a large number of ex-Muslim communities are showing u — and the subsequent stories coming out connected to them.
The author of the opinion piece explained, “I heard from those I interviewed they feared to leave Islam and when they did, they felt scared all of this, it is important to mention that it is not faith or religions themselves that are the problem. Yes, there are difficult elements of texts, but it is how they are interpreted and how families and individuals implement them in their families. For many of the people I interviewed, a harsh and controlling interpretation of Islam meant that they pushed their loved one away from Islam. Yet, there are just as many families where Islam is interpreted so that people feel accepted, loved and valued.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/18
In the modern history of the sport, the world had great difficulty in the acceptance of what has now been termed mental sports, including chess and other non-contact, mostly non-physical competitive activities.
People devote their entire lives to these competitions out of sheer love of it. Some of the chess world came to a head with the long-time world champion Garry Kasparov competing against the supercomputer — super for the time at least — named Deep Blue.
Since this time, the interest in what may best be termed, for now, mental sports has simply grown a lot. This is particularly true for the number of those who have entered into the competitive gaming realm earning — and no word of exaggeration — hundreds of thousands of dollars (USD) in their professional careers, akin to professional skateboarders who you can appreciate in the artistry of their excellence in their chosen craft.
Akin to other sports worlds, some of the interesting aspects of the world of this new domain of sports gone mental-digital is the, yes, often well-known and substantiated instances of open misogyny within some sectors and amongst some members of the video gaming or gamer community.
But there may also be other facets to this dialogue not entirely covered. One is the win for the transgender community, likely, with the inclusion and non-controversy in the inclusion of a trans individual in the ranks of one of the more prominent and long-time famous real-time strategy or RTS games: Starcraft II.
Sasha Hostyn, born in December of 1993, is a professional Starcraft II player amongst the highest ranking in the world in addition to playing Dota 2 to some degree. The questions here relate to the ways in which a Canadian gamer is anything new.
It’s not.
What is newer, especially given some of the regressive aspects of some of the community some (in-)famous incidents over the years in the world of professional video gaming, Hostyn, or “Scarlett,” has been the only woman to win an international Starcraft II tournament.
More significantly, she is known as the queen of Starcraft II and, potentially, one of the most accomplished women video gamers in the land today, as well as being a trans woman.
What has been especially noteworthy in the world of professional video gaming here, Scarlett’s gender identity is a non-issue within the community of announcers, gamers, and, as far as I can tell, the wider community of professional Starcraft II video gamers, which sets a tone and timbre on the world of professional video gaming different than before — not simply symbolically but in a display of recognized excellence in performance based on rankings and winnings.
That’s trend-setting.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/17
The issue of climate change is often misreported. It should be reported consistently and affirmatively as anthropogenic climate change or human-induced global warming in which the human industrial activity is a major factor in the problem in climate change.
One major aspect of the work is climate science literacy in order to combat the problem here. Washington has two identical bills now, which are aimed at climate science literacy.
These are for the Washington state legislature. One is called House Bill 1496. Another is entitled Senate Bill 5576. These are intended to establish a comprehensive program for more learning opportunities and education on climate science. It is meant to increase knowledge about climate science.
One facet for the media would be the introduction of the terminology as “anthropogenic climate change or “human-induced global warming” as a start.
There is an affirmation, in the pair of bills, for the increase in the skills and knowledge about climate science. It is only within Washington but this is a start, especially in a huge advanced industrial economy such as the United States.
The point is to introduce a greater skill and knowledge base amongst the young there. It will have information and opportunities for climate literacy and environmental education.
There is a reference to environmental and sustainability standards in one section of the Washington state code listing that is required as areas of education through the public schools.
This, according to the NCSE reportage, is simply an introduction of a new emphasis on sustainability.
As reported, it affirmed, “…critical knowledge and innovative strategies for effectively teaching climate science can be strengthened by qualified community-based organizations.”
One intriguing proposal is the foundation of a grant program through a nonprofit of the community for educational purposes via the Next Generation Science Standards. It’s not indoctrination; it’s minimal standards of a modernized educational on the environment.
The reportage concluded, “House Bill 1496 was introduced on January 23, 2019, and referred to the House Committee on Education; Senate Bill 5576 was introduced on January 24, 2019, and referred to the Senate Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/16
Time Magazine reported on a man from Alabama who is, in fact, filing a lawsuit against a reproductive health center for an unborn fetus.
This is stated as, potentially, one of the first cases of this. A lawsuit based on the purported rights of an aborted fetus.
Obviously, the Alabaman has sincere beliefs as to the rights and privileges — legal and otherwise — of the fetus. The question is truly if this fits into a standard human rights framework or only in the minds of a minority of the American public aligning themselves within the perspective of the man from Alabama.
“Ryan Magers, who says his ex-girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes, filed a lawsuit against the Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives in Madison Country, local CBS affiliate WHNT News 19 reported Tuesday,” Time Magazine stated.
In the papers filed to the court for the lawsuit, Magers stated that the ex-girlfriend took a pill to terminate or end the pregnancy on February 12, 2017, in spite of the pleas of keeping the baby, by Magers.
Of course, this implies, if taking the testimony of Magers, a strong difference of opinion on the eventual birthing as a child after the fetus sufficiently developed or the actual termination of the fetus — not a baby.
Time Magazine said, “This week, an Alabama probate judge granted Magers’ petition to represent the estate of the fetus, which the suit calls “Baby Roe.” But according to WHNT, the court papers do not make it clear that “Baby Roe” was an aborted fetus.”
A jury trial is being sought, purportedly, by Magers, where Brent Helms will be the attorney for Magers. Helms is claiming the case breaks legal ground, as a Baby Roe case — so to speak. This appears as if an explicit attempt to build off the success of the Roe v Wade decision of 1973 in the United States.
This is, for a Canadian audience, akin to the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–1969 superseded and expanded, in a sense, by the R v MorgentalerSupreme Court of Canada decision from 1988.
The name “Roe” is a reflection of “John Doe” for the everyman but for the everywoman, “Jane Roe.” It is intended as a general law. The current context is, in this sense, for the “Baby Roe” to mirror this. Ironically, the traditionalist strain wants to have the women and children take the man’s name.
But, in this case, the every-child, or, rather, the every-fetus, takes on the name of the mother, the everywoman Jane Roe.
Helms said, “This is the first estate that I’m aware of that has ever been opened for an aborted baby.”
Alabama stated that the unborn fetuses have identical rights as an individual born in an amendment from last November. It has been marked a victory by some.
It is part of the growing movement called the “Personhood Movement.” Their sole goal is the constitutional rights of personhood being granted to a fertilized egg — a single cell. In this, we can see the influence of traditional religious ideological stances about the moment of conception.
“The same legislation also says that the Alabama constitution does not protect a woman’s right to an abortion — language added in the event of Roe v. Wadegetting overturned,” Time Magazine described, “The Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision granted women in the U.S. the legal right to abortions. The addition of conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh on the bench has raised concerns among pro-choice activists that women’s right to abortion in the U.S. may come under threat.”
Pro-choice activists are beginning to talk more about this and view this as a scary development for some of them.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/15
Amongst the noblest pursuits of the human species appears to be the education of the young, in which there is a proper and responsible passing onto the next generations the acquired knowledge of the prior ones.
One effort in the United States in the Next Generation Science Standard intended for school districts and accredited nonpublic schools. Iowa, for example, adopted the NGSS in 2015.
However, House File 61 is an interesting recent proposal that would prevent this from coming into full effect in Iowa, preventing NGSS from becoming the norm and expectation within the education system.
As reported, “The bill, introduced on January 23, 2019, and referred to the House Education Committee, is sponsored by Skyler Wheeler (R-District 4). In a 2016 interview with the Caffeinated Thoughts blog (April 19, 2016), Wheeler declared, ‘’I also oppose NGSS as it pushes climate change … NGSS also pushes evolution even more.’”
The denial of standard and mainstream scientific findings is an important issue. Denial of evolution simply leaves medical and biological sciences professionals less likely to come out of Iowa.
But also, there is the issue of anthropogenic climate change denial. This is an issue threatening species survival and requires immediate action as this is an urgent issue.
“In 2017, Wheeler cosponsored House File 140, which contained the same provision about the NGSS, as well as House File 480,” the NCSE stated, “which would have required teachers in Iowa’s public schools to include ‘opposing points of view or beliefs’ to accompany any instruction relating to evolution, the origins of life, global warming, or human cloning. Both bills died in committee.”
There is nothing new here. Indeed, the educators see through the ploy and the Iowa Association of School Boards has already made an open declaration of opposition to the House File 61.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/11
The struggle continues onward with the reindeer hit mainly by the plane in Maine, but also with the latest “controversial issues” measure. This is a new tactic and a common one.
The proper move, politically and legally, is an identification of the move and then steadfast work against it. The tactics tend to stay the same. The titles and names tend to be different.
There is a bill within the Maine legislature that would, in fact, require the public school teachers to follow a code of conduct. That’s not bad, in fact. But the content is the questionable part of it.
There is a background context. The NCSE reported on the fifth measure of its type in 2019 alone. There are “South Dakota’s House Concurrent Resolution 1002 and House Bill 1113, Virginia’s House Joint Resolution 684, and Arizona’s House Bill 2002.”
The Maine Legislative Document 589 (House Paper 433), prefiled in the Maine House of Representatives, could require the state board of education to adopt an ethics code — again, ethics are good — but the code would prevent public school teachers from engaging in “political or ideological indoctrination.”
This would make the topics appearing on platforms of a state political party subject to open questioning and, thus, creating a basis for questioning scientific truths via questioning of party platforms. The big issue is the fact that a large number of the party platforms, at the state level, mention evolution via natural selection and anthropogenic climate change.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/10
The government of British Columbia will be introducing legislation in order to implement an international document relating to the Indigenous rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada.
The document is a declaration entitled the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP). This was announced in a recent throne speech.
This would make British Columbia the first province in the country to legislate the endorsement of Canada of the UNDRIP. British Columbia Premier John Horgan stated that he remains unsure as to what this may look like but the legislative councils are working on solutions.
“I know it will be more than symbolic,” Horgan said, “We need to address reconciliation in British Columbia, not just for social justice… but for economic equality for all citizens, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.”
During the campaign trail for Horgan, there was a promise to respect, recognize, and implement the 46 articles of the UNDRIP. Those recognized as human rights for Indigenous peoples around the world. One of which is the right to self-determination. Other peoples have it. Therefore, Indigenous peoples should have it. That’s elementary.
The UN Member States with Indigenous peoples and questions surrounding land and territory should acquire free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) in order to ensure the rights of Indigenous peoples are respected in these areas.
Horgan’s NDP campaigned on a promise to implement UNDRIP, which includes 46 articles meant to recognize the basic human rights of Indigenous Peoples’ along with their rights to self-determination.
Horgan stated, “For too long uncertainty on the land base has led to investment decisions being foregone, and I believe that that hurts Indigenous people and it hurts other British Columbians.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/10
A resolution in South Dakota was brought to the legislature that was urging for the adoption of an ethics code that would be for the public school teachers.
The NCSE reported on the resolution and considered this as potentially adversely affecting the state of science education.
As reported, “House Concurrent Resolution 1002 (PDF), filed on January 25, 2019, by fifteen legislators (all Republicans) and referred to the House Education Committee, is aimed primarily at preventing what it describes as ‘political or ideological indoctrination.’”
While, at the same time, there would be a provision within the proposal, the code, for the prohibition for educators from teaching “any issue that is part of a political party platform at the national, state, or local level.”
Glenn Branch, of the NCSE, stated that it is common for state political parties to take individual stands on evolution and purported other options in the development and speciation of life.
Indeed, this can happen with climate change as well. With the imposition of the possible bill, then the teachers would be prevented from teaching evolution and, in fact, pressure into teaching anti-evolution stances and climate change denialist positions.
The reportage concluded, “A similar resolution, House Joint Resolution 684, is under consideration in Virginia, and a similar bill, House Bill 2002, is under consideration in Arizona.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): News Intervention
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2019/03/10
Female roles in Hollywood and women in the movie and television industry continue to make further strides due, mostly, to their own efforts and activism for recognition, respect, and equal treatment with the men in the industries and on the screen.
Sarah Jessica Parker spoke on feminism and humanism. In the call for better roles for women, she remarked how this is not simply a feminist issue but, in actual fact, a humanist issue, broadly speaking.
Part of this may be due to the stigmatizing of the term “feminist.” Another part may be due to the universalist nature of the implications, in terms of direct representations, of the term “humanist.”
Of course, the terminology of feminism, in its traditionalist meaning, is universalist, as in women and men recognized as social and legal equals. Humanist simply moves this out into the level of the species.
“The actor reiterated this sentiment in a recent interview, explaining that she believes the LGBT+ community must be included when discussing better representation in film,” the Independent reported, “When questioned over whether or not female actors are being offered higher calibre roles than they have done in the past, the actor stated that she doesn’t feel as though she’s ‘equipped to speak to the quality across the board.’”
Parker’s hope is for the quality parts in movies and television will be part of the industry, not simply as a “call-to-arms” for feminists but, in fact, a general movement for the furtherance of humanism.
A humanist is someone who does not identify with the supernatural — not necessarily the rejection of the metaphysical but the supernatural — and emphasizes human reason, compassion, and science, in addition to their inherent limitations as evolved organisms.
Both respect the human rights of men and women. In that, there is a wide overlap in their outlooks.
“People of colour, gays, lesbians, and transgenders who are carving out this space. I’m not spitting in the face or being lazy about what still needs to be done — but I don’t think it’s just women anymore,” Parker said in 2015, in Cosmopolitan.
She further explained how the movement within the television and movie industry could be even more powerful if this was identified with the humanist movement. Others have proclaimed this as, in essence, an evasion tactic with the aforementioned demonization of the term feminist.
While, at the same time, these can both be true positions; the shift into humanist language may be more powerful than the limitations, currently, of the plurality of feminisms on offer.
But this could also lead to a similar problem with a wide range of humanisms on offer as well. As there is a wide range of humanisms, indeed, these can range from the deistic humanists to the atheistic humanists, and never the two meeting.
The world is complicated; people similarly so. Meryl Streep was also on record as identifying as humanist because of being for “nice easy balance,” which does reflect the casual style and flavor of thinking of the actress.
In addition, Susan Sarandon described her view of humanism too. It is not simply about the distinction but more about the overlap and then the appropriateness of the term to social context.
But certainly, these identifications as humanist by prominent women is an important aspect of the work to modernize the views of the humanist world and, as importantly, getting the title out into the mainstream sphere through prominent and respectable actresses.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/10
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
David McGinness: Good Morning, Scott: For the most part, I was raised Catholic because of my mother. My sister and I would attend Sunday school, the family would go to church once a week, we would pray before dinner and occasionally before bed. After my mom passed away, when I was 9-years old, we gradually stopped going to church. Christmas and Easter celebrations were still celebrated, but more so for the fun and family gathering aspects of these holidays (arguably, these aren’t even Catholic traditions anyway). After my family struggled to get over my mom’s passing, my dad made the decision to move us to California to be closer to her our aunt, who became a mother figure to my sister and me. It wasn’t until I grew up in California that my religious identity became important to me, so I dedicated time to research the topic.
In terms of the geographical locations where we lived, we moved around a lot due to the demands of my father’s job. My sister was born in Washington D.C., three years later I was born in Ecuador, three years after that, we moved back to Virginia. We lived in Colombia for approximately fours years, back to Virginia and finally California, where I have lived for over 10 years, and is where I consider home to be.
My father is dominantly of Irish decent and my mother is Guatemalan. We grew up mostly within what I would call the American culture, although since I have experienced different states within the USA, and lived in Latin American, as well as I was partially raised by my Latino family, I believe I am multicultural.
We are English speakers, dad has a Southern accent that my sister and I never adopted. We are semi-decent Spanish speakers as well.
My sister and I went to public schools growing up. My sister graduated in UCSD with a Bachelor Degree in Biology, and I am still working at CSUSM to earn my degree Criminology and Justice studies, as well as going through an Air Force ROTC program at SDSU.
My religious identity, of course, is a non-believer, non-religious, and have chosen to be completely void of it. I am technically a member of state-recognized religion known as the Temple of the Jedi Order, hopefully I don’t need to explain why this doesn’t fall into the same category as the leading religions of today. If someone wished for a full and official title I would say that I am an Antitheist-Agnostic-Atheist.
I probably should break that down a bit; atheist is the title I prefer to go by, but due to a very common misconception/stigma, I find myself usually forced to be more specific. So here it goes: I am not someone that says that I can disprove the existence of god (personally don’t know of any well known atheists that say they can do this), I simply believe that the lack of evidence that there is a God, presented by the religious, isn’t convincing enough for me to buy into. In this way, I am agnostic; I can’t prove God’s non-existence but I don’t think there is anyone that can do so either. My answer is I don’t know and I live my life as if there wasn’t one, thus the “agnostic atheist” portion.
Antitheist, simply enough, means that if hypothetically the theistic doctrine were true, I would wish it was not. In nearly all the leading religions followed today, I find the doctrines/scriptures/texts of the holy books to be not only immoral and disturbing but evil in nature.
And yes, Christopher Hitchens is an indirect mentor to many of my beliefs on religion and faith, may his memory live long.
Jacobsen: What is the personal background in secularism for you? What were some seminal developmental events and realizations in personal life regarding it?
McGinness: Secularism to me is someone that supports the separation of Church and State, I’m pretty sure this is the dictionary definition for it, but it’s as simple as that. I suppose my background in secularism can be summed up by indirectly benefiting from it as a United States citizen, thanks to our longest living, ever-reforming, Constitution. If a citizen gets pulled over by an Officer of the Law, their religion, or lack of it, will not be a question that will would induce arrest, conviction or punishment. If applying for a job or college, religious background won’t determine whether a citizen gets accepted or not. Under no circumstance will (or should) anyone be forced to religious teachings or scrutiny that is backed by governmental support, a concept that is not yet universally accepted, which I think is unfortunate to say the least.
Reading, education, studying the constitution and watching religious debates were what brought me to this understanding: that it is only through Secular government, that a nation can achieve religious freedom. It is through Secularism that we have the greatest rights we earn as Americans and why the nation has prospered.
Jacobsen: You are the president of the SSA at California State University — San Marcos. What tasks and responsibilities come with the position? Why do you pursue this line of volunteering?
McGinness: To be honest, I am very new to the club and it is the first one I had ever joined. The club was pretty much inactive and was one day from being unrecognized by our national organization. Attempting to help, I made a quick and desperate attempt to fill in all the information needed to register (much of which I did not have), and presenting it less than an hour before it was due. Afterwards, I began receiving emails from both from the national organization and representatives from my campus, that insinuated that I was the leading officer of the club. By default, I became the new President of Secular Society Alliance at SSA and have accepted the challenge of getting us started from scratch.
My main goal is to successfully reboot the club and build awareness on campus regarding the club and secularism. I would like to create an environment for likeminded students to gather, discuss their ideals, and create long-lasting friendships. Currently, I am in the process of creating a weekly schedule that includes a weekly event, besides our weekly meeting.
So far, we are doing very well. I have gotten 13 members of my fraternity to join already, have gotten boxes full of SSA merchandise and two posters for free from a request to the national organization, nearly completed the requirements of the university to be recognized and have found a new proactive campus staff member to be the advisor for the club.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
McGinness: I suppose leading an organization that strongly stands behind the most important principle of the constitution, that I have taken an Oath to support and defend as an American Airman, is an honor. I truly love this country and the freedoms it has provided my family, friends and myself. Meeting others that feel the same way is something I am looking forward to, as well as learning new perspectives on secularism, atheism, agnosticism, free-thinking, free-inquiry and patriotism. (Scholarship opportunities would be nice as well).
Jacobsen: What are some of the more valuable tips for campus secularist activism?
McGinness: I don’t have the experience, yet, to share some tips. However, the former president gave me the following advice: connect with other clubs that have similar interests, reach out to religious organizations occasionally for respectful discussions, keep activities simple with a clear purpose, try to have fun and most importantly keep your cool when confronted with opposition.
Jacobsen: What have been some historic violations of the principles behind secularism on campus? What have been some successes to combat these violations?
McGinness: I don’t know of any violations due to lack of secularism on my campus. We have a lot of on-campus religious demonstrations that are sponsored from religious organizations, but they are legally manifesting their freedom of speech. My club would have to investigate my university’s history to answer this question properly.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding secularists on campus?
McGinness: To combat religious attempts to violate our first amendment and other constitutional rights. In recent years, attempts have been to violate the Anti-Establishment Clause. For example, teaching creationism/intelligent design in public schools, Religious Freedom Restoration Act and establishing a National Day of Prayer. Religious freedom is an outcome of secularism, borne from Thomas Jefferson’s metaphorical wall that separates church and the state. I believe, as a secularist, it should be us that continues to support this wall.
Jacobsen: What is your main concern for secularism on campus moving forward for the next few months, even years?
McGinness: Besides keeping the club that represents secularism running for years to come, making sure that future members feel safe, make sure to let members know they can count on our support of their ideology is being questioned. Maintaining club confidentiality is something I will eventually have to address and plan for soon.
Jacobsen: What are the current biggest threats to secularism on campus?
McGinness: Sorry to say again, I am honestly not too sure. However, since most statistics show that many Americans don’t trust atheists, I believe I will have to build the trust and respect of fellow students.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to secularism on campus?
McGinness: I would say political attempts to fight secularism (breaking down the wall), and religious ridicule/public shaming as to discourage secularism — leading to the silencing of secular voices.
Jacobsen: What are the main social and political activist, and educational, initiatives on campus for secularists?
McGinness: Suggestions are endless, if needed I would recommend researching the teachings from the following people:
· Socrates (Founder of Western Philosophy)
· Marcus Aurelius (Founder of Stoicism)
· George Holyoake (Founder of Secularism)
· Charles Darwin (Biological Emancipator, Founder of Evolution)
· Thomas Huxley (Founder of Agnosticism, nickname: Darwin’s Bulldog)
· Thomas Jefferson (President/Founding Father, Jefferson’s Wall)
· James Madison (President/Founding Father, “Detached Memoranda”)
· Carl Sagan (Cosmologist, TV Show “The Cosmos”)
· Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Astrophysicist, Reboot of “The Cosmos)
· Bill Maher (Host of Politically Incorrect and Documentary; Religulous)
· Christopher Hitchens (Columnist/Author, book: “God is not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything),
· Richard Dawkins (Oxford Professor in Biology, book: “God Delusion.”)
Jacobsen: What are the main events and topics of group discussions for the alliance on campus?
McGinness: I would be proud of my organization if we managed to get a secular political activist to come to campus to speak on our behalf or on major secular issues that face our nation or the world.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved and maintain the secular student alliance ties on campus?
McGinness: Joining the club would be the first step. From there, learning to be open about secularism, understanding its importance and being prepared to teach others about it. Also, important is having a positive attitude while being active in the club and welcoming disagreement.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
McGinness: Thank you for this opportunity and questions. Glad you reached out.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, David.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/09
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was your family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Roar Johnsen: I am living in Oslo, the capital of Norway, with a population of more than half a million people. I have a degree in marketing and administration, but have worked as a consultant in IT for the last 35 years.
Norway has had a Christian state church system, which only recently separated from the state, so Christianity is dominating in school education and cultural tradition. However, the majority of Norwegians are not really believers, but stay on as church members out of tradition and ceremonial services. My parents were passive church members and freethinkers.
I realized while in college that I was an atheist, and left the church as soon as I could, and my parents followed shortly after. I joined the Norwegian Humanist Association ten years later, and has been an active volunteer since 1979.
Jacobsen: You are board member for IHEU. How does the position work? Why do you pursue this line of work?
Johnsen: The Board of IHEU are responsible for IHEU strategy development and its operation between the annual General Assemblies. Over time, the workload of the Board change quite much.
When we have a very small office staff, or none at all, the Board has to be very active and operational, while when we have an Chief Executive and other staff, as now, the Board can be more strategic and leave most of the operational issues to the staff.
The Board meet in person four times a year, and have four Board meetings by Skype. Some Board members are also participating in working groups or sub-committees.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
Johnsen: Apart from the satisfaction of seeing the organization operating successfully and growing over time, it is very stimulating to meet with local activists all over the world.
When we meet at a world Humanist congress, a general assembly or a national event, it is always a positive exchange of experiences, viewpoints and challenges. Even if the conditions are very different from country to country, we share many of the same issues, and can use many of the same strategies to work on those issues.
When we hear that we have been able to help a local organization grow, or someone has been motivated to continue their effort for a Humanist group, that is a very good motivation for me as well.
Jacobsen: How does the general global public view the humanist and ethical culture movements compared to other worldviews and movements?
Johnsen: That is a difficult question! I am not sure that we have something we can call “the general global public view” on these matters. The situation is very different in various places and contexts.
Some non-religious organizations focus on their own members and keeps a non-confrontational style in public. Such organizations are often well respected in society, but does not get big headlines in media and grow slowly.
Other organizations are more confrontational, and create more headlines in media, but may have problems achieving a good working relationship with the authorities and other religious and life stance groups. Overall, I think that non-religious groups are, slowly but surely, gaining more understanding and respect worldwide.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding the irreligious in the world?
Johnsen: We must focus on respect for human rights, which is the topic of the Freedom of Thought report that IHEU publish every year. In too many countries the non-religious are discriminated against, partly by governments and partly by extremists not being stopped by governments.
Other issues are religious education in public schools, which should be only in history classes, and promotion of scepticism and the scientific method, which can help people avoid the worst problems of traditional thinking, superstition and new age prophets.
Jacobsen: What has been one of the most touching stories you’ve ever personally witnessed or heard of through IHEU?
Johnsen: Over the years, I have met many activists and many people who have been helped out of situations where they were victims of discrimination based on religion. They all have a story to tell! The Atheist Centre in Vijayawada in India has helped many people, and one of their major projects has been the rehabilitation of an entire village “of thieves” called Stuartpuram.
When they started that work, they realized that they would have to carry on for at least two generations, but started anyway. When we visited the village, they could look back on many years of dedicated and successful work. A touching story, indeed!
Jacobsen: Also, you are an IT consultant, and IT service management project manager. You volunteer for the Norwegian Humanist Association too — and have been its president too. How have these positions helped prepare you for the current and ongoing IHEU work — since 2006?
Johnsen: All people who volunteer for organizations bring with them good practices from their professions, whether they are lawyers, teachers, business people or project managers.
My background has helped me guide organizations in developing their organizational structures, their finances and their work programs. Volunteer organizations need good management too! Having been internationally active since my first World Humanist Congress in Hannover in 1982, it was natural to volunteer for the IHEU Board at the end of my tenure as president for the Norwegian Humanist Association.
Jacobsen: What is your main concern for humanism moving forward into 2017–2020? How about into the next decades?
Johnsen: Humanism will continue to grow, there is no doubt about that. However, not all Humanists or other non-religious people feel the need to be organized in one of our many groups, so organized Humanism will always be smaller than our wider community.
Many of our organizations are having much more to do than their resources will allow, so for many years ahead we will have to focus on the core issues for the non-religious that only we will do.
Jacobsen: What are the biggest threats to irreligious types in the world today?
Johnsen: In most countries, the non-religious does not face any serious personal threats, the problems are more of a systemic kind. However, in some countries, intolerant religious groups and even the authorities themselves, are threatening, intimidating and even hurting people for their lack of religion.
All Humanist groups must participate in helping our less fortunate fellow humanists, as well as taking care of their own local business.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to humanism and ethical culture?
Johnsen: Political instability and continued poverty are the main problems in many societies today, and often affects cultural minorities even more than the majority. It is interesting to see that many studies show that when a population grows from poverty through education to a more secure society, the need for religion is reduced.
And we find that regardless of which religion you come from, when you leave it and find a secular life stance, most people ends up with Humanism.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Johnsen: It is very nice to see the way IHEYO has developed over the last few years, and it is important that we continuously manage to engage with new generations of youth. The sooner they become engaged in Humanist activism, the faster the world will improve!
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Roar, that was interesting.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/08
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Is there an embassy or someplace which can help with a visa and travel to at least a more moderate country?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: I basically belong from Pakistan and currently living in Saudi Arabia for my job Purpose. So here we don’t see any forum which can help the people like me to move to a better place.
Jacobsen: What is your story in becoming a non-believer?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: I was a believer till I was under graduation but then I met a friend on Facebook and in no time we became best friends. Slowly he made me to think over the Concept of GOD and Science. I started to analyze the things and my findings made me to accept that I was just obeying someone blindly and in real there is no such power. This was a turning point for me from believer to non-believer.
Jacobsen: How has this impacted personal life?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: It impacted my personal life in a way that I get irritated seeing the religious stuff happening in my surroundings and I find myself unable to utter a word even as I live in society where if I will go to speak for me I will be dumped like anything. My family is believer but they are moderate ones. I am non believer in closet actually.
Jacobsen: Do you keep things inside and do not tell many people?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: Yeah exactly I do same. But there is only one person whom I love more than anything in life; He knows all my feelings and things which I cannot share with anyone else. He is love of my life.
Jacobsen: What would be the likely reaction of the community and religious authorities to your beliefs and sexual orientation?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: If I expose myself to them I will have to face serious consequences which will lead to my death without any doubt as there have been such cases in my society where innocents were killed just due to some doubts of being non-believer of God etc. Sexual orientation also matters a lot in my community as it’s forbidden in our religion to make relation with same sex partner. There are some rules for that which leads to death of victim or life lasting prisoning.
Jacobsen: What is your main message for people in developed countries — mostly Western — that you can’t say publicly with an open identity in your country without being labeled a terrorist or an infidel/apostate and then threatened with death?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: I will give a loud voice to the West that please helps me. I love a boy and without him I feel myself incomplete. I would request them to help me by any mean to get me out of this place into a better one where I can live my life freely with my love and can enjoy the multiple colors of life which is just given one time to us.
Jacobsen: Is there an underground renaissance of critical thinking and moderate religiosity and outright irreligiosity in your home country?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: Yes there are many more like me who are non-believers like me in closet. Some teams also do hidden work to sort out issues and help people like me. But very few of us can approach them as they work so silently that it’s hard to find them.
Jacobsen: What is your main situation now? How can the international community help those in similar circumstances because so many more stories like this are out there?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: My situation is like I was living with my love in Saudi Arabia who belongs from another country. Due to bad situation of work he left Saudi Arabia. Now we both are apart from each other and it’s very difficult to stay far like this. I will want and request international community to help us in a way which brings us together and in a better place where there is freedom of speech and equal rights of choice to all. I believe that love is something which if someone loses, he or she cannot be happy at all. I found my true love and I don’t want to lose. Those who are reading this and they also love someone they will surely understand my feelings and pain of being far from your love.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion based on the conversation today?
Anonymous Gay Ex-Muslim: I would like to thanks your platform which gave a chance to speak out and convey my feelings to others. I just hope this step will lead me to some success and better life. I convey my thanks to all those who support me and understand me.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the time today.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/07
Is nonconformity required to be humanist in our current society?
Humanism is a philosophy of life that considers the welfare of humankind — rather than the welfare of a supposed God or gods — to be of paramount importance. (American Humanist Association, 2017).
As existing social, political practices draw largely on views that consider the welfare of a belief system to be of paramount importance, there is an intersection in the efforts of humanists and nonconformists. To be humanist is, and has been through time, to be a nonconformist.
Humanists are few. Where are they? They’re scattered. Some may not even know of their individual perspective on the world — as if the distant scent of love on the horizon. You know it’s there, but you can’t quite find it — and then it goes away.
But humanists are around. Why so few humanists, though? I think one variable or factor is time. It hasn’t had time to catch like wildfire as with the Abrahamic religions, for examples.
Also, as with the stated differences with atheists in the past and into the present, the transition is the explicit, open statement, “I am an atheist.” (Translation: ‘I don’t eat babies, give the ‘evil’ eye, or stand at the right side of the Satan in the Left hand path.’)
As a young explicit philosophy, maybe tacit in earlier times, humanism, as with ethical culture, is more open, in the countries which permit it, than probably ever. This openness may differentiate this time more than the eras in which prominent atheists lived such as Voltaire.
That means prior eras of atheists didn’t have the luxury of talking openly. The upcoming generations of atheists have an increasing platform. There are fewer heroes in the movement too, which is another outreach barrier.
The population, generally speaking, is more educated. More education will, statistically, translate into less religiosity (Pew Research Center, 2017). As with the more educated population — correlation is not causation but, the higher the birth rate then the higher the new number of children indoctrinated into the faith.
Richard Dawkins made this point, originally as far as I know. You do not have Muslim or Christian children. You have children of Christian or Muslim parents. That’s where the social and familial privilege of religion exists in another domain.
The ability to label and inculcate the children with the title prior to the child’s critical faculties have been built. That means, more or less, the religious family with this social and familial privilege having a higher birth rate will have more adherents in the long-term because the children of Christian or Muslim, and so on, will be labelled as the religion of their parents — out of tacitly abusive custom and norm, universally asserted as an implicit right.
There will be a decline in the number of global freethinkers, as in religious “none,” over time, as a percent of the global population of the religious grows, at least into 2050 (Pew Research Center, 2015).
The birth rate for the religious, simply even taking into account the Christianity and Islam examples, is higher than the nones. It seems tautological.
If a group’s collective birth rate is below replacement — 2.1 — and the other group’s birth rate is above replacement (and your group’s), then, in the long run, the group’s with the highest birth rate (above replacement rate) will be the ones to grow — with those having the highest birth rate having the highest new numbers per capita (Lipka & McClendon, 2017).
Pressures in nonconformity and being a “prudent” nonconformist involves outward and inward conformity. When reflecting on the outward conformity, there are the clothing someone wears. Their means of self-presentation is one form of conformity.
If in home life, in a place of worship, in the workplace, or in another country, the style of one’s hair, the coloring of the makeup and hair — if any, and the appropriateness of the clothing will be evaluated by others.
Conformity means fitting in; clothing is part of fitting in, or dress writ large, e.g. makeup, hair, and dress. Conformity can be in the spoken and written as well. Is this individual speaking, not necessarily the truths but, the ‘proper’ norms and attitudes as reflected by their speech and writing?
It could be as subtle as the introduction and send-off of an email, down to the specific vocabulary one uses in the aforementioned places, e.g. “in home life, in a place of worship, in the workplace, or in another country.”
Also, the partaking in the social practices of the culture for ease of interaction, security, prevent erroneous assumptions. Inward is a little different in style, but the same in content. One of the strongest forms of inward conformity may be the inculcation of the beliefs of the society in internal speech.
So if someone has completely imbibed the truisms of the culture, whether public, academic, or what have you, then things best not written or spoken may in fact best be unthought or not felt.
Then there are issues of media presence too. How many open atheists are there, for a sub-demographic example? If you take Reverend Gretta Vosper, she has been pilloried and praised in the media. She is an openly atheist reverend in the United Church of Canada, which may hold the title of the most progressive church in Canada.
The most prominent noted prejudice against non-believer comes from social life. So, it becomes harder to measure, but can affect future life success in a realistic sense, e.g. job prospects, social encounters, relationships.
This leaves a quandary for the non-believer, “Do I keep everything private or live honestly?” Tough choice. If the boss has a holy day, or day of observance, on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, then the employees may, more than chance, have to observe this, not in personal but, professional life.
That means the employee is, in a direct sense, engaging in parts of the observance with the employer. So, what does this mean for the limits of nonconformity? Should we accept a certain limit in our nonconformity?
No, but only if we are willing to accept every consequence that follows for the implication that this sacrifice will result in future progress. This is a lot to ask of most people.
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. (Nelson Mandela Foundation, 2017)
Yes, if our life is at risk, then personal safety and basic survival of loved ones are important because, at times, lives are at stake for nonconformity, especially for one international second class: the irreligious.
The irreligious are given the death penalty in many countries for rejecting the divinity of holy figures, the authoritativeness of religious authorities, the inerrancy of holy texts, the rightness of asserted morality, and superiority of those upholding the dominant mythological doctrines.
Keeping in mind, that nonconformist views, in a society that shares everything with everyone, that humanists must be ready to defend their sentiments at any point in the future, no matter when or how genuine the sentiment.
What can be done, practically speaking? You, yes you, can use outward conformity and inner nonconformity for activist purposes. In a way, this is a means of the direct and indirect articulation of humanist ideals, through your way of living while remaining practical about the reality of the obstacles set for the secular types.
So, I leave you with a question:
Do we have an obligation to use our privilege to draw attention to the promotion of humanism?
References
American Humanist Association, 2017). What is Humanism?. Retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/.
Lipka, M. & McClendon, D. (2017, April 7). Why people with no religion are projected to decline as a share of the world’s population. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/07/why-people-with-no-religion-are-projected-to-decline-as-a-share-of-the-worlds-population/.
Nelson Mandela Foundation. (2017). “I am prepared to die.”. Retrieved from https://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/i-am-prepared-to-die.
Pew Research Center. (2017). Educational Distribution. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/educational-distribution/.
Pew Research Center. (2015, April 2). The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010–2050. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/06
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Cayman Travis Gardner: Family background is where one derives a majority of their childhood moral compass. Depending of where in the country one grew up in, (Bible belt vs. northern states) they will be subjected to a number of cultural and religious factors during childhood. These factors can guild one’s life in terms of faith, or lack thereof, which in turn guild the rest of their opinions and moral reasoning.
Jacobsen: What is the personal background in secularism for you? What were some seminal developmental events and realizations in personal life regarding it?
Gardner: Personally, I was raised in a semi-religious Christian household where there were irregular, but forced, visits to church. Church always gave me anxiety as I have never agreed with the philosophies of the Bible. I considered myself Agnostic for much of my adolescent years, beginning when I began to understand independence from religion and what that really meant for me. But when I got to college I began to discover more about myself, as everyone does, and started to determine my exact ideals and how I wanted to support them. I familiarized myself with some philosophies about religion itself and this led to my declaration as an Atheist as I found problems with Christianity and religion as a whole that I could no longer associate myself with even partially, as I was as an Agnostic.
Jacobsen: You are the president of the University of North Alabama SSA. What tasks and responsibilities come with the position? Why do you pursue this line of volunteering?
Gardner: UNA Secular Student Alliance has opened many doors for myself and others in the group for self-exploration in the means of religion. We hold weekly meeting where we discuss a topic pertaining to religion and faith in our community/university, the area we live in and ultimately in the U.S.A. as a whole. These discussions often open the minds of our group members as well as myself. Alongside weekly meetings we have an assortment of events that we orchestrate on campus to spread awareness of Secularism, have open forums with the public on campus, and attempt to gain new members. For example, one of our events in Spring 2017 was named “Ask An Atheist Day” and we set up a table in one of the most popular buildings on campus all week and allowed any and all to ask our members any questions about Atheism or Secularism. This event is very helpful for bridging the gap between the Atheist and religious communities here at UNA.
I perused the title of President of UNA SSA because I could see no higher duty in my community for opening minds to the Atheist, Agnostic, freethinkers, AND religious individuals alike.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
Gardner: Our weekly meetings are also used as a safe place for secular individuals to escape the hyper-religious culture of the south that we live in. I have no better feeling than knowing that my meetings and events help others and myself in this fashion.
Jacobsen: What are some of the more valuable tips for campus secularist activism?
Gardner: Specifically in the south, we as Secularists and Atheists are not the most liked individuals on campus. However in the growing culture of acceptance of LGBT groups and other social “outliers”, our Secular group is growing more accepted by the day. In contrary to this, some believe that by UNA SSA holding an event such as “Ask An Atheist Day” in such a public space, we are attempting to infringe on their religious freedom or in some way are attacking their religion. While of course this is not true, it is important to understand as a group that holds events such as these that some individuals believe this and you may be on the receiving end of some hate. Do not be discouraged by this, our organization exists in part to spread awareness of Secularism and promote friendly discourse between differing opinions, thus resulting in coexisting peacefully.
Jacobsen: What have been some historic violations of the principles behind secularism on campus? What have been some successes to combat these violations?
Gardner: Generally speaking, UNA is a Christian majority campus where many organizations and groups are united under the umbrella of faith. There have been times where a Christian organization has set up their advertising tent in front of the residence halls. This is a breach of secularism on campus because the individuals who live on campus are subjected to experience their attempts to spread faith as they see it, making them unable to avoid the tent since they have to walk by it to return to their dorm. There has been relative success with this issue as the organizations have not done such advertising since.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding secularists on campus?
Gardner: I believe the main requirement for Secularists on campus is a space to feel welcome. Having a group of friends or individuals where they can feel safe to not “hold their tongue” so to speak. As anyone does, we too desire a place to feel safe and welcomed.
Jacobsen: What is your main concern for secularism on campus moving forward for the next few months, even years?
Gardner: Specifically here at UNA, my worry is the cessation of having an SSA on campus after I leave in a couple of years. Our group numbers hover around 10–15 active members. Before I became the President there was a crisis within UNA SSA and the group’s continuation was threatened by the absence of a President. Thus, I became the President and have done my best to grow the group while also providing a successful organization for our current members. I am happy to say that we have done a great job so far with this goal!
Jacobsen: What are the current biggest threats to secularism on campus?
Gardner: The biggest, most current threat to secularism on campus is stigma. The stigma surrounding Atheism both historically and currently, though diminished, causes many people to assume our organization has ill-intentions. We are here to provide a healthy outlet for our members as well as spread awareness through de-stigmatization.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to secularism on campus?
Gardner: Stigma once again. The ideas of a few radiate through friend and social groups who think alike, thus propagating stigma.
Jacobsen: What are the main social and political activist, and educational, initiatives on campus for secularists?
Gardner: Sadly, the UNA Secular Student Alliance is the only organization providing for Secularists in campus currently. In the future, I would like to see a growth in either number of groups or size of the UNA SSA to better help those who are possibly questioning their faith.
Jacobsen: What are the main events and topics of group discussions for the alliance on campus?
Gardner: Our events often focus on educating the public by spreading awareness. Our discussions often relate to injustices among social groups or individuals based upon their defining traits (gender, race, sexual orientation, etc.) and how those injustices differ among the Secular crowd, and the religious crowd.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved and maintain the secular student alliance ties on campus?
Gardner: Through attending meetings and participating in events individuals can help UNA Secular Student Alliance with our mission as well as become a part of a welcoming group on campus.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Gardner: It is truly a new world, one where acceptance of groups or ideas that are not shared among the majority populous is growing. However, even though acceptance is growing, this does not mean our work is done. Many individuals emerging from their childhood, finding adolescence and/or emerging from their adolescence finding adulthood are searching for answers. We are able to help these individuals in their own pursuit of defining their faith, or the lack there of.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Cayman.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/06
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: George Thindwa recommended you. I interviewed him about the irreligious community in Malawi. You noted that no one has done more for the formal irreligious movement than George.
So, in light of the mutual respect and acknowledgment of contributions to Malawi’s non-religious community, I want to start with the background to provide a framework for everyone.
Did family background influence religious or non-religious perspective? If so, how? Can you recall some pivotal moments?
Dr. Paul Munyenyembe: I grew up with my paternal grandparents who were very religious. But they were too old to enforce church attendance for me. So, I only attended church if and when I wanted. I cannot say that at that time I was irreligious. I started seriously questioning religion when I was in boarding secondary school.
I could not find answers to the many questions I had about religion. So, I completely lost my faith when I was still in secondary school. So, the short answer to your question is that my family background did not really influence my non-religious perspective.
Jacobsen: Since you have seen the developments in Malawi for some time, from youth to the present, what bigger developments took place in Malawi?
Munyenyembe: In my view, the bigger developments in Malawi are that we now have an organized irreligious movement. It’s also important to note that Malawian society, in general, has accepted the existence of the non-religious in the country.
We often participate in discussions about paranormal issues. We have been able to educate society about the dangers of superstitious beliefs in violating human rights. We have a dedicated column in the Sunday Times newspaper titled “Science and critical thinking”.
Many Malawians, especially the youth, are now not afraid to come out as non-religious.
Jacobsen: How have these aforementioned bigger developments influenced the religious landscape of the country, the demographics of the nation?
Munyenyembe: While the population as a whole is predominantly religious, our views and activities have led some religious people to start questioning their beliefs. The youth are becoming particularly sceptical of religious claims.
We are confident that the non-religious community will continue to grow in numbers. Of course, we are under no illusion that religion in Malawi will disappear anytime soon.
Jacobsen: Historically, what helps the formal irreligious movement in Malawi? What hinders attempts at it?
Munyenyembe: What has been very helpful to the formal irreligious movement in Malawi has been the advent of the internet and social media. Over the past few years, it has been easy for members of our movement to instantly share views and news. Right now we have a very active Whatsapp group. We have also created a newsletter which can be read online.
In spite of these positives, our movement is facing many challenges. Malawi is one of the most religious countries in the world. It’s also one of the poorest. And so religious organizations, especially Pentecostal churches, exploit people’s poverty by promising wealth and a lot of other incredible benefits offered by them.
In this way, people flock to these churches for material gains. The more traditional churches offer heavenly rewards which are very attractive to the poor. The other problem is that the education system in Malawi does not promote critical thinking. As a result, students memorise facts and do not question ingrained religious beliefs.
Jacobsen: What authors and organizations from Malawi should the international community, such as countries like Canada, look to help out in the movement towards moderation of the bad parts of formal religion and the development of the community for those whom religion does not feel like the right life path?
Munyenyembe: The Association for Secular Humanism is the only atheist organization in the country at the moment. It needs help in different forms for the smooth running of its activities.
There are other organizations that champion secular views and human rights. Some of these are: Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, Centre for Development of People, and Malawi Writers Union.
Jacobsen: What have been successes and honest failures in the non-religious movements in Malawi?
Munyenyembe: The successes of the non-religious movement in Malawi are numerous. They include the growth of the movement’s membership from a handful to hundreds of members today; the eradication of witchcraft-based violence and human rights abuses; organization and participation in debates on superstitious beliefs and their dangers; participation in international fora, such as the World Humanist Congress; increased visibility of the movement in electronic and print media; and others.
One of the challenges we have been facing is that of fund-raising in an overwhelmingly religious environment. As a result, we have not been able to implement some activities. Due to this same constraint, it has been difficult to organize national conferences.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved other than simply reading and becoming more informed?
Munyenyembe: We have plans to establish humanist educational institutions and also to involve the youth in sexual and reproductive health. We are also promoting human rights activism, especially the rights of sexual minorities. We are also promoting activism in transformational leadership at the community level. In future, we have plans to introduce youth camps.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Munyenyembe.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/06
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Kaeleigh Pontif: I was born and raised in Houma, Louisiana. As you can imagine, growing up in the southern bible belt has a certain set of challenges. The south takes cultural preservation very seriously, despite how archaic some of the traditions may be.
For the first 16 years of my life I practiced as a Jehovah’s Witness. Growing up, bible study always came before school work. We attended the kingdom hall two or three times a week, and frequently preached door to door. I graduated from H.L. Bourgeois High School in 2011, and moved to Marysville, California in 2013.
I will graduate from Yuba College this December, and plan to attend Sacramento State University in the spring of 2018 where I will study environmental science.
Jacobsen: What is the personal background in secularism for you? What were some seminal developmental events and realizations in personal life regarding it?
Pontif: There were many times in my religious upbringing where I attempted to ask questions to those teaching me. I was always told I was concerned about the wrong things, or that I simply had to pray on it.
Between the ages of 15–18, there were many arguments with my family concerning my religious position. I began to feel like the Jehovah’s Witness religion had practices that I simply did not agree with or wish to participate in.
It became harder to get me to attend. I so badly wanted to find the right religion since I had doubts about my own, I joined numerous Christian clubs at my high school in hopes of finding the right path. As I’m sure it has begun for many atheists, at some point you realize things just don’t make sense.
With all the cruelty and suffering in the world, I could no longer believe in an all knowing and loving god. I also noticed the hypocrisy among many of the religious, and numerous biblical contradictions. I denounced religion and deism altogether and stopped attending church.
I felt depressed due to the lack of community that I once had with church and family. I started to pay attention and learn about all of the atrocities committed in the name of god and religion, and wanted nothing to do with doctrine.
In Houma, where I spent the majority of my life, I knew of no such meetup groups where people discussed philosophy, religion, humanism, etc. I felt like that area had no opportunities for me, be it personal or professional, so I decided to move to California.
After a couple months of living in Marysville, I did a quick google search for atheist groups in the area and found the group Sac FANS on meetup.com. Within this group, there was an atheist book club which I attended regularly, Sunday Assembly, a secular congregation, opportunities to do volunteer work in the secular community, and so much more.
I met some of the best people I know through this group and have had many rewarding experiences because of it.
Jacobsen: You are the president of the Yuba Community College SSA. What tasks and responsibilities come with the position? Why do you pursue this line of volunteering?
Pontif: That’s right, I am the president of the Yuba College Secular Student Alliance, I founded the group in January 2017. Because this is the first semester we’ve existed at Yuba, I’ve had a little more responsibility than one typically would.
I organize and preside over meetings, activities, and events, maintain our web presence, book speakers, coordinate volunteer and service work, and other fun outings for the group. I choose to pursue this line of volunteering because I find it to be extremely necessary.
Unfortunately, many people don’t realize how participating in certain religious practices and beliefs can be harmful to others. One’s religious beliefs might cause them to vote in favour of anti LGBTQ rights, against reproductive healthcare, against certain environmental policies, etc.
When I start to tell people about the SSA, the first question I usually get is, “What does secular mean?”. Because young adults are oblivious to the most fundamental word concerning our government, is just a reminder that I have lots of work ahead of me.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
Pontif: In the short amount of time that I have been an officer with the SSA, I have had several rewarding experiences and the opportunity to meet some truly amazing people. Our group has had some great discussions about women’s rights, indoctrination, secularism in the government, etc.
All of these discussions left attendees with a better understanding of the topic and a desire to do something about the issues. Because I recognize the injustice reflected by certain religious practices, I feel that I have a responsibility to shed light on them and do something about it.
When I lobby for secular values, volunteer at outreach events, I get a huge sense of fulfilment in knowing that I served my community in a way that benefits everyone. I believe that when I do better, we do better.
Jacobsen: What are some of the more valuable tips for campus secularist activism?
Pontif: Great question, I’m still picking up on a few tips myself. So far, I’ve learned that the most useful form for secular activism is simply talking to people. When I learn that a student is intimidated by the word secular, despite knowing what it means, I’m able to open up a conversation and help them better understand how everyone benefits from secularism, not only nonbelievers.
As long as people are scared to initiate conversations regarding secularism, it will always be a taboo. I encourage others to discuss religion and humanism on campus and generate those discussions that can lead people in the more enlightened direction.
I often remind people that we were not here to condemn religion, but rather discuss it and its effects on social structures like government and education.
Jacobsen: What have been some historic violations of the principles behind secularism on campus? What have been some successes to combat these violations?
Pontif: Personally, I haven’t experienced any major violations of secular principles on campus however, there have been a couple of minor issues Last year I had a professor who spent valuable class time preaching the Mormon religion.
I’m fully aware of academic freedom and a professor’s right to teach the class as he/she sees fit however, this was without a doubt a violation of those privileges. On more than one occasion I kindly asked him to discuss this matter before or after class time with anyone who may be interested.
Despite my attempts, he continued to preach about flying serpents, Jesus Christ visiting the Americas, evidence of the earth being 6,000 years old, and so on. I decided to contact an associate at the California Community College Chancellors Office to assist me with a formal complaint to the dean.
Although he continued preaching the following semester, I knew I had an obligation to speak up for secular values like the separation of church and state. Because many academics feel like they can utilize a public classroom to impose their religious beliefs on others, this is an ongoing issue, and I can only hope that students defend themselves and their rights.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding secularists on campus?
Pontif: I feel like secularists are needed on campus to erase the stigma that we are not or cannot be kind, caring, contributing members of society. Student groups like SSA, are a way to reach out to students who may have questions about religion or non-belief.
Many campuses have Christian or Muslim clubs and we need secular clubs to remind people that we are a diverse nation. Many secular groups like to show people that we do good for goodness’ sake, not in hopes of being rewarded or in fear of being punished.
Jacobsen: What is your main concern for secularism on campus moving forward for the next few months, even years?
Pontif: I suppose my biggest concern is student involvement. Yuba Community College is rather small and is located in a rural area, so we didn’t expect to rally or anything.
Many students are focused on their studies and don’t make much time for extracurricular activities. I’d like students to know that they can focus on school work and still advocate for secular values. If we don’t do it, who will?
Jacobsen: What are the current biggest threats to secularism on campus?
Pontif: Frankly, I don’t see many threats to secularism on campus. I think if you have students who are willing to gather around the cause, you’re good to go!
There can be some push-back from administrators or other students, but legally you have the right to make your voice heard. Groups might deal with their posters being defaced or something of that nature, but I think that makes what we do even more necessary.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to secularism on campus?
Pontif: As long as people are ignorant to what secularism is, there may always be threats against the movement. The current political landscape is trying to impose barriers for secularists, but I think we will ultimately prevail.
Jacobsen: What are the main social and political activist, and educational, initiatives on campus for secularists?
Pontif: All students should get involved with social, political, or educational activism. I think it is very important for people to learn about the resources available to better their overall experience.
Other means of secular activism have led me to become involved with the SSA. I know that having these groups on campus can open many doors for student involvement, not just on campus, but in the community as well.
Jacobsen: What are the main events and topics of group discussions for the alliance on campus?
Pontif: Our weekly meetings are centered around discussion topics such as, women and religion, indoctrination, and LGBTQ rights. Throughout the semester we managed to get two phenomenal guest speakers to come out.
In January, we hosted Mandisa Thomas, president and founder of Black Nonbelievers Inc., She spoke about religion in the black community and certain issues associated with that such as slave mentality, and socioeconomic setbacks.
In May, we were honored to have president of California Freethought Day, David Diskin, speak to us about better understanding atheism and its history.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved and maintain the secular student alliance ties on campus?
Pontif: First, you have to make your group known and let people know that such a group even exists. To do so, I would suggest frequently putting flyers around campus letting people know when are where the meetings are held.
At the end of the semester, many people told me they would’ve loved to join our group, but hadn’t heard of it. Communicating with your school’s club organizing office can help with promotion and web presence.
Do something fun with your group, have a pizza party and feature a debate or movie. Engage in an activity with another club on campus, participate in a campus cleanup or fundraising event. Another way to maintain ties on campus, is to have an interfaith activity or event.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Pontif: Being a positive force in the community allowed me to channel my passion for humanism into real life actions, rather than into prayers that never get answered. Don’t just sit back in frustration of all the absurdity and inequality in the world, do something about it!
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Kaeleigh.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/05
What’s your own story? How did you get into the recovery business?
To be honest, in 1994, it started out as simply a part-time job. I had a full-time job, but my former boss was hired by SMART Recovery as SMART’s Executive Director, and I would work about 4–6 hours/week trying to help get the organisation off the ground. It wasn’t long before we learned there weren’t ample funds to pay his salary, so he departed. I thought SMART was a great organisation, so I stayed on. I transitioned to full-time and accepted the role of Executive Director in 2005. And here I am 22+ years later.
SMART Recovery (Self-Management and Recovery Training), is based on self-empowerment and science-based processes to assist with addiction coping and recovery. What are the main steps to this system of recovery?
As you correctly note, SMART is a self-empowering, science-based program. As opposed to steps, SMART Recovery uses a 4-Point Program®:
Point 1: Building and Maintaining Motivation
Point 2: Coping with Urges
Point 3: Managing Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviours
Point 4: Living a Balanced Life
Each of the 4-Points has tools and techniques that our participants use to overcome their addictive behaviour(s). The tools are terrific — they’re great for recovery, but many of them are truly life skills that can be used time and again through life even once someone has overcome their addiction.
As well, it caters to believers and non-believers alike, and does not require belief in a higher power. How does this differ from some other programs?
You’re exactly right — SMART Recovery doesn’t require a belief in a higher power. That’s not to say people who are believers can’t combine their faith with the SMART program — we have people who have success with SMART and do just that. But our meetings and program don’t have a spiritual component. I think everyone reading this interview is familiar with AA and other 12-step programs, which rely on a belief in a higher power. Such programs work for them, and the same can be said for people using SMART Recovery, LifeRing, Women for Sobriety and others that have been offered for many years. We all offer proven programs, but they won’t all appeal to every individual seeking recovery. There are many pathways to recovery, SMART being a great choice for many. We believe that it’s important for people seeking a recovery program to learn about all of the available pathways, and one (or, in some cases, a combination) that works for them.
What is the main line of evidence in support of the SMART Recovery program?
SMART is based on six principles that underlie proven and effective treatment programs:
Self-empowerment — people take control of their recovery and assume responsibility for its success.
Mutual support — recovery works best when the challenges and successes are shared with others, typically at meetings. People learn that recovery is possible by observing and following the example of others in the group.
Motivation — building and maintaining motivation is the first point in SMART’s 4-Point Program®. The program uses methods from Motivational Interviewing, a standard practice in more than 90 percent of addiction treatment programs today.
Coping with urges — the second point in the program helps people identify all the triggers to use and how to resist them. Over a short time, they learn that urges grow less intense and occur less often.
Managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours — point three teaches how to calm extreme anxiety and avoid relapses by growing aware of the beliefs that control feelings and acts. This concept is drawn from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, also used by more than 90 percent of treatment programs.
Leading a balanced life — the fourth point helps secure recovery through the creation of a new lifestyle to replace the one associated with addiction.
The truest measure of effectiveness is its widespread and growing use since the program was founded in 1994. SMART currently hosts 2,200 weekly meetings in 19 countries, including 30 online gatherings that people anywhere in the world with an internet link can attend.
In addition, numerous recovery professionals are incorporating SMART into their practices and launching meetings. In 2016, professionals comprised 61 percent of the 2,500 people who signed up for SMART’s facilitator training course.
Leading medical and government authorities worldwide endorse SMART for recovery support in best practice and quality care guidelines for people seeking to overcome addictions.
How does the program differ in the outcomes for its treated recovering addict sub-population from the general untreated recovering addict (control) sub-population?
As much as this question is debated, the honest answer is that it is difficult to scientifically measure outcomes for people using mutual support models such as SMART Recovery and 12-step programs. Addiction scientists have tried but meta-analyses of the research on both programs have been inconclusive. These are not treatment programs in which attendance can be easily measured and tracked. Attendance is anonymous. Large numbers of participants are coerced to attend meetings, especially 12-step programs. As a result, it is extremely difficult to conduct randomised controlled trials measuring the effectiveness of such programs.
How is this more effective than other forms of recovery? Also, what are the other kinds of — ineffective — addiction recovery programs/systems?
There are numerous potential pathways to recovery, including ones that use no treatment or recovery support program at all. I don’t feel comfortable suggesting that SMART is more effective than other forms. That’s why part of SMART’s mission statement reads “To support the availability of choices in recovery”.
I’ve had the privilege of witnessing many people’s lives change when using the SMART program. I also know that it won’t appeal to all people seeking a recovery support group. The same is true for AA, Women for Sobriety, LifeRing, etc. We are all going to attract and help people, but we’ll have the most success when people know their options and select the one that best meets their beliefs and needs. Some people will benefit by combining SMART Recovery and inpatient or outpatient therapy. Others find combining mutual-support meetings helpful. Some find becoming involved with art or yoga/meditation helpful. Recovery can take on many forms and we feel individuals should determine a program that will be most helpful to them.
Now, you are the executive director of the SMART Recovery. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the executive director?
That’s an interesting question. I have a heart for people — I love to see people succeed, and I love being in communication with our volunteers and the people who come to SMART Recovery for help. I’ll admit that, as the organisation has grown, there are duties and responsibilities that now require more of my time — fiscal responsibilities, organisational development responsibilities, helping to ensure the organisation stays vibrant and continues to grow and keep up with technology, etc. We have a small staff because we rely so much on volunteers, so it’s challenging to keep all of the plates spinning. But we have amazing volunteers and staff, which makes my job both challenging and rewarding!
If I were a recovery addict, and if I came to SMART Recovery, how would I be introduced to SMART Recovery?
Our 2016 survey concludes that nearly 50% of our participants find SMART Recovery via an online search. Over 20% were introduced to SMART while in a treatment program, and nearly 20% were referred by a counsellor or therapist. Interestingly, more than 10% found SMART when it was recommended by a friend or family member. Once they find us, we encourage them to attend a face-to-face meeting (if there’s one in their area) or to become involved in our online community, which has 30 online meetings per week, highly active message board forums and a 24/7 chat room.
What would be my typical struggles on the path to recovery? What would be the chances of recovery?
I believe that the typical struggles encountered by anyone in recovery are covered within our 4-Point Program®:
- Building and Maintaining Motivation — Nobody will change based on someone else wanting them to change. Each individual needs to identify motivating factors that will help see them through their recovery process. (SMART tool examples include: Cost/Benefit Analysis and Hierarchy of Values.)
- Coping with urges — You won’t give up an addictive behaviour without experiencing urges, so having coping mechanisms in place is key to one’s recovery. (Tool examples include: Urge log and ABCs of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy.)
- Managing thoughts, feelings and behaviours — As someone is going through recovery, there are all sorts of opportunities to reflect on one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours, and to assess which are helpful, unhelpful and need to be changed. (Tool examples include: ABCs of REBT for emotional upsets and Role-playing.)
- Leading a balanced life — So often the drug or behaviour has really taken over an individual’s life. Everything had revolved around time spent planning for or involved in the addictive behaviour. Returning to a balanced life can be a challenge. (Tool examples include: Lifestyle Balance Pie Chart and Vital Absorbing Creative Interests — finding helpful activities to replace the former unhealthy/unhelpful activities.)
As far as chances of recovery, I’m sure that there are statistics out there somewhere regarding the number of people who succeed in recovery. From my perspective, if people are truly motivated, and are able to achieve the 4-point program noted above, the likelihood of success is great. And a reminder that people’s personal recovery journeys vary, so for some, combining SMART Recovery and other groups or activities may increase the chances of achieving recovery for that individual.
Are there appropriate supports for the recovering addicts as they transition back into normal life and as they have entered into a new non-addicted lifestyle?
We choose not to use the term “addict” or apply labels to participants. We help people who are struggling with addictive behaviours. We offer meetings and online support for as long as the individual deems them to be useful. As far as other supports, i.e., job-skills, transitional housing, etc., we leave that to other organisations and agencies. Our goal and mission is to provide mutual support meetings that encourage cross-talk, allow people to learn the SMART tools and techniques, and allow participants to learn from one another’s experiences — both success and failures.
What are some of the main social and communal services of the SMART Recovery, if any?
Social activities vary from meeting to meeting. Some meetings allow for a half-hour social gathering at the end of the meeting. Others have some planned activities — a bowling night, a recovery walk during Recovery Month, etc. I’ve always found it interesting how much of a community spirit there is within our online activities. We have people participating from all over the world, and most have never met the others with whom they’re in online meetings, posting on the message boards, or chatting within the chat room. But they really are a cohesive group that find inspiration and help from one another.
What is the scope and scale of the SMART Recovery? Who are some of its most unexpected allies?
Growth and awareness of SMART Recovery continues to increase with more than 1,000 new meetings launched in the past three years. (I’ll share a growth chart which makes it easier to grasp, if you’d like to include it.) And our international expansion is also continuing, even to the point of us creating a new SMART Recovery International organisation, with what was known as Alcohol & Drug Abuse Self-Help Network, Inc., d.b.a. SMART Recovery, soon to become SMART Recovery USA. And, of course, online activities know no boundaries and our online registrations continue to grow each year.
I, of course, believe everyone should be an ally of SMART, with none being unexpected (laughs). We have volunteers who are peers, professionals, and a growing number of non-peer/non-professionals. Mums and Dads who have children who have struggled with an addiction and they feel a need to provide choice in mutual support meetings, so they train and start meetings. We have a nice partnership with other non-12-step groups including Women for Sobriety (WFS) and LifeRing. We have a growing number of treatment centres that are ensuring that SMART Recovery meetings are available to their clients. SMART was recognised by President Obama and Michael Botticelli during our 20th anniversary celebration and conference in 2014. I think even some of the “hard core” 12-step people are beginning to realise that there truly are multiple pathways to recovery, and the importance of people having choice. This isn’t a competition — there are plenty of people in need with different backgrounds and beliefs and they need choices like AA, WFS, LifeRing and SMART Recovery.
With the current Trump Administration, do you see new threats to the practice of science-based and self-empowering recovery programs?
It’s not yet clear to me if or how the new administration will impact addiction in the US. SMART Recovery will carry on with our message and program regardless of the level of support from the administration.
What have been the largest activist and educational initiatives provided by SMART Recovery?
All of SMART’s activism and education has been devoted to creating the best possible recovery support program, including meetings and educational materials, for the millions of people worldwide who need help overcoming additions. We have focused intensely on educating the volunteers who facilitate our meetings, developing a rigorous 30-plus hour training program. We are now training 2,500 people a year. Our facilitators are hosting well over than 100,000 meetings a year in countries from Australia to Canada to the UK and Uzbekistan, including more than 1,200 in the US alone.
SMART hosts meetings in correctional institutions and Veterans Administration medical centres. Since 2010, we’ve held meetings for the family members and friends of people with loved ones suffering from addiction. Our Family & Friends program is based on the highly effective model known as Community Reinforcement and Family Training or CRAFT.
As much as we’d like to engage in activism in the conventional sense of term, our time and energy is best spent focusing on our mission.
How can people get involved with the SMART Recovery, even donate to them?
I’d suggest a wander through our extensive website at www.smartrecovery.org. (Our new site will debut soon!) If you’d benefit from using the program, there’s lots of information about the program and tools, as well as a meeting list, access to our online activities, etc. If you want to serve your community by starting a SMART meeting, you can visit our training page. If you’d like to donate to SMART, you can visit https://secure.processdonation.org/smartrecovery/. (Note, that link will likely change with our new site, but a visit to www.smartrecovery.org will connect you to a donation button.)
Any closing thoughts or feelings based on the discussion today?
We’re always so grateful for the opportunity to help acquaint people with our 4-Point Program and tools, and I want to thank you for providing us with this opportunity to do so. I want to encourage anyone who is struggling with an addiction to visit www.smartrecovery.org and see what SMART can offer you. If you have a loved one struggling, our Family & Friends program is an amazing resource. If you’re involved in serving people with addictions in a treatment setting, or court, or government agency, I encourage you to become familiar with SMART Recovery to recommend it to your clients and constituents.
Thank you for your time, Shari.
Thank you again for this opportunity!
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/04
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have an association with SMART Recovery. What is SMART Recovery? What is your relation with it as an entity?
Chris Debo: I am a meeting facilitator with SMART Recovery. I facilitate a weekly meeting in Northern California. SMART Recovery is a science-based recovery program that provides proven, practical tools and techniques for dealing with the challenges a life in recovery presents. It is based on the psychological modalities of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), as well as other modalities.
Jacobsen: Why is the organization important?
Debo: SMART Recovery is important for a number of reasons. It brings the teachings of Albert Ellis and others to people in recovery. It provides a secular, proven approach to managing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in order to improve one’s outlook on life, reducing the need to resort to maladaptive behaviors and substance use for “relief” from the stressors of life.
Jacobsen: What are some notable and touching experiences in working with them?
Debo: Well, in being a meeting facilitator, I’ve had some notable experiences with attendees. I’ve had people thank me for providing them with useful tools to deal with difficult situations. These are tools that we don’t learn growing up in this society.
I recall in particular one woman who thanked me for helping her to realize how her harmful eating habits are a learned behavior, a way to cope, and that she could replace them with healthy alternatives. I’ve also witnessed people in meetings finally “get it,” understand what their addictive substance or behavior is for them: a coping mechanism. The penny drops and a look of understanding beams from their faces. Those types of events are extremely gratifying.
Jacobsen: How does your own background tie into them? What lead you to SMART Recovery, and the absolutely wonderful and magnanimous Shari Allwood?
Debo: I myself suffered from many years of substance abuse, primarily alcohol. Booze was my only mechanism for coping with life, good and bad. It worked every single time in a predictable way. Finally I realized that I needed to make a complete change in my life. Having had little success with a traditional 12-Step approach, I searched online for alternatives to traditional 12-Step programs and came across SMART Recovery. This discovery changed my life.
After being sober for a time, I decided that I should give back in some way to the community, so I took SMART Recovery’s Facilitator Training and became a facilitator. This experience has been incredibly gratifying for me. I could help others see that there is a way out of their addictive, and destructive, behaviors, while strengthening my own knowledge and use of SMART Recovery’s program.
Jacobsen: With your current position (if applicable, what is it…), what are your tasks and responsibilities?
Debo: At the moment, I am training to start a new career. At 45, it is a challenge. Overall, though, my goal in life is to achieve healthy balance across all aspects of life. I have a chance to do this now that I am solidly in recovery. SMART also has shown me how to prioritize long-term benefits over short-term satisfactions.
Jacobsen: How does a science-based and non-faith-based — with or without religion as a component — treatment work compared to faith, religiously oriented, treatments?
Debo: This program offers practical solutions. Change your thoughts to change your emotions. Take responsibility for your future. Take charge and own your recovery and your life. Don’t rely solely on others or a “higher power” to save you from yourself. Live for today and the future, not in the past. I’ve never seen faith save someone from addictive behavior, at least not in the long run.
Having had experience with AA, I can tell you that these programs are based on taking your power away from you, taking your responsibility away from you. You are forced to look backward at all your negative behavior and consequences in order to scare you from repeating those mistakes. It is based in shame. You don’t learn anything practical to help you in the day-to-day. Your higher power will save you. Nope. I stayed sober for five years, but I was miserable every single day. With SMART Recovery, I can be content and occasionally even happy. Hah.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion based on the conversation today?
Debo: I would not be living the life I am living without SMART Recovery. I will be forever grateful to the organization for helping me to learn what I need to know to live a healthy and fulfilling life.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Chris.
Debo: My pleasure! Thank you for giving more exposure to SMART Recovery!
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/03
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family and surrounding culture like growing up? I know memories can fade and become distorted. However, there are themes, which can help set the groundwork for our discussion here today.
Jamie De Rosario Martinez: I was a product of a broken family, eldest of 4 siblings, I was a battered child being beaten from small to no reasons at all getting punishments even if it was not my fault, I have a womanizer and a gambler dad and a Martyr mother and community full of Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) members, all my relatives from my mother side are INC members and so do we. I was forced to stop from school at the age of 14 so I could work and bring my siblings to school since my father doesn’t want to take that responsibility I started working as an entertainer in Japan at the age of 15 using fake passport etc. to look like 19yo. To earn money only to be confiscated by my father and leave me with only 500 Pesos ($10) this routine continued until my father permanently left us to go with other women.
Jacobsen: When did you begin to question God?
Jamie: when I was 16 I was excommunicated from INC and I found out that my cousin reported to INC that I was working as an entertainer in Japan. And they judged me without even asking my side they accused me of doing things that are against the will of their god they accused me of selling my flesh to Japanese men which made me really mad and made me realize that they are so judgmental, I worked abroad to be able to send food to my family and to be able to send my siblings to school.
Jacobsen: How did you find HAPI? What is its main goal? Why is it important to build irreligious communities, especially in hyper-religious countries?
Jamie: I was in a Reproductive health law Rally with a friend in Baguio when I met this group of young guys from HAPI they were so kind and gentlemen, during lunch time our leader told us to go back to the bus and have lunch but me and my friend went to the cr first and when we get back to the bus there are no more pack lunch left for us to eat having only enough money to go back home me and my friend went out the bust to by biscuits while we are falling in line some HAPI members saw us and asked if we already had our lunch and we said No because there are no more lunch for us in our bus, surprisingly they offered me and my friend a free lunch it was like WOW how kind these guys are a total stranger like us then I asked them do HAPI has FB page or group that I could join and the rest is history
HAPIs main goal for me is to spread humanity to all regardless of beneficiaries’ religion especially kids they promote humanity and critical thinking based on my personal observation.
Currently, I am not yet aware of the importance of building Irreligious community as I myself I still under transformation from religious to nonreligious.
Jacobsen: What are some of your more notable initiatives with HAPI in the past and the present?
Jamie: I have a monthly feeding of 200 kids through HAPI, Self Sufficient because of the HAPI Farm, I also have HAPI Merchandise for fundraising.
Jacobsen: How are things for the religiously unaffiliated, socially and legally, and politically, in the Philippines?
Jamie: socially; still need to hide due to stigma as a non-believer.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Jamie.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/02
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Wade King: I grew up in Greenwood, South Carolina, a medium-sized town surrounded by even smaller towns. Most of my family came from more rural areas of the country, such as Estes Park, Colorado. Most would say my family is the typical rural, white, southern, Christian family. As far as religion goes, my family practiced an old-school form of Southern Baptism in the in the 1990s and 2000s. However, my immediate family broke away due to issues such as gay marriage and race, and joined more laid-back churches such as NewSpring. I kept away from church most of my life, using my education as an excuse. It helped in the long run, as I became the first in my family to go to a 4-year university.
Jacobsen: What is the personal background in secularism for you? What were some seminal developmental events and realizations in personal life regarding it?
King: I started becoming skeptical at around the age of seven, stopped going to church by middle school, and became an agnostic atheist in high school. My schools and community lacked any sort of secular community, so most of my experiences were internal. The whole process began due to my introduction into social issues and communities that these issues affected. By elementary and middle school, I was well aware of LGBT+ issues, abortion, secularism in schools, etc. High school science classes really cemented my beliefs.
Jacobsen: You are the president of the SSA of Clemson. What tasks and responsibilities come with the position? Why do you pursue this line of volunteering?
King: As president of SSAC, I perform most, if not all, administrative duties for the group. I also share responsibility for all other aspects of the organization, including financial organization, social media, outreach, and event participation with my fellow officers. I do all this in order to help build a community of secularists and people who are accepting of secular values.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
King: I have always thought that the area lacked a strong secular community. Community is important for sharing ideas, networking, and other’s personal wellness. A community can more easily bring change than a fragmented set of small groups. This is my higher level of fulfillment I get from this. It also doesn’t hurt to make some friends in the process. All of our members have built some form of friendship with other members and even participate in other secular groups in the upstate.
Jacobsen: What are some of the more valuable tips for campus secularist activism?
King: I hate to sound cliché, but balance is the key. You need to be able to plan well, but also be flexible enough to change with the tides of the community. You need to be able to be kind to those who do not share your beliefs, but don’t let them run over you or others. You need to have some degree of focus, such as my focus on community-building, but also be able to focus on other aspects of secularism, such as science, social issues, government, activism, etc. I have missed many opportunities because I wasn’t willing to add new events to our semester schedule; or because I wasn’t confident enough to hold an extended conversation with certain people; or because I focused too much on building a community and didn’t get enough guest speakers to talk about science and government.
Jacobsen: What have been some historic violations of the principles behind secularism on campus? What have been some successes to combat these violations?
King: Clemson University, being one of the larger and more advanced public universities in the south, has had its fair share of incidents. Most are the typical religious imagery around campus, professors enforcing religious beliefs onto students, and non-student religious groups using school funds. However, the most significant recent and well-covered issue on campus involved our football team’s head coach, Dabo Swinney. The first incident dates back to before I even attended Clemson. The Freedom from Religion Foundation accused Swinney of promoting Christianity to his players by holding events with religious themes or venues and by allowing the team’s chaplain to proselytize the players. Considering Swinney’s position as a state employee, this was a huge problem for the FFRF, who had help from SSAC and other local groups. In the long run, Swinney suffered few consequences, given his success in the football team’s performance the past few years, and secular groups suffered a new stigma of aggressiveness and a lack of respect for important personnel on campus.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding secularists on campus?
King: For individual secularists, community and social activism are perhaps the most needed aspects in their lives. While students are generally accepting of secular individuals, most large groups on campus have religious ties or activities that exclude secularists. I would very much like to think we provide a strong community for them. However, with secular issues branching into other communities, especially LGBT+ and racial justice groups, many hope to see social progress come to Clemson’s campus. Outreach is currently SSAC’s largest area of need. While our group’s ties remain strong with each other and with other secular groups in the area, we are still small. As mentioned earlier, we still suffer from a stigma that even prevents other secularists from joining.
Jacobsen: What is your main concern for secularism on campus moving forward for the next few months, even years?
King: I very much like to think I am making the correct decision in focusing on building a community for secularists. I feel much of it has been accomplished, so the next few months or semester will have more of a focus on science, social issues, and intellectual discussion and debate. However, the main focus will still be community since we do not want to lose our new, stronger connections. The next few years will be up to new officers and members as our current members graduate or pursue other goals. I am hopeful that our new focus will once again be activism as new secular and related issues arise in our world.
Jacobsen: What are the current biggest threats to secularism on campus?
King: Our biggest concern has to be the chapel that is planned to be built on campus. Luckily it has faced tough criticism over the past couple of years, but it has started flying under the radar due to the university’s willingness to be accommodating towards non-Christians in the building of this chapel. SSAC’s faculty advisor is one of the heads of the program overseeing its construction and assures us that it is much more of a inter-faith center. SSAC plans to have extended discussions and dialogue about this in order to cement our general positions on the matter. Currently, the consensus is that the chapel should be given a better label to avoid religious connotations and/or favoritism and to encourage acceptance and community.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to secularism on campus?
King: Faculty and administrative favoritism for religious activities and organizations always remain in our watchful eye. Long-time faculty are especially tricky to deal with, and it doesn’t help that they have formed their own organization for this purpose.
Jacobsen: What are the main social and political activist, and educational, initiatives on campus for secularists?
King: SSAC is the only group exclusively dealing with these issues, as our campus lacks initiative on these issues. Usually we must collaborate with other local secular groups, such as Piedmont Humanists and Foothills Humanists, and with other activist groups, such as Clemson’s Sexuality and Gender Alliance and FEM Club.
Jacobsen: What are the main events and topics of group discussions for the alliance on campus?
King: Our most recent and favorite discussions have centered around science and sociology of religion. Quantum physics and evolutionary biology are common topics given that some of our members are graduate students in physics and biology. While none of us are majors in sociology or religion, many of us have related hobbies and we have had discussions on cult behavior and the pros and cons of religion in society.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved and maintain the secular student alliance ties on campus?
King: If your campus has any sort of online portal for student organizations, that is the best place to start. Clemson has a Tiger Prowl every year for organizations to recruit new students and members. Attending these sort of events makes it easy to meet leaders personally and build a relationship from there. Maintaining these relationships should be easy as long as the group’s leadership remains serious about SSA and its values.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
King: I have already said plenty, but I don’t think I can stress this enough: SSA is not the only resource young secularists have to participate in activism. Other local groups and national organizations exist. Getting involved with them is just as important. This is why I value community so much. Getting to know others who agree (or even disagree) with you is a powerful tool for social change. Use it frequently, and use it wisely. Also, thank you for this opportunity, Scott.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Wade.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/01/01
Houzan Mahmoud is the Co-Founder of Culture Project. She is a women’s rights activist, campaigner, and defender, and a feminist.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Your work focuses on the Kurds and Kurdish culture. I want to focus on Canada in this conversation. We collaborated on the repository and incubator of Kurdish culture called Culture Project. Are many Canadians involved in this effort? Have any organizations helped with it?
Houzan Mahmoud: Apart from you, no one has yet supported us or our initiative as such from Canada. We are new, though we are just making ourselves known. I am hopeful that the more people learn about our work, the more they will get in touch and support us.
Thanks to wonderful friends like you who take time to both support us and make our voices heard, it means a great deal to our struggle.
Jacobsen: Canada was involved in the first Gulf War in 1991. So, Canadians, whether knowledgeable or not, have ties to the modern environment of Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan. Did the Canadian government help or hinder the progress of the Kurdish people for independence?
Mahmoud: As far as I know, Canada had forces in Kurdistan in the past three years, at least since the fight against ISIS. They were there to provide support to Kurdish and Iraqi forces to fight against ISIS.
However, Canada did oppose the Kurdish referendum for independence, under the excuse that ISIS is still in the region and so on. So, their opposition, of course, was not good.
Jacobsen: How does Canada fare now, in terms of the assistance of the Kurds?
Mahmoud: I might sound sceptical to say no western intervention makes me happy. I am always sceptical and worried when Western countries intervene in our region. They usually don’t help, and will always undermine any local effort that is fair and just.
Let’s not forget when the US or UK is in the Middle East then every other Western government wants to be there both for economic achievement and for the political rivalry. Unfortunately, our region has been for a long time a centre for competing for international intervention and rivalry.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Houzan.
Mahmoud: You’re most welcome dear Scott. Thanks for all your support.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/31
Tehmina Kazi is an activist, writer and author based in Ireland. Tehmina was, until mid 2016, the Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy (a position she took up in May 2009).
British Muslims for Secular Democracy aims to raise awareness within British Muslims and the wider public, of democracy particularly ‘secular democracy’ helping to contribute to a shared vision of citizenship (the separation of faith and state, so faiths exert no undue influence on policies and there is a shared public space).
Prior to joining BMSD, Tehmina was a Project Officer at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Tehmina has done extensive research on domestic and international human rights issues, particularly the detention of foreign nationals and violence against women in South Asia.
Tehmina regularly contributes to debates and forums on civil liberties and foreign policy. Her articles have been published in a wide variety of newspapers and blogs.
How did you become an activist?
I was always passionate about combating injustices, even from an early age, when I was subjected to a sustained campaign of bullying at both primary school and high school.
I did an A-Level in Politics, loved it, and consequently decided to devote my career to campaigning for the rights of oppressed and marginalised people. I then studied Law with an emphasis on human rights law at university, and ended up working for a number of human rights organisations afterwards. I was the Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy from 2009 until 2016.
Were parents or siblings an influence on this for you?
They support me in everything I do, although deep down they would probably prefer me to be working in one of the “safe” professions like medicine, or a conventional legal career in private practice.
Was university education an asset or a hindrance to this?
An asset. I never went on to become a lawyer after completing my law degree, but my legal education has come in spectacularly useful for my campaigning work, particularly on equality and human rights matters like gender segregation.
Did you have early partnerships in these activist pursuits? If so, whom?
My early partnerships were with far-left anti-war groups. I don’t support them anymore, as many of them are only interested in opposing Western interventions for the sake of it, rather than genuinely working towards the cessation of hostilities and casualties.
How did you come to adopt a socially progressive worldview?
Because I was so keenly aware of injustices, regardless of who the perpetrators were, or who the victims were. I knew I couldn’t just sit back and not even attempt to tackle them (whether I’ve been successful or not is another matter!). Some individuals and organisations turn a blind eye to injustices where one of “their own” happens to be the perpetrator. I had no truck with this kind of tribalism from the very beginning.
Why do you think that adopting a social progressive outlook is important?
Most of us are working towards the same goal: a fairer, more inclusive society for all. Promoting socially progressive values in everything you do — or at least, trying to — is the best way to achieve this.
Do you consider yourself a progressive?
Yes, I do consider myself to be a progressive.
Does progressivism logically imply other beliefs, or tend to or even not at all?
It implies a belief in the FREDA principles: fairness, respect, equality, dignity and autonomy.
What are your religious/irreligious beliefs?
I was a practising Muslim for twelve years, but now consider myself to be a deist with a strong interest in humanism.
As a progressive, what do you think is the best socio-political position to adopt in the United Kingdom?
Enlightenment values: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those of all faiths and none.
What big obstacles (if at all) do you see social-progressive movements facing at the moment?
A lack of sustained funding and resources, personality clashes, groups refusing to work with each other over differences that are ultimately quite petty.
Many groups have either been wound up, or end up running out of steam once a particular charismatic personality decides to leave.
How important do you think social movements are?
Critical, but they should not allow themselves to be torn apart by ego-driven personality clashes. They should keep a tight focus without becoming overly partisan.
What is your current work?
I am the Policy and Advocacy Officer for the Cork Equal and Sustainable Communities Alliance, an alliance of 16 equality and human rights organisations in Cork.
Where do you hope your professional work will go into the future?
More opportunities for creative and non-fiction writing, hopefully! (Tehmina recently published a short story called The Tulip Asylum’ about homosexuality in contemporary Iran).
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/30
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When did you find yourself explicitly irreligious?
Oscar Gabriel Pineda: I can’t really point out the exact moment when I stopped believing in God. It wasn’t an epiphany, an emotional catharsis or a tragic moment, like it happens to other people. To me, it was a process that took a couple of years.
My childhood wasn’t traditional, in the sense that I grew up being exposed to two very different and quite opposite worldviews. On one side, my mother and her family are evangelical Christians; on the other side my grandfather was a distinguished scientist in his field, who, like my father, was an atheist.
I heard magical and religious explanations for things every day, since for different reasons I spent a lot of time at my maternal grandparents’ house. Even though I did believe the overall story of Christianity when I was a kid, it never really took root in my mind or became a part of who I was.
In part, because at the same time that I heard the Christian version of things, I also heard the scientific one. My maternal great grandmother took the time to teach me how to read when I was 3 years old; I owe my love of reading to her.
My father and my grandfather always encouraged me to question everything that I read or heard, and to look for natural explanations for things I didn’t know; I owe my love of learning about science and my skepticism to them.
Armed with these tools, I kept finding things that just didn’t make any sense. If the world was created by an all-powerful God, who created that God? If that God had the power to rid the world of evil, why didn’t he do it?
When I asked these sorts of questions, I was told to go look for answers in the Bible, which contains the Absolute Truth about everything. I did, and far from finding answers I ended up with even more questions, the God that I found in those pages was violent, jealous, vindictive, misogynistic and cruel.
He didn’t seem to know a lot about cosmology, mathematics of zoology. Weird stuff, considering what millions of people around the world believe. The years passed and I progressively distanced myself from religion and all those things. I watched Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on TV.
There, he showed me that there is an endless source of awe and meaning to be found in science and philosophy; a sort of naturalistic spirituality that didn’t require me to believe very improbable things about the Universe to make me feel a part of something greater than myself. I never told anyone about this because I knew I would hurt my family’s feelings.
But then I started to pay attention to the horrible things that religion, belief in God, in the supernatural, in eternal life after death, could inspire in people. Yes, there’s a good side to God and religion, but there’s also a dark one, and it isn’t mild. Not just at that precise moment, but throughout history.
That finally inspired me to speak my mind about all of these things and to start being open about my atheism. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, I took the risk of thinking for myself and found much more happiness, beauty and wisdom that way.
Jacobsen: What seem like common moments of people losing their religion, to you?
Pineda: Talking to many different people who lost their faith, I find that nearly everyone has the same feelings that something is just not right with the whole God story, although what triggers those feelings is different from person to person.
Whether it’s reading those awful passages in the Bible, or seeing how people use religion as a cover for their own hatred, or just learning a bit about science, I have found that nearly all people who were once believers share the same feelings of uneasiness and intellectual struggles when they start realizing that what they have been taught as the truth, isn’t so pretty or so true after all.
And when this happens, people can feel bad and “dirty” and guilty, and even think that they are alone. That they are bad for thinking this way, and that they should just keep quiet. A few days ago we asked people on our social networks to tell us why they walked away from religion and it was a formidable experience.
Many, many people opened up and some of them told their stories publicly for the very first time. Losing your religious beliefs can be a painful process, but it doesn’t have to be.
Jacobsen: How does the landscape of the country dictate the morals and norms regarding sex and language?
Pineda: Well, even though Guatemala is a secular State, 87% of Guatemalans are Christian. About half of those are Catholic and the other half practice some form of Protestantism, the largest one being evangelical Christianity.
They are also deeply conservative when it comes to social issues, especially human sexuality, and many groups who identify as “pro-life” group together and lobby in Congress and the media to try to prevent anything resembling equality for the LGBT community, evidence based sex-education, or a smart conversation about what the best way to reduce abortion rates, childhood pregnancy and maternal mortality from ever happening.
They say that they want abortion rates to go down, and most reasonable people agree with them. But then, instead of having an honest conversation about how we can achieve that, they resort to absurd distortions and outright lies.
Just this Tuesday we (Humanistas Guatemala) were invited to a radio talk-show to discuss the billboard campaign and a woman called in to voice her opinion about it. She said that it was a clear attempt to impose the “LGBT agenda” on everyone and described our science-based approach to sex-education as “books that teach 3 year-old children to explore their body.”
That is not only dishonest, it is patently cruel, considering what women and children are suffering from, stemming from the fact that a large percentage of Guatemalans, especially those in poor, rural areas, have no access to information about sex, family planning or even contraceptives.
Jacobsen: What have been effective tools in the fight against superstition?
Pineda: The antidote to superstition is always scientific knowledge, but that by itself is not enough. The way that scientific knowledge is delivered taking into account how people come to believe things and how those beliefs connect with deep personal emotions is very important.
If you go out and tell people that astrology is bullshit and that only idiots believe in homeopathy or prayer, because of all of these scientific reasons, you will probably only offend them and maybe even reinforce their beliefs.
If, instead, you take an empathetic approach, admit that everyone can be fooled into believing weird things, and show people that there are real negative consequences caused by those beliefs, you have a much higher chance of changing their mind.
Jacobsen: If you could take a single exemplar, who would it be? Why this person?
Pineda: Carl Sagan. He was a very important part of my journey towards skepticism and one of the first personal heroes I had growing up. In his books and in his Cosmos series I found the answers to a lot of the questions I had about the Universe, and learned the importance of applying science, philosophy and critical thinking to my everyday life.
I also found a profound naturalistic spirituality in his ideas. The fact that we are not the special creation of some omnipotent being, but that we are a collection of star stuff that evolved over billions of years in this pale blue dot circling an average star in an average galaxy, and how that makes us a way for the Universe to understand itself gives me a sense of awe and wonder that has stayed with me all my life.
Jacobsen: Any recommended books for those wanting to learn more about irreligiosity?
Pineda: Asides from the genre classics ‘Why I’m not a Christian’ by Bertrand Russell, ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins and ‘god is not Great’ by Christopher Hitchens, I strongly recommend books that deal with irreligion in a more positive, indirect way.
‘Cosmos’ by Carl Sagan is a wonderful book that shows the richness of the scientific worldview and its capacity to provide feelings of awe that are widely believed to be only found in religion. Once you are done with ‘Cosmos’ you will probably want to go ahead and read all of his other books.
‘The Varieties of Scientific Experience’ is probably a great follow-up. Christopher Hitchens compiled a great collection of essays, excerpts and poetry from many different authors from different places and different times called ‘The Portable Atheist.’
It features writings by people as diverse as Lucretius, Omar Khayyám, Hume, Darwin, Freud, Spinoza, Hobbes and Einstein. Finally, Richard Carrier wrote a splendid book called ‘Sense and Goodness Without God’ that builds an entire naturalistic philosophical system from scratch.
Jacobsen: What have been some of your main contributions to the irreligious community?
Pineda: I wrote about the subjects of irreligion, humanism, science, philosophy and criticisms of religion for an online journal some years ago. Now, I am Vice President of Humanistas Guatemala, a legally established organization in Guatemala that defends the separation of Church and State, and the rights of non-believers and people whose rights are infringed upon by fundamentalist religion.
Jacobsen: What are the main impediments to the free practice of living a life they choose themselves — for the irreligious?
Pineda: Mainly, the prejudice against being a non-believer, which was recently confirmed by a paper in Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0151?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000313), in combination with States that privilege religion in the public sphere and therefore impact the cultural landscape.
Jacobsen: What are your near-future plans?
Pineda: For the moment, we are focusing on our billboard and social media campaign to reach out to non-believers and believers who share humanist values. That is going great so far. Lots of people have contacted us to express their gratitude and their support, and in the next months we will work hard to provide the things they’ve been looking for, community-wise, in an organization like ours. We also want to strengthen our position defending the separation of Church and State, which is one on the main issues affecting Guatemalans, not only non-believers.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Oscar.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/29
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are the big issues for humanists in Guatemala?
Humanistas Guatemala: Wow, where to begin? There are so many issues, ranging from intolerance towards any type of diversity or anything that resembles a departure from the status quo, to overt religious extremism that seeks to impose “Christian values” everywhere. Many people who are open about their lack of belief in God, are often shunned and told that they cannot be ethical or moral, and as a result many choose to lie about their convictions. Religious leaders and public officials do not respect the principle of separation of Church and State, and are often attempting to pass discriminatory laws based on the Bible and “Christian values.” Just in the last two years, members of Congress tried to force Bible lessons into every private and public school in the country, to forbid evidence based sex-ed, to make every single instance of abortion a criminal offence, and to make sure that the LGBT community is never granted equal rights. There’s lots of work to be done.
Jacobsen: How do you reach out to the general public? How can people reach Humanistas Guatemala?
Humanistas Guatemala: Our work is mainly done through social media, but we also host events throughout the year where people can attend and know that we exist. We’ve had two year-round book clubs in the largest bookstore in the city and we will host a third one in 2018. We recently started a new series of events with the support of IHEU under the ‘Cafe Humaniste’ banner, but with our own local touch called ‘ideas & chelas’ (ideas & beers). People interested in our work and joining us can do so through our website, on our sign-up form: http://www.humanistasguatemala.org/sumate
Also, we are in the middle of a large-scale media campaign using social networks and billboards placed around Guatemala City that has allowed us to reach thousands and thousands of people. This has caused quite a stir with fundamentalist and conservative groups, even though our message is not directed at criticizing organized religion, but to inform atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and open-minded believers that can identify with secular humanist values that they are not alone. (“You don’t need a god or a religion to be a good person. If you know this, you are not alone.”)
Jacobsen: In terms of the social and educational initiatives, what are you pursuing now?
Humanistas Guatemala: Our work is done around 4 main areas: promoting secular humanism as an alternative to religion, promoting scientific knowledge and critical thinking as a way of knowing what is true about the world, defending the separation of Church and State, and defending sexual and reproductive rights — especially, the rights of the LGBT community and women who are often bullied and discriminated against because of fundamentalist religion.
Jacobsen: What have been some honest failures and real successes in the domain of outreach and education to the public about humanism, and the formal irreligious?
Humanistas Guatemala: Criticizing religion and presenting secular alternatives like humanism in a country that is deeply religious is very hard. One is often met with outright hostility and all sorts of accusations that prevent the arguments from getting through. Nobody wants to hear that they’ve spent their lives believing a very big lie, and that’s what many prominent atheist individuals and organizations have been telling people for a long time. When we started out, we took our cues from them and preached to the choir for a few years. We realized this, and stopped focusing on the negative aspects of religion and started talking about the positive elements that secular humanism has to offer. People are much more receptive this way.
Jacobsen: Who are the prominent humanists in Guatemala that deserve more international exposure?
Humanistas Guatemala: Even though we know many of them, atheism, freethinking and humanism are only starting to gain ground here in Guatemala and being openly secular is still a taboo. Many people choose to stay in the closet to avoid problems, but we are starting to change that. That’s one of the aims of our billboard and social media campaign. Hopefully I can give you some names the next time we talk.
Jacobsen: What are the general demographics of Humanistas Guatemala?
Humanistas Guatemala: Our board and our staff, as well as most of our members are young men and women between the ages of 20 and 35.
Jacobsen: What are some of the fun social activities that the organization hosts for Guatemalan humanists?
Humanistas Guatemala: In the past we’ve hosted book clubs, and several events with invited speakers on important subjects such as science, philosophy, art, and the relationship between religion and societal ills such as sexism, homophobia and the obstruction of sexual education. We plan to continue with this, under the ‘ideas & chelas’ concept that we mentioned above, and many more that we will be revealing in the near future.
Jacobsen: What are your hopes for the global humanist movement in the coming years, even decades?
Humanistas Guatemala: We would love to see humanism continue to grow and reach more and more people all over the globe, and to have an impact in the way people think and take important decisions that affect all of us. In a world where global warming is a huge issue, and where people are still being discriminated against because of their race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation and religious affiliation, the humanist approach of empathy and critical thinking is more important than ever.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/28
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Patricia Flanagan: I grew up in the Ozarks near Branson MO, but most of my family is originally from California. My parents are divorced and I spent my childhood living with my mother. I am a first generation college student.
Mom worked mostly in the Branson hospitality industry, and my Dad did mechanics. I grew up going to church. I went to Catholic Sunday school when I was very young, but started attending a Methodist church around fourth grade.
Church and Jesus was always a big part of my life. My Mom was more spiritual than religious, but she has a strong belief in Jesus and wanted me to grow up in a Church community. I spent a lot of time involved in youth groups in middle school and early high school.
Jacobsen: What is the personal background in secularism for you? What were some seminal developmental events and realizations in personal life regarding it?
Flanagan: I first started to question my beliefs in my Junior year of high school. Learning in history class about all of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity was very disturbing for me.
It became apparent to me that people around me whom I deeply respected (teachers, friends) did not share my beliefs, but were still good and happy people. This was in conflict with what I was taught about non-believers.
I was also starting to develop more progressive views about social justice which also seemed to be in conflict with my beliefs. There was not one huge event that changed my mind about Christianity and the supernatural, but one day I said to myself, “Jesus is like Santa Clause, I used to need to believe in him, but now I don’t.”
From that moment I have never looked back. Lingering beliefs in the supernatural have dissipated and I focus on building community for people like me who have transitioned out of them as well.
I fell in love with secular humanism and developed a passion for secular community building when I met Bart Campolo, the Secular Humanist Chaplain at University of Southern California my Freshman year of college.
I was a part of the secular community there, and Bart helped mentor me to be able to build a similar community when I transferred to Truman.
Jacobsen: You are the president of the Secular Student Fellowship. What tasks and responsibilities come with the position? Why do you pursue this line of volunteering?
Flanagan: Our group is still in it’s infancy. As president I am basically responsible for figuring out what we want to do at meeting and what events we want to have. I lay out what needs to be done and delegate tasks as needed.
The most difficult thing to do was find like minded people in the beginning to get the group started. I made a post on FB saying that I would be at a certain place on campus at a particular time every Tuesday for people who wanted to talk about being secular.
I found a couple of other people and we have all worked together to get the group off the ground. I have to admit that I pursue this mostly for selfish reasons. I wanted a community of people who have similar worldviews and experiences, so I worked to establish one.
I also do this out of a deep sense of empathy and compassion for the difficulty and loneliness associated with transitioning out of religion. I want to be there for the people who feel isolated and alone.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
Flanagan: Most of the fulfillment comes from the amazing friends I have made. We all share similar values and have a blast working together to create a safe and open environment for secular people to express themselves on campus.
Jacobsen: What are some of the more valuable tips for campus secularist activism?
Flanagan: I have not participated a lot in secularist activism. At this point our group is mostly focused on building community. We have found that it can sometimes be hard to do both because there are still broadly varying opinions of what activism and for what cause is appropriate.
If simply existing as a group of people banded together by humanist values and naturalistic worldview is activism, then my advice is to kill them with kindness. Its hard for people to hold onto their belief that you are an amoral, meaningless, empty person when you are smiling and handing them a cookie!
Also, reach out and connect with other groups on campus who share your values and vision for the world.
Jacobsen: What have been some historic violations of the principles behind secularism on campus? What have been some successes to combat these violations?
Flanagan: I don’t know of any on campus. I’m sure they existed at one point, but in all of the activities of this club we have felt supported on campus, even by religious organizations.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding secularists on campus?
Flanagan: I can’t speak for all secularists, but I believe community is important. We are in the bible belt and while most people on campus are supportive, all bets are off when we step out into the real world.
Many secularists I have talked to have to hide their true beliefs from their families and pretend to be religious. This can be taxing and it helps to have a group of people who allow you to truly be yourself.
Jacobsen: What are the main events and topics of group discussions for the alliance on campus?
Flanagan: We talk about a large variety of things. Many of our members have interest in other religions, so we have talked about that. We have only been having official meetings for one semester, so a lot of our time is devoted to talking about what we would like to do with the club in the future.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved and maintain the secular student alliance ties on campus?
Flanagan: Simply by being an active member of the community. I think the biggest challenge for us is getting out there and showing people that atheists and secular humanists etc are just normal people.
Each new member brings their own special skills and talents which allow us to reach out and interact with our community in different ways.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Flanagan: I think building communities is one of the most important things we can do as secular people. There are so many people who hold onto religion not out of true belief, but out of a desire to have a community in which they feel connected and integrated.
If we can recreate that without violent ethnocentric narratives and logic denying supernaturalism, then those people will have a place to go. Parents who don’t believe but don’t what their child to believe “nothing” will be able to find similar ways to pass down values without all the extra stuff.
I really love the idea of secular churches like KC Oasis which I think are an awesome way to create secular communities beyond just on college campuses.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Patricia.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/28
Anouar Majid has authored several books on Islam and the West, and has been on Bill Moyers Journal and Al Jazeera television. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Global Humanities.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Your work focuses on Americans and Muslims, the West and Islam, Muslims in the modern world, and so on. Why is this dialogue important in the public sphere now?
Anouar Majid: Anyone who is alive today and pays attention to the news must be aware that the question of Islam is the topic du jour. Samuel Huntington was not joking, nor was he wrong, when he talked about a clash of civilizations.
Maybe not civilizations, but definitely worldviews. Of course, underlying such clashes are other elements, not necessarily of a religious nature, such as lack of education, resentment of Western progress, etc.
Jacobsen: In one book, you asserted that we’re all Moors. Who were the Moors? Why claim this? What is the reasoning behind it?
Majid: The Moors are the Muslims who lived in Spain during the Middle Ages. (Spaniards today still use the term to describe Moroccans and Muslims.) They ruled most of Spain at one point, but the Catholics regrouped in northern Spain and started a process of reconquest that culminated in the surrender of the Kingdom of Granada in 1492.
One of the people who witnessed this event is Christopher Columbus. He was there to persuade the Spanish monarchs to sponsor his trip to India across the Atlantic. So, as you could see, defeating Islam in Spain and the discovery of America are two major events that are somewhat connected. Interesting, isn’t it?
Jacobsen: With increasing secularism among the American population, especially the young, what place does religion have in the public sphere, civic life?
Majid: It is true that the “nones” (those without a religion) are one of the fastest growing demographics in America (if not the fastest), so traditional religion, embodied in church attendance and the like, seems to be on the wane. It’s interesting to watch how this development could affect the political landscape in the long term.
Jacobsen: What do you see as the major contributor to a disinclination of the younger generation towards religion? How does this impact American life in general?
Majid: The United States is the last Western bastion for traditional religious commitments. For the longest time, religious practice was woven into the fabric of American republican life in a sort of unique combination that is hard to find elsewhere.
For example, the Constitution is resolutely secular, in that it doesn’t privilege a religion over another, or even make religion necessary for holding office, including that of the presidency; but a strong strain of Judeo-Christian morality courses right below the surface of political life, giving tacit support to those who adhere to such values and excluding those who don’t.
In all the time I have spent in the United States (my adopted nation), only one politician—Jesse Ventura, a onetime governor of Minnesota– has declared publicly that he is an atheist. It would be interesting to see more people like him run for office.
Is America ready? I wouldn’t bet on it. Protestant morality, without piety, is very much alive in American society today and manifests itself in all sorts of behaviors and cultural practices. But this is a discussion for another time!
Jacobsen: Of these trends, what ones can be extended into the culture of Canada as well, so extrapolation to North America in general?
Majid: I am not sure about Canada, but my suspicion is that the country has avoided the severe puritanical bonfires that cast a long shadow on American mores and outlook. Also, the Quebecois, with their French heritage, add a dimension to the country’s multicultural traditions that has no exact parallel in the United States.
Canada may very well be the only European-style nation in the Americas, so it wouldn’t surprise me if its attitudes toward religion in general hewed closer to those of Europe.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Anouar.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/27
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your family background — geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Karma Alvey: I was raised in rural Southern Illinois in a highly Christian, Conservative, and Poverty Stricken area. My family went to a Presbyterian church for a while, and we occasionally attended church with a grandparent, but usually our family was never incorporated in a church. My mother is a Christian with liberal-leaning values, my father and brothers are unaffiliated, and I am an agnostic atheist. Both of my parents hold Master’s Degrees, and I am currently earning a Bachelor’s. We are Irish and Scottish descent and all speak English as a first language.
Jacobsen: What is the personal background in secularism for you? What were some seminal developmental events and realizations in personal life regarding it?
Alvey: I actually used to pray a lot and was really involved in religion as an older child and younger teen. I was “saved” at church camp in 4th grade, went to church for a while in middle school, but moved away from organized religion in early high school. Some negative feelings about the church, their attitudes, and their actions arose and I realized I didn’t agree with any of it. I would still pray regularly, nearly every night, but somewhere in late high school, I realized that I wasn’t really doing it out of belief, but more out of fear and some twisted obligation. Questions arose and I started to understand that I didn’t know if there was a God (or gods). Further down the line, I started to doubt the existence of a “higher power.” I met a guy in Marching Band my first semester of college who introduced me to the Secular Student Alliance on our campus, and I’ve been a member ever since.
Jacobsen: Why do you pursue this line of volunteering?
Alvey: As a secular person, I see so many ways other secular individuals can benefit from having a safe place to discuss anything — from schoolwork to activism to how to tell your parents you don’t believe in God. It’s also just generally good to be generally good, in my opinion, and by raising money for the local animal shelter or picking up trash at the park as a group, we’re doing good and challenging people’s preconceived notions that atheists can’t be moral. Our activism is also important to religious people, too. By advocating for the separation of church and state and freedom of (and from) religion, we are working to ensure no one is pressured or forced to adopt one religion or another. We want everyone to be able to practice what they believe freely, individually, and consensually, whether that be Daoism, Catholicism, Atheism or any number of other religions.
Jacobsen: What personal fulfillment comes from it?
Alvey: Personally, it’s really important to me to be able to help people. I’m not Iron Man, and I know I’ll never save New York from a massive alien invasion, but saving one person means saving a little piece of the world. It’s an earth-shattering feeling to know that you’ve made a difference for someone — that you changed someone’s life, and that they can change the lives of others moving forward.
Jacobsen: What are some of the more valuable tips for campus secularist activism?
Alvey: Get out there! If you establish yourself on campus and put a familiar friendly face to the “scary atheist agenda,” people will be more likely to ask questions rather than judge you immediately. Of course there will always be antagonists as well, which brings me to the next tip — don’t get discouraged. For every person who calls you a name, there is a person who thinks, “How brave of them to stand up for their beliefs.” For every person who tears down your flyer, there’s a person who is thankful to have a secular presence on campus. The payout is far greater than the pain.
Jacobsen: What have been some historic violations of the principles behind secularism on campus? What have been some successes to combat these violations?
Alvey: I can’t think of too many, thankfully. As long as I’ve been here, I’ve only seen our president continue to strive for inclusivity and respect. One instance that comes up repeatedly, however, is the prayer before the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Dinner on campus every year. It’s been suggested the prayer be replaced with a moment of silence, but no news on that so far. We live in a heavily religious area so I’m honestly surprised (and proud) that institutional religiosity isn’t a recurring problem.
Jacobsen: What are the main areas of need regarding secularists on campus?
Alvey: Support from others. One hundred percent. Our greatest need is for positive support for religious freedom from all faiths. Respect is a big one as well. When we advertise, we see a lot of negative backlash — torn down flyers, water on our chalk drawings, etc. It’s important to respect other’s advertisements in any capacity, especially when it comes to something as personal and defining as religion or non-belief.
Jacobsen: What is your main concern for secularism on campus moving forward for the next few months, even years?
Alvey: Right now, it’s hard to be anything in America other than a straight, white, Christian man. Considering the regresses our federal government is making concerning religious freedom and the separation of church and state, I am afraid it will become increasingly hard to be secular (or Muslim or Jewish or anything other than Christian) openly on a college campus.
Jacobsen: What are the current biggest threats to secularism on campus?
Alvey: Betsy DeVos. Hands down. She could be the end of the secular movement on campuses if she’s not kept in check. I’m also quite worried about Missouri’s own state government — especially Eric Greitens. We’ve already seen some steps back with women’s rights and other issues that hinge on his religion, so there’s no telling how far he will insert his religion into state affairs. Overall, I feel that the current state and federal administration has encouraged a hostile environment to several groups of people — secular people included.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to secularism on campus?
Alvey: The long-standing stereotypes about atheists are the biggest threat to our organization. Just general misinformation and negative attitudes make it hard to keep a group enthusiastic and strong. Things have slowly gotten better over the last few decades, but there’s still a lot of work to do before it’s generally socially acceptable to be secular, especially in Southeast Missouri.
Jacobsen: What are the main social and political activist, and educational, initiatives on campus for secularists?
Alvey: Here there’s not much. We have the Secular Student Alliance, obviously, and we’ve done some interfaith events to educate the student body. There’s Campus Democrats, — they do a lot of political activities, and we are trying to partner with them for some events, but have had no luck just yet. We take part in any event we can to try and educate and stay active, like involvement fairs, charity benefits, and organization showcases.
Jacobsen: What are the main events and topics of group discussions for the alliance on campus?
Alvey: We meet weekly and talk about everything you could imagine — fears, the Satanic Temple, food, television — you name it, we’ve had a discussion about it! We hosted an interfaith panel last semester that we hope to continue, and we host a lot of social events, like hikes and game nights. The only thing we try to steer away from is politics so nonbelievers from every walk of life feel comfortable sitting in on our meetings.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved and maintain the secular student alliance ties on campus?
Alvey: On our particular campus, we meet at the same time every week (Thursdays at 7 if anyone is reading). Go to meetings, volunteer to lead a discussion or present on a topic, table with your group, or join them for dinner or a camping trip. Follow them on Facebook (to plug us again, we’re on there as SEMO Secular Student Alliance), and join any Facebook groups or group chats they provide! It’s the best way to follow what’s going on and check for last minute changes.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Alvey: I was thrilled to be a part of this interview. Visibility is vital, so thank you for the opportunity to speak about our movement.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Karma.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/26
Houzan Mahmoud is the Co-Founder of Culture Project. She is a women’s rights activist, campaigner, and defender, and a feminist. She is a friend and colleague, too. In this wide-ranging and exclusive interview, Mahmoud discusses the Kurds, Iraq, women’s rights, and more.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You are a women’s rights activist, feminist, and an anti-war activist. You were born in Iraqi Kurdistan. What were the moments of political awakening for you?
Houzan Mahmoud: One of the things I’ll never forget is the break-out of war between Iraq and Iran. I was only six-years-old at the time. Iraq’s bloody dictator Saddam Hussein coming to political power in 1979 changed our lives in Kurdistan and Iraq forever.
Being Kurdish poses all sorts of problems as it is, and living under the fascist regime of Saddam made things incredibly hard for my family.
Prior to Saddam coming to power, my brothers took up arms during late 70’s against Iraq’s regime, I was too little to remember the particulars. However, what I do know is that from 1973 to 1991 I grew up and lived under one of the most horrendous regimes in modern history.
I am forty-four years old now, but I still live with the horrors I faced during my childhood and adolescence years living in Iraq. From the day I was born, all the way to this moment, all I have witnessed is war, a never-ending war in Iraq.
That’s why even my life in London is very much shaped and affected by the events that have and are still unfolding in Iraq and Kurdistan. I have many shared memories with my own people from the region, memories of struggle, loss of loved ones, horrors of genocide, and the pain of having to leave our homes again and again.
I live like a nomad; even if I live in a home I always think to myself, “I am not sure how long I will be living here — where next?”
Jacobsen: How did you come to align with the principles inherent in feminism and anti-war activism?
Mahmoud: I grew up in a warzone. A climate of long-lasting and bloody wars, a constant exodus and displacement. I am strongly opposed to war because it only brings devastation and abject poverty.
It destroys homes, it destroys entire lives. However, I wouldn’t say that I am a pacifist largely due to the environment in which I was born. As Kurds, we are always subjected to the horror of war, occupation, and repetitive cultural, linguistic and physical genocides.
For example, I support the armed struggle of Rojava against the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS). In such cases, you can have one option: you either take up arms or be ruled by the monstrous forces of ISIS.
As for my feminist principles, there were various reasons that are personal, social and political. Of course, when you grew up in a socially-conservative society, a place in which every move you make somehow amounts to either shame or honour, if you adopt progressive views there is a considerable backlash, you become a ‘rebel’.
The mentality that women are ‘inferior’ and men are superior is somehow imbued with almost every aspects of daily life — politics, art and literature. The language we speak carries a great deal of words that reinforce women’s subordination.
I must admit that from a very early age, I was aware of my own position in my society, I felt trapped, powerless and lonely. I felt stranded on a small planet that was destroyed by war. Making the smallest demand for women’s rights felt like a crime.
Everything was about war, killing, survival, and political-struggle against the enemy. There was little room for feminist ideas. Even when I joined a leftist political party, hoping that it provide the equality I sought after, I felt it was a man’s club.
I left it and started reading feminist books intensively, as well as the history of feminism and the different schools of thoughts. I found within feminism a home, a place in which an ideology truly spoke for women.
So, yes, going through a painful life journey full of loss and being a woman was and still is not easy. That’s why feminism is vital to me, to my thinking, activism, and worldview.
Jacobsen: What are the more immediate concerns for women’s rights relevant to the Iraqi Kurdish community?
Mahmoud: There are many issues to fight against, such as so-called ‘honour killings’, female genital mutilation (FGM), forced and arranged marriages, and other forms of violence — like many other societies in the world.
Kurdish women are fighting against all of these issues, and they’re fighting outside invaders too — such as ISIS. So the problems are not limited, but are changing and are varied in addition to the political instability that, as we know, forays into the lives of women and their rights.
Jacobsen: You co-founded Culture Project, which is a platform for “Kurdish writers, feminists, artists, and activists.” What inspired it — its theme and title?
Mahmoud: I am one of the founders of Culture Project and have supported it, as well as having worked with various organisations and campaigns that highlight and assuage violence against women.
One thing that was missing was a holistic approach to the important need of raising awareness about gender and feminism and challenging cultural productions that are patriarchal and male-dominated.
So, I discussed the idea with a couple of friends and supporters about creating such a platform, a platform that supported those people who have non-conformist views, as well as challenging regressive/conservative norms and values which are “traditional”.
This platform is open for all regardless of sex and gender. We would love to bring forward new faces, young writers and others in order to create a debate and produce new knowledge that challenges the old schools of thought.
As for the name, I thought that if we give it a name that gave our organisation the appearance it is female-only, it will just limit our scope of work. We decided to call it Culture Project in order to be inclusive of all people: activists, writers, philosophers, feminists, novelists, poets, etc.
Jacobsen: What have been some of its more popular articles — title and contents?
Mahmoud: We have various writers on both our Kurdish and English websites — websites proving to be very popular. Of course, on the Kurdish website, we have far more writers, poets, feminist writers, philosophical essays, art and cultural reviews, etc., as well as short stories.
On our English website, we have a very well-informed new generation of young Kurds who are active politically and are critical of the status-quo in Kurdistan. They challenge existing gender relations.
You can find some very interesting poems, short stories, artistic-writing, and essays. One of the important pillars of our project is that we have gender and feminist awareness at its core.
We promote and motivate our writers to be gender sensitive and champion feminist positions. When we were in Kurdistan in May, we hosted a debate on Feminism and Art, which was very well attended and created a very interesting debate.
Jacobsen: As a secular feminist have there been threats to your life, or others involved with the project?
Mahmoud: There have been several threats directed at me when we launched our Anti Sharia Campaign in Kurdistan and Iraq back in 2005. Even now when I write and criticise Islamism and advocate for feminist ideals I get hate mail, threats and expletive diatribes on Social media.
Also, one of our writers who openly writes against Islamism received letters containing death threats. The fact is that those of us who are non-compromising and are open in our criticism of Islam and Islamism our lives are automatically in danger. We are not safe in either the Middle East nor in the UK.
Jacobsen: What are the unique concerns of women and girls in war in contrast to boys and men, in general?
Mahmoud: One of the major features of all wars is the use of rape as a weapon of war. Most of the times women in war situations end up becoming victims to rape, trafficking, sexual slavery and dealing with the consequences of the devastations that war brings to their societies.
For example, women who become widows in socially conservative societies who have very little welfare are living in dire conditions. Conversely, men and boys, who are fighting, face death, injuries and other war traumas.
However, in some cases, men who are caught as prisoners of war are sexually assaulted as an act of humiliation in order to breakdown their ‘manhood’. The case of the Yezidi genocide committed by ISIS symbolises this horror.
Women were taken as spoils of war; they could be raped, sold and turned into slaves. Men who did not convert were killed.
Jacobsen: Looking into the past a bit, you were one of the speakers for the March, 2003 London, United Kingdom anti-war rally. What was the content of, and the reaction to, the speech?
Mahmoud: I used to take part in anti-war demonstrations against US-lead wars in Afghanistan. Later on, when the US and its allies decided to attack Iraq in 2003, I became more involved and active in the anti-war efforts in UK and elsewhere.
I asserted my opposition to the war on Iraq, despite the fact of being Kurdish and someone who has suffered immensely under Saddam’s regime. I still didn’t think that any foreign intervention was going to improve our lives.
I also emphasised that this war will only bring more terrorism because it will strengthen political Islam, i.e. Islamism. Some people on the political Left liked my opposition to the war but disliked my opposition to political Islam, as they view them as an “anti-imperialist” resistance.
To me, however, this is absurd — how can a terrorist force that kills, beheads, and oppresses women have anything to do with resisting imperialism?
There is no doubt that we all wanted an end to Saddam’s totalitarian regime, but I was opposed to the foreign invasion. In this region, we don’t have a good experience with foreign interventions and colonialism throughout history.
Imperialist powers invade, destroy and support or install puppet regimes to serve their interest only. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan — since the invasion, we are faced with much more terrorism, instability, poverty, displacement, and mass migration of people.
There is a humanitarian disaster and an endless tragedy of war and bloodshed.
Jacobsen: As well, you have been on major news media such as The Guardian, The Independent, BBC, CNN, NBC, and Sky News. You have campaigned strongly against Sharia law in addition to the oppression of women in Iraq and Kurdistan. Does this campaigning against Sharia law extend into the international domain?
Mahmoud: Yes, because political Islamist groups are now everywhere seeking to impose Islamist ideals on people and restricting freedom of speech and expression. Even in UK, we have the problem with religious schooling, Mosques that advocate for Jihad, and hate speech.
We have Sharia councils that violate women’s rights. I am part of the One Law for All coalition that seeks to expose these violations and influence government policymakers. The struggle for women’s rights, secularism and universal values is an international struggle.
I always felt I was part of this worldwide struggle even if we are confined to local issues, but we fight with a universal vision for rights, gender equality, secularism and an egalitarian alternative to patriarchal capitalist system.
Jacobsen: What religious/irreligious worldview and ethic makes the most sense with respect to the proper interpretation of the world to you?
Mahmoud: I am not interested in any religions that seek to convince me of another world. I live here in the now, that is what it matters to me. I take a stand against injustice, class division and the gender apartheid that is currently taking place.
We need to replace the horrendous climate that has been created by capitalism and corporate profit-making by creating a heaven on this earth, one in which we are all treated equally, fairly and with justice for all.
I have no time for tales of heaven and hell in another world. There is no evidence of such realms. However, I have experienced very similar places here in this earth. After having lived in war zones and having had fought for survival, being in London is to me like heaven.
I felt human again. I can enjoy the freedoms I am entitled to as a woman. I owe it to the struggle of generations of powerful feminist movements in this country.
Jacobsen: Does this comprehensive activism — women’s rights, Kurdish culture, feminism, anti-war, and, I assume, others — come from the religious/irreligious worldview at all?
Mahmoud: To me, they come from an irreligious worldview. This is because religions limit our imaginations and they limited our freedom of thought. Religion restricts human creativity, it restricts our freedom of ideas.
It subjects people to outmoded dictates — be they from the Bible, the Quran, or any other holy book. The notion of sin, guilt, shame and honour create a gender divide and it imposes a heteronormative narrative that is shamefully discriminative.
As a woman, I felt I was half human when I was religious. I felt everything I do was loaded with guilt, and that I am somehow inferior to men. When I started to question and dislike all the restrictions I realised that religion is not for me and that it is a man-made and merely in the service of men.
The more I read into world-religion, the more I realised it is extremely patriarchal and oppressive towards women.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved with the Culture Project, or in the advocacy and promotion of Kurdish culture, even donate to initiatives relevant to their advocacy and promotion?
Mahmoud: Well, we really need help and support from talented people, people who have editing skills, who can review and analyse art work, who can write reports, proposals, and we need people who have design skills. Any support through volunteering would be deeply cherished.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Houzan.
Mahmoud: You are most welcome, it is my pleasure.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/25
Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped the Palestinian Authority after torture and imprisonment in Palestine to Jordan and then France. He is a friend. Here we talk about the Council of Ex-Muslims of France, developments, of the organization, death threats, torture, and secularism.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: As a friend and colleague, we published several interviews together on a variety of topics centered in religion and the ex-Muslim community, especially the ex-Muslim community in France and the organization founded by you: Council of Ex-Muslims of France.
Waleed Al-Husseini: Yes, and thank you for this and interviewing numerous ex-Muslims, because it’s for many still very taboo. For others, it’s fear in the name of not offending some Muslims.
Jacobsen: What new developments occurred for the Council of Ex-Muslims of France for 2017?
Al-Husseini: The most important thing is that we become more recognized in France and more in the media, especially talking about us, our activities. Many have joined our cause once they discover that they are not alone and have the same ideas as us. We support each other.
We improve the discussion in France about most of the Islamic issues including the hijab and what they like to call Islamophobia. So, more and more, we become a real part of this discussion about Islamic values and what Islamists are trying to pass into the secular and liberal parts of society.
I know the debates in France. It is increasing in Canada and the USA.
Jacobsen: For the Council of Ex-Muslims of France, how often do death threats come to the inboxes, or via other means, of members including yourself?
Al-Husseini: I received 5 death threats by internet today. This is a great day and nothing dangerous. It’s been like that since the beginning. The easiest threats are by the internet. For me, it’s not dangerous because the ones who really want to kill you will not tell you before.
The most serious things come from some Islamist organizations and sites, who post our photos to all their readers. This puts us in a very dangerous situation. For any random person, the organized Islamists ask and try to acquire our addresses.
This happened to me, personally, many times. That’s why now my address is hidden and why I am taking greater care to take care of myself. For example, I simply do not travel to certain areas in Paris controlled by Muslims – Muslim areas.
This religion didn’t accept someone to go out. It didn’t accept the criticism. In 2017, only Islam and the mafia act this way.
Jacobsen: You were tortured, for several months, in a Palestinian prison by the Palestinian Authority for charges of blasphemy. I know the types and extent of the torture based on conversations with you. Do these memories resurface, at times, in personal life – of the torture?
Al-Husseini: I’m always trying to forget it. It was a hard time. Most of the time for me was hard. It’s the time recollected when I wrote my book Blasphemer: The Price I Paid for Rejecting Islam. I had to remember all this time with the most difficult detailing.
Now, not that much compared to some others because the victims of Islamic fundamentalism are so many, many paid their lives all over the world and have had the same as what happened to me or worse.
Jacobsen: What threats to secularism exist in France? How does the Council of Ex-Muslims of France represent a bulwark against those who wish to silence the non-religious, ex-religious, and the general formal irreligious?
Al-Husseini: Secularism in France threatens Islamists and is threatened by Islamism. The main problem for some Muslims is that they want the Islamism in place of secularism rather than secular Islam.
So, they do all that they can. They want society to accept the hijab in the name of liberty. They want limited freedom of speech and limited criticism of Islam, which comes in the form of false charges of Islamophobia and racism.
That is why, always, the Islamophobia charges, for me, are a modern fatwa: nothing else. A lot of examples are like the halal food, etc. What we do to protect secularism is that we explain the ways of Islamism, show it clearly, and have a rich debate about it, we do our best to show their hypocrisy and their spokespeople for hypocrites.
We present the real hate of the Islamist imams and Islamism in general, and raising the standards of all these definitions in French society, keep the secular values out of the religious values and going forward with secularism, not back because only secularism will protect our society from civil war.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Waleed.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/24
“In prison, one of the only freedoms inmates have is to practise their religion — but in some cases, even that’s getting harder to do.
There’s been an increase in the number of prisoners filing complaints to the Canadian Human Rights Commission about religious accommodation.
Inmates are concerned about the delivery of spiritual services, the accommodation of spiritual practices and the observance of holy days, said Ivan Zinger, Canada’s correctional investigator, the country’s prison watchdog.
Religious leaders also say there aren’t enough chaplains in prisons to meet the spiritual needs of inmates.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/prison-religion-human-rights-commission-inmates-1.4401229.
“OTTAWA — Amid controversy over the cancellation of a film screening at an Ottawa Catholic university, the federal Liberals are attacking the Conservatives for being selective about the ideas they’re choosing to defend in campus battles over free speech.
Science Minister Kirsty Duncan demanded Monday that the Tories react to news that Saint Paul University last week cancelled a film festival event featuring a documentary about abortion. The Conservatives, who have publicly defended free speech in other cases, hadn’t immediately commented on the cancellation. But a spokesman said Monday the party believes in the free exchange of ideas in academic settings, including on issues such as abortion.
Liberals have already confronted Conservatives on abortion this fall and Conservatives have tried to provoke Liberals on campus free speech. Politicians appear poised to continue floating attack lines on both issues as the clock ticks closer to a federal election campaign and a 2019 vote.”
“Bishop Strachan would sit bolt upright in his grave if he could see what is happening to the old Deer Park United Church. John Strachan was the first bishop of Toronto, a stern figure often pictured in flowing clerical robes. In his time, the pious city that came to be known as Toronto the Good was putting up churches left and right.
Today, it is turning many of them into condos. Across the city, developers are buying up old churches and making them over as high-end residences. The combination of two trends – rising property prices and falling church attendance – has produced a whole new real estate category: the church conversion.
Deer Park United is becoming part of the Blue Diamond Condominiums at Imperial Plaza, “an address of distinction nestled in the exclusive Forest Hill neighbourhood.” Builders have already torn down most of the 1913 church at St. Clair Avenue West and Avenue Road. Demolition machines clawed at its heavy stone walls, leaving piles of rubble that made Deer Park look like a bombed out church in Normandy after D-Day. All that’s left is the church tower and the empty front end of the building, open to the elements at the back like a hospital gown.”
“Eli Wu brought his wife and teenaged son to Vancouver this past summer, emigrating from China in search of a better education for his child. He wasn’t searching for God, but after arriving in Canada he found himself drawn in an unexpected direction.
In China, he said he didn’t pay too much attention to Christianity, although some of his family members attended church. Organized religion was prohibited in China during the Cultural Revolution, but there was a revival of Christianity at the beginning of 1980s, when the government lifted restrictions on religion. Still, the Chinese government maintains some control over worship.
“In China, [things like] getting baptized and accepting legitimate Christianity are controlled by the government,” Mr. Wu said. “When the gospel is discussed in China, because of some political factors, it cannot be [considered] too real.””
“The Trudeau government recently announced that it will no longer permit religious charities to access the Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ) program unless they conform to government ideology on social policy.
The CSJ program provides students with opportunities to work at non-profits. However, the government’s view is that if a charity does not accept abortion, or agree with government views on sexuality, then it need not apply.
This government decision is part of what I call the legal revolution against the place of religion in society. It is a rejection of the legal rights, enshrined in the Charter, that religious communities and individuals hold to express their religious commitments in public service. These rights are relied upon to run private Christian schools, summer camps, soup kitchens and other welfare agencies.”
Source: https://ipolitics.ca/2017/12/22/trudeau-trinity-western-war-religious-dissent/.
“Metro Vancouver citizenship court judge is applauded every time he tells newcomers about Santa Claus and the inter-faith meaning of Christmas in Canada.
Gerald Pash, who presided over six ceremonies for 360 new citizens this week in Surrey, responds to the season by offering new citizens warm, inspiring comments about the value of Christmas for all.
“I have used the same words for the past three years for the ceremonies in advance of Christmas. The new Canadians applaud every time,” said Pash, who was a public affairs officer for the department of national defence and has been an aide de camp to B.C.’s lieutenant governor.””
“OTTAWA — The government is sticking to its message that filtering Canada Summers Jobs program funding to groups that promise to respect human rights will catalyze the middle class, but a chorus of Conservative MPs say the change tramples religious freedoms.
Funding applications for the 2018 federal program opened Tuesday. It’s an annual initiative designed to help local small businesses, non-profit and faith-based organizations by providing wage subsidies to create summer jobs for secondary and post-secondary students.”
“OTTAWA—A federal jobs program targeted at youth met the government’s goal for placements for this past summer after falling short in the first year of the Liberals’ mandate.
The government says almost 69,000 spaces and counting were created in 2017, double the number in 2015 and a target the Liberals had vowed to reach in every year of their mandate.
The Liberals have put an extra $113 million annually into the summer jobs program to double the number of placements each year to 70,000 from 35,000 for students working at not-for-profit organizations, public sector employers and small businesses with 50 or fewer employees.”
“A 1996 memoir manuscript written by Barry Sherman reveals the late pharmacy mogul gave ample thought to the meaning of life, and concluded there was none.
“I have always been conscious of my personal mortality,” he wrote two decades ago.
The 75-year-old founder of generic drug manufacturer Apotex, and his wife Honey Sherman, 70, were found dead in their North York home last week. Their funeral is Thursday.
A partial draft of the memoir, called “Legacy of Thoughts,” was submitted as part of Sherman’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit brought by his orphaned cousins. He described the manuscript as his observations on philosophy, Canadian politics and the pharmaceutical industry.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/24
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So what was the family background, culture, geography, religion, irreligion?
Kevin Bolling: Well, that’s a long question. My family was a military family, so my father was in the navy. I didn’t have like most people the home town. I don’t. It was wherever we lived. So we moved around a lot when I was young. Probably not as much as other military families. Most military families move every three years, we did it about every four and five years, but I’ve lived up and down the east coast.
We lived in Puerto Rico where my brother was born and lived in Spain for four years, mainly during my high school. And then at that point, we came back to the United States and I did college and my master’s in the southeast, including around Everson. Growing up, I’ve come from a very Catholic based family. I remember my grandparents going to church every single day, so my family was very involved in the Catholic church,
My mother was extremely involved in all the stuff she did. I was an altar boy for years. So I always think my mother was very outspoken with the church as far as with regard to their treatment and inequality for women within the church. I think that very much, my brother and I definitely learned that from her to speak out and that equality should be the part for everybody. So we can see how that lesson is played out through our lives. We’ve gotten involved with different things, and so I think a lot of it comes from my mother.
Jacobsen: I think that’s a fabulous foundation. And the personal background, so by that I mean, I meant more specifically, the pivotal moments or even the seminal moments in your trajectory to a more secular outlook. You hinted at some of those before.
Bolling: For me, of course, I think growing up in a strong religious background, my mother’s approach to religion was very different, probably very different from the rest of my family. So she really applied us more to evaluate what the church was telling us.
So sermons with stories on how to do better. What was in the bible was, these would not be her words, but were dated and old. They were written at the time they were written and they were for that time. So, you had to look at them and just remember how things were these days. You didn’t take the stories in the bible at face value, or the sermon at face value; you had to translate them to today’s world and what you would do with them now, but they were stories on what was supposed to be good or how you were supposed to be a good person.
So I don’t think she intended it. But she very much allowed us to question that, and we examined in different ways. She didn’t take it as truth, an absolute truth. My aunt believes the Bible is absolute truth, even today she believes that men physically have one less rib than women because, of course, God took the rib from Adam to make Eve. I was like you can just count and that is really easy to disprove. But she doesn’t.
She is very hard in having that belief system and that is how she runs her life. I’m fortunate that my family does not. So, I think out of another pivotal moment for me was I think my very slow and gradual process to coming out as gay. I finally came out in graduate school. And so you know, I hadn’t thought about this before from my father where the family is more important than religion. So, of course, I’m going to accept you. You are more important to me than what the Bible says.
For my family, that was a very easy transition. I think it’s where their priorities were and family things are first. So I think we always had that; we had that nurturing environment from our family, but also, it was okay to question the things that were sometimes presented as absolute. So there was a strong belief, I think one from my father’s background as far as the military, that service to the country was always important.
So we were always doing things when we were young about being involved in volunteering and those sorts of things. Because a large part of what we did was growing up on naval bases, I think we were introduced to a lot of different cultures and then living outside of the United States is a very different perspective of a very Americentric world. All you hear about is the United States and that’s the only thing that’s important.
Being outside the United States, you see things differently in the world and recognize that’s not true, where it’s not always the same experience in the United States. So I think all of those things were pivotal. I’ve always remembered volunteering with something. I continued that on through my personal life, so you were always giving back in a way and that was just important for us to do.
Personally, it gives me a lot of personal satisfaction, so I’ve always done things that I have continued. I do remember history class in college and talking about world religion, and coming up with the Catholic church, which is, of course, the paradigm I associated with at the time. The professor really going in and talking about the church more as a corporation and why we’re doing all these things historically to make itself survive. So it gave me a very different perspective on the church and allowed me to question communion, and just the different practices of the church.
I do remember my first stances against religion: “I’m not going to confession anymore.” And then coming out gay, the church does not have a great relationship, especially the Catholic church for a long time, and not much is better, of not being very accepting of LGBT people. So there were times when unfortunately I never went through this, but you weren’t allowed to take communion, and being very negative. So I separated from the church a little bit more, and then I don’t believe in God anymore. I do remember having conversations with people; I don’t think there was anything specific that was a definite moment for me.
It was generalization, “That’s how I feel and I’m okay with that.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/23
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar founded the Global Secular Humanist Movement and Ideas Beyond Borders. He is an Iraqi refugee, satirist, and human rights activist. He is also a columnist for Free Inquiry. Here, we start a series together about Canadian culture.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So, when you look at the landscape of Canadian culture, you can notice certain trends, especially if you’re someone who travels in the speaking engagement circuit, as you do, as an Iraqi refugee, and as a non-religious person speaking on irreligious issues. What do you notice as some big takeaways from all of that speaking and traveling and seeing Canadian culture?
Faisal Saeed Al Mutar: My experience has been pretty great. At the same time, I don’t see much difference between Canadian and American culture. I know Toronto and Vancouver. They are very close to the coastal United States in this regard.
From what I observed, there are some forms of frustrations in Toronto that I’m hearing from at least the ex-Muslim community who are seeing a rise of conservative Islam in Toronto. They are seeing more and more women wearing Niqab and covered from head to toe.
An Iranian friend of mine mentioned that she is getting a lot of catcalls from a lot of people that came to Toronto from the Middle East, recently. She feels that she has to censor herself in front of some of these folks.
I saw this mostly in Toronto. I didn’t see it in Vancouver. I think Vancouver has a lot of immigration from Hong Kong or East Asia, and less from the Middle East, but in Toronto, you have Mississauga with a significant Pakistani and Indian population.
Then Toronto has Syrian refugees that came in, recently. Obviously, these are questions that are very complication. I am supportive as a refugee. What makes Canada and America and others great is that we stand for universal human rights by supporting some of these refugees, there is a paradox there.
Some refugees may stand against universal human values and freedom of thought. I am noticing some of that in Toronto more than in most American cities, except two. One is Dearborn, Michigan, which is East of Michigan. It is close to Detroit and Detroit is close to Canada.
The other one is in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can see a significant Somali community. Some of them have joined Al Shabab. These are some of the negative things I have witnessed in Canada. As for the positive things, I think it is a great country and I am always happy to be back.
Jacobsen: What do you notice about the younger population, especially in religious affiliation?
Al Mutar: I think it is the same as many other Western countries. I think with the older generations in Canada. They tend to be less conversant than the United States. They are weaker in Canada. The Christian Right in Canada is less active than the Christian Right in America. So, there is less of theocratic movement.
There is less of a theocratic movement. The Conservative Party and others tend to be different than the Republican Party in the United States to some extent. I think many of the younger people tend to be more secular and secular in the sense that they support separation of church and state and live for the most part a non-religious life.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Faisal.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/23
Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped the Palestinian Authority after torture and imprisonment in Palestine to Jordan and then France. He is a friend. Here we talk about principles of free speech and secularism, values increasingly in the public sphere in Canada and so relevant to the Canadian general public as discussion pieces.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s talk about principles in opposition to one another, for example, freedom of speech and secularism versus restricted speech and theocracy (or its various tendencies). How are France’s values and your own values more in line with freedom of speech and secularism? Why are these more important to be in place rather than restricted and theocratic values seen more in Islam?
Waleed Al-Husseini: For sure, my values are more in line with French values and secularism, and a perspective on humanity that sees everyone deserving of equal rights, and is firm on the need to get religion divorced from the state.
All of these things do not exist in Islam. These things only exist when all Muslims are seen as part of humanity as a whole. When Muslims are the majority in a country, it is different than when they are the minority.
Often, secularism and freedom of speech, and similar secular values, can only be computed only within the framework of Islam and Islamic values. That is why they are asking for the defense of the hijab in the name of liberty, but then they attack criticism of Islam in the name of racism.
Although, Islam is not a race, as I explained in one of our interviews!
Even the hijab is an example of slavery and second-class citizenship in society, in my opinion, it means that women are a sexual tool. It becomes one of the most important signs of Islam in politics.
The criticism of Islam is a human right, according to human rights declarations. I gave you this example to show that is how they use things, to spare Islamic values from criticism!
Jacobsen: Sharia Law can imply Sharia courts, separate and distinct from the universal laws in a secular culture for everyone. So, in effect, a dual-law system can be set in a secular society.
How do these Sharia courts arise in a secular context? What can dismantle them? Why do these separate courts violate the principles of, for instance, one law for all?
Al-Husseini: This is what happened in the UK. That’s why I don’t like “secularism” and prefer the term “laïcité”! With secularism, they make insular communities and everyone lets them do what they want.
I remember in 2010, maybe, one court released someone who was charged with beating his wife, because he said that it is okay to beat your wife within Islam and our religion!
That is why the religions should be out of the state and public arena. The religions should be in their places of worship! No more than this, not in courts, education, or the political and even economic spheres like the factories and goods.
Even the ones with the (halal) label. Yes, because this label is more proof of communitarianism, to create a mini-society inside the mother society.
Jacobsen: What will make for a more just and secular society aligned with secular morality and international ideals expressed in the UN Charter, especially for minorities within minority groups such as ex-Muslims?
Al-Husseini: The way for secularism is very long, especially in the Arabic world. It is the need built from childhood. That’s why we need to stop teaching religion in schools – especially assumed as true rather than as a set of beliefs of one group or another like a world religions class – and we need to teach children secular values.
Also, we should stop telling kids about jihad and should not separate people into Muslims and non-Muslims! It provides a simplistic view of the world. Let them see all of us as humans of many stripes and shades, and types.
And the governments should have a secularism in law and work hard for it!
Because, you know, our problem is not only with the government, but even with people. For example, when the Saudi girl made a video while she was wearing a miniskirt, many people were asking to arrest her and the government did.
So, the problem is in the people! Sure, it’s because this is coming from the brainwashing since they are kids. We have an example looking at what happened recently after Saudi Arabia allowed women to drive the car. People were attacking the cars of women.
Jacobsen: One more principle is the truth, or attempts at its attainment, and obscurantism, or attempts to lie or half-lie and cover the truth in some way. One obscurantist terms, one is the word, which is vague: Islamophobia.
How can truth overcome the obscurantism surrounding difficult topics in a discussion on Islam and the ex-Muslim community?
Al-Husseini: Islamophobia: this the Kalashnikov of what they call themselves ‘moderate’ (for me, moderate in Islam does not exist at all, we just have peaceful Muslims at the moment).
Because, for example, there are the jihadists or terrorists who physically attack you, but then there are these moderates who also attack you in courts! And try to kill you when they make Islamophobia and racism look like the same and mixing all the definitions up. It’s kind of a war of terms; I talk about it in my last book I published in French!
About the truth, we ex-Muslims know more about Islam and the way of Islamism. Let us talk, and hear us out! Don’t attack or fight us, and then allow for our Muslim brothers who destroy their own countries to speak.
So, what do you think they will do with other countries like Europe and USA? They can open more for us to be in the media to speak and not to attack us with Islamophobia and other epithets and invectives.
They can protect those in Arabic and Islamic countries from being arrested based on using their freedom of speech. This liberty to choose. Also, inside France or these other countries for that matter, they can stop the call to kill us because this is hate speech, at a minimum: calling to have someone killed.
I hope the media and people become more serious and more open-minded on this issue.
Jacobsen: Thank you for taking the time once more, Waleed. Always a pleasure, my friend.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Angelos Sofocleous is an agnostic atheist, skeptic, and the president of the University of Durham’s Durham Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society. Recently, he was elected as the President-elect for Humanist Students in the United Kingdom. I reached out to congratulate him, and to talk about the recent election. He is also a friend and colleague (Conatus News).
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We’re colleagues through writing and friends through constant interaction and united in common cause in the youth activist sector. Happily, you were elected the president-elect of Humanist Students, recently. First, I want to say, “Congratulations.” Second, I wanted to talk about some targeted objectives and plans for the position. What seem like the bigger areas for advancement of the humanist movement?
Angelos Sofocleous: Thank you, Scott! Very glad to be working with you on a variety of causes in so many different projects. As the position I have been elected to is within a students’ movement, I would like to focus on aspects relating to students. As Humanist Students, we want to ensure that religious students and religious institutions and union societies are not in a privileged position over non-religious students and societies. It’s alarming and sad that this is the case in most universities around the UK. For the sake of having a belief, in this case a religious belief, religious societies, especially societies of the Christian religion, are treated differently from universities and students’ unions. It’s concerning that a student society is privileged simply because of their belief. Of course, this shows an absurdity. The absurdity is revealed once we think of a world where societies of certain non-religious ideologies (e.g. political) are privileged over societies of other ideologies. Imagine if the Marxist, the neoliberal, or the conservative society at universities enjoyed privileges that other societies did not have. That would cause a lot of uproar. But this is not the case with religious societies; they can be in an advantageous position without the student population reacting. This is our job as Humanist Students: React against this unfair privilege that religious student societies enjoy and ensure that non-religious students are treated as religious students are.
Despite the fact that, according to the latest British Social Attitudes Survey, 71% of young people are non-religious, this figure does not seem to reflect the work that is done by universities to cater for the needs of non-religious students. More specifically, the number of UK universities which offer non-religious pastoral care is limited, and this, again, makes some students privileged simply because they have a religious belief. No effort has taken place to cater for the needs of non-religious students. A number of universities have argued that their pastoral carers are trained to accommodate for the needs of students of all faiths, even non-religious ones. This is simply not true. The beliefs and ideologies of non-religious students are fundamentally different from the basic beliefs of religious students. Most of the world’s religions have some common characteristics; that is, they believe to the existence of a supernatural world, hold a belief to a deity, give value to faith, and have a limited respect for science. Therefore, as the primary structure of the majority of religions is similar, one can’t argue that help and advice to a non-religious student can be provided with reference to that structure. Help and advice to a non-religious student should be strictly administered on non-religious grounds.
Apart from countering privileges enjoyed by religious societies and providing non-religious pastoral support to students, we need to bring humanism into campuses to provide a platform and a community for non-religious students. As I will explain later, this is not to be done in a form of dogmatic introduction, or by presenting humanism as a new ideology (this will be harming to humanism itself), but by presenting an alternative to religious societies and to religious institutions which, in many universities, manage to dominate and, at times control, university policies and practices. As a matter of fact, it has been the case that members of religious societies, in this case mostly Islamic ones, at least in the UK, have attempted to de-platform and rally against certain speakers, accusing them of ‘islamophobia’ and ‘hate speech’. This is the mindset that needs to be overturned at our universities. We should be very cautious about what is ‘hate speech’ at our campuses. There are certainly practices that can be labelled of as ‘hate speech’; but criticizing any religion or any belief system is certainly not ‘hate speech’. Criticizing any ideology is vital for our development as a society and no ideology shall be immune from criticism. If one gets ‘offended’ because their religion, ideology, or belief system is criticized then that’s their problem. However, when speech calls for violent action against a particular group of people then, yes, that is ‘hate speech’. It is vital that we distinguish between the two, so that we are able to not mislabel certain events as promoting a ‘phobia’ against a particular religion or ideology. It is crucial that we keep our universities as places in which thoughts can be exchanged, challenged, and heavily criticized. There is no place for emotions here.
Wishing to give voice to the 73% of young people, many of whom are students, we are structuring Humanist Students in a way in which we’ll have stronger presence in university campuses, battling against religious privilege, and for freedom of speech, equality of opportunity, and promoting critical thinking.
Jacobsen: As a student at the University of Durham, you study philosophy and psychology. You have been the president of the Durham Humanist Students Society since May, 2016. You hold numerous board and executive positions in and for the non-religious community. With these backgrounds, how can we leverage these organizations and publications, and so on, to target those bigger areas with coverage, speaking engagements, political endorsements even, and making the humanist position an acceptable mainstream viewpoint?
Sofocleous: Firstly, I wish to point out that our aim, as I see it, is not to make the humanist position ‘an acceptable mainstream viewpoint’. Let me explain what I mean by that because such a statement can easily be misinterpreted. This is not to say that I don’t believe that the world would not be a better place if people embraced humanism or that we should not campaign for the wide variety of values that humanism endorses. The case, rather, is that there are dangers in viewing humanism as a concrete ideology itself, as an ideology which can turn into a dogma, if managed incorrectly.
Our aim is not to preach for humanism, it is not to try to ‘convince’ people that humanism holds the absolute truth. Doing this, we fall into the trap of the way of thinking that a number of religions, political ideologies, and other belief systems share. We should not view humanism as a set of ideas to which someone can ‘convert to’ or ‘deconvert from’.
We do not want humanism to be treated as ‘any other ideology’. This is simply because respect for other human beings, other animals, and nature is not an ideology. Valuing reason, critical thinking, and logic, over faith, superstition, and belief is not an ideology. Battling religious indoctrination, religious privilege, and Church of England Bishops having a say in politics is not an ideology. Criticizing the atrocities that take place in theocratic nations and campaigning against blasphemy laws and for freedom of speech is not an ideology. We must not, foremost, treat humanism strictly as an ideology.
Someone who has respect for other human beings, values reason over faith, and is against laws which call for the killing of apostates does not just ‘hold an ideology’. Rather, they have just adopted the mindset through which societies can develop and prosper, always having respect for other human beings and human rights. It is the neutral position that every human being must follow, for the sake of being human.
I can make my case clearer by bringing in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), something that humanism fully supports and endorses. Do we want to hold that the UDHR is a ‘set of beliefs’ which is merely suggestive? Is there any sense in saying that a violent dictator ‘converts’ when they decide to adopt the UDHR? Is ‘preaching’ the right way to establish the UDHR as the ‘mainstream’, as you called it, position? I think that the answer is ‘no’, in all three questions.
We wish to make the humanist position ‘an acceptable mainstream viewpoint’ – but this is not to be done by any mechanism or method employed by religions or other belief systems which can be characterized as dogmatic. That is, we do not preach for humanism nor we do not ‘convert’ people. This is not even an option for humanism.
It is vitally important to understand the points I make above. This is directly related to your question as I see, unfortunately, that many humanist, atheist, secularist, and freethinking organizations become dogmatic and establish a concrete ideology to which all of their members must conform to or they become ostracized. If we, as the non-religious community, want to work together to have an impact in the world and fight for the causes that concern us, we should work according to our values and not fall into the trap of exercising the same practices which we criticize. Those are preaching, hate speech, ostracization.
We must work together, but we must also avoid treating humanism as a system whose values do not change and also avoid treating it as ‘any other ideology’. It is not ‘any other ideology’ for the same reason the UDHR is not ‘any other set of beliefs’. It is the position that we ought to take as human beings.
Jacobsen: In the UK, there are various privileges for the religious. How can the young student population work to overcome these biases, e.g. Bishops in the House of Lords?
Sofocleous: Indeed, there are a lot of privileges that religious institutions enjoy in the UK. In fact, as a non-British, I find it puzzling, and almost paradoxical, that in a country where the population is increasingly non-religious, the Church of England is recognized as the state church in England, operates its own schools, and can affect or decide on government policies, as it holds seats in the House of Lords. The paradox lies in the fact that, while in most countries the religiosity of people correlates with (or is caused by) the involvement of religion in public and state affairs, in the UK the Church of England seems to hold a position in society which does not reflect its actual effect in society.
The young student population can be active in battling religious privilege in many ways. On a personal level, they can be active in social media raising awareness for the existence of religious privilege, or writing a letter to their local MP presenting their views and exercising criticism if the MP supports religious involvement in politics. What is more, they can write articles through which they support their position and explain why religious privileged needs to be challenged, potentially affecting other people.
On a wider level, they can join nation-wide campaigns organized by organizations such as Humanists UK and National Secular Society who very carefully plan and promote campaigns battling religious privilege. Such organizations are doing great and important work in securing freedom from religion and active participation immensely contributes to their causes.
Jacobsen: To found a humanist publication would be a step forward for Humanist Students in general, how do you envision this coming to fruition? How can people help out?
Sofocleous: A humanist publication will be a big step forward for Humanist Students. One of the main reasons as to why Atheist, Humanist, and Secularist Students (AHS) was rebranded and restructured as Humanist Students was to give a sense of cohesion and unity among AHS (and now Humanist Students) societies. As a cohesive movement, then, Humanist Students needs to give voice to its students and provide a platform for them. The work that each Humanist Students society is doing at a local level is exceptional. However, mostly, these societies support humanism, express their concerns and promote their causes through talks, small-scale campaigns, socials, and fundraising. A humanist publication will give a new dimension to the ways Humanist Students societies express themselves – it will allow them to be direct and clear about the issues that matter to them. Currently, local issues stay local. An issue which a Humanist Students society faces at its university or city does not receive considerable attention by other Humanist Students societies as it’s the case that there is no medium through which the news will reach them. A humanist publication, then, will allow Humanist Students societies to communicate with each other about their successes and challenges they face on a local level.
Humanist Students societies members do have ideas and concerns, and do use writing to express themselves. In the absence of a Humanist Students newspaper, though, they look to find other platforms on which to publicize their material. A humanist publication, then, will not only encourage people who do not usually write to express themselves through writing, but will also utilize the vast number of people and societies who wish to present their ideas to the rest of the student population.
It is vitally important for the Humanist Students movement to have a voice; to have a platform on which it can express itself and through which it can criticize religious privilege and indoctrination. It will be a point of reference both for all Humanist Students societies, but also for any one who wants to learn more about humanism.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Angelos, I had a lengthy conversation with Hannah Timson. You are both highly competent. I look forward to your collaborative efforts to make these plans realities.
Sofocleous: Many thanks for this interview, Scott. I greatly value all the amazing work you are doing and the platform you give to so many people to speak out and express themselves. I am sure we will have the opportunity to join forces again during my term.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/22
*This Interview has been edited and updated from the original.*
Jessica Schab went from being a spiritual New Age leader to being a skeptic. She began to think more critically about the claims of the movement and has been working to educate others about the falsehoods in the New Age movement. She is a Co-Founder of the EOF Project.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: To begin what was family background regarding faith?
Jessica Schab: I was raised in a cult. It was a combination of Christianity, Judaism, and Jehovah’s Witness. It was known as ‘The World Wide Church of God.’ The church did not have a building of its own.
Its services were held in a high school that we attended every Saturday. We weren’t allowed to eat pork, seafood, or things like this. We were also not really allowed to talk much to people who were not in the church.
The church taught that when you died God would resurrect you. God would bring you back to earth, but only after the planet is destroyed. Then the world would have peace for 1,000 years and then after that, well, no knows.
I was encouraged to learn the teachings of the church by heart. It instilled in me the importance of being a good person and helping no matter what, even if it meant sacrificing myself for the greater good. I remember having to always pray for the church leader, who I had never even met. His name was Herbert W. Armstrong.
Then when I was 14, my dad decided to leave the church. I was upset with him because suddenly all of our friends were no longer our friends because, sadly, I found out they only like you if we believed what they believed.
I later found out, not long after we left, that the church was shut down due to some scandal. Only recently, it has returned as ‘The Restored Church of God’. After we left the church, I started to explore other churches.
I searched for ones that I could attend, but none of them felt right. So, I started to explore other religions. Yet, none of them felt right too. What I ended up doing, instead of choosing one over the other, was to embrace them all because they seemed to say the same thing: God is love, be a good person, and so on. This was a Segway into New Age beliefs, as they claim to embrace or mix every faith into one.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did you get into the New Age?
Jessica Schab: Mainly, because of multiple tragedies I went through, the first was my sister died when I was 16. Then my dad had a stroke. He started to make claims: that he talked to beings of other dimensions – angels, aliens, and stuff like this. He told me that he could talk to my sister.
That she wasn’t really dead. That she was alive in another realm and was a bridge for us. There to help us with our mission on Earth. Then my dad told me aliens were interested in me. That they are preparing me for a very important mission.
I was upset because I wanted to be normal. I was rebelling against all the things my dad was saying. Though, looking back, I think it was his way of comforting me.
At age 21, my father died from a massive brain hemorrhage. If this was not painful enough, just a week before he died, I said horrible things to him. So, I had this huge amount of guilt. What made it worse, it had been drilled into me: our thoughts create reality.
So, I convinced myself. I was the one who killed him with my words. I resented myself for this. Especially when I realized how much I missed my dad, I wanted to be close with him. That’s when I decided to embrace his spiritual New Age work.
My dad said I was a leader. I would help many people…one day. I never thought of myself as a leader, but I would become one if it meant I could accomplish his mission, save the world, and make my dad proud on the ‘other side’.
I felt people needed real-life examples, not fictional characters in movies and books. So, I decided to be an example. As the desire started to grow in me to find and help like-minded people, to let them know they were not alone, I started making videos on YouTube.
I developed interest and support. People were telling me that I changed their life. I was even healing illnesses. I was invited to attend the Nexus Conference in Australia. That is where I was introduced to Project Camelot.
They were well-known for interviewing people on conspiracy theories, reptilian people – and basically all things woo. They ended up interviewing me, introducing me to the world as a ‘Crystal Child’. I became famous overnight.
Shortly after that interview, I became invited to speak all over the world. I had convinced myself that my spiritual message/beliefs were truth. Thus, I was able to convince others. These beliefs were also the solution and answer to everything for me.
However, as time went on, I started to realize how something wasn’t quite right with them. These beliefs were becoming filtered information that came into my mind. They were not helping me with my problems,
They were making them worse, but I was not able to see this at the time. It was too scary to confront that head-on because it was who I was. It was my job, my life. My entire world was comprised of these beliefs.
It’s hard to question something so close to you. That’s done so much for you. But then, when I started to notice how it was affecting other people, the way they think and not wanting to think or to question it.
I was burned out from always trying to help people, to heal them, to make videos. It felt never-ending. I started to get burned out. Shortly after, I became involved in an abusive relationship.
The guy was manipulative, controlling, and exploiting my followers and me. I could not take much action to get out of the relationship because my beliefs had convinced me. I can change him with my love and such, but the more loving and forgiving I was, the more the abuse amplified, the more he could get away with.
I was frustrated that my beliefs were not able to help me with my problems. I knew there was something wrong, but I did not know what it was. All I knew was that I had to get away from the relationship and have a fresh start, to get my mind clear and heal myself.
Jacobsen: How did this transition into the EOF?
I decided to go all over Asia and right before the 2012 ‘end of the world’, I went to Bali, Indonesia and set up a workshop to prepare people for the big shift in consciousness. That is where I met Diego Fontanive, the founder of the EOF Project via couch surfing.
He was the first person in years I spent time with that did not have the same beliefs as me. At first, I took what he had to say as: “Ok, that’s your perspective; I respect that. I am open to discussing our differences in views.”
I felt sad for him that he did not have a connection to his spirit. At one point, I wanted to help him with this. Yet, it was the opposite in the end. It was him who helped connect me back to my rational, sober mind.
He asked me questions that started to create doubts about my beliefs. He wanted me to understand the mechanics of the mindsets, especially the self-deception. He would ask me things like, “Are you sure this is true?”
If I said, “Because I feel it to be true or had certain experiences.” He would then say something like, “Are you sure your emotions and experiences are as reliable as you think? Who are you with your beliefs? Can you think outside of them for a minute?”
But there was one question he asked me, “Are you sure you are helping by spreading these type of ideas?” That got me the most out of all of the questions.
The more he got me to question and think about things, the more I was able to see how these beliefs were harmful. I was able to see how I was a drug dealer/addict. I did not even know it. This realization made me feel awful.
The way beliefs and mindsets can prevent us from thinking and questioning. The way they create a war with reality.
I wrote in great detail about my experience in Bali and with Diego. I call this my Bali Blog series. For a long time, I thought Diego was an advanced being from another dimension because he was so mysterious, which I interpreted as mystical.
I had him on such a high pedestal. I would have to face this pattern later.
Later, Diego admitted playing along with my ideas about him, in the hope that it would help me to see how I manipulate myself. Since I saw everything and everyone through a filter of mysticism, it was my language. Diego felt he had to learn it in order to get through to me.
No one wants to admit they were duped. That they duped themselves, nor do they want to admit that they could be wrong in following something for many years. People want to think of themselves as smart, but actually, this idea is what gets in the way of people being able to see that they have been deceived.
This is what is known as ‘The Dunning Kruger Effect’. Diego showed me how to develop my logic and reason. I worked those muscles every day. These tools are so vital to have in life in order to be able to think properly and make better decisions, to not have them is to be like driving drunk.
You are bound to crash sooner or later. Why risk it?
I decided to share my concerns and new realizations with my followers. They ended up turning on me. They said I was a traitor, a liar, and compromised. Diego was evil. They thought Diego had brainwashed me, but I kept sharing.
I thought people would understand and see it. I was naive thinking it would be so easy for people to question things that are so near and dear to them. But I kept on sharing, and more and more people started to understand what I was saying. They saw their own problems that were coming from these beliefs.
Diego and I set up the EOF Project. It uses critical thinking, metacognition, and memetics to help people via coaching and courses, to have a better understanding of the mechanics of irrational fear and flawed thinking.
The project focuses on helping people to transition from being a believer to a skeptic/thinker, and how to be both logical and emotional at the same time.
I later started to speak about my transition at a skeptics’ conferences. It was challenging and humiliating to show people how credulous I had been! However, my determination to prevent others to fall in the same mental traps was stronger.
Now, I find it fascinating how I used to think and it’s quite therapeutic to make fun of my old self and to use blasphemy on beliefs that used to have such an authority over me.
Working on improving our thinking skills, being savvy to our blind spots is not easy, unfortunately, critical thinking skills do not happen naturally. Its everyday work on our mental muscles that show results. It is one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but also the most fruitful as well.
Now, I am working on a documentary about my transition from mystic to a skeptic. I hope that with my story people will be able to see their patterns and biases, so as to prevent them – and for them to see the importance of being able to think in a healthier way. My documentary is called Memoirs of a Former Mystic: Caution too much love and light will make you sick.
http://www.memoirsofaformermystic.com/
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/21
Waleed Al-Husseini founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France. He escaped the Palestinian Authority after torture and imprisonment in Palestine to Jordan and then France.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What about the pressing concerns of the moment? Miniskirts can make headlines. What are the fundamental issues right now?
Waleed Al-Husseini: The fundamentalism is the headline for this moment. What I mean in terms of fundamentalism is not only the jihadists who are bad, but also the miniskirts making the headlines in the media and making everything amiss in one country, this then takes over social media.
This is the fundamental issue. Every time, you will find something: summer coming soon. So there will be people discussing the issues around the Burkini. You will continue to see these headlines that make it seem like the Dark Ages.
Exactly, Muslims in there mini-society in Europe and the USA live in the Dark Ages. They live it in Arabic and Islamic countries.
Jacobsen: What about Muslim leaders who want an internal-to-Islam reformation? Is this a possibility? How far will it go?
Al-Husseini: This is our problem. Even if some Muslims need it, the population will not accept it. Last year, Jordan wanted to change the school’s lessons plans, reform it, but what happens often was people not liking this because they want to learn Sharia!
That is why even at this time it’s impossible for reform in Islam. Now, it’s like reform in Nazism, in their time when they have the power. Islam has the power. The religion has the connections and the money. So, it is impossible. Maybe later they can! In this time, yes, it is impossible.
Because the 1st religion to have a revolution of light was Islam in the time of Muʿtazila. That time was one of the best things about everything! Because they were looking for Quran at most as a historical document and nothing more!
So, we have problems because they believe this Quran is for every time and everywhere!
And for me, anyone can believe that he is a terrorist.
Jacobsen: What part can the ex-Muslim community play in the reformation of the faith and providing a safe way out for those trapped by religion and culture?
Al-Husseini: We are the reason for making many Muslims use the term moderate because of us. Because they don’t accept killing us, the non-believers or ex-Muslims! We know more from the inside.
Most of us know the Quran through its original language, in Arabic, which is the strongest translation of the Quran! And we know the ways of them, and will never be in these traps.
We showed and explained this. We can be part of a united Muslim front, who really want to help against the fundamentalists. And try it help our pal to be in the modern life, not stay there in the 7th century while we are in 21st.
Jacobsen: Insightful and cutting once again, my friend.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/20
Gabrielle Fahmy of CBC News reported on the inability of the Roman Catholic Church in New Brunswick to compensate sex abuse victims (2017).
Numerous Moncton archdiocesan priests were involved in sexual abuse cases, which is a liability for the finances of the church. In New Brunswick, based on reportage from the CBC, 56 lawsuits have been brought against the church.
There was a reconciliation process several years ago. Therefore, this number may be lower than it might have otherwise been in non-reconciliatory circumstances. Judge Michel Bastarache talked to victims between 2012 and 2014, privately.
109 victims were paid $10.6 million while the Bathurst diocese paid $5.5 million to 90 victims. The compensations ranged from $15,000 to $300,000.
The criteria were the age, extent, and severity of the sexual abuse within the archdiocese. Major cutbacks were inevitable for the church based on the multimillion-dollar expenses.
Moncton diocese staff were but from 19 to fewer than 10. Two were kept full-time. The rest were not full-time, even if kept on staff. The Dieppe diocesan center was sold. It was the home of the archbishop at the time.
With Bastarache, about 200 victims were given settlements based on abuse within the Roman Catholic Church within New Brunswick. Based on finances provided by Canada Revenue Agency, the Moncton archdiocese has been operating at a deficit for the past 2 to 4 years.
The church is now in confrontation with its insurance company saying that the insurance company should be paying for some of their compensation expenses to the sexual abuse victims.
The Archdiocese of Moncton is in a civil lawsuit, since 2015, with Co-Operators General insurance company, totaling $4.2 million. The insurers accuse the church of knowing about the abuse and doing nothing to stop it, while at the same time failing to inform the insurance company even after knowing about the ongoing sexual abuse within its church.
Other churches, such as those in the United States, have shut down before in the wake of sexual abuse victims coming forward and then being embroiled in lawsuits.
References
Fahmy, G. (2017, November 16). Catholic Church might be too broke to compensate sex abuse victims. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4402875.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/18
Diego Fontanive founded EOF. His background is in sociology, psychology, and critical thinking. Here we talk, briefly, about some of his background and work.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is your background, so people know where you’re coming from?
Diego Fontanive: I never had a religious background. Nevertheless, I grew up in Venice, Italy. The society there has a religious background, Catholic or Christian. My parents were not really religious. But they did send me to the church for a couple of years as a child because they said this would help with social skills.
I do have a background in sociology, psychology, critical thinking, and memetics or the study of memes.
Jacobsen: How did you become more involved with the skeptic movement in general?
Fontanive: I always struggled with the issue somehow. The acknowledgment of how people who are not really that and who can think decently critically can think these things. Even when they claim to be atheists or secular, or even skeptics, we do know critical thinking is an unnatural way to think.
We are biologically prone to be fallacious. Nonetheless, I think we should go beyond critical thinking and try to integrate methods of study such as the study of memes or memetics. This is what triggered me.
Also, I saw people who were people even supposedly trained in critical thinking didn’t actually apply that in their own lives. I think that was the main trigger for me. I grew up in a non-religious family, but throughout the five years in the primary school. I had a teacher. She was religious.
I used to question her a lot. She completely discharged and refused to approach my questions critically. That was probably the trigger. That instead of questioning beliefs that people would rather protect them. Even though, they know in the back of their minds that something is wrong with it.
To explain that in a superficial way, it is existential security. That was a trigger.
Jacobsen: How did this lead to the End of Fear Project or EOF?
Fontanive: I am no longer comfortable with the full name, so that is why we use EOF. End of Fear sounds a bit bombastic and can open the door to misunderstandings. We do distinguish between natural fears, biological ones, such as the fear of others and so to defend oneself and those that are irrational fears.
The thing is to end irrational fear such as fear of God. If Jesus, then the fear of Jesus not loving me anymore, or irrational conspiracy theories. We have a lot of irrational conspiracy theories. Even with the further crazy beliefs, we promote magical thinking.
This is the aim and mission and vision of the project, which is to try and erase irrational fears – true logical fallacy detection, understanding of memetics, and also what I call metamemetics which is the understanding of fallacious and conditioning memes.
Jacobsen: What would you recommend for others to gain a little grounding in skepticism?
Fontanive: I would recommend The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, which explains the relationship between genes and memes. The Selfish Gene explains quite beautifully how memetic evolution cares about its own replication and adaptation and doesn’t care about critical analysis of itself. I would say Richard Dawkins because of his approach.
I would recommend Susan Blackmore. I am not comfortable with Blackmore regarding her approach to spirituality. I believe spirituality is a meme. It doesn’t exist. We have no evidence of it. Spiritual experiences, we can call them merely highly emotional experiences. But I would definitely recommend Richard Dawkins.
Jacobsen: What projects are you going to engage with EOF and others, for yourself?
Fontanive: What I am working on now as a priority alongside initiatives, we are working one-on-one with other people. We have work with artificial intelligence. We are developing programs for high schools and universities, for students and teachers.
The programs are a combination of critical thinking, metacognition, and the understanding of memes. I have done, recently, a speech or lecture at the European Skeptics Congress in Poland. The talk was about metamemetic thinking and the possibility that skepticism could be a meme in terms of many people calling and thinking of themselves as skeptics.
But their priority, cognitively speaking, is to seek a sort of identitarian shelter. For the next 2-3 years, I want to undertake this project for education. It goes back to education.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Diego.
Fontanive: It was a pleasure.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/17
“As debate over religious schools continues in Canadian courts and legislatures, a new poll has found that 61 per cent of Canadians support full or partial public funding for faith-based schools.
The Angus Reid Institute survey found that 31 per cent of respondents believe religious schools should receive the same funding as public schools, while 30 per cent believe they should receive partial funding.
“For those who think that, given all the changes that have happened on the religious front, the days of support for religious schools are coming quickly to an end, I don’t think that’s true,” said Angus Reid, the institute’s founder and chairman. “I think there’s a bit of a line in the sand here.””
“The government is changing the rules around which employers can qualify for funding to hire students through the Canada Summer Jobs program to try and ensure that groups advocating against abortion rights or the equality of LGBTQ2 Canadians will not be able to get funding.
At the same time, the changes will seek to boost support for groups offering services and supports to the LGBTQ2 community as well as those offering opportunities to women in engineering and mathematics, Indigenous Canadians, immigrants and minority official language communities.
The change comes after a series of articles about Liberal and Conservative MPs approving tens of thousands of dollars in summer job grants to anti-abortion groups in their ridings during the 2016 program, despite the money being made available by a government that prominently branded itself as pro-choice.”
Source: https://globalnews.ca/news/3914528/canada-summer-jobs-anti-abortion-anti-gay-groups/.
“CRANBROOK, B.C. — Convicted polygamist Winston Blackmore believes Canada’s guarantee of religious freedom gives him the right to have multiple wives.
But it is the Constitution’s legal rights sections that may provide the strongest reason for a judge to stay his guilty verdict or exempt him from punishment.
The former bishop of the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful was found guilty in July of one count of polygamy along with James Oler, another former bishop.
On Wednesday, Blackmore’s lawyer argued in B.C. Supreme Court that his client was unfairly tried because the provincial government dithered for 25 years before charging him with a single count of polygamy for having two dozen wives.”
“Toronto billionaire and philanthropist couple Barry and Honey Sherman were found dead Friday, prompting politicians and prominent Canadians to express condolences and share memories on social media. Barry Sherman was the founder of generic drug giant Apotex.
“I am beyond words right now. My dear friends Barry and Honey Sherman have been found dead. Wonderful human beings, incredible philanthropists, great leaders in health care. A very, very sad day. Barry, Honey, rest in peace.” — Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins.
“Deeply shocked to learn of the deaths of Honey and Barry Sherman, such remarkable people. Grappling with this terrible news.” — former Ontario premier and former interim federal Liberal leader Bob Rae.”
“By now, many if not most will be well acquainted with the saga of Trinity Western University’s efforts to open a school of law, which would be the first religious (and private) law faculty in Canada.
Initially on track to open its doors in 2015, the university was forced to put its plans on hold following staunch opposition from the Law Societies of British Columbia and Upper Canada (i.e. Ontario) and the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, along with other prominent members of the legal profession.
The controversy concerns Trinity Western’s Community Covenant, a school-wide code of conduct which reflects traditional Christian teachings and practices. At issue is the relatively small section on sexual ethics, which calls on students to abstain from sexual intimacy outside of the Biblical model of marriage between one man and one woman. After significant internal debate, the aforementioned law societies all decided not to accredit the law school, insisting that the Community Covenant is contrary to the public interest since it discriminates against LGBTQ students. “
“Closing arguments in a B.C. Supreme Court case involving a man found guilty of marrying two dozen women are expected to be delivered today.
Winston Blackmore is a leader in the small community of Bountiful and was found guilty earlier this year of one count of polygamy after the court heard he had married 24 women, including three who were 15 years old at the time.
His lawyer Blaire Suffredine told the court yesterday that Blackmore didn’t believe he could be charged with polygamy because a provincial attorney general in the early 1990s issued a statement that said such a charge would breach a person’s charter rights.”
Source: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/closing-arguments-in-winston-blackmore-s-polygamy-trial-being-heard-1.3721459.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/17
ATLANTA, GEORGIA, Dec. 17, 2017 /INGSOC/ – The Ministry of Truth, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health and Human Services (HHS) branches, spoke on the recent work to protect the American citizenry and to help with funding.
Not to be listed here, so as to protect the reader from threatening words, dangerous thoughts, our ignorance is a strength after all. The CDC and HHS announced the ban in a public information release. The potential for a higher-order command from Emmanuel Goldstein for the banned words remains uncertain.
“I do not know if this came from the HHS or the CDC, but I assume this came from the HHS,” a former official of the CDC said, “as the HHS officials make the budget. Some words can confuse, even discombobulate, those with budgetary concerns. So, why use them?”
A current spokesperson for the Party commented, “Look at what happens on colleges and universities now, they want to restrict our freedoms. They are anti-Party. We of the Party are the real and true freedom of speech people, but not for thoughtcrimes.”
Some current CDC officials complained about pressures from the Inner Party since their instantiation after the revolution. But if Big Brother can’t watch your words and you in your place of work, why not simply watch yourself for Big Brother? Be the best representative, especially if involved in budgetary works.
Be prole, be free.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/15
Something of note: the Canadian Criminal Justice System opened for suggested reforms, “The Government of Canada is undertaking a broad review of Canada’s Criminal Justice System to ensure that it is just, compassionate and fair, and promotes a safe, peaceful and prosperous Canadian society” (Government of Canada, 2017).
It feels like a good opportunity for a Christmas present to the country from citizens. Five topic areas in the call for recommendations for the changes to it: victims’ experience, Indigenous over-representation, mental health and addictions, restorative justice, and court delays.
For means of involvement, the government set the number at four. An Online Choicebook, online discussions, Twitter townhalls, and email submissions for those with an interest in it. As a public consultation process for those with an interest in the possibility for slight reduction in long-term suffering of some citizens, here’s a chance, deadline: January 15, 2017.
One month.
References
Government of Canada. (2017, July 19). Justice Transformation. Retrieved from https://www.tcjs-tsjp.ca/en/?utm_source=paidtweet1EN&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=tcjs.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/15
How did you become involved in humanism? When was the moment, or series of moments, that eventually led into you becoming an open humanist?
In the early years of 2000 I became critical of religion, in the year 2000 when I started being skeptical about the natural world and things in it, was asking myself questions, asked religious people plus other people both in school and out of school and their answers to my queries did not satisfy me, so I became critical and curious of religion. Through my research online, I stumbled about humanists. Humanism/Atheism and Rationalism and since then I later joined organized humanism by creating in place a community based organization.
Was there a family background?
Yes, am from an Anglican back ground.
Is humanism demonized in Uganda, or an accepted minority philosophical and ethical worldview?
Humanism is demonized by religious zealots who want to paint a bad picture on humanism so that people can tag it and the majority remain believing that being religious is the only way to success, a great life which actually is not the case.
To some extend I think Humanism in Uganda is an accepted minority philosophical & ethical worldview.
You are the school director for Kasese Humanist Primary School. What tasks and responsibilities come with being the chairman for the Kasese Humanist Primary School?
My common tasks are:
Planning for the school
Identifying projects, lobbying for support and publicity of Kasese United Humanist Association & its associated schools.
Ensuring the workers are paid as an appreciation for their hardwork
Am also engaged in construction efforts of the schools and its sister projects.
Ensuring I coordinate the sponsored pupils with their sponsors and notifying them 3 times in a year about their progress.
When did this become a calling for you — teaching the young?
In 2010, I together with other colleagues and members of Kasese United Humanist Association, we thought it was a wise idea if we created a school and one year later we opened Kasese Humanist Primary School.
Kasese Humanist Primary School was only founded in 2011, which is a relatively short time ago, and is run by the Kasese United Humanist Association. It is a secular school grounded in science education. How does the Kasese Humanist Primary School differ from the majority of other primary schools in Uganda?
Humanist Schools and orphanages differ from religious schools in the ways below:
We teach religious education on comparative terms.
Our learners are encouraged to think for themselves and are given opportunity to think freely without any sort of commands.
We cherish evolutionary science other than creation science.
Our school welcomes learners from all religions, it matters less if one is religious or proclaimed non religious since we look at our schools as a center or source of knowledge and not a place of worship.
We have secular posters or messages on classroom walls or compounds.
We observe and celebrate secular days by holding celebrations, happy moments or memorial events.
There are no religious instructions or observance of religious tenets.
We do not indoctrinate our learners to any religion or belief system but what we do is to enlighten and allow our learners to be curious, explore and come up with their perceptions.
We do not perform rituals of any kind.
It has a number of clubs and teaches during the day to a limited number of students. Are there after-school programs to cater to other students?
Yes, we do have after school programs like: Running activities, computer lessons, vocational skills training, playing a key board, music dance and drama, weaving, knitting and gardening
Is the primary school in high demand, but can’t fill all of the potential slots based on a limited number of pupils being taught there?
Yes, there is a high demand for primary school education to accommodate learners,
Uganda has scores of children and the level of illiteracy is still high as some parents out of ignorance, poverty don’t know the value of education, some times we do force parents to keep their kids in school.
As well, there are 3 campuses now. So within 5/6 years, not even, the primary school developed up to three campuses. What were the honest failures and successes on the road to development of Kasese Humanist Primary School up to the present?
Kasese Humanist School has developed over the years from being a nursery & primary school and now has 3 campuses in a period of 6 years now. We earlier this year opened the Secondary Section. In spite of this we have had successes and failures quoted as below:
Challenges:
Misconceptions by locals who don’t know the meaning of Humanism or being a humanist, some locals tend to associate humanism to devil worshipping or satanic. The rumours are propelled by enemies of the schools mostly religious zealots and selfish locals who are enemies of development.
Salaries payment to the staffs sometimes delays or they get paid in bits due to poor collections as some parents pay in bits.
Disease out breaks is common among learners due to the living conditions in their homes. Poverty, ignorance remains a key factor affecting people here.
Successes:
Having our schools on permanent homes owned by ourselves.
All learning spaces have classrooms.
The Child Sponsorship scheme where more than 100 children schooling in our schools have sponsors who meet their tuition needs.
School’s potential to have in place income generating activities like the Bizoha Tractor, maize & cassava milling plant, land for rent etc.
My projects have got international attention and this has been possible because of my online presence which has exposed me to organizations and individuals who have helped much in boosting up my works financially, morally and materially.
What are some of the main campaigns and initiatives of the Kasese Humanist Primary School?
Promoting humanism
Encouraging debates
Comparative religion
Vocational skills training
Computer lessons
Gardening
Anti Witchcraft campaign
Eco huts & botanical gardens project for eco tourism & out door learning.
Letter Exchange & pen pal program
Child sponsorship program
Reading for Pleasure program
Running program by Kasese freethinkers academy
In general, what are the perennial threats to the practice of humanism in Uganda?
Religious bigots who do not understand humanism and what it entails end up making ignorant statements about it and misguide people.
Some school proprietors most of them in the religious circles may also smear a bad picture in an effort to smear our schools out of envy.
How can people get involved with the Kasese Humanist Primary School, sponsor a child, even donate to staff salaries?
You can help my work by sponsoring a child at any of my schools.
Volunteering in my projects as teachers, nurses or farmers
Spreading the message to friends, relatives and working colleagues about our innovations.
Donate finances or material to my initiatives.
Offer moral support, knowledge, advice to my projects.
Donate to staff salaries or even sponsor a classroom.
Any closing thoughts or feelings based on the discussion today?
I think Kasese Humanist Primary school and Kasese Humanist Secondary School is on the right track. Setting our schools on a science and humanist foundation is a good thing that other schools in Uganda or any part of the world could adopt.
It remains our core duty to enlighten people about who we are and what we stand for.
I am so grateful for this brief interview. I thank Jacobsen of Conatus News for this interview.
Yours in free thought,
Bwambale Robert Musubaho
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/11
George Ongere is the Director of the Center for Inquiry-Kenya, and a colleague and friend. Here we talk about atheism there.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How prevalent is atheism in Kenya?
George Ongere: Atheism is currently gaining popularity in Kenya. The media has gained interest at the rate through which young people are currently abandoning religion. In her article in the Daily Nations, which appeared on July 3rd 2013 with the title, The Rise of Atheism in Kenya, Vera Okeyo brought the stunning reality of how young people were abandoning religion and embracing Atheism. It became public trending rage and talk in the weeks that followed with religious personalities claiming that young people in the country were being misled to embrace unethical realities. Even though the article received negative comments condemning the young people who had abandoned religion, the article made three different hallmarks in Kenya. First, it introduced the term “Atheism” to the general public where Kenyans, even at the rural, came to the reality that there was an alternative life stance to religion, where people could live without believing in God and any supernatural entities. The importance of this popularization is that a good percentage of the population started to distinguish the term with other confusing ideologies like devil worshiping. They understood that Atheists did not believe in anything supernatural be it Satan, Witchcraft or God. Secondly, it gave rise to militant Atheism in Kenya. It gave courage to personalities like Harrison Mumia, the President of Atheist in Kenya, to start militant atheism in the media. Third, it popularized organized Atheism, where one of the organizations that got fame during that time was Freethinkers Initiative Kenya (FIKA) since it was featured in the article. Lastly, because of the interest of Atheism, live debates between religious people and Atheists started to be hosted live in the Kenyan televisions.
With the rise of technology where many young people can gain access to the internet and find reading materials that gives alternative view to religion, young people are embracing skepticism, humanism, Atheism and other radical ideologies that makes them non religious.
Jacobsen: What is the state of atheism in social life in Kenya?
Ongere: Atheism is still a life stance that is still looked at with suspicion in many Kenyan cultures and societies. Many people who have embraced atheism still fear to come out of the closet for fear of being dismissed by their relatives and friends. The challenge is the way religion has corrupted Kenyans to believe that it is the best model to all the realities. Religion has captured all institutions including marriage, family, work, and institutions of higher learning where most people socialize.
Whereas many people, even close relatives, might be aware an individual is an atheist, they might not be comfortable around the person. Particularly areas that challenge atheists who are still in their youth are relationships and dating. Most women tend to believe that people who subscribe to religion will make good husbands than those who are atheist. Particularly, marriages in Kenya still follow the traditional procedure where the parents play important roles in marriage, where they have to know the people engaged to their sons and daughters by doing background check. It means that people who do not believe in God might be trapped where the parents refuses their child to be married to someone who does not believe in God. Additionally, most Kenyans still believe that a perfect acceptable wedding is a religious one that includes a wedding presided over by religious personnel.
Nevertheless, young people in Kenya are trying to change the situation where religion does not influence relationships and friendship anymore. The social media have brought free flow of information where the youths get a lot of materials concerning atheism and they are starting to accept it as a reality. I am optimistic that religion will not be of much influence to them.
Jacobsen: For those in North American culture, or Canadian culture, what is something that they will not be likely to know about irreligion in Kenya?
Ongere: Most people in the west still have the belief that finding Atheists in Africa is fictional. “Africans are notoriously religious” a renown quote by John S. Mbiti, who was is an authority in Africa religion, believed that Africans will at no time abandon religion. The quote has shaped western scholarship and judgment about Africa religiosity such that they cannot imagine of some Africans living without religion. However, what most people in the west do not know is that scholars like Mbiti used short-sighted binoculars that could not see the future clearly. Mbiti did not know that technology could expose people in Africa, mostly the young to alternative views to religion. One of the best happenings in Kenya is that the Atheist movement is courageous and they have challenged some of the doctrines of religions, talked about separation of church and state, the removal of compulsory religious teaching in primary schools and they have also put the government to pressure to have then registered. The government refused to register the Atheist Movement in Kenya arguing that the group was unconstitutional since Kenya was founded on religious principles. The case is still in court where the movement has accused the attorney general and the head of register of society of denying them their fundamental rights of registration.
Jacobsen: How has Christianity hurt Kenyan citizens and the development of the country?
Ongere: In Kenya, people who subscribe to Christianity are the majority and are estimated to be about 84.4% and followed by Muslims who are about 9.7%, 2.4% to non religious people and the other remain to traditional African religions and others. Thus, Christian religion is dominant in the country thus most of the current cultures are influenced by Christian principles.
Christianity has hurt the country in many ways. To start with, the country is suffering from the HIV/ AIDS scourge. In the current times, about 1.6 million people are living with HIV and there are about 62, 000 new infections. In 2016 alone, about 36, 000 people died of AIDS related deaths. Moreover, about 64% of the adults infected were on antiretroviral drugs and about 65% of children were on antiretroviral treatment. In this way, the people diagnosed with the disease are amongst the vulnerable population that has been targeted by Christianity. There are many cases where Christian denominations have carried out healing crusades and advised these people to abandon taking antiretroviral drugs and this has contributed the many deaths that would have otherwise be living happily. Moreover, religion has brought about stigmatization of people with the disease. Mostly, most religious people believe that people who prostitute are the people who should have the disease. As such, many people would not come in the open and declare their status for fear of being discriminated. In this way, Christianity has thwarted the efforts to prolong the lives of HIV/ AIDS.
Moreover, Christian belief has made many poor people to be exploited through healing missions that involve trickery. The best case in Kenya was that of a re-known rich pastor of the Salvation Healing Ministry Victor Kanyari who was conning people by using trickery. Through radical journalism, the pastor was exposed of conning people by using magical tricks. Un ware, the followers of the church sold their properties to get such healings. There are many Christian denominations who still used these tricks to exploit their victims and driving them into poverty.
To add on, Child trafficking has been linked to many religious organizations. One of the prominent cases in Kenya was that of UK-Based Televangelist Gilbert Deya who was famous for the miracle babies. Deya claimed to give people miracle babies that were given by God to people. However, it was discovered that the Deya was in a network of a scheme that linked themselves with cartels that stole children in delivery rooms and trafficked them abroad. Currently, the preacher is in the toughest prison in Kenya; the Kamiti Maximum Prison.
It thus demonstrates how Christian religion as a belief does not help Kenya progress in any way.
Jacobsen: Has it helped develop in anyway?
Ongere: It would be biased to say that Christianity has not helped Kenya in any way. First, many great institutions of learning were launched in Kenya through Christianity. The missionaries in Kenya, who were in their mission to spread their religions, did many positive things to the places they were involved in. They even penetrated the rural areas and built schools that gave rural folks a chance to get educated and improve their lives. Moreover, religious institutions have also been involved in many social justice issues. They have helped the poor, orphans and built hospitals that have helped many Kenyans.
However, when looked deeply, even though Christianity brought help in Kenya, their motive behind such efforts discredits the assistance they brought to Africa. Christianity was a tool that was used to colonize Africans and they did not even intervene during the harsh rule that Kenyan underwent under the colonialists. The education and the help they brought were to tame Africans not to resist the subjugation that they were being put under. This was even captured by first Africa President and Desmond Tutu. They said, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land”. As such, it is inevitable that most Kenya would not be impressed much by such efforts.
Jacobsen: Where are some educational, political, and social-cultural initiatives on going to improve the knowledge about an acceptance of atheism in Kenya?
Ongere: Campus Activism, organizing of debates and workshops on topics of Atheism, science, reason, free inquiry and humanist values are some of the initiatives that are going on to promote the acceptance of atheism in Kenya. When I became the director of the Center for Inquiry in Kenya in the year 2007, Atheism was still strange to many people and the atheist movement had not even started actively in Kenya. I knew I had a big task to steer the development of skepticism and rationality at the institutions of higher learning and in the community using the youth organizations that I was involved with.
The first step was to start an On campus group at the University of Nairobi. I knew it was going to be a challenging task but with the help of CFI, I managed to hold the first workshop successfully in 2008 and the turn out amazed me. I noticed the youth were in dilemma about religion and wanted to find out if there were other alternatives. I invited speakers like Leo Igwe of Nigeria, Deo Sessitoleko of Uganda, and Betty Nasaka of Uganda. They were experienced by then and they help spread the humanist message to the groups I have formed at the campuses.
Moreover, we have also used humanism message to start social justice programs in the rural where irrational beliefs like religion and witchcraft have thwarted human progress. In the year 2012, we came with the Humanist Orphans Program. In the rural of Kisumu, we witnessed unreason that was threatening to gag the future of the young generation. Practices like wife inheritance were spreading HIV/ AIDS and the result was that many parents were dying leaving behind children who faced a bleak future. Moreover, religion was also contributing to this demise where instead of educating the people about taking Anti-retroviral drugs, they organized healing crusades and cheat the people that they had been healed. Thus, it made the people in the rural to rule out taking anti-retroviral drugs. With many orphans left behind without any means of survival, most of them went to the streets turning into prostitution and some went to become sex slaves. We believed that with the help we got from CFI Transnational, we could help save the situation. In this way, we started the Humanist Orphans Kenya a program that educates abandoned children; provide them with uniforms and other basic materials. Saving the future generation to lead better lives is one of the humanist messages we have passed across and this has helped in the acceptance of humanism in the village.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/11
Imam Shaikh Mohammad Tawhidi is an Australian Shi’i Muslim. He is an author, creationist, educator, preacher, researcher, and thinker. He has Iraqi origin and was born in Qum, Iran. Here we discuss Islam and atheism, and media representation and being silenced.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The first question: Why do you think you’re being targeted?
Imam Shaikh Mohammad Tawhidi: I’m being silenced because my following grew 45,000 in 3 months and the radical Islamists are complaining. I was receiving an average of 20k views for my videos and over 7k comments. Facebook didn’t even explain what’s going on.
Jacobsen: What is the main message of peace? What are the some of the more prominent reasons youth become radicalized?
Tawhidi: My message on Facebook was exposing extremism in Islamic books. And youth are being radicalized because of the lack of condemnation of terrorism by Mosque preachers
Jacobsen: What does Facebook need to do to be welcoming to you? There are anti-Israel and Anti-Jew pages. They are not shut down. Atheist Republic was shut down. The Council of Ex-Muslims of North America was shut down. Now, you are shut down. What does this mean for atheists, and those that left the faith and are ordinary reformers within the faith?
Tawhidi: I was not made by Facebook. Therefore, my Facebook page being shut down doesn’t slow me down, but it’s affecting my audience who were on my page daily and it’s hurting their feelings
Jacobsen: Why do you think atheist pages are taken down? Do you think atheists and peaceful Muslim s can unite against those trying to silence them and take them down?
Tawhidi: Yes, I have been calling for all Peaceful Muslims to unite with the West against Islamic radicals from their own faith.
Jacobsen: What have been effective tactics and communication channels – outside of Facebook – to get the message of unification against Islamic radicals out to the public?
Tawhidi: Gab, minds.com, Twitter, and national media
Jacobsen: What do you think of those trying to silence you?
Tawhidi: They’re giving aid to radicals and slowing down the message of peace
Jacobsen: Even with their feelings hurt, and while the Facebook is down now – while you were a paying customer for promotions, where can people get in touch with you?
Tawhidi: Twitter: @imamofpeace.
Jacobsen: You have become big in the media, lately. Why do you think your message is resonating?
Tawhidi: Because people are attracted to the truth.
Jacobsen: Who are other, secular and religious, exemplars who are telling the truth?
Tawhidi: And they’re realizing much of the attacks against me are not true. Many people are doing what they can but none of them are being censored like me
Jacobsen: What about the issue of fake reformers? What can be done about them? How can the West best help?
Tawhidi: Fake reformers are everywhere I have written an entire article about it on the Huffington Post.
Jacobsen: Why can’t people who disagree come and argue with you, rather than simply silence you?
Tawhidi: I have invited the Australian National Imams Council for a debate, however, there has been deafening silence from their behalf.
Jacobsen: Atheist Republic and Council of Ex-Muslims of North America were shut down too. You are a Muslim page. Why were you shut down now? What does this portend since this extends from the ex-Muslim and atheist community to the ordinary, peaceful Muslim community – through at least one of its leaders: you?
Tawhidi: It seems to me that Facebook does not want any voices opposing their agenda.
Jacobsen: What are the common tactics of the Islamic radicals?
Tawhidi: Mass reporting of pages they disagree with, and in return, Facebook’s Automated system shuts down the page and blocks the administrative accounts from posting.
Jacobsen: Who are personal heroes or heroines for you?
Tawhidi: Imam Hussain.
Jacobsen: What are your favourite verses in the Quran?
Tawhidi: “And we created you as nations and tribes so that you may get to know one another. Verily the most honorable amongst you is the most pious”.
Jacobsen: What do the Islamic radicals most often use to justify their ideology and actions?
Tawhidi: The corrupt teachings of Sahih Bukhari
Jacobsen: Why can’t people who disagree come and argue with you, rather than simply silence you?
Tawhidi: Because I know their arguments and how to invalidate them.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Tawhidi: The dawn of freedom is near.
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Imam Tawhidi.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/08
This morning, I reflected on belief in Canada over coffee. In particular, belief in the ‘other worldly’. Where, in John von Neumann’s (Poundstone, 2015) terms, propositions, as these describe the world, about material things or abstract objects, come in three states — yes, no, or maybe — based on the question, for instance, “Does X exist?” Yes, X exists; no, X does not exist; or, maybe, X might exist. Where the other worldly exists, does not exist, or might exist, most seem contained in the lattermost categorization.
So, “Does Apollo (or Cthulhu, or Ahura Mazda) exist?” The technical categorization remains: possible, or “maybe.” For all intents and purposes, most humanists will choose, “No.” The former as a technical, logical selection; the latter as a functional, utilitarian selection. Both work in context. In surveys of belief, Canadians, a little under half at 47%, believe in ghosts (Ipsos Reid, 2006).
If reduced to 30,000,000 for the total Canadian population, that means ~15,000,000 Canadians believe in ghosts, in the other worldly, in the supernatural. Many small towns will host ghost, haunted house, and cemetery tours with scant, or no, evidence for the claims. At the same time, the revenue from these tourist activities might prevent, whether passive or active, appropriate investigation into the evidentiary basis of the claims to the ghosts, the hauntings of the house, or the spirit-wanderings of the cemeteries. Some might think, “Why ruin business?” Indeed.
If the percentage of the Canadian population from the survey, and other surveys and other beliefs parallel this finding about ghosts, then many Canadians, in spite of functional living in numerous areas of life — work, school, paying taxes, raising kids, being neighbourly, and so on, live in a world of other worldliness, of the supernatural, of the magical-mystical. Many Canadians aren’t living in the natural world, in their minds’ eyes. They live in a world of magic.
Maybe, it feels cozier.
But what about the serious implications for the reality of death? To return to the libretto, the belief in ghosts seems, at first evaluation, in denial of death. Death as, not necessarily but “for all intents and purposes,” final. The dead are gone, and aren’t coming back — as most humanists would, likely, say, “…for all intents and purposes.” I am reminded of Ezra Pound (Stock, 2017). Who in his Cantos, when speaking of the “Gods,” stated:
“The Gods have not returned. ‘They have never left us.’
They have not returned.” (Pound, n.d.)
For all intents and purposes… ’The dead have not returned. ‘They have never left us.’ They have not returned.’
References
Ipsos Reid. (2006, October 25). Do You Believe In Ghosts? Almost Half (47%) Of Canadians Say They Do. Retrieved from http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/do-you-believe-in-ghosts-almost-half-47-of-canadians-say-they-do-618230.htm.
Pound, E. (n.d.). Cantos CXIII. Retrieved from http://voetica.com/voetica.php?collection=1&poet=34&poem=1736.
Poundstone, W. (2015, December 8). John von Neumann. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-von-Neumann.
Stock, N. (2017, January 12). Ezra Pound. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ezra-Pound.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/01
Bamidele Adeneye is a friend from Nigeria. Here he, kindly, recounts threats to life: his.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You have had threats to your life. What have they been, my friend?
Bamidele Adeneye: Well, it all started in 2014 when I had a video interview challenging miracle healers and pastors in my country, Nigeria. I didn’t even know the video would be aired on TV. Then the calls started coming in. I even noticed that friends and people I did business with started avoiding me.
Then I had to rescue a gentleman from death in Kano because he denounced Islam and his family were going to hurt him. That made me famous to not just Christians but Muslims as the face of atheism in Nigeria. My phone number was listed on my social media account and I guess that’s where they got my number from. I would receive calls from strangers saying things like they were going to kill me.
Online messages promising to “show” me. It was a very disturbing experience. I became paranoid because it’s Nigeria. I am surrounded by people who see me as an agent of the devil, even relatives. I lost friends as well. Because of the situation, I had to change my daughter’s school. My sister’s who live abroad are always worried because they are the threats online and even get told by people they know to earn me that I should be careful.
Jacobsen: Can you recall some examples?
Adeneye: There are quite a number of them. I was as recently as July physically attacked by a group of strangers while I was trying to get back to my car. They called my social media name and when I mistakenly answered, I was attacked. They kept saying I’m the agent of the devil all the while they were beating on me. I had to escape. I was so afraid.
Calls at odd times of the day from hidden numbers issuing threats, promising attacks on me and my family. I had to get dogs to protect my home at some point before I later decided to move them to a sage location. It became difficult to live as a family as we couldn’t go out together in public anymore. We spent our holidays at home most of the time because I was afraid of potential attacks on us.
Jacobsen: You are traveling. Are these threats part of the reason for the travels?
Adeneye: Definitely. It became necessary to stay away from my home and my family. I took long breaks away from home for peace of mind. I had to create a space between myself and my loved ones for security reasons. My younger brother who looks exactly like me has been targeted as well. He had to deactivate his social media account because of backlash from people who thought he was me.
Jacobsen: What countries did you visit? What did you expect in terms of the social and cultural aspects of religion entering in these countries? What was the actual experience there?
Adeneye: I took trips to the UK to see my family and friends. It felt normal being an unbeliever there. I also went to the USA where I met those who were exactly like the ones back home. Although, unlike Nigeria where you’re judged even at work by your religious beliefs or otherwise, you’re protected by law somewhat by the law in the USA. I’m planning to visit Canada to are what it truly means to live in a liberal secular state.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Bamidele.
Adeneye: You’re welcome, Scott.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/12/01
Humanism is universal creed, and deed. A life taught and lived in one breath, and step, for all people. Whether in the lonely, snowy white-capped North of Canada in North America or in Nigeria on the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, human beings live, eat, work, educate kids, raise families, and build communities around ideas.
Those ideas form the base for mutual solidarity, sympathy, and pursuit of cooperative endeavours.
In Lagos, Nigeria, humanism is probably unknown to most Nigerian citizens — except, maybe, to members of the Humanist Assembly of Lagos and others like it. In that spirit, we think humanism has unique applications to Lagos. Here’s how and why.
Bamidele grew up in a society viewed from the perspective of two Abrahamic religions, namely Christianity and Islam. Many ascribe their actions and interactions to faith. Most Nigerians have religious upbringings. So Abrahamic religion is the main lens for perspective on the world in Nigeria. That is, most Nigerians see the world with religious-tinted glasses.
Lagos is a bustling city; it is sleepless. A busy urban area, where acts of kindness are rare. If they happen to a Nigerian, they are taken for granted because life is so on-the-go all of the time. Everyone is working in their daily, weekly, and monthly hustle in the bustle. How can you be humanistic when you are busy and trying to get ahead of others?
Take, for example, the daily routine for many Nigerians in Lagos trying to build their professional profile. The day starts early at 5am. There’s no time to even say, “Hello, good morning. How are you?” These kind gestures are ignored. Unless, of course, you are reminded by the ‘Word of God’ when you read from the daily devotional. Even though, it does not say it explicitly.
You feel compelled to be kind to your neighbor, to empathize with others, to do the right thing, and so on. In essence, you are being a humanist effortlessly and without knowing it. Your moral values are purported to be derived from Christianity and Islam, both with promising rewards — for those who behave good, and threatening punishment, for those who behave bad.
This is a misconception. Humanism implies the good and bad stem from us. Humanism is an intricate part of our being, inherent in us as long as we are of sound and healthy mind. Happily, most of us are good most of the time.
So, what is Humanism to the average Nigerian? The International Humanist and Ethical Union states:
Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance that affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. Humanism stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethics based on human and other natural values in a spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. Humanism is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.
This aptly describes everyday acts people engage in readily, acts of kindness, of concern for others…UBUNTU!
In Lagos, there are countless instances of people helping accident victims and those in need, giving food and shelter to the hungry and the homeless, and lending a helping hand without regard for where the person being helped is from or what the person worships. These are all acts of humanism in Lagos. The city of hustle and bustle, and busy people taking their time to act with compassion, consideration, and kindness.
Similar to the anchor to normal human compassion and kindness religious texts and services can be for ordinary Nigerian citizens in Lagos, the Humanist Assembly in Lagos and other humanist organizations — and their teachings, values, and community — perform the same function without, by necessity, reference to the transcendent.
Except for the secular, who value freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience, and belief, it does not necessarily have to come from the divine. It can come, simply, from Nigerians. Besides, in its own way, moment-to-moment compassion has its own transcendence.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/27
Members of The Clergy Project were featured in the documentary film called Losing Our Religion. It was shown October 13th and 14th at the Carlton Theatre in downtown Toronto. The documentary was made by Leslea Mair and Leif Kaldor, who come from Zoot Pictures.
Other prominent individuals in the film are Katherine Dunphy, Linda LaScola, Daniel Dennett, Dan Barker, and Phil Zuckerman. Several other prominent individuals within the formal irreligious community appear in the film.
As a feature-length documentary, it is about preachers who are no longer religious believers. The Clergy Project has about 600 members. With the documentary film, this is an exploration of some of their stories. For many people, the loss of faith can mean the loss of family, community, work, income, and hope and meaning from the belief in a hereafter.
Without these life assurances, life can become difficult, uncertain, and even shatter the individual preacher, where even the support from a regular traumatic life event can be taken away, such as job security, and family and community.
This raises personal questions, such as, “How do I make a living? Will I have contact with my family at all? Where can I find meaning in life? Can I even find another community?” Or simply, “What do I do?” These are important questions that arise in the context of losing one’s faith as a leader in the community, potentially.
Now, there are even experiments with communities that have a form of religions and religious ceremony without having the supernatural tenets and beliefs associated with them, including the secular churches, Sunday Assemblies, the Oasis Network, and others.
There will be another showing at 12250 SW Denney Rd in the Southminster Presbyterian Church Church in Beaverton, Oregon. This will be on November 30 at 7:30 PM, which is a Thursday.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/26
“Most Canadians respect religion, believe it is relevant and think it benefits society, according to a new Angus Reid Institute poll.
But despite those positive findings, religious freedom expert Andrew Bennett is worried about Canada’s acceptance of religion and religious diversity.
“My fear is that increasingly the public square is becoming this gated community, where the only people who can inhabit it are those who adhere to this new type of secular orthodoxy,” Bennett told The Catholic Register.“”
“Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board did not infringe on a Hamilton father’s religious freedom, Ontario’s appeal court ruled last Wednesday.Steve Tourloukis, a father with two children in the public school system and a Greek Orthodox Christian, filed for appeal after the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the school doesn’t have to give him advance notice before discussions of sex, marriage or family happens in the classroom.
Justice Robert J. Sharpe, who dismissed Tourloukis’s appeal, wrote in his ruling the “central and fatal shortcoming” in his case was “the lack of any concrete evidence of interference with his right to religious freedom.””
“A new national survey shows Canadians are divided about the role religion should play in government and societal affairs.In an Angus Reid Institute survey, more respondents said religion is good for society or does more good than bad (38%) than those saying it’s bad or does more harm than good (14%). However, some 48% were equivocal saying it represents a mix of good and bad.
However another question showed that a majority felt that religion should have little to no influence on public life.””
Source: http://www.rcinet.ca/en/2017/11/20/religion-and-its-place-in-canadian-public-life/.
“When it comes to the way Canadians perceive various religions as either benefiting or damaging Canadian society, Judaism is seen in more or less the same way as mainstream Christian faiths – and far removed from Islam.
Twenty per cent of Canadians see Judaism as providing benefits to Canada or Canadian society, according to a new national survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute (ARI), in conjunction with Faith in Canada 150. At the same time, 35 per cent of those polled said the presence of Catholicism benefited Canada, with 26 per cent saying the same about Protestantism and 24 per cent about evangelical Christianity.
However, when it came to evaluating whether faith groups cause damage to Canada or Canadian society, only 12 per cent said that about Judaism, 17 per cent said it about Catholicism, nine per cent about Protestantism and 21 per cent about evangelical Christianity. A remarkable 46 per cent, however, said that Islam was damaging to Canada or Canadian society, while 13 per cent said it benefited Canada.”
Source: http://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/one-five-canadians-see-judaism-benefiting-canada-study.
“Recently, Julie Payette, the new Governor General of Canada, created a minor furor when she addressed the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Ottawa. She praised scientific progress and achievement and castigated those who clung to pernicious and outmoded ideas, including militant religious fundamentalism.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his book “The Great Partnership, Science Religion and the Search for Meaning,” maintains that religions work best when they are open and accountable to the world. When they develop into closed systems and sectarian modes of community, when they place great weight on the afterlife or divine intervention into history, expecting the end of time in the midst of time, then they can become profoundly dangerous. For there is then nothing to check their descent into fantasy, paranoia and violence.
We need a vigorous, challenging dialogue between religion and science on the massive problems confronting humanity. Each needs the other if it is to avoid hubris and intellectual imperialism. Bad things happen when religion creates devastation and cruelty on earth for the sake of salvation in heaven. And bad things happen when science declares itself the last word on the human condition and engages in social or bioengineering, treating human beings as objects.”
Source: https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/7961943-science-religion-do-go-hand-in-hand/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/26
Monica Miller is Senior Counsel for the American Humanist Association in the Appignani Humanist Legal Center. Here we have a chat, enjoy.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was family background – geography, culture, language, religion/irreligion, and education?
Monica Miller: I grew up in a non-religious household in Northern California. My mom is “spiritual” but not tied to any denomination and my dad is generally agnostic. That said, my sister and I were put in a nearby Catholic school (a beautiful school in Sleepy Hollow, Marin) from pre-K through eighth grade, which I started to resent around middle school but am now grateful for the experience, as I think it helped shape my atheist views. My parents agreed to let me go to a public high school. I took an elective course at our community college on world religions and it was there I discovered I was definitely an atheist. It wasn’t until college I learned about humanism.
Jacobsen: Graduating from Pitzer College in 2008, and from Columbia University in 2009 with a MPA in environmental science and policy, and cum laude from Vermont Law School (2012). What have been the personal and professional benefits from this in work advancing humanism?
Miller: Humanism teaches that we must use science and reason to solve our world’s problems. I’ve always been an animal rights advocate (deciding to go vegetarian by third grade) and now I work for the only civil rights organization in the country that is using litigation to secure legal rights for nonhuman animals (rather than animal welfare). (The Nonhuman Rights Project). I’m fortunate to be able to work for both the NhRP and the AHA. During my senior year at Pitzer College, I took a first-in-its-kind course, “Sociology of Secularism,” taught by Phil Zuckerman. Now Pitzer has created an entire Secularism Studies program. Through that course, I learned more about humanism and issues concerning separation-of-church-and-state. Then at Vermont Law School, I started my own Secular Legal Society student group. I later discovered American Humanist Association and my career took off!
Jacobsen: What are perennial issues and battlegrounds to maintain a solid line between church and state, or any other religious institution and state?
Miller: The most common church-state-separation violations we encounter are government religious displays (the cross, nativity scenes, Ten Commandments), and school prayers.
Jacobsen: What have been more recent, difficult battles?
Miller: The most recent battles I’ve been fighting have been over two giant government Christian cross displays, one in Pensacola, Florida and one in Bladensburg, Maryland. The Florida District Court ruled in our favor, and ordered that the cross be removed. The City has appealed the decision to the Eleventh Circuit. In the Maryland case, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals also ruled in our favor, and the county is talking about trying to take the case to the Supreme Court. I do not believe they’ll be successful, as the federal courts have been virtually unanimous in finding government cross displays unconstitutional. I also recently filed a petition for certiorari in the Supreme Court asking it to take our case challenging school prayers in Texas.
Jacobsen: Women’s rights, especially reproductive rights, in America are under direct, and indirect, attack. How can grassroots activists, and legal professionals, fight to maintain those new and fragile rights from the historic norm of religious violations of women’s bodies?
Miller: From a legal standpoint, we support the efforts of Planned Parenthood and stand ready to file or co-sign friend-of-court (amicus) briefs in their cases. So far, we haven’t had to get involved but are prepared to do so. And obviously, we (AHA), joined the Women’s March last January. Grassroots activists can also support the AHA’s Feminist Humanist Alliance. The Feminist Humanist Alliance is a multi-issue movement powered by and for women, transpeople, and genderqueer people to fight for social justice.
Jacobsen: What are non-humans are non-human rights applied to most often? How can people get involved, even donate to, organizations and individuals fighting for their rights?
Miller: Right now, at least in our country, nonhuman animals have no rights. Despite the commonly used term “animal rights,” animals are considered mere “things” under the law and are therefore not considered rights-bearers. At the Nonhuman Rights Project, we are trying to change this, at least for autonomous animals (such as chimpanzees, orcas, and elephants). You can support our work here: https://secure.everyaction.com/w968uwjsAUK2ommJxs0LHg2 and learn more about our work here: https://www.nonhumanrights.org/who-we-are/
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Miller: Thank you for the interview!
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time today, Monica.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/24
Janet French is a Reporter for the Edmonton Journal. Here we talk about Catholic education and the sex ed curriculum.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did they currently come to the controversy in sex ed? What is some of the history of it?
Janet French: It was in Spring or early Summer of 2016 that the Government of Alberta announced a complete overhaul of the K-12 curriculum. It was the first of its kind in Alberta. Curriculum in the past has been piecemeal, “Now, we’re going to redo social studies.” It would be done in isolation from other topics. They would rewrite all of social studies K through 12.
Another interesting element is that it in different languages at different times. There is also a Francophone element. They would do social studies, implement it, and then do the Francophone version. I think many Francophone people felt there was not a lot of Francophone input into the system.
Now, they are putting Francophone in the rewrite as well as including a lot of Indigenous people in. There are people from Nunavut and the Northwest Territories too because many people use the curriculums from Alberta in their curricula.
There are either 6 or 8 broad subject areas about this, like math, social studies, English, French, sciences, and the health and wellness, which is where the sex ed comes in. In Alberta, most of the sex ed comes between grade 4 and grade 9.
In high school, there is a course called CALM 20. it stands for Carrer and Life Management. It has been around forever. I am old. You can take it any year in high school. it covers just like it sounds, career and life management. It teaches you to apply for a job and to get a resume done. Then it teaches sex ed.
Jacobsen: At present, there has been some mild back-and-forth within the news about a proposed alternative sex education curriculum. What have been some of the proposed additions or changes by the Catholic superintendents?
French: What is weird about this is that we don’t know what’s going to be in the curriculum yet, I am going to talk a little technical about curriculum writing. There seems to be some general public misunderstanding about what it takes for a curriculum.
They had these huge teams, like 300 and something, even 400 sometimes, mostly volunteers such as teachers and professors spending their own hours on this as well as people employed by Alberta Education.
They work on those 6 or 8 areas depending on who you talk to. They depend on who you talk to. They have written something called an introduction, which is – “What do we want to cover in each grade or each subject?” – the Scope and Sequence. They are very, very broad and high level.
They are almost like themes that they want to touch on. I haven’t looked at the health one. The one in Alberta that has been the one of the most debated has been the social studies one and people argue if there is enough history in it. Same with the math one about serving kids well.
We didn’t hear much about the sex education or the wellness one. back in April or May of 2016, when Alberta Education Minister David Eggen introduced this idea of a curriculum rewrite, he said, ‘One of the elements will be teaching consent.’ Updated sex ed would be part of it, already, if you were a private religious school board or Catholic school board, you would be asking if this would be like Ontario’s. it was revealed in 2015.
It has been very controversial. many parents pull their kids out of public schools as a result of it because they didn’t want their kids learning some of the outcomes, There were rumblings or rumors about this being a problem.
So, I heard in June. There was a small organization called Accessing Information Not Myths. They put out a press release in June saying, “We’re hearing that the Catholic school boards want to run their own curriculum.”
But they didn’t have a lot of evidence. There were rumors. They were reading into things that were in annual reports and newsletters from various Catholic education groups. There wasn’t a lot of solid evidence.
I emailed the president of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association and said, “Is there any truth to this? I talked to the Ministry of Education. it looks like you’re submitting something that is parallel and would replace what would be in the new health curriculum.”
She said, “No, we’re just writing resources. Basically, documents that help the teachers teach the curricular outcomes. Those exist right now for the current sex ed curriculum. But then, I filed a Freedom of Information request because I wasn’t sure who was telling the truth.
What I got back was a series of documents that you can see on the website, what I got back you can see on our website, there was a bit of a back and forth between the Council of Catholic Superintendents of Alberta, which is, like it sounds, the superintendents who work at the different Catholic school districts across the province.
Also, people who work for the Ministry of Education. What they did was apply for a grant, I don’t have the documents at home with me. It says to write a parallel sex education curriculum that is from a Catholic perspective.
The Deputy Minister wrote back in March and said, ‘Sorry, no sorry, we don’t pay for religious education. That is in your wheelhouse. There are other resources you can draw on nationally to write religious curriculum. That is not our job.’
When I interviewed Karl Germann from the CCSSA, he said, ‘We’re going ahead with it anyway.’ I said, ‘How are you going to pay for that if you need $66,000?’ He said they will be using time from people who are already employed in various Catholic school districts.
Doing it in a way in Grand Prairie, where he works, taking somebody who doesn’t work in a classroom, so they don’t have to pay for a substitute teacher, so it is more cost-effective for them. What they wanted to do was to second some teachers outside of the classroom to have them be able to work on the curriculum.
The next thing they wrote, which seems to be causing a lot of tension or debate, is that they sent in this document, and they say Alberta Education requested this information, but this did not turn up in my FOI.
I didn’t have an email that said, “Send us all your concerns.” I don’t know that for sure. That’s what they were saying. That they were asked to explain what their concerns were about the upcoming sex ed curriculum. That’s where they went through the listing, ‘Okay, here is our subject headings that concern us.’
‘Consent: We don’t think consent should be the minimum bar for having a sexual relationship with somebody. It should be consent but within the context of a marriage.’
‘We can teach about different kinds of contraception, but we can’t promote contraception.’ Then there are certain things they say they can’t teach at all, ‘We can’t promote a homosexual lifestyle.’ Yes, they used the word “homosexual.”
‘People experience same-sex inclinations, but they would have to be taught that the Church’s teaching is that they should live a life of chastity or I guess abstinence. Some other things that they touched on were that they didn’t want to teach about anal or oral sex because in their belief the Catholic teaching is you should have sex to make babies and that doesn’t make babies.
There was a section that talked about ‘sexualization of girls (and boys).’ It is interesting that boys are an afterthought in that discussion.
Jacobsen: I am piecing together some of the narratives from some of the things noted in the response, so if I can relay some of the things that you said with regards to the changes. They would view the regular sex education proposal as promoting certain things rather than simply teaching them.
French: That’s what they’re concerned about. Yes, they’re saying there are certain things they can teach. And they don’t go into much detail about how they would teach or how much detail they would teach it into, but it is saying, ‘We can teach about what different kinds fo contraception do, but we can’t promote it because the Church does not smile upon it.’
One thing they say they will flat out not teach it. The language in the document is very closed off to the idea of what they call “modern gender theory.” They say, ‘God’s Plan or vision is that your biological sex matches your gender identity. Full stop. We can’t promote anything that would teach biological sex as different from gender identity.
Jacobsen: So, the idea would be the promotion or teaching of a lifestyle of abstinence, sex only within a marriage, non-promotion of homosexuality (gay, lesbian, or bisexual), as well as rejection of more modern gender theory with a preference, in other words a full stop strong preference, for ‘God’s Providence’ – so to speak – or ‘God’s Plan’ with biological sex and gender being one and the same.
French: Yes. It all has to be discussed within the appropriateness of a marriage between a man and a woman. That phrasing was in there repeatedly. There are ideas about contraception: ‘We believe that when you have sex it is full giving and you are not fully giving of yourself if you are holding back the life making portion of it.
Jacobsen: What has been proposed as some of the next steps in terms of the conversation between the Government of Alberta, the Catholic education schooling system within the province, as well as the regular school system?
French: So, what happened was, after I interviewed Karl from the CCSSA (he’s the president), he said that they were concerned about the Ontario sex ed curriculum. This document outlining all of their areas of concerns, which was a proactive outreach step to say, “When you write your learning outcomes (what you have to teach), they want to be as vague as possible to be able to teach it from their perspective.”
It would have an influence not only on what Catholic students learn but on what all Alberta students learn no matter where they went to school. Education Minister David Eggen said, ‘This document is unacceptable. Schools are not going to teach that being gay is wrong or that God has a moral judgment about it.
The problem is the Catholic superintendents haven’t put out their alternative sex education plan. That hasn’t happened yet. They say that’s going to happen sometime in November. The health and wellness committee or the working group working on the provincial curriculum haven’t written their outcomes explaining what they think students should learn.
We probably won’t see that until Spring. Karl said that in his conversations with the Ministry, not the Minister but the people who work in the government such as the civil servants said this is not going to be a big problem.
We’re not going to have a big conflict here. But when I hear the Minister and the Premier talk about how their perspective is not acceptable, I do not see how that can be the case. They’re probably going to butt heads about this for a while.
I imagine there are a lot of conversations happening behind the scenes after all of the attention that this got.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Janet.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/22
Of the perennial ethical precepts in the world, the Golden Rule stands ‘head and shoulders’ above the others in terms of durability and consistency across time and culture, respectively. Religious institutions, formal or informal, preach the ethic. Secular ethical frameworks advocate for it, too. Right into the present, it is presented as an ideal. Maybe, it is unattainable, but the ethics hold sway in religious and secular moral universes.
So the Golden Rule in the modern context remains consistent with the proclaimed ideal of the religious ethical worldviews and the international equivalent with human rights. Human rights are not equivalent to, but overlap significantly with, women’s rights: do as you would be done by. So if one was a woman, and required appropriate medical attention for reproductive health, and the technology was available and funded, then the moral act would be to provide the access to the medical services because another would want the same. This is consistent with ‘middle-of-the-road’ human rights organizations as well.
“…equitable access to safe abortion services is first and foremost a human right.” Human Rights Watch has affirmed, “Where abortion is safe and legal, no one is forced to have one. Where abortion is illegal and unsafe, women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term or suffer serious health consequences and even death.” Research shows that many pregnant women, desperate in their situation and without access to safe abortion, will undergo dangerous procedures, risking harm unto themselves.
The Golden Rule should compel us to act in accordance with our better natures and provide the “equitable access to safe abortion” for women. Governments pressured by religious groups, whose leadership are made up primarily of men, like the Trump Administration, have posed a direct threat to this affirmation. Take, for instance, the Executive Order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on his very first day in office, notably surrounded by a group of men.
The “Global Gag Rule” as it is commonly referred to prohibits NGOs from providing abortions or even providing information or services (counseling, referrals) about abortions if they want to receive funding from the U.S. for family planning. The U.S. has an undisputed powerful global influence, and with this executive order, countless women around the world will undoubtedly be negatively affected.
According to Forbes, “The U.S. hasn’t allowed use of federal funds for abortion since the 1973 Helms Amendment, [applied] internationally as well as domestically. In fact, gag rules that harm women are already widespread in the U.S. under the guise of ‘religious freedom.’”
“There is no evidence that the global gag rule reduces abortion, according to Wendy Turnbull, PAI [Unparalleled Leadership and Impact] senior advisor.” Forbes said, “Instead, loss of funding from this punitive regulation eliminates access to contraceptives for more than 225 million women globally, greatly increasing the need for abortion. It also increases pregnancy-related deaths by about 289,000. How is that ‘pro-life?’”
Exactly whose life is valued and to what extent? Why must the compassion for an unborn fetus ring louder than that for the child that is born into poverty and for the mother and the state who is forced to shoulder that burden?
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/20
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Based on research, $1.25 to $1.6 billion could be saved if we have a single public school system based on two languages. But we continue to have a separate Catholic school system. It is expensive to have a religious separate school system. How is this prejudiced against the non-Catholic majority of the Canadian population?
Reva Landau: Education is generally a provincial responsibility in Canada, and you have to talk about provinces, not Canada. Only three provinces, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta give public funding to separate schools. Some provinces such as New Brunswick, give no public funding to any private schools, including religious schools. This does not discriminate against the non-Catholic population in their province. Other provinces, such as Quebec, have a non-denominational public school system, and fund any other schools that meet certain criteria (including non-religious schools) at a lesser rate. This also does not discriminate against the non-Catholic population of these provinces [though personally I prefer public funding of only one public non-denomination (two-language) system]. Alberta and Saskatchewan fund separate Catholic schools at a comparable level to public schools but also fund other schools that meet certain criteria (including non-religious schools) at a lesser level. This discriminates against non-Catholics to some extent. I will speak only about Ontario because that is the only province on which I have done extensive research and its discrimination is the most egregious.
Only Ontario fully funds Catholic separate schools at the same, or a greater rate, than they fund the public non-denominational school system, and does not fund any other religious or philosophical school system at all. This discriminates against the non-Catholic population in several ways. Parents who want their child to have an Anglican, Baptist, Buddhist, atheist, etc. education have to pay for their schooling entirely out of their own pocket, as well as pay through residential property and other taxes for a publicly-funded school system they do not use.
If Ontario separate schools were paid for entirely through the residential property taxes of separate school supporters (which they are not), it would still be unfair because non-Catholics who want their child to have a particular religious (or humanitarian, etc.) education have to pay residential property taxes to the public school system and pay for their child’s schooling themselves. But in fact only less than 8% of the operational and capital funding for Catholic separate schools comes from the residential property taxes of separate school supporters.
About 72% comes from general provincial revenues, that is from the taxes of all, Catholic or non-Catholic, religious or non-religious. About 15% comes from the property taxes of businesses (they cannot control where their taxes go) and 5% from other sources. So non-Catholics are being forced to fund a particular religious system with whose policies on, for example, abortion or the right of gays to marry, they might not agree.
The current Ontario system also discriminates against non-Catholics because of the separate school system, for several reasons, receives more in funding from general revenues per student, than the public school system so funding the separate school system is costing non-Catholics more in taxes than if we had only one public non-denominational school system.
The current Ontario system discriminates against non-Catholic parents because Catholics, as of right, can send their child to a separate school or a public school. Non-Catholics at the elementary school level, can ask for their child to go to a separate school (because it is closer, or newer, etc.) but they do not have the right to send their child. Many non-Catholic parents would not want their child to go to a separate school even if it was closer, and no parent should have to choose between their child going to a school nearer them or their child having a non-denominational public school education, but non-Catholic parents do not even have their choice. Some elementary separate schools admit non-Catholics if they have room, some do not. At the high school level, all students have the right to attend separate schools and to be exempted from religious courses, though some boards are more co-operative than others in granting these exemptions.
The current Ontario system also discriminates against non-Catholics for teaching positions but that is covered in the next question.
Jacobsen: Catholic schools require teachers to be Catholic. How is this prejudiced against the non-Catholic population in Canada, especially the teachers?
Landau: See my point under Question 1 about education in Canada being generally under provincial control so can’t speak about discrimination in Canada, just by province. Again, I am talking only about Ontario.
Catholic separate schools can legally discriminate against non-Catholic teachers. The application form for Catholic Boards requires a Personal Reference Letter from a priest. Catholic School Boards may occasionally hire non-Catholics if they cannot find any Catholic with the qualifications to teach, for example, calculus but they will never become a head of department, superintendent, etc. [See (Daly v. Ontario (Attorney General), 44 O.R. (3d) 349 for a court case upholding separate school right to discriminate]. Some boards also require educational assistants and library assistants to be Catholics.
So Catholics, who are about 31% of the population of Ontario, have access to 100% of teaching jobs. Non-Catholics, who are about 69 % of the population of Ontario, have access to only 69% of the jobs. Catholics have about twice the chance of non-Catholics of getting a teaching job in Ontario.
Jacobsen: How can the Ontario government abolish separate school funding, completely?
Landau: Ontario could pass a resolution through the Provincial Parliament asking for the federal government to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, so subsections (1) to (4) of s.93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 which guarantee the rights separate schools had in 1867 in Confederation no longer apply to Ontario. Quebec did this in 1997 and within 7 months of Quebec’s resolution the Constitution Act amendment had gone through Parliament and been proclaimed into law by the Governor General. Newfoundland also abolished its requirement for separate school funding in the same way. Quebec now has one public (two-language) school system.
Jacobsen: How much more money do separate schools receive in operational funding from the provincial revenues?
Landau: From 2002-03 to 2014-15, separate schools received about $1,500 more in operating revenues per student per year than public schools (about $1,600 more from 2011-12 to 2014-15). They received about $1,700 more per student per year in combined operational and capital funding per year from 2011-12 to 2014-15. I am using the figures from 2002-03 to show this is a steady persistent pattern, using the recent figures to show this pattern continues, and using the combined operating and capital figures to show it is not that public schools somehow receive more in capital grants.
Jacobsen: Those who support public schools also support separate schools through grants. The separate schools received almost $1600 more per student per annum. How is this economic privilege for religious schools still extant?
Landau: There are two main reasons. One is that the three main political parties keep on saying: “it is a complex constitutional issue about which we can do nothing”. They ignore that Quebec abolished funding for separate schools in 1997 by a resolution through the Quebec National Assembly (or Provincial Parliament) asking for the federal government to amend the Constitution Act, 1867 so subsections 93(1) to 93(4) no longer applied to Quebec. Within 7 months the amendment had gone through the House of Commons, the Senate, and been proclaimed into law by the Governor-General. Ontario could do the same thing. It would be even easier because Quebec has set an example for us. But most people don’t know this so they just accept the excuses of the three main political parties/
The second reason is most people don’t realize how much the current system costs us. They say Catholics pay for separate schools through residential property taxes. I know residential property taxes cover less than 8% of the operational costs (and none of the capital costs) but most people don’t. Separate school supporters say we would need the same number of teachers and school supplies, ignoring all the administrative costs which our duplicate system incur. Even if you look at the cost of transportation, separate schools spend way more per student busing students because they have fewer students over the same area. Same goes for trustees and superintendents, and schools not fully utilized in both systems. As people have commented, suppose we had two fire departments, one which served Catholics and hired Catholic firefighters, and another one which served everyone else, and hired firefighters of all religions. Think of all the duplicate administrative costs. The Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods of Ontario did a study in 2012 which estimated that 1.25 to 1.6 billion dollars would be saved yearly if funding for separate schools were eliminated but most people don’t know about it.
Jacobsen: Circa 1867 only 25% of Catholic students, or 5% of all students, went to separate Catholic publicly funded schools, but at the present, 31% of all students attend these publicly funded separate Catholic schools. How did this come to be? How can this be reversed?
Landau: About 25% to 30% of all Catholic students went to separate schools in 1867. This was about 5% of the student population. First of all, only about 15% of the school population was Catholic in 1867. Now it is about 31%. That is one difference. But the biggest difference is the funding. In 1867, separate schools received only about 62% to 66% of the funding per student as public schools. There were several reasons for this but two important ones. First of all, public schools received funding from the local municipalities. About 20% of their funding came from local municipalities. But municipalities did not contribute to separate school funding. Secondly, property owners could only direct their rates to separate schools if they swore an affidavit saying they wanted to contribute to separate schools. An incorporated business cannot swear an affidavit. So while owners of small businesses could direct their taxes to a separate school, incorporated businesses, of course, cannot swear affidavits and could not direct their taxes to separate schools. There were other reasons, but these were the main two explaining why separate schools had 62% to 66% of the funding per student as public schools.
Catholic parents, like non-Catholic parents, wanted their children to have a good education. They realized that in general children would receive a better education at public schools, partly because of the funding, but also because they would be as Dr. Ryerson, the Superintendent of Education, put it, measuring themselves against the majority and not receiving an isolated, inferior education.
So what has changed? As I said, now there is a larger percent of Catholics in the Ontario population (about 31% are Catholics) but I do not think that is the main reason. Ontario separate schools were funded at a lower level than public schools for many years. Various changes were made such as allowing incorporated businesses to estimate the percent of their shareholders who were Catholic and contributing to public and separate schools on that proportion but it made little difference.
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, it appeared Ryerson’s prediction that separate schools would fade away because of their poorer tax base was coming true. Separate schools had to set higher mill rates (education tax rate on property) which alienated Catholic ratepayers or they matched the public school mill rates and had lower salaries, less qualified staff, higher pupil-teacher ratios and narrower programs. Most chose the latter. In Toronto, up to 50% of Catholics were in public schools.
But in 1963 Premier Robarts (Conservative Party) announced the Ontario Foundation Tax Plan. This Plan had a commendable goal of helping poorer boards, often rural. But by treating separate school boards as poor boards like any other poor board, it greatly increased their funding and Robarts is credited by many with saving the separate school system. Unqualified staff were replaced with qualified staff, etc.
There were other steps that increased funding for separate schools. In 1978, funding was greatly increased for grades 9 and 10 in separate schools. In 1985, grades 11-13 which had not been funded for separate schools, were funded. In 1997, the Fewer School Boards Act and the Education Quality Improvement Act changed the entire basis of funding of all school boards. While its intention may have been (or not been) to give students the same level of funding based on their needs regardless of where they lived, the result was to greatly increase funding for separate schools. Businesses were forced to direct their property taxes on a per capita basis to the public and separate school boards in their area. The owners could be Anglican, atheist, Sikh, etc. It made no difference.
As separate schools raised less per student in residential property taxes, they were given more funding per student from the provincial government in general revenues to make up the difference. As separate schools generally have fewer students over the same area as public schools, they are given more money in administrative grants to pay for busing, administration, etc.
So now, unlike 1867 when separate schools received only 62% to 66% as much per capita as public schools, they receive more per student yearly than public schools. And this is even though public schools have in general more students who have English as a second language or special needs. So it is not surprising, aside from any other reason such as priests pressuring parents to send their children to separate schools, or claims by groups such as the Fraser Institute that separate schools have better results (which they generally don’t especially if the number of ESL and special needs students are taken into consideration), that Catholic parents send their children to the better-funded and often newer schools.
The only way to reverse this is to stop funding for separate schools altogether or reduce the funding they receive. OPEN’s legal challenge will try both these strategies.
Jacobsen: What can Canadians in their municipalities, provinces or territories, and across the nation do to either eliminate the separate publicly funded school systems, merge them with the regular public school system, or defund of them for those that don’t want them?
Landau: Again, we have to talk about provinces, not Canada, as I made clear in Question 1. In Ontario, Canadians should donate to the legal challenge by OPEN (One Public Education Now) at https://open.cripeweb.org/aboutOpen.html . We welcome donations from across Canada. To make it clear, we do not want to “merge” the separate and the public school system. The physical buildings might remain, but there would be only one publicly-funded non-denominational two-language school system. Any teachers hired in the future would be hired as they are currently hired in the public school system, without a preference for any religion (or no religion). Teachers would no longer spend about 11% to 13% of the school day teaching the Catholic religion. Any teaching about religion would be based on the principle that no religious or philosophical outlook (including atheism, humanitarianism, etc.) should be promoted as superior. Students would go to the closest publicly-funded school, which would all be public.
The three main political parties, the Conservatives, Liberals, and the NDP all claim it is a “constitutional issue” about which they can do nothing. People in Ontario could vote for the Green Party, which is the only party that wants to stop funding separate schools. They could go to public meetings in the run-up to the June 2018 election and ask all candidates if they would support a resolution similar to Quebec’s, asking for the federal government to pass a resolution saying s.93(1)-(4) no longer apply to Ontario, and say they will not vote for a candidate that does not support this resolution. But I think given that the three major parties all support the status quo, that donating to OPEN (One Public Education Now) is the best strategy for Ontario.
Alberta and Saskatchewan may have different strategies, but someone from these provinces would be better able to comment. I know that in theory separate schools are funded at approximately the same level as public schools in these provinces and private religious or non-religious schools that follow required rules get funding at a lower level but someone from these provinces would be better able to describe how it works in practice and what the best strategies for these provinces is.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Reva.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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“Canadians are divided over whether religious diversity is healthy for the country, but they consider Islam in particular to be a negative force, a new poll has found.
In the survey, conducted the same week Quebec adopted a law prohibiting niqab-wearing women from receiving government services, 26 per cent of respondents said increasing religious diversity is a good thing while 23 per cent said it is bad. Nearly half — 44 per cent — said diversity brings a mix of good and bad; the remaining seven per cent were unsure.
When the pollsters sought respondents’ views on particular religious groups, anti-Islam sentiment stood out. Forty-six per cent of the people polled said Islam is damaging Canada compared with 13 per cent who said it is beneficial. The others either did not know (20 per cent) or said it has no real impact (21 per cent.)”
Source: http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/new-poll-finds-religious-diversity-continues-to-divide-canadians.
“Throughout autumn, the soup of our multicultural society has almost boiled over with questions about secularism and religion – of what is and isn’t allowed in contemporary public and common Canadian life. Efforts to relegate religious expression and thought to the margins have been ramped up. Those efforts, however, are out of step with broader Canadian society.
So, what evidence is there of the secularist push? In September, some openly questioned whether a turban-wearing Sikh who heads a major political party is an acceptable national leader. In the same month, niqab and burka-wearing Muslims felt targeted by a Quebec law that seeks to expunge public spaces of their particular religious expression. Just a couple of weeks ago, Governor General Julie Payette mocked those who believe life is a divine creation. And at the end of November, Trinity Western University will appear before the Supreme Court of Canada as law societies challenge the private Christian school’s right to set religious standards for its faculty and student community.
But the push for secular supremacy – often done in the name of inclusion or neutrality – doesn’t mesh well with Canadian society. In fact, the latest Angus Reid Institute (ARI) poll conducted in partnership with the think-tank Cardus suggests those who are anti-religious are the outliers.”
Source: http://troymedia.com/2017/11/19/its-the-religious-who-tend-most-to-favour-diversity/.
“A new poll reinforces a bleak truth that many of us have probably known for a long time—almost half of Canadians have a negative opinion about Islam.
It’s not hard to see this sentiment having a real world impact, whether it be the rise of a far-right looking to “counter terrorism,” the many anti-Islam rallies across the country, or recent laws specifically targeting Muslims being passed.”
“The Supreme Court recently ruled against the Ktunaxa Nation’s efforts to block construction of a ski resort in Jumbo Valley, B.C., on land the Ktunaxa consider the sacred home of the Grizzly Bear Spirit.
The court concluded that building the resort would not violate the Ktunaxa’s freedom of religion, because “neither the Ktunaxa’s freedom to hold their beliefs nor the freedom to manifest those beliefs is infringed by the Minister’s decision to approve the project … The state’s duty is not to protect the object of beliefs or the spiritual focal point of worship.”
Freedom of religion is supposed to provide equal protection for all religions. The Supreme Court’s judgment disadvantages Indigenous spiritual traditions, whose objects of reverence are connected to pieces of land vulnerable to physical destruction.
The judgment shows how Eurocentric ideas about religion enable the continuing appropriation of Indigenous lands.”
“My inner nerd is delighted that Queen Elizabeth II chose a spacewoman as her new governor general of Canada on Oct. 2. Julie Payette was previously an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, flying two space shuttle missions and working at mission control in Houston. After her space career, among other things she worked as the chief operational officer of the Montréal Science Centre. In her new job as governor general, she is responsible for many of the functions of the head of state.
Unfortunately, some of her recent comments about science have caused controversy. Addressing the recent Canadian Science Policy Convention in Ottawa, Ms. Payette said that science literacy has a long way to go. Everyone is expected to know who Beethoven is, she pointed out, but not what neutrinos are. She expressed dismay that some people still distrust vaccines, question whether global warming is caused by human activity, think that “taking a sugar pill will cure cancer” and believe in astrology. But her most controversial comment was “that we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process, let alone—oh my goodness, lo and behold—[a] random process.”
“When Kristy Cuevas decided to leave the Jehovah’s Witness faith as a teenager, she had no idea that choice would one day save her life.
The mother of four required 10 blood transfusions when she hemorrhaged after the birth of her son. She woke up after being unconscious for two days, and a single thought crossed her mind.
“If this was not me, if this wasn’t my husband who’s a non-believer making the calls for me, if this had been my parents or if I had stayed, I would be dead right now,” she said. “And it made that choice too worth it.”
“I chose to leave, and that day it saved my life.””
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/jehovah-witness-blood-transfusion-woman-speaks-out-1.4404193.
“Ktunaxa elder Chris Luke Sr. lives in B.C.’s Purcell Mountains, about 600 kilometres east of Vancouver. He uses a translator to communicate in English and he knows how to keep his silence.
Still, Luke is a powerful man.
For eight years, the elder’s religious vision has seized the attention of Canada’s top courts, demanding the focus of hundreds of lawyers, judges, civil servants and politicians.
Their work became necessary because Luke said he had an epiphany in 2004 — which he did not reveal to his people until 2009 — that the grizzly bears that inhabit a large chunk of public land in the Purcells are sacred, divine protectors.
As a result, Luke’s small tribal group entered into years of hard political negotiations with the B.C. government, which turned into a precedent-setting court case against developers of a ski resort called Jumbo Glacier.”
Source: http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-who-decides-the-land-is-sacred.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/16
Minister Gretta Vosper is in the news, once more, circa November 14, as the ongoing review of suitability for the position in the United Church of Canada has been delayed, indefinitely (Perkel, 2017). It has been postponed, without a reason or a specified date to reschedule the “unprecedented ecclesiastical court hearing” (Ibid.).
Vosper was ordained in 1993. She took the ministerial position at West Hill United in 1997 (West Hill United Church, 2017). Over time, several years, she lost many beliefs in the faith. She is the “Ye” in “Ye of little faith.” She self-defined as an atheist in 2013 (Vosper, 2017).
It was public for some time. Some congregation left her; others stayed. Why? She came out as an atheist. An open atheist in the ranks of the religious leadership, ministering to United Church of Canada members at West Hill United Church.
As those aware of The Clergy Project (2017), nothing new to this, but threatening to the leadership, possibly – and if so, likely embarrassing to them, too.
Because coming out in the midst of what is seen as a cultural monolith begs questions for some of the membership, “Who else in the church doesn’t believe? How many? Do the congregation know about it? Do the leadership know about it? Has it been covered up? If so, why? Also, if covered up, how long has this been the case?”
The church is seen less as a block without problems and more as a series of shards. The question then, “Which one might cut?”
Her review, according to the committee, is based on lack of belief in a supernatural interventionist God, the divinity of Christ, and the existence of the Holy Spirit: hence, the “a-” part (Johnston, 2017; Perkel, 2017). As Seinfeld would say, “So, what’s the deal?”
The deal is, this makes Vosper questionable, in the eyes of the United Church of Canada in terms of her suitability for being a minister – almost a liability.
From a personal sympathetic view, for Vosper, that’s stressful enough: being out as an atheist, losing congregation, being put in the national news, and placed under suitability review, and then to have this public in the national news – live.
Perkel (2017) wrote:
“It is now clear that the panel will not be established in time to hold the hearing on the dates that you are holding in November 2017,” according to the church letter sent to her.
Acting on complaints about Vosper, a United Church reviewing panel in September last year recommended in a split decision that Vosper be defrocked for her beliefs. The hearing scheduled for this month was to make a final church decision on her fate.
“I understand the judicial committee executive has not finalized dates for the hearing,” Mary-Frances Denis said this week. “The parties are still working on a number of preliminary matters that need to be addressed, including finding dates that would accommodate everyone’s schedules.”
Vosper has her own views. She thinks the reasons run farther than scheduling problems. She thinks it is a challenge for the United Church of Canada to create and coordinate an unbiased committee to meet the standards of civil courts. The notoriety of the context around Vosper makes this a possibility.
More to come, I assume.
References
Johnston, M. (2015, November 25). Q&A: Gretta Vosper, the United Church minister who doesn’t believe in God. Retrieved from https://torontolife.com/city/life/gretta-vosper-united-church-minister/.
Perkel, C. (2017, November 16). United Church postpones hearing for atheist minister indefinitely. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/11/14/united-church-indefinitely-postpones-hearing-for-atheist-minister.html.
The Clergy Project. (2017). The Clergy Project. Retrieved from http://clergyproject.org/.
Vosper, G. (2017). About. Retrieved from http://www.grettavosper.ca/about/.
West Hill United Church. 92017). West Hill United Church. Retrieved from http://www.westhill.net/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/15
Sophie Shulman, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sci. is the Director of CFI-Victoria. I wrote two articles based on two petitions by and for CFI-Victoria. I reached out to Dr. Shulman for an interview. She agreed. By the way, she is retired.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was early life like? I want to touch on the language in the home, the culture of the community, the religion of the area, and expectations for women time.
Sophie Shulman, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sci.: I was born in pre-WWII Stalin’s purposefully pauperized Russia when ‘steel and guns replaced shoes and butter’ as the official goal TO CATCH UP WITH AMERICA at all costs. The costs for the population had been grand, but so was the ultimate reward: the victory over Nazism.
My parents (both MD), my nanny and myself as a child, all lived in one room of a communal apartment (7 rooms, 7 unrelated families of all walks of life, one shared kitchen with two electric ovens with 8 hot-plates, one communal bathroom (each family had their day of a week for family bathing and by-hand laundry; clotheslines crisscrossed the air under high kitchen ceiling) and a telephone on the corridor wall); all families struggled to make the ends meet. Our next door neighbor was a known lawyer with his wife, an aspiring concert-singer, the next one – a single seamstress, then a factory worker with his family, an accountant with wife, etc.
Russian culture and Russian language exclusively. The Soviet Union was officially a secular state; my parents were secular, no religion in my childhood.
Feminism was ‘in the air’ and I had been sensitive to it: as a pre-schooler, I objected that my last name was my father’s name: “unfair, it should be both, hyphenated father’s and mother’s names!”.
Jacobsen: You are a retired medical doctor. Why did you pursue this professional training? Why did you pursue this career? How much did medical quackery, as it sometimes called in a derisive tone – sometimes meanly, factor into the medical community at the time?
Shulman: I had always liked medicine as a branch of science; my parents were both MD (an internist and a pediatrician). Quackery was not on the radar.
Jacobsen: How did you come into contact with the skeptical community?
Shulman: I searched for them, volunteered: it is so encouraging and comforting to be among those who think alike with you.
Jacobsen: What values do you take away from the skeptical movement as well as worldview or methodology for investigation of the world?
Shulman: SAPERE AUDE or DARE TO THINK FOR YOURSELF. I agree with Kant that this is the [noblest] motto of the entire Enlightenment and as such – the major guiding light for me too.
Jacobsen: What advice would you have for young people entering into the medical disciplines?
Shulman: Well chosen, good luck! But do not just pursue ‘big’ money, there is so immeasurably much more in medicine!
Jacobsen: Center for Inquiry is typically secular humanist in orientation. How does this influence you if at all?
Shulman: It suits me well: I’m a secular humanist, have always been.
Jacobsen: What is your favorite book? Who is your favorite thinker?
Shulman: Too many to be listed: they differed at various periods of my life. As for historical figures – Marquis de Condorcet, the Gracchi brothers.
Jacobsen: What medical problem do you consider the most difficult to solve within the medical community, having entire career to observe this?
Shulman: Dissociation between the need and availability, such as in organ transplantation (who get it and who equally needs but doesn’t).
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Sophie.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/15
In terms of geography, culture, and language, where does your family background reside?
Vancouver B.C.
Your biographic information from the Center for Inquiry Canada (CFIC/CFI Canada) website describes brief personal information about the pivotal moment for your transformation into a skeptic mentality, as follows:
At the age of 8 when told “watched water never boils”, Pat put a pot of water on the stove and proved the adage wrong, thus began the life of a skeptic. Pat did not begin his official involvement in the secular/skeptical movement till 2001 when he was researching a documentary on Humanism.
What other pivotal moments in early life stimulated intellectual affirmation of skepticism?
I was raised a Catholic but from an early age I liked to ask questions and the church never seemed to have satisfactory answers. My education from grade 1–5 was in a Catholic school where we were taught by nuns and they did not have any answers either so it was a gradual realisation that the teaching of the church, since they could not be backed up by facts, must be in some way wrong.
What about other moments which piqued interest in humanism, secularism, and other “-isms” with relative correspondence, or reasonable conceptual overlap, with aspects of the skeptical worldview?
I was always a contrarian. I liked to take the “other” side of an argument because it seemed the best way to learn about the argument. I never took someone’s word for anything, I always wanted proof. This is the basis of scepticism and although I did not know it at the time, that is the first step towards atheism.
In an article entitled ‘Humanists see light at end of subway tunnel’, you defined humanism, as follows:
Humanism is neither a religion nor a theology and the fact that a person can live a moral life, without deferring to any deity, has been recognised and accepted by religious and secular communities.
Organisations such as American Humanist Association, for instance, defined humanism within the Humanist Manifesto, in one of its three forms, in a similar frame of reference. A suite of associations, societies, and organisations exist for the secular humanist community — which can create a chary sense in the less secular, less humanistic, and more religious — in British Columbia, other provinces, the territories, and the nation at large. Of course, the major continental and international organisations for the secular humanist movement exist, too. These remain theories and collectives, though. What does humanism look like in one’s real life to you — big and small aspects?
This will sound arrogant and is something I criticise the religious for but I believe that we are all Humanist at our core. I don’t think people get their morality from religion, I think religion gets its morality from humans and our shared evolutionary past that imprinted morality not on our hearts but in our DNA. So, to answer the question, Humanism is the articulation of that morality that is inherent in most of us (there will always be the Clifford Olsen’s) and our shared humanity, our feeling of what is right and wrong is innate in us, in a naturalistic way. So unlike religion where one must constantly have their religious version of morality reinforced by prayer church attendance etc. we Humanists simply live a moral life without much thought to it most of the time.
What unique opportunities and representations exist for the sub-population of the “unaffiliated,” “no religious affiliation,” “no religion,” “none,” and so on, in British Columbia (B.C.), Canada?
I think we have a lot to offer the general public, mostly in the area of science and the discovery of the natural world and how that creates a most beautiful way of looking at the world. Some, like Oprah, think atheists can’t have either awe or wonder. I think the opposite is true because we see things as they really are, not as we would like them to be. The beauty of a rainbow is not enhanced by thinking a celestial painter did it, but by the understanding of light and refraction. To paraphrase one of the brightest physicists of the 20th century, Richard Feynman; is it not more awe inspiring to have a complete understanding of the way a phenomenon like a rainbow is created that to have an answer that is almost certainly wrong?
What instigated involvement with Dr. Robert Buckman for the filming, editing, and eventual production of Without God, The Story of Secular Humanism?
I was researching the documentary when I happened to come across the B.C. Humanist Association. I sent an email to the web site and got a reply from their board. I met with several of them who proved to be most helpful in the making of the film. It was one of them that suggested Rob. When I contacted him he was very excited about the project and jumped on immediately. We decided that he would be an excellent on air narrator as he had a lot of experience in front of the camera and with that one of the most influential relationships of my life began.
What core message did Dr. Robert Buckman and yourself want to come across with, and what seemed to emerge from the viewership in reaction to, the final product of Without God, The Story of Secular Humanism?
We wanted to show two things, first of all, what exactly a humanist is and, more importantly, why we are not less moral than the religious. It is well known that atheists have a bad reputation and we wanted people to know that we are just like everyone else with the same basic hopes, dreams and sense of right and wrong.
You earned positions including “board of the B.C. Humanist Association (BCHA), President of BCHA and then on the board of Humanist Canada (HC), eventually taking over as President of HC.” HC, as an organisation, exists within the philosophy of “education, reason, and compassion.” With more depth, the organisation defines itself:
Founded in 1968, Humanist Canada has its roots in the former Humanist Fellowship of Montreal. This fellowship was an organisation of humanists that was founded in 1954 by Drs. R. K. Mishra, Ernest Poser, and Maria Jutta Cahn. Lord Bertrand Russell and Dr. Brock Chisholm were its first patrons.
As the past president of Humanist Canada, your insight, from experience, into the membership involvements and activities, organisational structure and internal dynamics, theory and practice, positions and tasks, internal humanist membership sustainability and national public outreach, seems deep, comprehensive, and relevant to me. How does one run a large organisation from the national scale?
You don’t, you let it run itself. It has been said many times that trying to get Humanists to agree on something is like trying to herd cats. I learned early on that as a leader I could not rule from above, or make unilateral decisions. The membership is highly educated and smart they do not respond well to decrees or being told what to do or what position they should take on a matter so one learns to be inclusive, trying to reach consensus. Without going into too much detail, the reason I resigned was because I felt in a particular circumstance unilateral action was the best course to take and still believe I made the right decision, but it lead to me being forced to resign. In the end, my decision was upheld.
You held the presidency of the BCHA too. How does one operate a provincial-scale organisation?
It is easier because you meet regularly with members, they know who you are and there tends to be more trust. Again though, the members are smart, skeptical people who will question everything so you have to not only know what you are talking about but must be willing to compromise. All Humanist groups function democratically and all decisions must be discussed and voted on at least the board level. The other thing about running a local group is that it is easier to plan and hold events. Most of the work that gets done even in a national organisation is initiated and run by local groups.
What common problems emerge, and solutions require implementation, in the midst of leadership at the national and provincial magnitudes?
The biggest problem is fundraising. It is difficult to get Humanists to part with their money. We can’t offer eternal salvation so when we do fundraise it has to be a specific initiative. Even then, most Humanist living in Canada do not feel the need to be out there advertising and being social activists, most are happy with weekly or monthly meetings where they discuss topics of interest. This does not require much money so the donations reflect this.
Your biographic information from CFI Canada concludes:
In the interim Pat was an ambassador for Atheist Alliance International, sitting briefly on their board. Pat is involved in many grassroots initiatives in his hometown of Vancouver where he has a successful career as a Props Master in the film and television industry. Pat is also an award winning documentary filmmaker.
What personal and social fulfillment, and duties, necessitate involvement with grassroots initiatives and ambassadorship?
I am someone who wants to make a difference in my community. I like being part of social change and I think we need more people like that who are willing to take on leadership roles to try and make our society better. I really do believe, and the evidence is on my side, that the world would be a better place with less religion. My goal is not to stamp out religion but to show people there is an alternative to living a full rewarding life that does not include believing in the unbelievable and hopefully they will see us as a suitable alternative.
What does “Props Master in the film and television industry,” personal career, implicate for you, e.g. tasks, responsibilities, projects involved in, capabilities and limitations, and so on?
My job is what I do so I can afford to do the things I really enjoy such as being part of the Humanist/Skeptical community (and playing golf). I am also very lucky to have a job I really like. It is very rewarding to know that my work entertains people and allows them an escape from their daily lives.
You work for CFI Canada. Another secular organisation, a registered educational charity, devoted to “educate and provide training to the public in the application of skeptical, secular, rational and humanistic enquiry through conferences, symposia, lectures, published works and the maintenance of a library.” Your core position exists within the board, as Board Vice-Chair. What conduct, duties, and responsibilities remain expected with this position within CFI Canada?
As the board member from BC I keep an eye on things in the west and try to engage the membership here. I also am the media representative in BC so if a story is in the news and they need the Humanist/Atheist side, I often will get the call. As Vice Chair, all that really means is that I take over the duties of the Chair if he or she is unavailable.
Your representation in the media emerges in numerous avenues internal and external, obscure and mainstream, pro and con, to CFI Canada, and Humanist Canada. What duties and responsibilities come from influencing the public mind through the media, especially whilst holding an important position in an organisation in the educational charity sector?
I think it is the most important thing I do. Communication is the key to understanding and I take my responsibility as a communicator very seriously. It sometimes means I have to tone down the message I would like to give, when one is on TV talking to the masses, one must be succinct and clear, without putting people off to the point where they turn the dial. It is a fine line because to many religious types my very existence as an atheist is offensive to them. So my job is show them that I am a regular person with some (I hope) interesting things to say, and if I can educate one person or show one person a new way of looking at an issue then I call that a win.
Many, many organisations, formal and informal, with concomitant publications exist for the distribution of principles and values interrelated with critical thinking, humanism, naturalism, secularism. For example, the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP, the old title)/The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, the new title) publishes Skeptical Inquirer. What importance do flagship publications, such as Skeptical Inquirer, have for the “no religious affiliation” individuals and groups?
They are very important. It is vital that our point of view is out there in the public. Magazines, TV and radio programs are essential to both creating a sense of community and as a means of education, without being pedantic.
Exemplars manifest themselves under the umbrella of “no religious affiliation,” at least in standard interpretations such as a lack of formal religion. An array of unmentioned artists, columnists, scientists, and writers. What role do exemplars perform for these movements without direct religious affiliation?
Unfortunately we live in a world where the “cult of personality” influences many people. By creating our own “stars” we are better able to communicate our message. But when an existing star such as Ricky Gervais or Bill Nye take up the cause, people listen. Some in our community see this as a bit of a sell out. I disagree, as long as the message is consistent and not dumbed down, using famous people and TV and Movie starts is a very good way to give your message some credibility.
Apart from non-theistic — e.g. agnostic, atheistic, deistic, und so weiter — humanisms, plural manifestations, under the banner of Humanism, singular concept, some religious formulations ground themselves, in socio-cultural and ethical life, in belief systems translatable into humanism. An argument articulated by Dr. Susan Hughson, another past president of the British Columbia Humanist Association, in conversation with David Berner about Judaism, which could extend to others, as noted. What relationship do religious belief systems connected to humanist proclivities have with the secular humanist movements in history?
For most of recorded history the concept of an atheist did not exist. It was taken for granted that there was an unseen world inhabited by goblins, ghosts, gods etc. It was not until relatively recently that the idea of a world view that carried no supernatural baggage was even possible. There were pockets of it, some Greek philosophers are a good example but mostly the world was made up of people who had some kind of supernatural belief. So it was the religious, looking for something more, who began the slow intellectual march towards Humanism, Erasmus is a good example. Today he would be considered a religious person but in his day he had many ideas that did not endear him to either the Catholic or the burgeoning Protestant church. He is considered by many to be the founder of Humanism. Today, most religious Humanists seem to come from the Jewish tradition. Jews have a history of doubt and questioning so this does not come as a surprise, in fact the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University is almost exclusively the product of Jewish Humanists.
With respect to their positive or negative interrelationship, the theistic and non-theistic humanisms, how might their mutual futures turn out to you?
If you are talking about theistic Humanism, I find that a contradiction. I don’t use the term as I think it has outlived its usefulness. Either you believe in God and are a theist or you do not and you are an atheist, many atheist adopt the Humanist worldview but Humanism and atheism do not necessarily go together. So I see a conflict between theists and Humanist and so the term Theistic Humanist is meaningless to me.
You noted, astutely, the separation of church and state in the United States of America, but not by necessity in Canada. Preaching the Word of Atheism notes the forceful nature of creationism into Canadian schools and bias against atheists in the family court system too. What remains the highest importance about this separation, the absolute division between church and state?
Religion is a personal matter as are family and personal relationships. In a free and democratic society, the only guarantee that you can keep your personal religious beliefs or your family structure or maintain the relationships that are important to you is by keeping government and by extension, laws out of those areas. When someone tells me that their religion should inform how we are governed my first questions is, which of the thousands of versions of your religion do you want? Which interpretation of you scripture do you want to live under. Religion is something not even the religious can agree on how on earth could we form a societal structure that at its core is purely personal and introspective? The only way to design a society and laws so as to serve the most number of people is to base them on the things we have in common, not those things that divide us and religion is the great divider. The problem we secularists face is that the religious have had it their way for thousands of years. They do not want to give up any ground, this is understandable. But when someone asks for the same rights you have, it is not taking away you rights, many religious people see it this way and we need to fight this notion.
Dr. Carl Sagan gets quoted a lot. A great science communicator who carved the paths for numerous artists, fellow science communicators, professional scientists, and public intellectuals to express personal wonder for the universe. One quote, attributed to him, became immortalised about extraordinary claims with the need for proportioned evidence, which states, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” even quoted in the CFI Canada updates, for instance. An adaptation from Marcello Truzzi’s quotation, which states, “An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.” You typed one coda sentence, and in other forms throughout the article On Atheists:
Claiming there is an unseen transcendental being who is outside space and time and created the entire universe is a pretty extraordinary claim so the evidence had better be pretty extraordinary.
What evidences and arguments make a transcendental being seem impossible, implausible, or unreasonable to you?
It is not the evidence or arguments for the existence of god that are unreasonable, it is the lack of evidence and sound argument that makes gods highly improbable. I have read dozens of books both for and against, seen dozens of hours of debates with brightest and the best of both sides and after all that I have yet to hear a convincing argument in favour of a god. The arguments in favour of a god could fill an encyclopaedia and after all that human effort, no one has proved anything, every argument seems to end with “well ya gotta have faith”, that to me is an admission of defeat.
What evidences and arguments might make a transcendental entity or object with some, most, or all of the traditional “divine attributes” appear possible, plausible, or reasonable to you?
I have given this a lot of thought over the years and every bit of evidence that I can think of that might convince me that there is a god, I can think of a naturalistic explanation. In other words, I honestly cannot think of any evidence that could convince me. But that does not mean there isn’t any, otherwise I am guilty of the argument from ignorance fallacy. No, if there really is a god who literally created my mind, then that god would know exactly what kind of evidence could convince me. So, if there is a god, the evidence is trivial for it to produce belief. The fact that this evidence is not forthcoming gives me comfort that there is none. Of course the theists would say “Ya gotta have faith”, and that, QED, is the worst kind of evidence.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/14
ourIDEA is calling for a moratorium on Catholic school construction. A press release was published today (ourIDEA, 2017a). They make an explicit series of calls.
Former Alberta Education Minister David King has made the call. Earlier in November, he made a petition calling for a referendum on the continuance of separate Catholic school boards (ourIDEA, 2017b).
This is an exciting time in Canada, in Alberta. The call is for the merger of public and Catholic school boards. It is to keep things up to date regarding human rights practices. In addition, it will save money.
There are three main points in the press release. One is the moratorium on construction of the Catholic separate publicly-funded schools pending the outcome of the Saskatchewan court case, which is a recent case.
The second point is that they call “on the provincial government to issue a Moratorium pending the completion of a comprehensive and transparent review of the criteria that determine approval of new school construction” (ourIDEA, 2017a).
Lastly, they then “insist that the Alberta Catholic School Trustees Association (ACSTA) rescind their non-cooperation policy demanding stand-alone Catholic schools.”
There will be a special event on November 27, which is a panel discussion and conversation about the future of separate school boards.
David King will present, Luke Fevin who is a parent advocate will be there, and the former Catholic School Board Trustee Patricia Grell will be there as well. You can RSVP to attend at the University of Alberta in Telus Building Room 150.
All information in the reference link.
We invite Albertans to join us in a campaign calling for a referendum on the unification of Public and Catholic school boards. From Milk River to Keg River, and from Lloydminster to Blairmore, it is time for a thoughtful conversation, involving every interested Albertan, about why we duplicate administration and services, and operate under-utilized schools, to preserve a denominational privilege that is out of keeping with current human rights practices and may no longer be relevant.
The recent provincial budget revealed serious on-going financial shortfalls for the provincial government. In education, this raises questions about duplicating administration and infrastructure costs when the money could be re-directed to the classroom for better service to students or reduced costs to parents. Imagine how much further school fees could have been reduced without the current cost of duplication.
David King, Former Education Minister
References
ourIDEA. (2017a, November 14). ourIDEA Calls for a Moratorium on Catholic School Construction. Retrieved from http://www.ouridea.ca/nov_14th_moratorium_on_catholic_school_construction?utm_campaign=nov14mr&utm_medium=email&utm_source=publicyes.
ourIDEA. (2017b). Petition: It’s time for a referendum on separate schools. Retrieved from http://www.ouridea.ca/referendum.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/14
Something of interest to me in terms of the sociological analysis of religion in Canadian society is the futurist perspective or the futurism perspective on religion. I do not mean science fiction.
I mean the potential streams in the evolution of religion in light of modernity as well as kinds of selection for faith. How will it change the future? What will be the variables or factors that select one stream or another for the set of possible futures of religion?
In British Columbia, for instance, we find New Age spiritualists and practices formalized or disjunct. Formal New Age spiritist groups emerge with complete, and incoherent, worldviews. But I also see individual movements based on practices or beliefs disjunct from a complete worldview, which amount to weekender New Age practices groups.
In the nation as a whole, we find a distaste for religion in general, increasingly. So, religion, especially Christianity in many contexts, takes on a ‘He-who-shall-not-be-named persona.’
The religious leaders understand this to some degree. Some prominent academics understand this too, I suspect. So, they want to proselytize to the new, younger generations, which they know are far less religious – where this becomes particularly important when religion is a political tool in Canada (and everywhere else).
That leaves the need to take a new marketing and advertising approach to religion. As far as I can tell, it is mainly taking Christianity – its principles, ethics, worldview, and central figures especially Christ – and then re-selling it to the younger generations without calling in Christianity: keep an eye out for it.
In the irreligious community, we find the Sunday Assemblies, Calgary Secular Church, and the newly founded Oasis Network. But for those that this fails to appeal to, we find an emphasis on arts and culture, as well as an emphasis on stewarding the next generation and nature a la Margaret Atwood. Granted, she is an agnostic.
Another possible path of interest to me was something that came up in an October 24 news article by Jeff Walters (Walters, 2017). In it, he looks at two religions in one church with one reverend. (It sounds like the setup to a bad joke.) It is Emmanuel Anglican United Church. It is for the Anglican religion as well as the United Church of Canada.
This dual religion has happened for four decades. With an inability to sustain one faith because of a decline in numbers, they decided to merge.
I see hints of this with the Eastern Orthodox Church Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Roman Catholic Church Patriarch Pope Francis meeting together. I’m intrigued as to the mergers that happen, which seem to occur because of declining numbers or simply less religiosity.
So, we have formal leaving religion with alternate community groups arising. We have efforts to teach, even impose, faith-based worldviews on the secular culture through not stating it as a faith-based worldview because faith and religion have a negative connotation in Canadian culture at times. This is especially true for younger generations.
There are efforts to be an individual in Canadian society who focuses on environmental efforts as well as the development of a community of arts and culture while leaving religion behind without much thought. Something that may appeal to apatheists. Then for the declining religions, often the more moderate ones, they merge.
I would love to see a more formal study into this as an academic discipline. If you see anything, please send to my email: scott.d.jacobsen@gmail.com.
References
Walters, J. (2017, October 24). Dual religion church in Ignace, Ont., unique in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/thunder-bay-religions-ignace-1.4368665.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/12
In some ways, coming out gay is so 80s, the new coming out, likely, is as someone without a formal religion. This can be in media. This can be in politics. This can be education and within families.
No matter the means through which an individual comes out for the area of life that they choose to do it in, it is a difficult thing to do because of the standard stigma against those who come out.
Think about some of the most difficult areas for people to come out such as those in The Clergy Project, in this initiative, those pastors, preachers, and ministers who lost faith while at the pulpit have difficult choices to make (The Clergy Project, 2017).
Those choices involve family, as well as community and income. How will they make a living? How will they find a community? Will their current community accept them still? If lucky, as with Grett Vosper, you will be accepted.
One lawmaker in the United States has come out as an atheist. He does not believe in God. U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) used to decline statements about his formal or informal religious beliefs (Boorstein, 2017; Mehta, 2017).
He went from the California state government to Congress. Of the 535 members in the United States Congress, Huffman was one of nine who chose to leave their markings of religious belief blank.
Huffman has been active during the time of President Donald Trump, the Trump Administration, Roy Moore, and the campaign of Betsy DeVos to move Public Funding for schools into religious schools religious schools. He notes that religion has now been used in such a negative way.
He has now stated openly that he is a humanist with an ethical life focused on reason compassion and science, while explicitly rejecting the supernaturalistic outlook on life. We have the Natural Life Here and Now.
Insofar as religious identity is related to Congress and a members existence in it, Huffman appears to be only the second in the history of Congress. This is coming out. I would argue this is probably coming out more explicitly than gays in the 80s, where the closet is much, much deeper.
Although, as Eddie Murphy quipped in a different context, some have skeletons in their closets; others have cemeteries. The first member of Congress in the United States to state their identification, religiously, as unaffiliated was U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) in 2013.
Huffman makes an explicit point that he is not hostile to religion or judgemental of other individuals’ religious beliefs. Religion is not central to his political life. Rather, he focuses on an ethical life in the natural world here-and-now. That’s that.
How’s that for coming out?
References
Boorstein, M. (2017, November 9). This lawmaker isn’t sure that God exists. Now, he’s finally decided to tell people. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/11/09/this-lawmaker-is-skeptical-that-god-exists-now-hes-finally-decided-to-tell-people/?utm_term=.651e442f24af.
Mehta, H. (2017, November 10). Why Didn’t a Congressman’s Humanism Declaration Make a Bigger Splash? Retrieved from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/11/10/why-didnt-a-congressmans-humanism-declaration-make-a-bigger-splash/#bXGTtpqRir6vDlgI.99.
The Clergy Project. (2017). The Clergy Project. Retrieved from http://clergyproject.org.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/12
“FREDERICTON — Governor General Julie Payette, who faced criticism for a speech last week that some said mocked people of faith, praised Canada’s tolerance and freedom of religion Tuesday.
She told the New Brunswick legislature that Canada is in a fortunate position to be able to make a difference, because the country is rich in values.
“Our values are tolerance and determination, and freedom of religion, freedom to act, opportunities, equality of opportunities amongst everyone and for all,” she said.”
“OTTAWA — Disrupting a religious service is likely to remain a crime, since MPs on the House of Commons justice committee have agreed to change a controversial part of proposed legislation aimed at modernizing the Criminal Code.
This spring, the Liberal government moved to rid the Criminal Code of sections that are redundant or obsolete, including those which involve challenging someone to a duel or fraudulently pretending to practice witchcraft.
One of the changes proposed in Bill C-51 would have removed Section 176, which makes it a crime to use threat or force to obstruct a clergyman or minister from celebrating a worship service or carrying out any other duty related to his job.”
“In July 1925, the State of Tennessee put a substitute biology teacher named John Thomas Scopes on trial for teaching children about evolution in the Tennessee public schools.
The American Civil Liberties Union hired Clarence Darrow as the defence in what H.L. Mencken, writing for the Baltimore Sun, coined as the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’.
The sensational trial took place in Dayton, Tennessee and was covered blow by blow on radio throughout the United States, as the colourful and bombastic three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan argued for the prosecution. It was seen as a case pitting religion against science.”
“OTTAWA, November 10, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — After huge backlash from the public, faith leaders and pro-family groups, a Liberal-dominated committee voted to keep Canada’s only law explicitly protecting religious services and clergy on the books.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government nixed the section from the Criminal Code in Bill C-51, legislation intended to clear allegedly redundant, unconstitutional, or outdated sections from the Criminal Code.
But in its review of Bill C-51, the House of Commons justice committee voted Wednesday to keep Section 176 in force.”
“As far as religion goes I am all for people celebrating their religion (every religion) as long as they understand there are times and places to practice, such as in their homes and buildings dedicated to such practice.
The reality is religion does not trump law and laws are usually created to protect us from very real danger. I wonder how the bank would feel if I wanted to do my banking in a balaclava.
It’s not about not letting someone wear a piece of cloth on their face its about the ignorance it represents and the threat one being able to totally cover their face imposes.”
Source: http://ottawasun.com/opinion/letters/you-said-it-religion-and-trudeau-ditching-remembrance-day.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/11
According to Reuters, circa 2012, those who lack formal religion, atheists, or the unbelievers, face bias (Evans, 2012). The bias can manifest in discrimination to outright persecution of atheists.
Those atheists in Islamic countries, apparently, face the most brutal treatment by both the government as well as adherents of Islam.
The report, also, points to the discrimination in many European countries as well as the United States, which are in direct favor of the religious and against atheists. The report is called the Freedom of Thought Report (IHEU, 2016).
Atheists can be denied rights of existence, restrictions on their freedom to believe and express themselves, have the ability to lose their citizenship, even have the possibility for restriction or elimination of their ability to marry.
In a brief introduction by the UN special rapporteur here on the freedom of religion and belief at the time, they noted that atheists have global human rights covered by various agreements, but the knowledge of or the awareness of them was highly limited.
Based on the survey at the time, there were seven countries out of 60 where the expression of atheist views or leaving the official religion of the state are given the capital punishment.
Even if an individual citizen does not want to adhere to one of the formal religions of the state, they are forced to have to take on the veneer of belief in one of the official state or stated religions of the government by signing off on one of them.
This can typically include only Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In other words, non-believers must live dual lives. Public lives of saving faith. Private lives of truly being non-religious.
The report goes into further depth (and has been updated) as to the ways in which the prejudice and bias and discrimination and persecution of atheists is pervasive throughout the world, to such an extent as in some places serving the death penalty to “unbelievers.”
References
Evans, R. (2012, December 9). Atheists around world suffer persecution, discrimination: report. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-atheists/atheists-around-world-suffer-persecution-discrimination-report-idUSBRE8B900520121210.
IHEU. (2016). Freedom of Thought Report. Retrieved from http://freethoughtreport.com/download-the-report/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/08
Was there a family background in humanism and skepticism?
To be honest, no. My family, being ethnically Norwegian, has strong ties to the Lutheran church, going back generations. My great grandfather was a missionary in Africa. Of course, he was an older kind of missionary, meaning his mission was in part to better the physical situation of those around him. While I personally reject some of his ideas and the motivation for what he was doing, the value of being in service to others was carried forward by my relatives and I do feel that some of the values that I learned from those around me are not now in conflict with my current humanist values.
My family also placed a strong emphasis on education, which gave me a solid knowledge base. However, it took time for me to learn how to be a critical and skeptical thinker.
What is your preferred definition of humanism and skepticism?
My preferred definition of skepticism is the one used on the Media Guide to Skepticism on the Doubtful News website “Skepticism is an approach to evaluating claims that emphasizes evidence and applies tools of science.” The organized Skeptical movement works to promote this approach in people’s lives and society as a whole. I know many people see skepticism as an intellectual exercise or an attempt to debunk wild claims, but really it is a great tool for individuals to save time and money, as well as maintaining their health, by avoiding scams and frauds.
Humanism is not easily defined. Some of the biggest organizations around the world have tried and have only been able to narrow it down to page long manifestos and declarations. If I were to try to give you an elevator pitch of humanism, it would be, humanism is a worldview that appreciates both individual differences and the right for individual development, and tries to create a society that will not limit your ability to flourish based upon those individual differences. Furthermore, humanism should be informed by evidence, but it should also make room for inspiration from other fields such as the arts. I am a secular humanist, but I don’t think one needs to be an atheist to be a humanist. Humanism is anti-dogma, not anti-religion, and if our values line up, I’m happy to work towards progress with anyone.
Are there many legitimate cases of proper skepticism turned into cynicism, or cynicism masquerading as skepticism?
I believe there are some cases, and I imagine some of my fellow travelers are more cynical than skeptical. Skepticism is a process based on certain fundamental ideas. It is not a set of beliefs. Yet, for some this is the case. They hold certain ideas to be true, ghosts aren’t real for example, and will never change their minds on the matter. Cynicism is not far behind this kind of mindset.
If you are not willing to examine the evidence and revise your beliefs based on it, then you are not being skeptical. There are several examples of people who merely set out to debunk things and later gave up on the endeavor entirely. Skeptical investigator, Joe Nickel, has avoided this because he is driven by curiosity to find out what is actually go on, not to merely prove that certain claims are false.
For myself, I am happiest when the skeptical process leads me to a nuanced position on a situation. It would be nice to have simple answers, but reality is not always kind to us in this regard. I think it is this enjoyment of nuance that keeps me from becoming a cynic.
How did you find and become involved with IHEYO?
I first became involved with humanism and skepticism in Taiwan when I started two groups there. From that I got some notice in the region and connected with others who were doing similar things. Later, I found that another group, PATAS, was holding a conference in the Philippines so I decided to attend. It was there that I met some people from IHEYO. It was through the contacts I met there, as well as some others in Singapore, that I became involved with IHEYO directly. When the chairperson position opened up, I volunteered and having been facilitating the working group for a little over a year now.
Wherever you are, I suggest that you start a humanist or skeptical group, even if it is just at a local or community level. We need more advocates for good ideas, and a group is a great way to connect with like minded individuals. Who knows, it could be the first step to become an international leader in the humanist movement.
What are your tasks and responsibilities as the chairperson of the Asian Working Group for IHEYO?
There are two main responsibilities that I have as chairperson. The first is to facilitate communication between groups in the region. Asia is a very big region with every sub-region and even country having problems of their own and issue the groups there would like to focus on. It would be a fool’s errand and counterproductive of me or IHEYO to try and tell them what to do. Instead, I help the group stay in contact with each other and know what everyone is doing. In this way, they can share ideas and expertise and hopefully all the groups will benefit from each other’s experience.
My other responsibility is to find ways for IHEYO and the working group to support the member organizations. Again, each group has its own needs. Using the resources I have available, be it contacts with organizations or individuals, volunteers, time, or money, I try to support the local groups to make what they are doing more effective. One thing we have done for example was organize translation efforts, so groups could have humanist materials in their native languages and are better equipped to engage with people in their counties.
In general, I view my position as being in service to those I lead. They know best what their organizations need. I want to do what I can to help make them better.
What are the main threats to the practice of humanism in the Asian region now?
This is of course a large question and it’s hard to point to all of Asia and say there is just one issue. If I were to try to point to one issue that many countries are facing, it would be a rise in authoritarianism and nationalism in Asia. Obviously, illiberal and totalitarian governments like China and North Korea, have been long standing presences in the region. Theocracies of many stripes also continue to limit the spread of humanistic values. Lastly, strong men and nationalists, like those currently in power in the Philippines and India, have chilled free speech and limited human flourishing in the region.
I do hope that humanists in continue to promote our values and fight hard against authoritarian dogmas as they are one of the greatest threats both human life and human progress in the Asia.
Who have been the most unexpected allies for the humanist and skeptical movements in Asia?
For me, on the ground in Taiwan, the LGBTQ rights movement has been our biggest and most unexpected ally. When the issue of marriage equality came up in Taiwan, many were surprised how quickly people organized against it. As it turned out, the main opposition was organized through Christian churches with help from abroad. In response, seemingly overnight, many anti-dogmatic religion groups sprouted up on social media translating videos and memes from the west. Not only has this increased, the overall dankness of our memes, it has also meant that we can reach more Taiwanese with our ideas, if only in sound bite form, and we can support a movement that many of us already agree with.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/05
The Governor General of Canada, Julie Payette, spoke to a room of scientists on November 1, regarding climate change, evolution, horoscopes, and bad science in general (Moscrop, 2017). She was the keynote speaker at the ninth annual Canadian Science Policy Convention in Ottawa (CSPC, 2017).
Payette targeted evolution, climate change, horoscopes, and alternative medicine in the speech. Some quotes, on climate change from human activity:
Can you believe that still today in learned society, in houses of government, unfortunately, we’re still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up or whether even the Earth is warming up, period? (Persian Mirror, 2017)
On evolution by natural selection, unguided:
And we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process. (Ibid.)
On alternative medicines:
And so many people — I’m sure you know many of them — still believe, want to believe, that maybe taking a sugar pill will cure cancer, if you will it! (Ibid.)
On horoscopes:
And every single one of the people here’s personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations. (Ibid.)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau supported the remarks by Payette. (The Canadian Press, 2017).
I read prominent commentators, even nationally so, on Payette’s speech. I feel concern about these public intellectuals, journalists, and writers now.
I feel as though each took the same script, and then played their role as they were cued to come stage right and read their lines to the public and exit stage left. In short, I am disconcerted and annoyed at the uniformity of the media in misrepresentation.
Payette broke the mold of the culture around governor generals, as this was seen to “rankle” via the “tone” of the speech (Moscrop, 2017). Moscrop argued, and ‘can understand,’ the position of those citizens’ feeling that the Governor General, as a role, should be non-partisan.
But I find this misses the point, as the Governor General listed scientific truisms: well-substantiated theories backed by facts, or rejection of ones lacking those characteristics. Science is non-partisan.
Does evolution amount to a Libertarian or a Socialist perspective? Do horoscopes remain Conservative or Liberal? Does the Green Party hold sole ownership of climate change?
Apparently, Moscrop is concerned about the effects of Payette speaking scientific truisms, e.g., the questionable persistence of the human species if action is not taken regarding climate change. It is a concern around faux feelings of insult about a joke around denialists because these points of science are “accepted as fact.” He states:
As for the substance of Payette’s message—that climate change and evolution are real, and that sugar pills are bunk—she might as well have been acknowledging, as political scientist Emmett Macfarlane pointed out, “the existence of gravity.” Indeed. But the controversy seems to be less about Payette’s recognition that climate change, evolution, and the value of mainstream medicine are accepted as fact, and more about her pointing out that, in the 21st century, there are Canadians who doubt that. (Ibid.)
I can understand Macfarlane’s and Moscrop’s positions, as some say. I can understand that they are articulate, educated, and wrong. As written by CBC News (2016), the scientific literacy of Canadians exists as a concern.
They note this about a survey by the Ontario Science Centre (CBC News, 2016). 2/5 Canadians think the science on climate change is unclear (Ontario Science Centre, 2016). 1/5 Canadians trust intuition over science regarding genetically modified organisms (Ibid.).
1/5 think there’s a link between vaccines and autism (Ibid.). On those points, the general Canadian public – at least 2/5, then 1/5, followed by 1/5 Canadians, respectively, based on the prior survey results – hold empirically false beliefs. Payette spoke her mind. The Ontario Science Centre states:
Climate change is a highly charged topic hotly debated by politicians and industry. But in the scientific community, there is a substantial consensus on the factors that contribute to this global issue. (Ibid.)
Moscrop continues:
Still, while stating facts is one thing, criticizing those who don’t believe in those facts is another. Those are different sorts of utterances and therefore different sorts of acts. The question is whether and when the governor general ought to cross that line. To the former, I say “yes.” To the latter, I say “sometimes.” That’s the wisdom of good governance: knowing when to speak, how to speak, and what to say. (2017).
Payette – for the when, how, and what – can speak this way when in the company of scientists as a keynote speaker at a science policy convention (when), so able to speak directly and with humor about scientific matters including science literacy (how), and speaking about concerns such as denial of scientific truths or acceptance of pseudoscientific falsehoods (what).
She did nothing wrong and made a joke. The next was Postmedia News.
Postmedia News published an editorial (2017). They say, “Canadians hold a diversity of views on religion and climate change and the GG, who on behalf of the Queen represents all Canadians, has effectively suggested those who disagree with her views are ignorant.”
Nope: she relayed the views of the science. Science provides explanatory frameworks of the natural world. It’s great. You can know which beliefs are more probable or improbable, or simply wrong. Many of the diverse views on climate change in the public are wrong, not by necessity brought about by ignorance. Canadians have a variety of wrong beliefs about climate change, evolution, and horoscopes. Variety relates little to truth.
Postmedia News continued, “The world’s full of nitwits with Twitter accounts who think they have licence to lecture those they disagree with. Our Governor General shouldn’t be one of them.” Duly note, she was the invited keynote, who spoke to a room of scientists at a science policy convention. Not exactly Twitter, a lecture, or lay people, or an informed editorial for that matter.
Following them came Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who, in the prominent and highly respected media forum of Facebook, said:
It is extremely disappointing that the prime minister will not support Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and other faith groups who believe there is truth in their religion…Respect for diversity includes respect for the diversity of religious beliefs, and Justin Trudeau has offended millions of Canadians with his comments. (Wherry, 2017)
Insofar as I know, believing something to be true, regardless of tenet or premise of a religion, faith, or way of life, doesn’t make it true, but showing something empirically to be true, repeatedly, does increase its probability of being so, Payette’s speech comes from science.
Scheer’s comments are as cynical as they are insulting. Cynical through twisting meaning, then insulting because the turn of meaning is directing the majority resentment and prejudice of many religious – already extant – against the large minority, the formal irreligious or formerly religious, for the points in the intangible economy of politics.
The joke was not at religion at large. It was at the notion that can be in some religions – often asserted, unproven, and a matter of faith – of divine guidance for humanity, whether young or old Earth creationism, or purported directed evolution.
The scientific consensus is unguided evolution. That is, no divine guidance in the birth, maturation, decay, and death of organisms, or in the reproduction, perpetuation, and speciation of species. Besides, why should empirically false beliefs deserve respect? They are beliefs, like 2+2=5 or squares are circles, or the Sun orbits the Earth.
The people holding them is another matter. Scheer did not say irreligious people can hold wrong beliefs about climate change and horoscopes, too, not simply “Indigenous peoples, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Christians and other faith groups.” Did he even see the full speech or think about it, or did he simply observe a political opportunity?
Therein lies the cross-points, the crucifix, of the notion or narrative throughout the news coverage, ‘Payette targets religion, especially religious individuals’; whereas, the truth is the targeting of empirically false beliefs with a joke while in the community of professional scientists.
Of course, the media misrepresentation seems like a politically convenient maneuver, so Scheer used the opportunity to score political points by bravely targeting, not Payette directly but, Trudeau. Easy, expedient political currency, if cynical enough, why not? Next was the long-time Canadian commentator Rex Murphy.
Murphy made note about religion and science not being in conflict: how cliché and delightfully vague. What is meant by religion?
It depends on the contents of the religion to an individual. Some see “the good” in religion as a motivation for protests outside abortion clinics, killing abortion doctors, holding signs saying, “God hates fags,” killing homosexuals, criminalizing atheism with the death penalty, even suppressing women and denying rights, and so on. Others see the same good in religion through self-sacrifice for fellow human beings in disaster areas, or for the donation of their income to those in most need.
Payette’s statements point to empirical claims about the natural world without evidence, not religion. Unless, the religion’s specific tenets or beliefs contain empirical claims in conflict with scientific evidence, to the individual religious person, but this remains different than religion at large.
If the religious tenet or belief remains in conflict with the evidence about the natural world from the science, and if the religious tenet or belief asserts an empirical foundation, then the religious claim is dust, nothing, or simply wrong.
Murphy queried the reader, “In this wonderfully diverse Canada that Ms. Payette now represents, was it her intent to ridicule the religious beliefs of so very many faiths whose cosmologies include a divine creation, some as myth, some as a fact of faith — as opposed to a fact of science?” Nope.
The fulcrum for Murphy’s teeter-totter is Payette claiming umpire status, tacitly in his opinion at least, on faith and religion. Here’s a question: Who made Murphy umpire on the interpretation of the meaning of the Governor General’s words?
Payette iterated a series of the strongest theories backed by the empirical evidence discovered by science, e.g., climate change or global warming is real, human activity is a major contributor to global warming, horoscopes are bogus (sorry, Georgia Nicols), and humans arose via the principles of unguided evolution, and so on.
Murphy noted the “truths” of religion without a statement, again conveniently, of what exactly, I wonder. If moral codes, these amount to heuristics for behaviour, evolved (without divine intervention, to Payette’s point).
Then came the epithets, I was waiting for one: “Scientism.” A dishonourable history of what I consider “terms to defame to dismiss.” Use a word, give it bad implications, apply against an enemy, you don’t need to address the claims anymore. It’s perfect.
Then there’s also only implication of terms to defame to dismiss, where some conceptions behind terms are well-instantiated in the society without need for direct reference, e.g., elitism. Payette, by the insinuation of Murphy, is elitist talking down to the general public, especially non-college education and non-science types.
Case in Murphy wrongness, she spoke against elitism, saying, “We will be able to claim as a people, as a nation, as humanity. That we are a science literate species. By science literacy, I don’t mean we should all have a math degree” (Persian Mirror, 2017). The point isn’t higher education. The point is science literacy.
Also, speaking of condescension, Murphy quipped, “A backhand dismissal of religion is a sophomoric indulgence.” I feel under the stronger impression that belief without evidence and backhand dismissal of fundamental empirical truths is such an indulgence.
Following Mr. Murphy was Mr. Levant, Ezra Levant, of Rebel Media fame, dove into the public discussion as well. In a video entitled “Ezra Levant: Governor General equates religion with superstition,” he decided to be ambitious by being wrong from the start, from the title (Rebel Media, 2017).
His opening salvo starts with a mediocre jab with the common tactic of misquotation of a great individual in history, in this case the little-known historical figure and scientist named Albert Einstein.
Levant quotes Einstein, “Science can only ascertain what is and not what should be” (Ibid.) Of course, Einstein also said:
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. (Einstein, 1989).
As well as:
The word God for me is nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can [for me] change this. (Jones, 2015)
It is a fun game, and easy too. Levant moves next into the purported equating of God and superstition by Payette. Only if your definition of a God somehow implies horoscopes, anti-evolutionism, and global warming denialism, which seems like the problem to me.
The definition of God, in the context of the Levant video, amounts to a God defined by a metric of rubber inches. Somehow, by any means, this God will be fit into the appropriate category to imply Payette being a) anti-religion and b) anti-religious people.
For quotation of Payette, the research team at Rebel Media didn’t selectively quote as much, as in the case of Einstein, which is nice. They quote Payette on the Search for Extraterrestrial Life or SETI.
Background: Frank Drake, who is alive, created the Drake Equation to estimate the probabilities of extraterrestrial life. If life arose by nature here, what odds elsewhere? The equation, depending on the values given to the parameters in the equation, calculates the estimate.
As a former astronaut, I am certain Payette knows about the equation, incorporates this into her worldview, and likely answers questions about extraterrestrials, or aliens if you will, in that context.
The difference between the superstitions and the aliens is the evidence. Life exists here, on Earth. It arose, naturally. Then you can ask, “What parameters need to be taken into account to calculate those probabilities?”
The superstitions or false beliefs lack evidence, or are overwhelmed by the vast majority, the preponderance, of evidence. That points to the – ahem – point of Payette’s statements and joke about divinely guided evolution, horoscopes, and climate change denial.
Levant moves into a complete non-sequitur about God creating the universe, extraterrestrial intelligence, and then insinuating Payette said that you’re a kook if you believe the former but not the latter. Of course, Payette never said anything of the sort.
Another individual in the media personalities with concerning popularity playing the cynical, if purposeful, or ignorant, if accidental, game “Missing the Point” is Chris Selley. He noted 53% of Canadian citizens believe God is active in this world. What’s their evidence?
Argumentum ad numerum is the Hail Mary, or argument by the majority. The response: the majority can hold false beliefs. Quantity, in people, does not determine veracity. Again, this was not a jab at religion, so Selley was playing in another baseball field: with other Canadian media personalities while Payette was absent.
Mia Rabson of Global News did a good job. She represented the speech with honest intent to relay what Payette said, and meant, to the audience at the Canadian Science Policy Convention (Rabson, 2017).
The argument remains imaginary, though, as with the insinuation of the narrative throughout the prominent media, generally. Payette didn’t jab religion. She jabbed empirically false claims or assertions without evidence. That is not anti-religious; it is pro-empirical truths. So Moscrop and Emmett, Postmedia News, Scheer, Murphy, Levant, and Selley (and I assume others) miss the point, then run on steam or tirade oil.
References
CBC News. (2016, September 22). Q&A Survey reveals ‘significant gaps’ in Canadians’ understanding of science. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/survey-reveals-significant-gaps-in-canadians-understanding-of-science-1.3772707.
CSPC. (2017). Canadian Science Policy Convention. Retrieved from http://cspc2017.ca.
Estate of Albert Einstein. (1989). Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives. Retrieved from https://books.google.ca/books?id=T5R7JsRRtoIC&pg=PA43&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Moscrop, D. (2017, November 2). Julie Payette takes on junk science—and tests the limits of her job title. Retrieved from http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/julie-payette-takes-on-junk-science-and-tests-the-limits-of-her-job-title/?platform=hootsuite.
Murphy, R. (2017, November 2). Rex Murphy: Governor General appoints herself umpire of questions of faith and science. Retrieved from http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-governor-general-places-herself-as-umpire-of-questions-of-faith-science.
Ontario Science Centre. (2017). Ontario Science Centre survey reveals gap in public understanding of critical scientific issues. Retrieved from http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/Media/Details/432/.
Persian Mirror. (2017, November 3). Governor General Julie Payette speech at CSPC2017. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbvRPazFsts.
Postmedia News. (2017, November 3). EDITORIAL: Julie Payette speech oversteps her role. Retrieved from http://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-julie-payette-speech-oversteps-her-role.
Rabson, M. (2017, November 2). Julie Payette takes on climate change deniers, divine intervention and horoscopes. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3839305/julie-payette-takes-on-climate-change-deniers-divine-intervention-and-horoscopes/.
Rebel Media [Rebel Media]. (2017, November 4). Ezra Levant: Governor General equates religion with superstition. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axe7YrikDkw.
Selley, C. (2017, November 3). Chris Selley: With her dig at religion, Julie Payette plays a dangerous game for Liberals. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/amp/nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-with-her-dig-at-religion-julie-payette-plays-a-dangerous-game-for-liberals/amp.
The Canadian Press. (2017, November 2). Trudeau applauds Payette for standing up for science in convention speech. Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-applauds-payette-for-standing-up-for-science-in-convention-speech-1.3661058.
Wherry, A. (2017, November 3). Scheer blasts Trudeau for supporting Governor General after ‘divine intervention’ comment. Retrieved from https://www.google.ca/amp/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4385895.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/05
“There are reasons to be skeptical of The Way of the Future, a newly incorporated American religion that worships artificial intelligence as “the Godhead.”
It has no church, no worshipers, no doctrine, no scripture, and no rituals. But Anthony Levandowksi, the multi-millionaire engineer who secretly founded it in 2015, and today serves as president and CEO, has a track record of predicting and capitalizing on the future, as he did for example in the self-driving car industry.
The Way of the Future, a non-profit religious corporation in California, says its purpose is “To develop and promote the realization of a Godhead based on artificial intelligence and through understanding and worship of the Godhead contribute to the betterment of society,” according to records obtained by Wired magazine.”
“Does freedom of religion extend to the Charter-protected right to have spiritual places or spiritual beings important to those beliefs protected?
No, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada ruled this week in a decision that has offended many Indiginous communites.
On Thursday, the high court dismissed an appeal by the Ktunaxa Nation that would have blocked development of a B.C. ski resort in Jumbo Glacier Valley.”
“OTTAWA — In a landmark freedom-of-religion case, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a massive ski resort development in southeast British Columbia can go ahead despite a claim by a First Nation that it violates sacred land.
The decision clarifies a boundary on the Charter right to freedom of religion, establishing that the government does not have a duty to protect an object of religious beliefs. Instead, the duty is to protect the right to hold such beliefs and to practice those beliefs in worship.
“In short, the Charter protects the freedom to worship, but does not protect the spiritual focal point of worship,” the decision says.”
“Is religion violent?
It’s a common question that arises when discussing religion, politics and world crises, particularly apparent terrorist attacks of the type that played out in New York City on Tuesday.
Islam in particular is branded as a violent faith, but others argue Christianity deserves the same assessment.
But behind the question is a whole host of problems, and so it isn’t surprising some scholars suggest that classifying any religion as violent is problematic and unreliable.
As a scholar of religion, I also question whether calling oneself “religious” really says anything meaningful about one’s identity. Given the diversity of religious groups, the term “religion” is not only extremely general, but it has a long history.”
Source: http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/challenging-the-notion-that-religion-fosters-violence.
“TORONTO — Doctors say Shalom Ouanounou is brain-dead, and has been for over a month after suffering a cardiac arrest.
His family, devout orthodox Jews who do not believe that neurological demise equals death, insist the 25-year-old is still alive.
On Wednesday, the Toronto residents launched an unprecedented court case against a hospital, doctors and coroners that could overturn the way end of life is handled in Canada.
Citing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they are pressing for an exemption from the brain-death declaration for patients whose religion does not accept the concept.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/01
Was there a family background in humanism?
I grew up in a nonreligious home, and although neither of my parents identified explicitly as humanists, humanist values were very much a part of how I was raised. Both my parents are extremely nonjudgmental and supportive of the fair and equal treatment of all people. They raised me to be open-minded, to love learning, to question authority, and to respect the humanity in everyone. We frequently enjoyed culture as a family, spending a lot of time in the theatre, art galleries, etc., and we traveled often. This instilled in me a love of world culture and a sense of cosmopolitanism which I believe to be central to the humanist worldview. They encouraged political participation and a sense of civic duty. In its own way, it was a very humanist upbringing.
What is your preferred definition of humanism?
Humanism seeks to recognize and uphold the dignity of every person. It is a life-stance which asserts the ability of human beings to work together for the improvement of humanity, without the need for divine intervention. Humanists promote the values of reason, compassion, and hope: the ability of human beings to use our own intellect to make sense of the world; the equal dignity and worth of every person; and the ability of people to improve the world on our own.
How did you find and become involved with The Ethical Society of St. Louis?
I began training as an Ethical Culture Leader (that’s our word for the professional clergy who lead Ethical Societies) after visiting the New York Society for Ethical Culture while I was on the Humanist Institute’s leadership training program. I was studying for my doctorate at the time, and travelling the USA giving presentations on humanism, and I wanted to find a way to make humanist leadership into a career. When I discovered there are humanist congregations which bring people together to deepen their understanding of and commitment to humanism, I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life. I began my training with the American Ethical Union, and part of the training includes an apprenticeship at an Ethical Society. I moved to St. Louis to complete that apprenticeship, and then was hired as their Leader with responsibility for outreach. I feel very lucky: I’m one of very few people who are clergy for a truly humanist congregation.
What are your tasks and responsibilities as the leader of The Ethical Society of St. Louis?
I am one of two Leaders — the other is Kate Lovelady, who has been leading the Society for more than ten years now. I play many of the all the roles of a clergy person in a religious congregation: I provide pastoral care for members, speak on Sundays, organize events for the community, lead educational workshops and discussion groups. I have particular responsibility for outreach, meaning I represent the Society and humanism in general in public events. I speak on panels, make presentations about humanism, visit college campuses etc. I am the professional public face of our community.
What are the main threats to the practice of humanism in St. Louis and the US at large now?
I don’t think there are major threats to the practice of humanism, in the sense that people can believe what they want and practice that as they wish. There are, however, major threats to the success of humanist values in the culture. The US (and many European nations) is facing a very powerful populist right wing movement currently which threatens to overwhelm political institutions and make the country more nationalistic, xenophobic, and closed-minded. Trump — and the political forces which swept him to the presidency — represents a grave threat to the humanist ideals of international cooperation, respect for science, equal treatment of people, and religious freedom. All across the wealthy west people’s baser natures are reaching for the controls. People are afraid of their economic condition and tired of a political system which doesn’t serve them, and are looking to strongmen who promise a return to national glory. The parallels with the pre-war era are extremely worrying. The humanist movement must work extremely hard to help people resist these trends.
Who have been the most unexpected allies for ethical societies and the humanist movement in North America?
My strongest allies have been liberal religious clergy who understand the importance of crafting and presenting a powerful moral vision of society. Although we disagree over theology, these clergy understand the humanist project as an essentially cultural one, and since we share many of the same values, we are often together at rallies and events trying to promote a hopeful vision of society. I’ve been amazed by how principled and hardworking many liberal clergy are: I count them among my closest allies.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/01
Rome Bethea is an administrator of an atheist Facebook group: Atheists. Here, I ask him some questions about background, views, and hopes.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s dive little bit into your background. What was family life like? Was religion a big part of it? What were some individuals in your life that you note as influences on you with regards to theological beliefs? Whether or not you held them, those that were of influence.
Rome Bethea: Growing up in Detroit I was raised a Baptist Christian, my whole family is Baptist actually. We weren’t really a church-going family until I was about 10. My mom would take me, my sisters, and a couple of my cousins that spent the weekend over at a church called Universal Praise Center. I was even apart of their choir.
I didn’t really like going to church but whatever mom says goes. A couple years had past and she let me leave the church. After that, I haven’t found a church home until I was 16. Called New Haven’s rest I went two times and I remember this day like it was yesterday.
The bishop said he saw that they have a couple of new faces and would anyone like to get up and introduce themselves. I got nervous as the mic got closer and closer to me. Finally, it’s on me. I say my name and how good it is to be around good people.
The bishop put me on the spot and asked me have I been saved? I told them the truth and said, “No.” So the whole church started talking together and told me to go sit in this chair up front and get saved.
We go through the whole, “So I accept Jesus,” stuff and when I got up they told me to come back next weekend to be baptized. I came back and got baptized December 19, 2009. I kept with that church until I realized they’re no good. The first lady was telling people’s secrets and the pastor was hitting on women. So I left but still believed in (the Word) up until I was about 21.
Jacobsen: Can you recall a pivotal moment or series of experiences that instantiated a lack of belief in God or gods?
Bethea: I went jail over unpaid driving tickets and I called my mom and she said this is a good time to read the Bible and get right with the Lord, so that’s what I did, well tried to do. But as I read the Bible I started to see verses that the church never said anything about.
God being Okay with slavery, women must be quiet and submissive and cannot teach men. I thought maybe I’m just thinking too much on it. And I tried reading it from the first page to the last, hoping hopefully I can make sense of this and I see in Genesis it says God made the sun on the 4th day and that’s where I believe I started to question it all.
It doesn’t take and a rocket scientist to know a day cannot pass without the sun. Lol. That’s when I started to watch YouTube videos on religion. And my friend from across the street, Darnell, was showing me how the Bible contradicts itself and has no historical data for things the Bible says happened on Earth
Like the Chinese were keeping track of their stuff around the same time Noah’s ark supposedly happened. The fact that we had rocks and trees older then what the Bible claims the Earth to be just set everything in stone for me, really.
Jacobsen: What books would you recommend for those that are first questioning your faith?
Bethea: Yes, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, of course. And The End of Faith by Sam Harris. Great books.
Jacobsen: What individuals would you also recommend?
Bethea: David Silverman, it’s cool and funny but he doesn’t play around and stay on point. Richard Dawkins again and I’m sure I don’t have to say why lol also Michael Shermer, once you made it this far you should be an atheist by now lol.
Jacobsen: Would you consider some of the more toxic aspects of some branches of atheism in the late 20th and early 21st-century?
Bethea: I know some people may come off the wrong way but if you stop and think about it they don’t mean any harm. You have people fighting for gay rights, people fighting people of color. They’re just fighting to be equal. They might come off the wrong way but sometimes to be heard you must scream.
Jacobsen: What do you consider the good aspects of religion? How does the nonbelieving community compensate for those to provide a better community?
Bethea: I think some people are good people but just don’t know any better. I know a handful of churches that give back to the community but it’s also a lot of them putting money into these banks that’s trying to kick poor people like myself out of our neighborhoods. I think it some good people in religion. But all together we need to kill religion and just be good people.
Jacobsen: How did the group Atheists start?
Bethea: I actually just started helping with this page but I’m doing my best to spread the word and get everyone back thinking.
Jacobsen: What are your hopes for its growth? What are your hopes for the atheist movement in general?
Bethea: I’m hoping to get as big as we can! I want all 7 billion people on the same page as us (atheist) but, baby steps.
Jacobsen: Thanks for the opportunity and your time, Rome.
Bethea: Thank you for the opportunity to be interviewed with you. Hope that helps and wish you the best with everything.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/11/01
Jon King is an acquaintance through a mutual friend. He is Christian. Here we talk about faith and Christianity.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We came into contact through a mutual friend. You are Christian. Let’s start with a definition and brief story. What sect – or if not sect, then set of beliefs – defines your Christianity? How did you first come into contact with that form of it?
Jon King: Presently, I am ordained as an Apostle just like Paul, Peter, or John from the New Testament. I do not align myself with a sect or denomination because I understand that there is only “the way” as it is written. This is the example by faith and works as well as by affiliation that Jesus showed us according to example in His three-year ministry. This was validated not just by speech but in the deed of the active ministry of His Apostles as they would go to fulfill what is known as the Great Commission, therefore establishing the early roots of the Church. I have learned that God is not a God of denomination but He is the truth. The truth is not in part and certainly does not align Himself according to our fake box with an artificial ceiling. So, as Jesus walked I walk. As He lived I live. I only do what I must and the example of His life unlocks many of the hidden secrets to how being a Christian or follower of Christ is to be successfully lived out. Every day since my conversion, I have read the Bible, spent time in prayer and doing good works as they demonstrate the faith I have in the need for truth to change the world. This is not a religion, this is a revolution. And the Bible is my roadmap with the direction of God through His Spirit.
My conversion to walking in the way of truth like Christ officially transpired on the evening of 9/11/2014. I was sitting on my couch in Arlington, VA and all of this sudden, I just knew that God’s presence was consuming me. In that knowing, my faith started to grow and reveal to me the Trinity and how God was communicating with me through His Spirit by the finished work of Christ. I didn’t own a Bible, attend church, or for that matter give any thought about God or my relationship with Him. I was just living however I wanted and had this sort of burning bush consumption and my heart began to melt in sorrow as the presence of fear and trembling mixed with peace and understanding came over me. Right about then, I was overwhelmed like a secret door in my being was opened and I knew it was Jesus by name. I would spend much of that evening in tears and by the time I went to bed, I knew that following Jesus despite the cost was my only option. I was certain in a way that I had never experienced before. I realized my life was being spared and that there was purpose in everything that had occurred before in my life. It was incredibly powerful and humbling. God was speaking to me like He spoke to Moses and my mind was blowing but I knew it was real and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I saw a vision of the Church falling away into this kind of corporate black hole and then I saw the rising and falling of nations. I knew in an instant that I must go speak to the church I was a part of as I young teenager, though it had been about 15 years or so since I attended a service. Within 60 days, I would commute from my place of work as a strategic advisor working national programs for Defense and Intelligence to my hometown to share a seven-minute prophetic message about change. No sermon but me standing on a stage looking out into a crowd in a full house (no one believed it was me) sharing a message about changing and preparing to fight as warriors in this present crisis of darkness. There was weeping and I called a veteran friend from childhood out of the crowd and had him stand. It was Veteran’s day so I had them all stand. Before I knew it, I was going from one person to the next laying my hands on them and speaking truth into their lives. I felt whole and since then, I have been doing ministry everywhere I go. A seed was planted inside of me and on it is written, “truth.” The seed came from God when I was younger but on 9/11/2014, God pointed at it and commanded the rain to grow it. That was the day the fire roared inside of me.
Jacobsen: I want to split this into formal argument, so philosophy, and informal sentiment, so experience. To the former, what arguments – as much detail as you wish – make the best case for faith in general?
King: We all exercise a great degree of faith. What separates us on this journey is what we are putting our faith in. To make decisions based off of what we cannot definitively prove or see is to follow some degree of faith. Whether you believe Jesus is Lord and follow Him or believe in humanism or Buddha, you are deciding to place your smaller decisions in the figurative hand of a worldview. And to exercise your free will to satisfy a form of belief leaves us in a vulnerable place. That is unavoidable, as even the Big Bang has to have an originating author, because everything comes from something. So, why not acknowledge that we just are exercising faith in some sort of originating way. “In the beginning…God created.” That is a huge step if we believe that. Those two things together beg for us to go further. If He is God and has purpose for everything, then why did He? What does it mean for me? What relevance does believing or not believing this have in my life journey? Think about it but either way, you will have to accept that you cannot prove or disprove what you are putting your faith in when it comes to answering these worldview questions. Not to have the desire to have faith is death man. Because with faith comes the will to hope and hope inspires man to keep walking towards that dim light on those dark days so that tomorrow can be freer than yesterday. Look around at this creation and see it all growing towards that infinite sky and think back to those experiences where you just knew something divine was occurring. Believe because your soul is begging to swim in that life.
One day this machine down here is going to slow down significantly then stop. Then what? Deep down, we all think about that potential life in eternity where it will all be different and without the same complication as this time in the dirt is. There are many beliefs, religions, faiths, and cynicism out there. So much so that over time we have started to worship not believing with all of who we are as some sort of badge of courage but I tell you to do the very opposite is to do the title of one of my favorite movies, “Into the Wild.” You have to find out who you are for real and be set free from unbelief so that you can live in the presence of peace and walk in those mysteries with God that make this life worth living. It’s not that weak people need to make a case for faith. It’s that faith made a case to people who had the desire to listen to Him. That case was closed when Jesus came out of that tomb resurrected from the death of a criminal. I believe in that and I have that faith because I decided to let my preconceived notions about God and myself go. I say to you, there is a God and He is in three parts. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He loves you man and you’re worth it. Believe because there is no better place to go. Believe and have faith because that is where greatness resides. This isn’t a conversation about rational. You can’t rationalize thoughts of the heart. But you can meditate on their significance. The mind will follow the faith that is in the heart. The roots of your faith are life producing or death. We believe that where the root is planted, the tree will grow. That’s because we have faith in the process of life. To live this life and depend only on intellect would defy the number one thing that every human is willing to fight for, love. Love cannot be measured or seen but we feel Him and we know it’s so important. In fact, we die for it every day. We didn’t create love but we hunger and we thirst for His riches. So I dare you to believe friends. To have faith is to live and not just survive.
Jacobsen: What arguments – as much detail as you wish – make the best case for Christianity in general – as well as your own?
King: No argument makes the best case for Christianity. All I can do to make the case for Christianity as the best option for those who want to live a life in truth is to reason with their hearts and minds, hoping that the grace of God instructs them where they are open to absorbing that goodness. Even within the ranks and files taking up territory within the evangelical Christian church, you will get several different answers to this question. But I am more concerned with what God through Christ would say, or better yet, what He would do to best inform the reader. I am convinced that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father by the saving power of the Holy Spirit because I exercise this faith in my life every day and the fruit of this belief has completely transformed me in every way possible. So much so that I sold my possessions to the poor, got on a bus and came to Washington D.C. with only a bag and a hot fire burning inside that produced the fruit of prayer. Leaving all I ever knew and losing every relationship I had in order to follow this invisible but personal God. He commanded my soul to be refreshed in His presence and gave me tremendous purpose. “Go teach them faith with your life.” That is the apostolic calling He gave me, more or less. I have been full-time in ministry now for over three years operating mostly individually and I’ve experienced so much truth, love, and hope all over this hurting nation. I have gone without food for days at a time, slept in the open while it was raining, walked up to thirty plus miles to get around the next corner and be a part of real miracles. I have come back from my own grave following a Judas kind of betrayal and been persecuted in a U.S. court (2nd circuit court in Plymouth, NH) for my radical faith in Jesus and the way as written in the Bible. One year ago today to be exact. On Halloween of 2016, my accusers stood before me and asked me inside quotes to explain to them my conversion to following Jesus, so I stood up in the power of courage as they scorned me and testified the gospel of God until my liberal judge spoke into the microphone, “blessed is he who does not take offense because of Me.” I heard her and knew it was God with me so I said “Amen” and spoke the scriptures until my spirit was retired and they had no questions left to ask. Looking into the eyes of my wife at the time, I knew I was choosing my faith over everything else. So they said I was crazy because I did not defend myself but shared the truth of who God is. I lost it all that day and I gained it all that day. As I walked into the cold street following, I joined the ranks of those who made it possible for me to understand what Christianity truly is. Following that day, I was rejected and cast away by everyone and anyone I ever thought I knew. So I thought about Him while He was walking to that mount to be killed for my sake and I wept with a bitter joy as I asked, “Father! Why have you forsaken me?” He said, “My grace is sufficient for you my son.” So I said, “glory to God. Forgive my unbelief Father.” And then I knew for certain that one must die to live. We choose to die for a time now and then live or we live for awhile then die forever. When I decided it would be better to die than to forsake the Jesus I know, I knew that I believed. That is everything I could have asked for.
I share this sequence and story with you because it’s the evidence that makes the case. So I reason with you my friends but I cannot argue because believing in Jesus is not an argument but it’s being connected to the truth. That’s above reproach and it’s magnanimous in nature. It’s a supernatural work in natural circumstances that point to the power and nature of God. Many call God by many names but from the thunder I hear Him say, “this is the way, walk in it.” He was 33 when He was put to death for us and He didn’t complain at all. We owe Him our best. That’s why I’m here right now. I have to finish the work of Him who sent me.
Jacobsen: What experiences speak to the heart of the Christian faith? How do these attest to the truth of the faith?
King: When you see someone love in the face of hatred, you are seeing the faith of God overcome by grace the darkness. That is the faith of Christ which is the epicenter of the Christian faith. That really is interchangeable for the heart of God. Not Catholicism or Mormonism or any other kind of mimicking religion that claims to represent the equity of an infinite God who is present with us in spirit and in truth can claim it is Christianity. When you are forgiven for doing what you know was wrong, that’s the evidence of God’s heart in the Christian. To be a Christian is to share in the heart of God and respond like Jesus as it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives within us. Those who feed the needy and shelter the poor. They are them that represent the heart of the Christian. The guy you see walking down the street in meekness while giving the five dollars he has to someone who claims to be poor but isn’t is that Christian heart in action. Because that guy knows that he is rich in faith and in faith exists the opportunity to receive everything. He would rather give away his last five dollars to know he is representing Jesus than to spend it on the dollar menu. He just screams inside for the world to look up and see the character of God for who He rightfully is. The woman at the well Jesus spoke to in the book of John is such a great illustration. She was living in adultery and wasn’t even a Jew but Jesus walked a good distance with no water to connect with her at that historical well. So he prophetically connected with her in spirit and spoke truth into the core of her being. Then she believed Him and went and got her friends and He showed them the way like Joe Cocker says in his song, “With A Little Help From My Friends.” We are called to go and do that same thing and we know it’s the truth because we see these things happen everyday. When someone is living a certain way and the love of God comes upon them through someone else being used as a vessel, the radical impact it has is the testament and evidence of that faith’s power. The trick is discerning the regular product that faith produces. If it’s forgiving, patient, kind, selfless, humble, faithful, it’s Christianity. The staying power of Christ to transform the lives of everything and everyone He touches is not rivaled. That’s why He has the most contested name on earth (still). There is only one God and no one gets to the Father part of Him without going to and becoming like the Son part of Him. And that only happens when we believe and receive that third Holy Spirit part of Him that instructs and teaches us how to do it and win.
I spend my days spontaneously responding to the direction of God in much anticipation of His epic plans for each day. He has shown me how to live a completely submitted life as Jesus did and go where He wants when He wants so that I will do what He wants and be satisfied with my contribution to the greatest mission of all time. The mission of love going forward and conquering death. Most of my interactions are unplanned and I only speak what I must. My actions follow that prophetic speech and become a part of changing broken things into better things. Some people see and believe. Some people see and become fearful and don’t believe. But this is the tradition of what it is to be a Christian. We do it because it’s who we are, not because it makes us feel good. We live as servants because that is the way to freedom. We want to be free all the time and to do that we have to look closely at the character of God at work in people. Those who are most like Jesus provide the best evidence for why this Christianity is so wonderful. It’s not our job to “save everyone.” It’s our job to live like Jesus in faith and trust God to do His will in all that we are a part of.
Jacobsen: What do you consider the strongest atheist arguments against Christianity?
King: I’m not an expert apologist but I’ll give you a couple insertion points that I believe atheists are trying to commonly promote. It has been made known to me through multiple engagements that the average atheist wants to believe in God but has not experienced a life yet where the case for God’s love has been made known to them. So. they do their best to undercut His existence so that they do not have to subject themselves to His mission. Because if you believe God is real then you must consider what it is He created you for and then dissect what it is He is asking you to do. Atheism is dead. Literally, it is a dead spirit that is being oppressed by unbelief and pain at its core and it desires to multiply it’s product because that’s how power works. Whether good or bad, power goes out looking to multiply itself. Atheists try to use evolution but it doesn’t quite stand firm when you start to poke at its genesis. If that doesn’t work, atheism is really good at getting philosophical so that you will get trapped in a horizontal or worldly angle of perspective and start to compare and contrast dissimilar things. But at its core, I really believe that atheism’s strongest case against Christianity is the same as most cases against Christianity. It all has to do with who Jesus is and his role in our lives by His sheer state of just being worthy due to His set apart holy nature as God and man. Atheism is a good way to exercise selfishness which is human nature without letting your conscience get too wrapped up in things like accountability or consequences. And that’s great if you just want to consume and maybe feel good because you donate to puppies or recycle because going green is trendy. But atheism is terrible at defending the importance of love and it’s relevance on the global stage. Because love stems from the center of Christ, there is a division that cannot be reconciled unless the atheism is willing to believe God is who He says He is. Love cannot reside outside of truth so atheism may try to sell you the same fake version of love that Hillary or Obama does. I can make the case for a triune God in the first two chapters of the Bible, which has much historical and archaeological evidence to support it. At least more than “nothing” or atheism does. Atheists think believing in Jesus is absurd but aliens are no problem because I guess they live in outer space with Zeus and emo-ism. This may come off a little sharp but I’m trying to stir a bit for the sake of getting us to ask what validity atheism really has in general. Not to mention that comparing the thought of atheism to the evidence of Christianity is like comparing dust and a fruit bowl. They’re just very different things but I know one of them is just better and grows from the source of life and the other was created by life for a purpose but doesn’t taste as good.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Jon.
King: Scott, it’s great to connect with you and I really enjoyed sharing with you and the readers from my core. I made it a point just to share it how it’s coming to me as the best things in life are inspired.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/30
Renton Patterson is the President of Civil Rights in Public Education (CRIPE). Here we talk about the history of the separate school system, violation of the Charter, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and more.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why is there a separate school system in the first place?
Renton Patterson: A brief account of how and why we have a Roman Catholic separate school system:
Any discussion of the separate school issue and what to do about it to-day must take into account the origin of separate schools, over 150 years ago.
In 1841, when Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) were joined together in a legislative union known as the United Province of Canada, the Day Act provided that “any number of Inhabitants of any Township or Parish professing a religious faith different from that of the majority of Inhabitants of such Township or Parish” may “dissent from the regulations” and set up their own school.
At a time when religious intolerance was widespread, provision for a religious minority to “dissent from the regulations” and therefore from the religious majority, was a solution that suited the time.
The intent, then, of the original legislation, was to establish social harmony by allowing antagonistic faith groups to separate in different schools. The original intent was not to elevate any one faith group into a position of privilege.
Despite the above, subsequent legislation made it easier to establish separate schools for Roman Catholics but more difficult to establish them for others.
One piece of such legislation, the Tache Act of 1855, applied only to Ontario, but was introduced into the Legislature by a member from Quebec, and was passed on the strength of Quebec votes.
Similarly, the Scott Act of 1863, which turned out to be the basis of today’s separate schools, applied only to Ontario, but was presented each year for four years before it finally passed – again because of a solid Quebec (Roman Catholic) vote. The vote was 76 to 31 for the Scott Act, but the Ontario vote was 31 to 21 against.
These two acts demonstrate that Roman Catholic legislators of the United Province of Canada, being a majority, voted into law, a privilege, for the Roman Catholic citizens of Upper Canada (Ontario).
In the early years, the Legislature was held alternately in Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) during the winter months. Many legislators were farmers, and when the Ontario legislators met in Quebec, and the session ran into spring, many returned home to tend to their land before the legislative session was over.
It was not unheard of for legislation to be introduced late in the session when a number of Ontario members had left for home, legislation which Ontario legislators may oppose.
In a flurry of activity prior to Confederation, both the Quebec Protestants and the Ontario Roman Catholics tried to improve their respective school provisions, which failed. It was instead agreed that the settlement of 1863 should be embodied in the new federal constitution of the Canadian provinces.
Thus, section 93 of the British North America Act ensured that any change to the school provisions must be made with the approval of the federal government which ensured that school privileges could not be removed prematurely, nor in a frivolous manner.
MINORITY RIGHTS
Some writers refer to the laws which govern Roman Catholic separate schools as “minority rights.” It stretches the imagination to view the largest religious organization in the province as a “minority.” The “minorities” are more properly Hindus, Jews, Serbian Orthodox, Muslim, Anglican, etc. and they, as religious minorities, have no rights.
Politically, a “right” is an entitlement enjoyed by all citizens as outlined in charters of rights. A “privilege” is an advantage (or immunity) enjoyed by an individual citizen or group of citizens.
These “minority rights” (as some call them) are really privileges, they are advantages or immunities enjoyed by a group.
MAJORITY PRIVILEGE
Publicly-funded separate schools for Roman Catholic citizens represent a privilege given to the largest religious organization in Ontario — the majority.
When talking about publicly-funded Roman Catholic separate schools, we are not talking about minority rights, we are talking about majority privilege.
No charter of rights would ever grant a privilege.
Privileges are anathema to rights.
Jacobsen: Why does the Supreme Court of Canada confirm the existence of the publicly-funded separate school system as a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (CRIPE, 2017)? Yet, the separate school system persists in the country.
Patterson: The Supreme Court agrees that the public funding of the Roman Catholic separate school systems is a violation of the Charter. This is the result of a Supreme Court Reference re Ontario’s Bill 30, the Bill to extend the public funding of RC schools to the end of high school.
In the Bill 30 decision Justice Estey wrote: “It is axiomatic (and many counsel before this Court conceded the point) that if the Charter has any application to Bill 30, this Bill would be found discriminatory and in violation of s. 2(a) and s. 15 of the Charter of Rights.”
However, Justice Wilson wrote that “The Charter cannot be applied so as to abrogate or derogate from rights or privileges guaranteed by or under the constitution.”
Her reason for saying this is spelled out through no fewer than 12 references to the “confederation bargain”, one being the statement: “The rights or privileges protected by s. 93(1) …. cannot be prejudicially affected…..both are immune from Charter review…..because the whole of s. 93 represents a fundamental compromise of Confederation in relation to denominational schools.”
The “confederation compromise” is spelled out in s. 93(2); Ontario must provide separate schools for Roman Catholic and Quebec must supply the same for Protestants. Through the decision on Bill 30, the Supremes turn the Charter into a bare-faced lie. No federal political party finds this bothersome – why?????
In most cases in a developed society, new laws automatically over-ride older laws. Our Charter or Rights and Freedoms was introduced, but the Supremes won’t let its terms get in the way of how they wanted to rule in the Bill 30 case. Heck, they didn’t even consider section 32 of the Constitution Act, 1982 with the title “Application of Charter”.
They didn’t have the fortitude to consider it because it would blow away their reasoning for allowing Bill 30 to be implemented. It reminds me of a statement by Pierre Trudeau, who is responsible for our Charter: “When each citizen is not equal to all other citizens in the state, we are faced with a dictatorship, which arranges citizens in a hierarchy according to their beliefs.”
Jacobsen: The International Convention on Civil and Political Rights is a United Nations document, which Canada both signed and pledged to uphold as a United Nations member state (General Assembly of the United Nations, 1966).
However, Canada, nationally, and Ontario, provincially, have been admonished four times. Why? The reason is simple: “non-action of both governments to correct the abuse” (Ibid.). What is the non-action? Why do both governments refuse to act? What are the consequences for the general public from the non-action? Frankly, four times is a lot.
Patterson: The non-action is the refusal of either Canada or Ontario to abide by the “views” of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which stated: “….the Covenant does not oblige States parties to fund schools which are established on a religious basis. However, if a State party chooses to provide public funding to religious schools, it should make this funding available without discrimination.”
It would be extremely easy for Canada to abide by the ICCPR by simply invoking its power of disallowance – section 56 of The Constitution Act, 1867. Mr. Justice LaForest, (former Justice, Supreme Court of Canada), in his book on disallowance stated that “The makers of our Constitution, in order to prevent the local legislatures from abusing their legislative rights, granted to the government the power of annulling provincial legislation.”
Why do both governments refuse to act? Their answers just refer to a certain section of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 93. But since there are avenues they may follow to make things right, I, personally, have concluded that they are both corrupt. Blatantly corrupt. Just listen to the rhetoric about human rights from both – window dressing? Just propaganda? Or absolute lies?
The consequences are that neither government can claim to be democratic, because one of the bases of a democracy is the rule of the majority. See the latest poll entitled “The Vector Poll on Public Opinion in Ontario” – attached. Any honourable government would see the results and respond.
Consequences include the fact that both Ottawa and Toronto support a two-tier citizenship for Ontario, and also support the absolute waste of over $2 billion each year. That $2 billion doesn’t count the interest on that borrowed money nor the social cost to the disadvantaged – the homeless, the hungry, the disabled, etc., etc., – who do without because the government “can’t afford it.” Separate schools in Ontario are a social disgrace and an economic disaster.
Jacobsen: The Civil Rights in Public Education organization agrees with Article 26 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, which “ensures individuals equal treatment and prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion” (Ibid.; General Assembly of the United Nations, 1966).
How do documents, such as the convention or other ones representative of international law, impact Canadian law and the Canadian Constitution status regarding the publicly-funded separate school system – especially alongside the Convention and its Article 26?
Patterson: International law, in my limited experience with it, does not seem to have any impact on Canadian law, and when it seems obvious to others that it should, it appears that the Supreme Court just ignores it.
When international law is mentioned in a case, it seems to me, that a mention by the Court is only when that law agrees with the Court’s decision. International covenants are binding on countries that accede to their terms, but federal politicians will say it is not binding whenever the government finds itself in conflict with its policy, so the terms are ignored. If the Supreme Court in the Bill 30 case considered the terms of the ICCPR, it would have to do a lot of squirming.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Renton.
References
CRIPE. (2017). Why One School System?. Retrieved from http://www.cripeweb.org/about-us/why-one-school-system/.
General Assembly of the United Nations. (1966, December 19). International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. Retrieved from https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%20999/volume-999-i-14668-english.pdf.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/29
“This was not a good week for religious symbols in Quebec. Well, some people’s symbols, anyway.
In the federal byelection in Lac-Saint-Jean riding, the New Democratic candidate who finished a strong second in the general election two years ago dropped to fourth place, while losing more than half her 2015 vote share.
The obvious explanation is that Quebec New Democrats were justified in fearing that voters in this province would reject their new national leader, Jagmeet Singh, because of his turban and beard representing his Sikh faith.”
“Beijing, China – President Xi Jinping of China announced this week that he wants to tighten Beijing’s strict government controls on religion in the communist country.
In a speech this week during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi said that religions not sufficiently conformed to Communist ideals pose a threat to the country’s government, and therefore must become more “Chinese-oriented.”
While these comments were reportedly intended particularly for Tibetan Buddhists, who have lobbied for independence from China, it could also mean a cooling of the already-rocky relations between the Vatican and China.”
“It’s impolite to talk about religion in public. And that goes doubly for Canada, a country imbued with far less spiritual fervour than our neighbours to the south.
But the past few weeks, Canadians have become uncharacteristically interested in what goes on in the hearts of the godly.
Is a Toronto imam a virulent anti-Semite or a misunderstood man who flubbed a phrase? Does the new NDP leader want an independent Sikh homeland carved out of India? Did Bill Morneau provide a human sacrifice to our Reptilian overlords at this year’s Bilderberg meeting?”
“Day by day, Quebec’s Bill 62 gets curiouser and curiouser. The law, which is almost certainly unconstitutional, was created by politics, and keeps spawning new opportunities for political conflict. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized the law and edged a step closer to the federal government becoming involved, while the provincial opposition Parti Québecois,which goes to bed every night fantasizing about fights with Ottawa, said that if it were the government, it would use the notwithstanding clause to protect the law. So, triples of constitutional crises all around.
And all of this for a law that even its authors can’t explain, let alone justify. The bill’s wording implies that anyone in the province who wears a Muslim face-covering garment, such a niqab or burka, will have to remove it while receiving government services, from hospitals to libraries. Last week, Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée insisted that’s how it will be applied. She said that it will, for example, prevent a woman in a niqab from riding a public bus.”
“Last week, Alberta’s Catholic school board announced it is seeking to have an alternative sex-education curriculum approved by the province. The proposed curriculum will emphasize faith-based instruction on topics such as same-sex relationships and contraception for their schools.
In response, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley firmly stated that public money will not be used to support sex-ed programs that “deny science [and] evidence.” Jason Kenney, who won the leadership of the United Conservative Party on Saturday, countered last week that Ms. Notley shouldn’t be dictating how the Catholic education system teaches its values.”
“Last week, the province of Quebec became the first jurisdiction in North America to usher in legislation that bans anyone who is delivering or receiving public services from wearing the niqab, burka or any other face covering, all in the name of governmental religious neutrality. Introduced by Liberal Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée and unanimously supported by the Quebec Liberal Party under Premier Philippe Couillard, Bill 62 was voted into law beneath the crucifix that hangs above the Speaker’s chair in the National Assembly.
The incoherence is both stunning and confusing. Is Quebec’s government secular, or is it not?
The next day, Quebec solidaire tabled a motion proposing that the question of the crucifix — which has hung in the National Assembly since it was installed by Premier Maurice Duplessis in 1936 — be reopened and debated among MNAs behind closed doors at the Office of the National Assembly, whose role it is to oversee and direct the Assembly administration.”
“Despite ample evidence in current events to the contrary, the celebration shone with optimism for a world of unity, equality, and peace — and where doubt is as important as certitude.
The event Sunday marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Baha’i faith, one of the youngest, yet most widespread, religions in the world.
Bahá’u’lláh was born in Iran, and died in 1892, in Israel, at 74.”
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/28
Serious activist efforts can change the landscape of an entire province, even a country. Some are symbolic, but I do not see even these as minor either.
One particular petition of note is the e-petition by Doug Thomas, President of the Secular Connexion Séculière, called e-petition 1264, or E-1264 (Jacobsen, 2017; House of Commons, 2017; Secular Connexion Séculière, 2017).
The petition is about the discrimination against nonbelievers in Canada.
Another petition relates to discussions happening for a long time now. Those conversations with the decrease in relevance of formal faith including the Roman Catholic Church to Canadians – especially so for younger generations, national and even international controversies over an alternate sexual education program proposed by the superintendents of a Catholic school system, and the desire for a merger of the Catholic separate publicly funded school system and the regular public system in Alberta (Boswell, 2012; French, 2017a; French, 2017b; Mehta, 2017).
The sex education system alternative proposal appeared to have differences of intrigue. Hemant Mehta, a prominent online atheist, noted:
Their curriculum said sex was only permissible within marriage (and never before), downplayed “consent” as the main prerequisite for having sex, ignored condoms and birth control, and only spoke about various types of sex and masturbation in negative ways. (Ibid.)
The Government of Alberta officials didn’t agree. Mehta punctuated the article with the conclusion:
The Alberta government officials deserve plenty of praise for taking this strong stance against misinformation and ignorance. It won’t stop the Church from trying to spread its irrational beliefs, but it will put some giant hurdles along their path. (Ibid.)
In short, the hasty moves to reinstantiate Roman Catholic Church authority in the province diminished it. Hence, the decrease in Catholic Church relevance once more, in some ways.
Enter IDEA and King: Inclusive Diverse Education for All and Former Alberta Education Minister David King, respectively. The organization tied intimately with King, regarding the two school systems, says, “At the beginning of the 21st century, this duplication is obsolete, unnecessary, expensive, and contrary to what we understand about personal and religious freedom, and the religious neutrality of the provincial government” (IDEA, 2017a).
IDEA has a petition, which garnered over 1,000 votes in under 48 hours (King, 2017). It is for a referendum on the merger of both school systems in Alberta. In the midst of the controversies, present, and the crimes, past, of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, this seems like another decent step for secularism. If this doesn’t work this time, we can try again, from another angle.
You can sign here.
Also, please see the E-1264 petition here.
References
Boswell, R. (2012, April 7). Religion not important to most Canadians, although majority believe in God: poll. Retrieved from http://nationalpost.com/holy-post/religion-not-important-to-most-canadians-although-majority-believe-in-god-poll.
French, J. (2017a, October 23). Catholic school districts want their own sex-education curriculum. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/catholic-school-districts-want-their-own-sex-education-curriculum.
French, J. (2017b, March 15). Catholic school board support wanes among young adults, survey says. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/catholic-school-board-support-wanes-among-young-adults-survey-says.
House of Commons. (2017, September 14). E-1264 (DISCRIMINATION). Retrieved from https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-1264.
IDEA. (2017a, October 24). Petition: It’s time for a referendum on separate schools. Retrieved from http://www.ouridea.ca/referendum.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017, August 6). Interview with Doug Thomas – President of the Secular Connexion Séculière. Retrieved from https://conatusnews.com/interview-doug-thomas-president-secular-connexion-seculiere/.
King, D. (2017, October 27). We just broke the 1000 signature mark in 48 hours…. Retrieved from http://www.ouridea.ca/1000sig_referendum.
Mehta, H. (2017, October 26). Alberta Officials Reject Proposed Catholic Sex Ed Lessons That “Deny Science”. Retrieved from http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/10/26/alberta-officials-reject-proposed-catholic-sex-ed-lessons-that-deny-science/.
Secular Connexion Séculière. (2017). Secular Connexion Séculière. Retrieved from http://www.secularconnexion.ca/.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/27
Prof. Imam Soharwardy is the founder of Muslims Against Terrorism (MAT). He founded MAT in Calgary in January 1998. He is also the founder of Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC).
Imam Soharwardy is the founder of the first ever Dar-ul-Aloom in Calgary, Alberta where he teaches Islamic studies. Prof. Soharwardy is the Head Imam at the Al Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre. Imam Soharwardy is a strong advocate of Islamic Tasawuf (Sufism). and believes that the world will be a better place for everyone if we follow what the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) has said, ” You will not have faith unless you like for others what you like for yourself.” He believes that spiritual weakness in humans causes all kinds of problems.
Mr. Soharwardy can be contacted at soharwardy@shaw.ca OR Phone (403)-831-6330.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How did your family come to Islam? What was its impact on your own personal development?
Prof. Imam B. Syed Soharwardy: I was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. My father was a famous scholar and Imam in Pakistan. Millions of Pakistanis knew him personally. He passed away in 2001. He established a religious institution in Karachi, where he was the principal.
This is our family tradition. that we always send our children to religious schools. Once they graduate, they start the religious education. I went to this Madrassah. I learned my Islamic studies: the Quran, the Hadith, Arabic language, and so on, and the Islamic sciences and jurisprudence.
I also graduated from the University of Karachi with a bachelor of arts degree. Then I got another degree in religious studies. I started studying as the assistant imam at 17-years-old in the mosque, where my father was the head imam. I was an assistant imam for him.
I was, at that time, studying myself in grade 10. Afterwards, after I finished the religious degree, I went to my engineering education. I graduated in electrical engineering from the University of Karachi. I came to the U.S. for my education.
I got my masters degree in industrial engineering management from New Jersey. I got another masters degree in project management.
Jacobsen: You founded the Supreme Islamic Council of Canada and Muslims Against Terrorism. What was the inspiration for founding them? What tasks and responsibilities do you do with those positions?
Soharwardy: I established the Muslims Against Terrorism in 1998. I was inspired by the media about some American tourists in Malaysia. A group from the southern Philippines called themselves Muslims and kidnapped them in Malaysia.
There were already some news items about some Muslim groups saying bad things about Jews and Christians and gays in America and elsewhere. I know Islam. But when I heard the news, I don’t care if Christian, gay, atheist, or whatever.
You don’t kidnap people. So, when I heard this news, I thought, “Nope, not anymore.” So, I established it. I wanted to establish it for a long time. When I heard about the kidnapping and then asking for ransom by ‘Muslims’, I decided to found it. I did that, way before 2001.
After the tragedy on September 11, this Muslims Against Terrorism got spread out more than 23 Muslim/non-Muslim countries including Australia, UK, and so on, like wildfire it spread after the tragedy of 9/11.
The Islamic Supreme Court of Canada, I established The Islamic Supreme Court of Canada in the year 2000, before 9/11. The Muslims Against Terrorism not on religious grounds, but on humanitarian grounds. It had some flavor of Islam in it.
I wanted to reach out to non-Muslims and include them in this organization and sending the message of unity. That we human beings are together. That Muslims are leading this organization and showing we can live in peace with other human beings.
It was founded on anti-violence, anti-extremism, anti-terrorism, and with Muslims and non-Muslims working together. When all of this extremism was still rising, especially Taliban, it started creating atrocities. I saw those pictures on TV when Taliban was hitting a woman because she was wearing white socks.
That news item disturbed me, bothered me, so much. These people were committing those crimes in the name of Islam. I decided to create a channel to reach out to the Muslim community here and explain to them that what the Taliban are doing in 2000 here is absolutely horrible, criminal, un-Islamic and a sinful activity.
That was why the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada was a purely Muslim organization, to reach out to Muslims across Canada and through Canada, of course, to other parts of the world and to explain that these fanaticism and extremism and hatred towards women, Jews, and non-Muslims are not Islamic in any way, shape, or form.
It has not been endorsed by any Islamic scholar. Muslims have never done this the same as Al-Qaeda was trying to do in 2000. We are trying to focus on Muslim community with the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada while Muslims Against Terrorism had a focus on everybody together as human beings.
Jacobsen: What would be your one message for those concerned about loved ones who may be engaging in anti-social activities that could potentially lead to small tragedies such as murders from which they claim religious grounds for those murders – often these are men?
Soharwardy: My message to those people. Since 1998, almost 20 years now, my message is to those committing those crimes in the name of my faith, Islam. They are dead wrong! I invite them to talk.
I will explain to them that in Islam there is no room for violence, hate, or misogyny, and intolerance for any other group of people who disagree with Islam.
Yes, Islam disagrees with Christians, Jews, Sikhs, atheists, and Hindus, and generally, those other groups disagree with Islam. It has the beauty that we different people with different beliefs. It does not mean we should hate or hurt each other.
People misinterpret the Quran and think they shouldn’t make Jews and Christians friends. It is not a mainstream Islamic interpretation. It is a narrow misguided radicalized interpretation of Muslim scripture as in the Quran and the teachings of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
I was born and raised in a very, very highly religious family in Pakistan. I am not saying these things because I am in Canada. I was taught the same beliefs. My father taught me the same beliefs. We cannot kill civilians.
We cannot be hateful to any part of society. We can have a difference of opinion. Yes, we can strongly disagree. Yes, we can go against something that is strongly against our belief system.
But we should reach out to human beings and convey the message of Islam. Islam doesn’t condone violence against any person, except when you are attacked then you have the right to defend yourself.
In defense, yes, there is not an organization or group that can call Jihad. Jihad is a noble cause. Jihad and terrorism are different beliefs or traditions, or actions. Jihad has certain ethics. You cannot kill women and children. You cannot defy places of worship of any religion.
Now, these terrorists are killing women and children, which is not the fundamental value of Islam. The fundamental value is the sanctity of life and the freedom of all humanity.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Imam Soharwardy.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/26
The Catholic school system has undergone one of its largest expansions in provincial history. All funding has been paid for by the province at public expense for the schools. In a province mostly consisting of some Catholics and then everyone else, about 32% to 68%, this seems unfair to the citizenry of Saskatchewan (Statistics Canada, 2005).¹
A court order in April declared the province could no longer fund non-Catholic students in Catholic schools. The Premier, Brad Wall, used the notwithstanding clause to overrule the decision in order further instantiate Catholic education in the province.
“Despite some initial fears that the ruling could result in Catholic school closures, the opposite is occurring. Parents, free to choose a school system for their children, are choosing Catholic,” Siedler said (2017).
Within days of the decision in April, Premier Wall said that his government would use their constitutional power to protect the Catholic separate publicly funded educational system – in a province with only 1/3 of the population as Catholics, one might add.
The Chair of the Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools, Diane Boyko, described the results of further Catholic school growth as a sign of the trust in the Catholic educational system on behalf of families of all faiths in the province (Ibid.).
Siedler goes on to reference the case in Alberta:
It’s a different story in Alberta. Some high-profile Albertans, including former education minister Dave King, have used the Saskatchewan court ruling to campaign for the abolishment of Catholic divisions.
King’s cause has been joined by former Edmonton Catholic school trustee Patricia Grell, who has called for the merger of the public and Catholic systems.
I have talked to Grell (Jacobsen, 2017a; Jacobsen, 2017b). This is true; she believes in the merger of the school systems. Why? She has said, “I do not believe that Catholic schools are any better academically, socially or even spiritually than their public counterparts” (Siedler, 2017).
But there’s a background, too, founded in hard experience and courageous campaigning as a trustee in the Edmonton Catholic School Board in Ward 71 (Jacobsen, 2017b).
With declining relevance, the Roman Catholic Church seems to work to entrench more in the public, especially the minds of the young, the Saskatchewan case with the use of the notwithstanding clause appears to be another example of it.
¹Catholics comprise only 305,390/963,150 of Saskatchewan’s population.
References
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017b, October 15). An Interview with Patricia Grell, B.Sc., M.Div.. Retrieved from https://in-sightjournal.com/2017/10/15/an-interview-with-patricia-grell-b-sc-m-div/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017a, October 19). Question with Patricia Grell, B.Sc., M.Div.: Trustee, Edmonton Catholic School Board (Ward 71). Retrieved from https://medium.com/humanist-voices/question-with-patricia-grell-b-sc-m-div-trustee-edmonton-catholic-school-board-ward-71-76ffb4700d1b.
Siedler, R. (2017, October 24). Saskatchewan opens nine new Catholic schools. Retrieved from https://www.catholicregister.org/item/26233-saskatchewan-opens-nine-new-catholic-schools.
Statistics Canada. (2005, January 25). Population by religion, by province and territory (2001 Census) (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan). Retrieved from https://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/demo30b-eng.htm.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/25
According to The Canadian Press, the Canadian Criminal Code (Government of Canada, 2017) is too narrow, as in exclusive to too many:
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould says the fact that it is against the law to disrupt a clergyman or minister — but not an imam or a rabbi — is one of the reasons she wants to modernize the Criminal Code.
This spring, the Liberal government moved to rid the Criminal Code of sections that are redundant or obsolete. (National Post, 2017)
Bill-C-51, as proposed, may lead to the removal of one section of the Criminal Code. The section is about making “it a crime to use threat or force to obstruct a clergyman or minister from celebrating a worship service or any other duty related to his job.”
At present, an assault on a clergyman on travels to or comes from such duty is an indictable offence.
Wilson-Raybould stated religious freedoms are protected in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom and other sections of the Criminal Code. Presumably, the removals make the protections less redundant.
Based on the language, the Justice Minister sees reasons for change too, as in the references to males only and Christians. The reasoning is the restricted inclusivity and explicit exclusivity of the statements towards, for example, women and other faiths – and those without a formal religion.
Rob Nicholson, a Conservative MP, used the provision in the Criminal Code in April of this year. There was, apparently, a charge of vandalism of a St. Patrick’s Basilica (Ottawa) statue (Pringle, 2017).
Regardless of the vandalism, which I deplore and condemn as well as the Christian members of community in Ottawa near St. Patrick’s Basilica, the provision for more inclusive statements – to give a ‘face lift’ to the Criminal Code – seems apt.
References
Government of Canada. (2017, October 13). Criminal Code. Retrieved from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/PDF/C-46.pdf.
Pringle, J. (2017, June 12). Charges laid after St. Patrick’s Basilica vandalized. Retrieved from http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/charges-laid-after-st-patrick-s-basilica-vandalized-1.3454092.
The Canadian Press. (2017, October 18). Criminal Code too narrow on religion, says AG. Retrieved from https://www.ourwindsor.ca/news-story/7661762-criminal-code-too-narrow-on-religion-says-ag/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/23
Mark A. Gibbs is the managing editor (my boss) and contributor to Canadian Atheist. He’s a big deal. Here we talk about him!
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was there much religion in family upbringing?
Mark A. Gibbs: My relationship with religion growing up was peculiar.
Where I grew up, Christianity was the only game in town, and it was everywhere. Every day at school we said prayers at morning assembly, and there were mandatory religious studies – read that as “Christian indoctrination” – classes. And they weren’t just for show; people really believed. I started a band at school with my friends, and the music teachers actually arranged an intervention to warn us about demonic influences in rock music. My closest friends growing up were a family of American missionaries, and I went to weekly Bible studies with the parents for many, many years. I still have the old Bible I used to have to carry around regularly, adorned with Transformers stickers.
But within my immediate family, there was virtually no consideration of religion. I was baptized twice within weeks, in two different Christian sects, to satisfy the two branches of the family – that should illustrate how important religion was to the people around us, while at the same time how unimportant it was to my parents. I didn’t even learn my mother was atheist until after she died. Religion was simply never discussed, neither positively nor negatively. It was just something that other people did; it was their “thing”, and that was fine.
My parents just didn’t care about religion. They’d support anyone who needed it. When I was a kid, we actually had people stay with us who had been “disfellowshipped” from the Brethren – they’d been kicked out of the Church and lost their friends, their families, their jobs… everything. My parents let them stay with us until they got back on their feet in secular society. On the other hand, my parents also helped people who were recovering drug addicts who were trying to put together a Christian recovery ministry. Whether it was helping people start a ministry or escape from one, all that mattered was that people needed help.
In fact, my brother went through a phase where he was very seriously considering going to seminary and becoming a priest, and my parents gave him their full support, even going so far as to arrange interviews with ordained clergy to talk about what the job was like… and then a few years later that same brother was playing bass in a heavy metal band with Satanic imagery, and my parents were totally supportive of that, too, with my dad teaching him metal licks on the guitar and lending equipment. Whether it was religion or irreligion, my parents just didn’t care.
Jacobsen: Was the part of Canada in which you grew up religious or more irreligious than the national average?
Gibbs: Most of my growing up was in Barbados. It’s hard for me to measure how religious the areas of Canada I’ve lived in were compared to the Canadian average, because my own impressions are spoiled by my Bajan experience. I don’t think anywhere in Canada is even remotely as religious as Barbados.
Jacobsen: How did you become formal irreligious, an atheist, in Canada?
Gibbs: I was born an atheist, and never spoiled. But for most of my life I identified as “Anglican”. I don’t know if ever even set foot in an Anglican church, and I couldn’t even tell you what the uniquely Anglican tenets are. But I needed to call myself something, and the only things I knew from growing up were Christian denominations, so I figured I had to be one of them. Wasn’t Catholic, didn’t seem to be Baptist, and so on; I eventually narrowed it down to Anglican just by process of elimination.
I don’t think my transition to explicitly atheist was something that happened in a single event. In university I got involved with a number of social justice groups of various stripes, and I guess I realized over time that they were all struggling against religious oppression in different ways. Religious groups just never seemed to be on the side of right. So somewhere along the way I decided that I couldn’t keep identifying myself with organizations and beliefs that were so intolerant, irrational, and odious, so I stopped calling myself “Anglican”. That was just before the rise of New Atheism, so I think I called myself “agnostic” for a while before the New Atheists inspired me to start using the label “atheist”.
Jacobsen: What is your best argument for irreligion?
Gibbs: The best argument for irreligion is simply parsimony – Ockham’s Razor: there’s no evidence for religious claims, so there’s no reason to believe them.
By my favourite argument for irreligion is the moral argument, based on William Kingdon Clifford’s essay “The Ethics of Belief”. The idea is that it’s actually wrong – morally wrong – to believe things without evidence. I don’t buy the argument completely, but up to a point it’s hard to argue against. Ockham’s Razor can only tell you that faith is unnecessary; Clifford shows you that it’s outright immoral.
Jacobsen: What is the long-term future, say 50 years, of religion in Canada?
Gibbs: I think the future is very bright! Assuming nothing globally catastrophic happens, religious influence will continue to fade. I doubt religion will be completely eliminated from Canada in any foreseeable future, but we’ll probably come to a time where it’s so niche that it won’t have any impact on most Canadians’ lives. If I had to speculate, I’d say that fifty years from now we’ll have a few provinces with more than half the population having no religion, and a couple of provinces with atheist premiers. (An atheist Prime Minister? Possible, but the odds are just slightly against.)
Jacobsen: What is its near-term future?
Gibbs: I don’t see any major changes in the short term. We’re making such good progress, both socially and legally, that it’s in our best interests to just let things continue to advance at the current pace. It’s probably unsatisfying for some atheists to have such gradual improvement, as opposed to the rather rapid social progress made by other groups, like LGBT people. But moving gradually means we don’t have to face the kind of active hostility and opposition those other movements face. Instead, every time we win a new battle it sorta slips just under the radar and just becomes “normal” before the haters even realize we’ve made progress.
The other problem with trying to push too hard too fast is that we might get careless and swing the pendulum of injustice the other way. Right now we’re (mostly) on the side of right, fighting against religious oppression… but if we’re not careful we could start promoting policies that change the dynamic to where nonbelievers are actually the ones doing the oppressing of believers. There are already worrying signs of that happening in other countries, and even hints of it here. We need to make sure that we’re fighting for our own fundamental rights and for equality… not fighting to take away fundamental rights from believers.
Jacobsen: Why did you begin work through Canadian Atheist?
Gibbs: I started out as a commenter taking issue with some of the things being said on CA. This was just about the time that the Québec Charter of Values was first being introduced, and I was appalled by some of the reactionary and downright irrational arguments being offered in support of it. I challenged the rhetoric, and that caught the eye of the managing editor at the time. I was already writing for a couple of other sites at the time, and I was really stoked to be able to contribute to CA.
Jacobsen: What things do you do for it?
Gibbs: As managing editor of Canadian Atheist, I try to find new voices interesting in contributing to the site. We’re always looking for new contributors. CA’s editorial policy is very liberal – I never tell anyone what to write or censor their contributions – so most of my time is spent doing technical work to keep the site running smoothly, and to catch the attention of search engines so that we can reach more people and have more impact.
Jacobsen: How can people become involved with it?
Gibbs: Basically anyone who wants to contribute content that will be of interest to Canadian atheists and can demonstrate an ability to write, draw, or record clear, coherent, and relevant content is welcome to join the team! Just drop us a line using the contact form on the site and introduce yourself.
Jacobsen: What is the state of not only atheism but also irreligiosity writ large in Canada?
Gibbs: I think we’re actually on the cusp of a very big change. In the past, atheism and non-religion in general were always there, but generally ignored and not given any particular respect by politicians or established institutions, like the CBC. No politician could be arsed to pander to nonbelievers – or even mention them – and institutions like the CBC treated us like this weird freak show on the fringes of Canadian society.
But a couple of things are happening now that might change the game. The rise of the Canadian far-right has made religious-based hate (in their case, it’s usually Christians specifically targeting Muslims) headline news, and it’s leaving a sour taste in Canadians’ mouths. I don’t think Canadians have made the connection yet – I think they’re still seeing it as plain racism, not religious discrimination – but there are other things, like M-103, that are putting religion on the discussion table despite the Canadian tradition of not talking about religion publicly. And now we’ve just elected the first non-Christian leader of a major, Federal political party. We’ve never really had to talk about the religion of potential Prime Ministers before… now we might.
Canadians generally take a “don’t want to deal with this” attitude toward potential conflict, and pick the path that seems to lead to the least strife. If religion becomes a flash point for conflict, I think most Canadians – who are already virtually atheists; they’re certainly not particularly religious – will decide that non-religion is the path to peace.
Maybe? We’ll see.
Jacobsen: What are perennial threats to non-belief in Canada?
Gibbs: Canadian apathy and the tendency to stick with the status quo.
We don’t suffer from a lot of focused hostility in Canada. Rather, we suffer from passive, almost “bored” discrimination – historical methods of discrimination that Canadians just can’t be arsed to do anything about. Even many Canadian nonbelievers don’t care; the discrimination isn’t so bad that it’s intolerable, so they’d rather not rock the boat.
I don’t see any plausible path to things getting worse for nonbelievers in Canada… unless Canada goes batshit insane like the US and elects a Trump-like PM, which is not likely (but not impossible!). So it’s really just an issue of things not getting better. It took us until 2017 to get a bill to repeal the blasphemy law (which still hasn’t passed!), and we’re still forced to plead to God in our national anthem, and to listen to our elected Parliament praying. There are plenty of things that need to be fixed, but for now I’m not really worried about regressing.
Jacobsen: What are the bigger areas of social discrimination against nonbelievers in Canada?
Gibbs: It may just be that I’ve lived only in fairly progressive and tolerant areas of Canada, or it may be that I’m spoiled for making a decent comparison by my Barbadian experience, but I can’t see I see much social discrimination against nonbelievers in Canada. Oh, sure, no doubt you can find pockets where the ignorance and bigotry runs hot. But broadly speaking, I think Canadians are fairly ambivalent toward irreligion and irreligious people.
At least in my personal experience, whenever I “out” myself as an atheist, the response I almost always get is simple bemusement. People respond by asking me questions about atheism or my personal atheist experience. Some of those questions are the kinds of ignorant questions that make atheists roll their eyes, like, “do atheists believe in nothing?” or “how can you be moral without god?” But I honestly don’t think they are being asked from a place of hate… I think they’re genuinely curious about something they don’t understand, and have been lied to about all their lives. So I try to answer patiently, with a touch of humour and humility. And I’ve found that generally, people walk away thinking better of atheists than before we talked.
Now, I have to be careful to say that that Canadians seem generally ambivalent and curious about atheists… the same is not always true for atheism. I have noticed mildly negative views of atheism – as an ideology or movement. But I think what we’re seeing there is not actual hate of atheism, but rather annoyance at atheism for being activist, and for rocking the boat. Canadians generally want people to keep their heads down and not stir the pot or create conflict… but as an activist movement, atheism has to create a bit of a ruckus to get anything accomplished; only the squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all. I believe that if all of our political and social goals were accomplished, so that atheism no longer had to be politically activist, Canadians wouldn’t have anything against it at all.
Jacobsen: What are the bigger areas of political discrimination against nonbelievers in Canada?
Gibbs: While I don’t think there is a lot of active political discrimination against nonbelievers in Canada, there are a handful of politicians who routinely say bigoted, intolerant, and, frankly, stupid things about atheists that they wouldn’t say about any other “religious” group. The fact that those statements are considered acceptable, and usually ignored by the mainstream media, illustrates that we still have work to do.
But the real problem is subtle forms of discrimination, or “micro-agressions” against atheism. Most of Canada’s public institutions are essentially “old boys’ clubs”, with the same-old gang doing things the same-old way they’ve been doing them for many decades. They’re still mired in old-school thinking – which is usually heavily religious, at least in affiliation – and they don’t really have any voices from the demographics that you’ll find a lot of atheists in, like younger people. To give an example, just a couple years ago, the CBC aired a discussion panel that asked whether atheism was any good for Canada. Can you imagine them doing a discussion on whether Judaism or Sikhism was any good for Canada?! And then to add insult to injury, they didn’t include a single atheist voice on the panel… and instead had invited a Catholic priest. Again, can you imagine Canada’s national broadcaster airing a discussion on whether Judaism was any good for Canada, then not only neglecting to invite any Jewish people, but instead inviting a representative from an antisemitic organization?! There was simply nobody in that “old boys’ club” who had the wherewithal to notice how wildly inappropriate that was.
This is not just an atheist problem. We badly need more diversity in our public institutions, because several groups are simply being ignored or misunderstood.
Jacobsen: What are the bigger areas of legal discrimination against nonbelievers in Canada?
Gibbs: In 1982, Canada basically got a brand, spankin’ new Constitution, complete with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Prior to that, there were numerous laws on the books that were very discriminatory toward atheists. But the Charter changed everything. Those old, discriminatory laws remained on the books… and many still remain to this day… but they’re now dead letter.
However….
There is still one particular area of legal discrimination based on religion. It doesn’t specifically target atheists, but at least in Ontario, Catholic schools enjoy a specially protected “right” that other religions – and non-religion – do not. And not just that, they have the legal right to refuse to hire atheists (or anyone who is not Catholic) as teachers. Doesn’t even matter if it’s a math teach – what does math have to do with Catholicism? The hypocrisy is astonishing; Catholic schools will refuse non-Catholic teachers… but happily accept non-Catholic students – after all, they get paid for the latter. The majority of Ontarians oppose the public Catholic system, but there’s just no political will to do anything about it.
Jacobsen: What are the positives of religion?
Gibbs: I’ll flip the question and say what the negatives of religion are, and there are only two: faith (which I define is belief without or in spite of reason or evidence), and authoritarianism. If you take those things away, religion becomes benign, and possibly even positive.
There are a lot of features of religion that could be put to such wonderfully positive social and cultural use if they weren’t tainted by belief in supernatural or mystical nonsense, or unquestioning obedience to religious authorities or doctrines. It’s a nice way to define and bind a community – it provides a shared identity, shared customs and traditions that can be celebrated together, and a focal point for community organization. It’s not really the silly claims that make religion bad, because the claim that a man lives at the North Pole with elves and travels around the world with flying reindeer to hand out presents is not causing any harm, nor are the customs or traditions associated with that story that we celebrate. It’s the belief in irrational claims that’s the problem; it’s faith that is the problem, as well as the authoritarian idea that the claims must be respected and obeyed without question.
Of course, it’s arguable that if you take the faith and authoritarianism out of religion, whether it’s still “religion”. And none of the positives associated with religion actually require religion; not even watered-down non-faith/non-authoritarian “religion”. We could, in theory, replace every beneficial feature provided by religion with something completely new. But since religion is already extant, and ubiquitous, maybe if we could take the faith and authoritarianism out if it, maybe it would be easier to harness that existing power for good, rather than trying to make something new from scratch.
Jacobsen: Who are people attempting to move the conversation within religion to a higher plateau, a more progressive platform?
Gibbs: Within religion, I honestly don’t know. I was born without religion and never got sucked in, so I’m a bit of an outsider to the whole scene. I can only give a few names, that I vaguely know of via the media. For example, there’s Gretta Vosper, the former United Church of Canada minister who came out as atheist. But I’m not sure how much she can be counted as “within religion” anymore, since they kicked her out. There are also people like Malala Yousafzai, and so on … but there are a lot of people who wouldn’t consider Yousafzai to be a True Muslim™, and so on.
Honestly, I am fairly disinterested in efforts to “reform religions from the inside”. I don’t oppose them, and I’ll even support them if they ask for my assistance, but I just don’t find “reform” efforts to be compelling pursuits. I don’t see it as coincidental that religions are a lot more conservative, dogmatic, and aggressive about their beliefs now than they were fifty years ago. To me that’s the natural result of the growth of nonbelief. In times past, religions were very often at the vanguard of the fight for human rights (not all religions, but every major human rights movement had strong religious support)… but not any more, and probably never again in the future. The people who walk away from religions are going to be the more moderate reasonable people, leaving only the more extremist, unreasonable people behind… thus it’s to be expected that religions are becoming more extremist and unreasonable. As this trend continues, I don’t expect reform efforts to be particularly fruitful in the long term.
Really, the only thing I hope for from reform movements is that they just keep the religion sane (relatively speaking) and non-genocidal long enough until its membership has withered away to make it no longer worthy of serious concern. If they also manage to make the religion tolerant and reasonable, that’s great… but I’m not going to bet anything on them managing that.
Jacobsen: Who is a personal hero for you?
Gibbs: Oh, I don’t believe in heroes anymore. Too many of them have proven themselves to be far too human. But there are people I respect, and I follow their opinions because I find them to be usually far better informed well thought-out than the average.
Off the top of my head, focusing on Canadians, in alphabetical order:
- Ian Bushfield, Executive Director of the British Columbia Humanist Association;
- Eiynah, who writes as Nice Mangos;
- Spencer Lucas, aka The Positive Atheist;
and of course, all of the contributors to Canadian Atheist, past and present.
Jacobsen: Who, naming names, are attempting to either argue for the traditionalist, even fundamentalist, religion in Canada? Also, who are closet religious-minded individuals who are attempting to rebrand religion, especially Christianity, and sell it to the modern generations such as the, as they’re automatically labelled, Gen Xers and the Millennials?
Gibbs: I am not a fan of naming names, for the simple reason that it gives them too much power. Oh, certainly when I’m addressing someone or their arguments specifically, I’ll address them directly – that’s only civil; I’m not suggesting dehumanizing our opponents by refusing to name or acknowledge them. But I prefer not to raise particular people or organizations up as symbols of things I oppose. When you create a boogieman (boogieperson?), you make it too easy to attack the boogieman itself, and not their ideas. And it’s their ideas that need to be challenged.
I don’t think, though, that there’s anyone doing a particularly good job of repackaging religion for the young. Younger Canadians are growing up more skeptical and less religious than any generation before them. And they’re particularly unimpressed by the bigotry, intolerance, and stubborn opposition to science and reason displayed by most religions. Most every attempt I’ve seen to “sell” religion to the young have tried to avoid that core problem; they’ve tried to pretend there’s really no problem with intolerance and ignorance in religion, but young Canadians have seen enough evidence to the contrary that they’re not buying. Nowadays there’s simply nothing that religions have to offer younger Canadians that they don’t already have – they get their community, their support, and their understanding of the universe from the Internet. With no benefits and with that nasty stain of association with bigotry and ignorance, it would take a pretty brilliant marketing campaign to make religion attractive to younger Canadians, and I’m just not seeing it.
Jacobsen: What are your major initiatives the irreligious movement in Canada in the coming months?
Gibbs: Canadian Atheist is going through a bit of a renaissance right now, and that should pick up even more steam in the coming year. We’ve just rolled out a new back-end infrastructure that will allow us to build some really cool new features.
The first one that’s probably going to see daylight is something I’ve called Rosetta. The idea is to create a collection of the documents and writings most important to Canadian secularism, humanism, atheism, and freethought (SHAFT), and translate them to all Canadian languages. All Canadian languages; not just English and French. That means translating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Plains Cree, translating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Inuktitut, translating the Amsterdam Declaration to Ojibwe, and more. Rosetta will also include a translation dictionary, so one day you may be able to translate “I am an atheist” to every Canadian language.
Ultimately the goal is to make Canadian Atheist less of a platform that a select few can use to shout their opinions at the community, and more of a community hub with an egalitarian ethic – a place where everyone can hear and share their opinions about Canadian atheism. But that goal is a bit of a ways off yet.
Outside of Canadian Atheist, I think the biggest thing happening in Canadian non-belief right now is that are a hair’s breadth away from finally getting some of the most pernicious religious-based discriminatory laws repealed. One more push, and Canada may no longer have laws against blasphemy, witchcraft, and other such things.
Another thing I think is brewing, but has not yet coalesced into a single, organized initiative, is opposition to publicly-funded religious schooling in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. There are some court challenges in flight that could change the landscape completely, and force the government to end funding for separate, religious schools. It’s something I’m keeping a close eye on for 2018.
Jacobsen: Any feelings or thoughts in conclusion?
Gibbs: I just want to say that I really believe in the foundations of humanism: reason, compassion, and hope. I believe that if we use those ideals as a guide, we’ll be on the right path – a path that our descendants can look back on and be proud we took. We shouldn’t define ourselves by the things we disagree with or hate; we should not define ourselves as “anti-religious” or “anti-theist”. We should define ourselves by the things we aspire to.
Thanks for hearing me out!
Jacobsen: Thank you for your time, Mark.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Aside from governments telling women what they can wear and can’t wear around the world, minor political activist efforts come in at a consistent pace, on the periphery of the news cycle. Some even have sole article reportage (Peritz, 2017).
As noted in the Freedom of Thought Report from the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), Canada has symbolic inequality with preferential treatment with explicit religious symbols – some of the most important in this case – in the Quebec National Assembly (IHEU, 2016). In the section called Provincial Privileges, it states in full:
A crucifix hangs at the National Assembly of Quebec, right above the Speaker seat, and protocol rules give higher ranking to Catholic prelates than to elected ministers. Buildings used for worship or other religious purpose in Quebec are taxed at a much lower rate than others.
Also in Quebec, the mandatory course on “Ethics and Religious Cultures” is supposed to give all primary and secondary schoolchildren an understanding of the main religions. However the term “Atheist” was deemed to be too “negative” to be included in the course. (Ibid.)
The symbol has been “thrust into the centre of the province’s roiling debate over faith and state secularism” (Peritz, 2017). This is about symbol and reality at the same time, which has some humor to it. As talked about in First Principles Activism – how lovely, I quote and reference myself, (Jacobsen, 2017), some documents can help guide activism, even political forms of it. These start small and become big. This seems symbolic: small.
As has been asked before by others, in a passive tone, is the government – municipal, provincial, territorial, or federal – neutral on matters of faith? Matters in the broad sense, e.g., symbolic and political matters. The question arises for the neutrality of the government in the context of normal political life in Canada. How would one of the non-faith individuals or faithful individuals feel about unequal representation in the Quebec National Assembly?
Now, those without a formal religion tend to lack religious symbols. That leaves two options and one equal option. Either all religious symbols permitted or none: if all, then non-faith lacks representation, so leads to inequality; if none, then non-faith and faith alike lack representation, so equality via neutrality. The government as neutral creates equality. The government as all in on religion makes for inequality for the irreligious; the government pro only one religion becomes unequal too, to all other religious and irreligion
I, as I assume you as well, would want government as neutral, in the interpretation of government out of matters of faith altogether: true secularism with separation between places of worship, symbols, rituals, and so on, and the government.
“Now it’s time to talk about the apparent secular nature of the most important institution of Quebec democracy, the National Assembly…For us, there’s something profoundly contradictory in the fact we’ve been debating secularism all these years without having the political courage to take action on the crucifix,” Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, an MNA with Québec Solidaire said (Peritz, 2017).
Some claim the crucifix unfairly targets faiths such as Islam, minority faiths. In short, government pro one faith or all other faiths, or lack thereof.
It is past 1936, when the Christian or Roman Catholic symbol was installed, and the Quiet Revolution happened and the province secularized. The province remains mostly Catholic, but if many are not – either through adherence to no formal religion or another formal religion – then the fair option is to remove the object because one main argument is that it’s a representation of all Quebeckers.
If many aren’t, then that’s false. It’s a symbol of the majority of Quebeckers harking back to the time when only Roman Catholic Christians could settle in New France. A colony, mind you, that was well-known for slavery in this country of both Indigenous peoples and blacks (Henry, 2017). Christian European-Canadian slave owners of Indigenous peoples, the Pawnee Nation, and blacks. Do we want to represent this as a heritage as well in the Quebec National Assembly? If not, while still wanting the crucifix up, does this mean only the positives of one colonial religion become represented?
It seems more reasonable to remove it:
The motion by the left-leaning Québec Solidaire to debate the removal of the crucifix requires the support of the governing Liberals to move ahead. The main two opposition parties, the Parti Québécois and Coalition Avenir Québec, support the motion. The PQ says that if it were in government and all parties agreed, it would be open to removing the crucifix. The CAQ says it is open to discussing the issue, although its historic position is to leave the crucifix. (Peritz, 2017)
This remains one small arena for political activism for secularism. What about religion as an exemption to anti-hate speech legislation? What about the blasphemy law? What about the wedding licenses for humanists? How about interpretations of “sincere beliefs” and “reasonable accommodations”? How about Catholic school privileges? Or the anti-GSA, or Gay-Straight Alliances, activities of some Catholic education? Or even the big symbol with the Preamble to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms talking about the “supremacy of God”?
All of these are subject to question and secularization. The crucifix as wholly inappropriate could be a signal to activists across the country for further secular activism. It seems reasonable to me. I would support it.
References
Henry, N.L. (2016, June 15). Black Enslavement in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/black-enslavement/.
IHEU. (2016). Freedom of Thought Report: Canada. Retrieved from http://freethoughtreport.com/countries/americas-northern-america/canada/.
Jacobsen, S.D. (2017, October 21). First Principles Activism. Retrieved from https://www.canadianatheist.com/2017/10/first-principles-activism/.
Peritz, I. (2017, October 24). Quebec legislature’s crucifix hangs over secularism debate. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/opposition-party-looks-to-remove-crucifix-in-quebecs-national-assembly-amid-bill-62-debate/article36700123/?service=amp.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
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There has been discussion over a long time with some ‘flash-points’ about one publicly-funded education system in Canada. Organizations such as Civil Rights in Public Education (CRIPE), One Public Education Now (OPEN), One Public School System for Ontario, One School System, OneSystemSask, and others, presumably (CRIPE, 2017a; OPEN, 2017; One Public System, 2017; One School System, 2017; OneSystemSask, 2017).
Even with a brief scan of some articles, it continues to be a topic of interest to the general Canadian public, active members at any rate (Gee, 2017; Pascal; 2014; Emann, 2016; Brown, 2017; Mang, 2010; Ostroff, 2016; Roden, 2017; French, 2017a; Medicine Hat News, 2017; Schuklenk, 2014; Ramsay, 2017).
The call comes from the desire for one public education system for all. A recent news item talked about the proposal from the publicly-funded Catholic education school system for a separate, not only school system but, sexual education curriculum.
Intriguing, at a minimum.
As reported by the Edmonton Journal Editorial Board (2017), a publicly-funded Catholic school system set of superintendents have been developing, in essence proposing, a sex-education curriculum in parallel to the current one in the publicly-funded schools. In the development of a separate sexual education curriculum, the implicit message seems to be that the current one is wrong or flawed in some fundamental ways – enough to justify, to the Catholic superintendents, the need for an entire overhaul and proposal of another one.
The one in development by the superintendents would stand in the place of the provincial health and wellness curriculum. The provincial government “rejected the request to fund its development but the project is still going ahead in hopes the province will agree to it” (Ibid.).
That hope is a faith, for sure.
Granted, the Alberta Act of 1905 (Government of the Province of Alberta, 1905) provides the privilege to one religion, the Roman Catholic Church, to form a separate publicly-funded school board; also, apparently, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario fully fund a Catholic separate school system (Edmonton Journal Editorial Board, 2017). But should this separate system exist in the first place? Roman Catholicism is the dominant faith in the country. It has declined in dominance over decades.
1905 onwards, these were the times of its dominance, the Residential School System, and so on. I will grant, in the discussion, ignoring the historical over one century-long series of crimes by the Roman Catholic Church against the Indigenous populations within the borders demarcating Canada.
Nonetheless, one-quarter of the Canadian general public identify with no religion (Statistics Canada, 2017). Only ~39% of the Canadian population identifies at Roman Catholic, so a publicly-funded separate religiously-based education system based on only 39% of the population, in a country with an increasing number of people lacking formal religious belief or have no religious affiliation (Ibid.).¹ Does this move against the larger demographics, something like a tacit or implied will, of the people in our democracy?
Possibly, almost certainly.
Aside from the apparently outdated reasons for a separate school system, misalignment with the demographics of the country – or the desires of the general population for a single publicly-funded education system (as apparently found by Civil Rights in Public Education with about 54% of the public wanting a single publicly-funded education system), what is the justification for the difference from the provincial health and wellness curriculum in the separate, religious sexual education curriculum from the Roman Catholic superintendents in development (CRIPE, 2017b)?
The Catholic School Superintendents found the future sex-ed lessons “problematic” (Edmonton Journal Editorial Board, 2017). That comes out as one reason. The provincial health and wellness curriculum will include the following: “promotion of homosexual relationships and lifestyles, teaching of gender identity as disassociated from biological sex, masturbation and anal and oral sex” (Ibid.).
Those come out as others: disagreement with Roman Catholic morays, norms, and theology.
David Eggen, Education Minister, rejected the substituted curriculum as an idea. Eggen said, “I can assure Albertans that, under our government, any curriculum changes will be inclusive of all students — no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.”
All schools in the province of Alberta must follow the universal program of study set out by the Government of Alberta, including Roman Catholic educational institutions. One curriculum for all. I love the statement of the Edmonton Journal Editorial Board:
It makes no difference that it’s the forthcoming provincial human sexuality curriculum that the Catholic superintendents want to replace with their own. Whether it’s math, language arts, social studies or sex education, the principle is the same: there is one curriculum for all. In the case of sex education, that concept is particularly important.
The point of including human sexuality in the curriculum is to ensure that children get accurate knowledge and respectful instruction on a subject matter historically fraught with misinformation, angst and stigma. (Ibid.)
This becomes a subset in the national discourse about separate educational curricula and institutions with the preferential treatment of one authority structure grounded in faith apart from the general public even as most of the general public do not identify as that faith, nor do they likely, as a simple majority, want a separate publicly-funded school system.
A discourse on one publicly-funded sexual education curriculum. As Eggen stated, and as others have echoed, such as Janet French, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, President of Alberta Teachers’ Association Local 80 for Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools Brice Unland, Alberta Teachers’ Association Spokesperson Jonathan Teghtmeye, a spokesperson on behalf of the Red Deer-based Trans and Non-binary Aid Society (TANAS), Red Deer Public Schools Trustee Dianne Macaulay (who has been arguing for one public education system), Alberta Liberal Leader David Khan, Luke Fevin of Edmonton Atheists and A PUPIL, and others probably, a single publicly-funded secular school system is needed and the proposal for an alternate Roman Catholic sexual education curriculum is “completely unacceptable” (French, 2017b; The Canadian Press, 2017; Hall, 2017; Simons, 2017; Franklin, 2017).
Not only in Alberta, but nationally: we can make the change too.
But it’ll take work, not hope.
¹12,810,705/32,852,320 or Catholic/all others equals 38.9% or ~39%. Statistics Canada. (2017, February 14). 2011 National Household Survey: Data tables. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID=105399&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=95&VID=0.
References
Brown, J. (2017, June 18). It’s time to end public funding of Catholic schools. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/the180/stop-funding-catholic-schools-restore-trust-in-the-neb-and-let-me-change-my-name-1.4162978/it-s-time-to-end-public-funding-of-catholic-schools-1.4163049.
CRIPE. (2017a). Civil Rights in Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.cripeweb.org/home.php.
CRIPE. (2017b). Why One School System?. Retrieved from http://www.cripeweb.org/about-us/why-one-school-system/.
Edmonton Journal Editorial Board. (2017). Editorial: One curriculum for all. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-one-curriculum-for-all.
Emann, S. (2016, March 14). Canada’s publicly funded religious schools have to go. Retrieved from http://www.metronews.ca/views/opinion/2016/03/14/canadas-publicly-funded-religious-schools-have-to-go.html.
Franklin, M. (2017, October 25). Alberta government reacts to Catholic school’s stance on sex education. Retrieved from http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/alberta-government-reacts-to-catholic-school-s-stance-on-sex-education-1.3647944.
French, J. (2017b, October 23). Catholic school districts want their own sex-education curriculum. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/catholic-school-districts-want-their-own-sex-education-curriculum.
French, J. (2017a, May 11). Red Deer public school board advocates elimination of Catholic school system. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/red-deer-public-school-board-advocates-elimination-of-catholic-school-system.
Gee, M. (2017, June 9). Toronto needs a single, secular school system. Retrieved from https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/toronto-needs-a-single-secular-school-system/article35264933/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&.
Government of the Province of Alberta. (1905, July 20). Alberta Act. Retrieved from http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/aa_1905.html.
Hall, J. (2017, October 24). Exclusive sex-ed push putting ‘final nail in coffin’ for Catholic system, says local advocate. Retrieved from http://rdnewsnow.com/article/558051/push-exclusive-sex-ed-final-nail-coffin-catholic-system-says-local-advocate.
Mang, E. (2010, October 7). A publicly-funded Catholic school system is unjust. Retrieved from http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ericmang/2010/10/publicly-funded-catholic-school-system-unjust.
Medicine Hat News. (2017, May 29). Single, publicly funded school system the best route for Alberta. Retrieved from http://medicinehatnews.com/commentary/opinions/2017/05/29/single-publicly-funded-school-system-the-best-route-for-alberta/.
One Public System. (2017). One Public System. Retrieved from http://www.onepublicsystem.ca.
One School System. (2017). One School System. Retrieved from http://www.oneschoolsystem.org/fast-facts.html.
OneSystemSask. (2017). OneSystemSask. Retrieved from http://www.onesystemsask.ca/.
OPEN. (2017). One Public Education Now. Retrieved from http://open.cripeweb.org/aboutOpen.html.
Ostroff, J. (2016, January 8). It’s Time To Excommunicate Public Catholic Schools. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/joshua-ostroff/end-public-catholic-schools_b_8712316.html.
Pascal, C. (2014, November 3). Public funds shouldn’t pay for Catholic schools in secular Ontario. Retrieved from https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2014/11/03/public_funds_shouldnt_pay_for_catholic_schools_in_secular_ontario.html.
Simons, P. (2017, October 24). Paula Simons: Catholic sex-ed proposal puts church, NDP on collision course. Retrieved from http://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/paula-simons-catholic-sex-ed-proposal-puts-church-ndp-on-collision-course.
Ramsay, C. (2017, May 11). Red Deer Public School Board supports unified Alberta school system. Retrieved from https://globalnews.ca/news/3444865/red-deer-public-school-board-supports-unified-alberta-school-system/.
Roden, T. (2017, July 12). Niagara school closures show need for a single school system. Retrieved from https://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/7419349-niagara-school-closures-show-need-for-a-single-school-system/.
Schuklenk, U. (2014, January 24). Why special funding for Catholic schools is wrong. Retrieved from http://www.thewhig.com/2014/01/24/why-special-funding-for-catholic-schools-is-wrong.
Statistics Canada. (2017, February 14). 2011 National Household Survey: Data tables. Retrieved from http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp-eng.cfm?LANG=E&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=0&PID=105399&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=95&VID=0.
The Canadian press. (2017, October 24). Catholic school sex-ed plan as advertised won’t ever be taught, premier says. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/catholic-school-sex-ed-notley-1.4370304.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/24
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What were some of the first moments of strange responses from the school and the community, if any, about the young trans student, your child?
Mother of Trans Child: There were no strange responses from the community at all. Her friends thought nothing of her living as her authenticate self and their parents were all very supportive. The strange response was from the school admin itself. We first had a meeting in January where an unnecessary amount of people were in attendance, including a priest.
The biggest resistance we received from the school was that what washroom she would use. I insisted on the female washroom and that was declined. It was then determined by the school that a single stall washroom would be deemed the “everyone washroom” all the kids in the school had the option of using what washroom they wanted the gendered washroom or the “everyone washroom”. My daughter’s choice was taken away and she was required to use the “everyone washroom only”. When I pressed about this, I was given reasons such as:
- It violates the rights of the “real girls.”
- There are no doors on the stalls in some schools, so she wants to gain access to the girls.
- It’s not segregation to force one student into a separate washroom. (Not only was she forced, she required an escort to attend the washroom with her. This was one of two of her closest friends).
This, of course, is the Coles Notes version of event… we could write a book with everything that has transpired over the last three and a half years.
Jacobsen: How did this become a ‘flash-point’ issue with the Catholic school system in that sector of the province?
Mother of Trans Child: After much debate between the school and I, and when they made their decision final to only allow her to use the “everyone washroom,” I went to the media as I was not going to allow my child to be treated differently. This is when one of the trustee’s, Patricia Grell, learned what was really going on in the school system. She came out confirming that my daughter should be able to use the female washroom. The school board and admin’s response was terrible citing such things as ‘God chooses the gender not the person’. After public criticism, my daughter was “granted permission” to use the female washroom. The story really blew up in September of 2015. There was a school board meeting that went astray. The meeting was to implement a policy allowing transgender students to use the washroom of the gender they identify with. This was truly one of the most disgusting displays of human behavior I have ever seen. It was this meeting that made the story international news.
Jacobsen: What were the feelings of your child, if I may ask, as well as yourself based on the reactions of the hierarchs in the school system and the publicity in the media over it? What has been the most hopeful, as well as difficult, part of the situation?
Mother of Trans Child: At the time my daughter was only 6 just turned 7, so her and her friends did not have access to media outlets and were not aware of what was truly happening. She knew that she was not “allowed” to use the female washroom and couldn’t understand why. Here I am trying to tell her, she is normal and there is nothing wrong with her and her response was, ‘Why then am I not allowed to use the girl’s washroom?’. She was confused on that part; when she was ‘granted permission’ to use the female washroom, she was elated. She was getting to truly live as her authenticate self. It’s truly been amazing to witness.
My feelings are a different story, lol. I was sad that a faith-based group would be so quick to judge and discriminate. That sadness turned into disbelief witnessing the corruption in the Catholic faith and listening to the accusations made about myself by the school administration (child abuse, money hungry, being divorced, and wanting a daughter so forcing her to do this). That sadness is now just disgust, how such bigoted individuals are allowed to teach and lead children is beyond me. Time, and time, again, we have seen the arrogance and disregard this system has for LBGTQ children as well as the Education Act. Yet, nothing is being done by our government to correct this.
There have been hopeful parts of this. It has been the people that I have met through this process. Some of my closest friends are my friends because of my amazing daughter. The most difficult part is now I suffer from bad anxiety as a result of the treatment by the school board. I find it hard to socialize and speak to people due to the anxiety I now have as a result of the last three and a half years of dealing with this. I truly understand why we are the first family to have filed a complaint against the Catholic school system in regards to this topic. They will do everything to attempt to beat a person down to the point where they just switch to the public system.
Jacobsen: Who were some faithful allies for the family?
Mother of Trans Child: First and foremost, Patricia Grell, she risked everything for a little girl she had never even met. She embodied what it meant to be a “good Christian.” She saw a person being hurt and accepted that person as they were. She would not and has not stopped fighting for my daughter. I know how difficult it was for me. I cannot even imagine having to work with those people and deal with that day in and day out. Grell truly is my family’s guardian angel.
Thomas Lukaszuk is also another big ally for us; I brought him the situation just before the election happened. While working on his campaign, he still advocated for my child. After the election, and when he had no vested interest, he still continued to advocate for her.
The former director of the Pride Centre Micky Wilson, who is now one of my closest friends, has always been willing speak to anyone who seeks understanding on this topic.
Dr. Justin Petryk and Dr. Lorne Warneke are also huge allies, and then many friends and family as well.
Jacobsen: What do you think should be done moving forward?
Mother of Trans Child: Moving forward, I think the government needs to take a more aggressive approach. To date, they have had consultations and conversations. However, the Catholic system still finds ways to challenge the authority. They truly believe that religion is above basic human rights and have shown that they do not have the best interest of the child at hand. The Minister of Education needs to amend the Education Act to outline any confusion the Catholic school board and any religious figure may have about human rights. One might say well that’s is what the Human Rights Act is for… my response is, “Yes, I agree. However, the school system keeps referencing the School Cannon Law, which is tied into the Education Act. There is no harm in having it (human rights) outlined in more than one place.”
Jacobsen: Any final feelings or thoughts?
Mother of Trans Child: I just truly hope that the NDP step up and act as they promised they would. So far there has been nothing up empty threats by the government. Now, with a new school board and trustees pledging their responsibility to the archbishop rather than the students, we are going to need more than just words. We see the arrogance as recently as this week; after the minister has said, “No,” to a Catholic teaching sexual education program. A release of said program was still leaked. This type of teaching is extremely harmful to an already vulnerable group of children.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time to share your story.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/23
I spoke with Dr. David Orenstein, Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York, and author of “Godless Grace: How Nonbelievers are making the world safer, richer and kinder.”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let’s cover a little of your brief background. What was faith in your family, community and, subsequently, to yourself?
David Orenstein: It is a great question. I really grew up very secular. My family members were believers, but they never pushed faith on me or my sisters. I was Bar Mitzvah’d, but it was more of a social event than a need to be recognized by God or the State or something like that.
I don’t think my family was very happy when I came out an atheist and I came out an atheist at a very young age. Not full well knowing what that implies in terms of philosophical belief and that stuff, I was simply not a believer in the divine.
While my parents specifically were believers, we didn’t subscribe to any faith tradition, really. I always tell people, “I see myself as a cultural Jew.” If you grow up in New York City and in Brooklyn, from my generation and perspective, I am of the Jew from the mold of Woody Allen or Carl Sagan, very into arts and culture and open to things.
I always surrounded myself with people of that perspective.
Jacobsen: You wrote Godless Grace. How did that background influence it?
Orenstein: Godless Grace was almost a catalyst for something that Christopher Hitchens always used to say, ‘Tell me something a religious person can do that an atheist cannot.’ One is, “Well, we can’t create fault lines.” [Laughing]
But there was always this position and maybe it is in religious marketing as well that, “You can only be good with God.” Knowing my personal history as a nonbeliever, knowing that I always felt that my humanity came before any faith doctrine, I knew that there would be many other people out there without faith that do good for the sake of goodness and human empathy.
I started writing this work as an ethnography. I am an anthropologist. I looked to people who I knew in the nonfaith community and through tons of introductions to other people, my co-author, Linda Blaikie and I were able to put together a book of interviews of people who are doing wonderful human and civil rights work as well as environmental justice work around the world.
They’re really doing the goodwill and the good work of healing the environment, and helping people who don’t have, or are speaking out for human rights and against violence. My goal was to use this book, to use those stories, that atheists are not the bogeyman and bogeywoman that a lot of religious people like to paint us as.
I wanted to move the conversation away from the ideas that nonbelievers are intellectually vapid, morally bankrupt or even physically violent people and that being without God meant we must be all murderers. No, not only can we live a moral and just life without faith, but we can do it one step better because we’re not doing it to please anyone per se but for the love and sake of humanity – knowing we have only 85 years on the earth for better or worse.
In essence, that if we don’t speak up now for our rights no one else will and that our nonbelief activism and humanitarian work can build a better world. A just world, a world of human rights, a world of environmental justice, things that are equalized not in the name of the Lord but in the name of Humanity.
Jacobsen: If you look at the landscape of those who lack a formal faith, of those who lack a religion, in other words, it is a rapidly growing population, very rapid. What can organizations do or temporary coalitions of people to accommodate this rapidly growing population who are often very young – 18-35?
Orenstein: I think there are a lot of really good things being done, because in order to have a supportive community we have to transfer our culture and values to the next generation. We need to have different types of leadership within all of our non-theist organizations now.
We can have thought leaders. I consider myself a thought leader. I write. I do public speaking. I connect other people. Then there are boots-on-the-ground activists. Those are the people in my book. Then there are the people who don’t have the time to be activists, but they can support our organizations with finances. There shouldn’t be one way anyone is told is the right way to contribute to the movement.
Also, we certainly have to lead by humanist, atheist and secularist example. For example, what comes out of Camp Quest, the secular summer camps, is one generation wanting the next generation to have a secular experience and be together in their youth. This really does build the next generation of leaders.
On college campuses, even in New York City, you would be surprised at the number of students who think, “I don’t really believe what my parents believe. But I’m too shy or afraid to say anything.”
I have had students come to speak to me privately about this. It is about giving counsel as well. It is also about supporting student organizations in high school and even in middle school.
Downwards, it is making sure all of the local chapters of national organizations have at least some element of a young person’s having the opportunity to gather at least once a month.
That’s the wonderful thing about technology like YouTube and Meetup. People can get together, express themselves, and see that they are not alone. It is important because we are not a monolithic group. People my age or people who are even Baby Boomers don’t have the same needs as atheists or humanists who are 20-somethings.
We are different stages of our lives. So if we only program for people who are only of a certain ethnic group, or a certain age group typically, then you will not get the next generation of activist leaders every organization needs to move into the future.
If you are not building the next generation of leadership you are not making the next link in the chain and whatever good you’ve done won’t be there for the future. We must pass the baton onto someone. Or, let me put this in evolutionary terms, Extinction is forever!
It also means you’ve got to let go as to what you see as the priorities because the next generations coming up might see things very differently.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, David.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/23
Terry Sanderson, the President of the National Secular Society – a British campaigning organization that promotes secularism and separation of Church and State. He has cancer. Here we talk about atheism in the 21st century, the meaning of life, the possibility of death, absolute finality, and more. Prior interview here.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What does being an atheist in the 21st century mean to you?
Terry Sanderson: It means nothing more to me than a lack of belief in anything supernatural. There is no such thing as “the supernatural”. Anything that occurs is, by definition, natural. There is nothing outside those bounds, no ghosts, no gods, no miracles. That is all atheism means to me – add other things – humanism, secularism – and it becomes something else.
Jacobsen: You have cancer. You are about to enter major surgery. What does this make you think about the meaning of life?
Sanderson: Life has no meaning beyond itself. People who cling to religion are appalled by such thinking and regard it as sad. But trying to ponder the supposed “Big Questions” – things like “Why are we here?” “What comes after”, “What is the meaning of life?” is a complete waste of time. These questions have no answers so why ask them? Or as Gertrude Stein put it, “The answer is: there is no answer.”
Why torment yourself with such stuff? Get on with life, enjoy your senses – have good food, good wine, good sex. Our senses are all that we have to tell us we are alive. Make the most of them.
Jacobsen: How do you feel about the possibility of death?
Sanderson: Death is not a possibility, it is an inevitability – for everyone, no exceptions. The fact that my own end may be arriving sooner than I had anticipated is disappointing only in the sense that life is good and I want more of it.
I have had seventy years of perfect health, which I have taken for granted. Such good fortune can give one a misguided sense of immortality – nasty things happen to other people, not to me. But when the reality of life’s conclusion suddenly presents itself, you start to think – sometimes resentfully – about the things you will miss by going too soon.
My mother lived until she was 97 and by that stage, with rapidly fading senses and physical decline, she longed for death and welcomed it when it came. I watched her take her last breath and she struggled to cling on, but she was under the influence of morphine so it might just have been her body’s natural instinct to survive. If she had survived, she would have cursed the doctors for reviving her. So death is not always the terrible enemy, sometimes it is a welcome friend.
One wise philosopher once said, “The living are just the dead taking a vacation” and I find that comforting. The eternity of non-existence before I was born was a state of complete unawareness for me. That is the state I expect to return to when I am dead. No need to fear non-existence (although for some Christians non-existence is the very definition of hell, a denial of the time they had expected to spend with their god).
Jacobsen: How important does the potential for the reality of death, of absolute finality, make friends and family and their love for you?
Sanderson: Love is a wonderful thing. It is life’s grandest experience. Naturally, we want our loved ones to stay with us, not to die, and we mourn when they are gone. But the pain of loss is what we must endure in order to experience love. There is no escape. I don’t want my partner to hurt when I am gone, but he will. We have spent half a lifetime together and when that comes to an end it will be hard. Bereavement seems unendurable, but it can be endured. I hope that those who have loved me will remember me with affection. That’s the best I can hope for.
Jacobsen: If you could advise youth on making the most of life, and fighting for the rights of others in the livelihood of others, what would you recommend for them? Even though they may not know the most about the world, this might help some who are reading this find some guidance from an elder.
Sanderson: I hesitate to give advice because life as a young person is very different to life in later years. When I think back to my own youth, it is like looking at another person. What I thought then has changed several times. And we are all molded by our genes and our upbringing, so there is no formula that fits everyone.
I was lucky to have a childhood filled with love and I have always wanted to be like my mother, who was gentle, tolerant, forgiving, understanding and affectionate.
I want people to be happy and to accept them as they are in all their irritating variety. I try not to make sweeping statements about groups and to judge everyone on their individual qualities. If you can learn to do that, you will have a happy life filled with people who love you because you love them for who they are, not for any perceived racial or religious identity or ideological label that they put on themselves or have put on them by others.
Life is about fun, too. Fun is not trivial, never think that. It is about being happy. As the great American atheist Robert Ingersoll said, “Happiness is the only good, the time to be happy is now, the place to be happy is here and the way to be happy is to make others so.”
So, have fun, be silly if you feel like it (I love being silly) and don’t make cruel or humiliating jokes about other people, however much you think they deserve it.
Jacobsen: The United Kingdom is much more secular and atheistic then Canada. What is one thing about the United Kingdom that Canadians should know but potentially don’t with regards to lack of faith?
Sanderson: Our histories are very different and despite the long centuries of religious dominance, I have a feeling that the British have never really been very religious, not in their hearts.
If you read some Victorian novelists – like Anthony Trollope – you will see that even in those days, when the Church was very powerful in politics and society, there was still a lot of skepticism.
The Church has been cruel and greedy all along the way, and people know that, but until they got organized there was no way for ordinary folk to resist. Gradually the Church’s powers have been reduced until now it is regarded by most people as a complete irrelevance.
I don’t think there is much that secular or atheist groups can do to persuade people out of religion. I’m not sure that we should even try. For some people it is comforting and it brings the community into their lives. Such people will have to find their own way out of it.
The churches seem to be doing a good job of bringing themselves into disrepute by being so completely irrational and out of step with modern life. They take themselves so seriously and some religious people actually believe all the self-important bilge that they spout. Fervent religionists will have great difficulty seeing how fatuous their beliefs are. They have devoted their lives to nonsense and admitting it is next to impossible. That’s their problem.
It is when they demand that we all respect faith that I get annoyed. I don’t respect it. I never have. Why would anyone respect something so crazy? In some parts of the world, though, people are forced to respect religion or risk death. Blasphemy laws illustrate just how weak religion really is at its foundations. When respect has to be enforced by threats and menaces, you know that it isn’t deserved.
We should just keep on encouraging religious leaders to make stupid statements. We should continue pointing out how dangerous religious identities can be. It’s a gradual process, but it is gaining momentum every day.
Jacobsen: In the latter part of life, you have experienced quite a lot. You’ve experienced a lot of abuse. But you have come out an important voice. How do you persevere in light of all of the pain inflicted on you simply for being different and speaking your mind for the rights of others?
Sanderson: I have never really been affected by abuse and only on a few occasions have I been threatened with physical violence.
I have love all around me from my friends and family, and I know that I can always retire to the safety of my home where warm hearts are waiting. Surround yourself with supportive friends and no amount of abuse will then penetrate.
If you see a glaring injustice (as I did with the treatment of my fellow LGBT people back in the 1970s and 80s) and you want to challenge it, then there is no easy way to do it. You just have to do your best, campaign as hard as you can and keep on going in the face of setbacks.
There may be people telling you that what you are doing is wrong, that you don’t understand the issues, but don’t take notice of that. If your conscience tells you that you are doing the right thing, something that will improve the lot of others and harm no-one, then press on despite opposition.
Jacobsen: What have been the bigger changes away from religion in the UK?
Sanderson: Gods are no longer the most powerful influence in this country, as they have been in the past. People will claim to believe in “something greater than themselves” but pressed about what precisely they mean, it is soon apparent they don’t believe any religious claims.
Most religion-inspired legislation has been repealed – abortion is no longer illegal, homosexuality has been decriminalized, family planning is easily available. The churches have had to adjust to all these changes, but each one of them reduces their influence a bit more. Every reform secularises the nation further. Education and easy communication have also weakened the grip of superstitious thinking.
Religion is dying in the West, in Islamic countries, though, its baleful influence continues to grow. People in poverty often turn to religion as their only comfort and solace. It’s understandable. But one day they, too, may achieve the affluence enjoyed by the West and be educated without indoctrination. Then that they will have the luxury of being able to reject the religious props that seem so important when they have nothing else. They will, as in the West, abandon beliefs that ultimately bring them so much misery. It is then that religion will collapse once and for all.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Terry, I wish you the best in recovery and good health.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/22
“A long-standing goal of artificial intelligence is an algorithm that learns, tabula rasa, superhuman proficiency in challenging domains. Recently, AlphaGo became the first program to defeat a world champion in the game of Go. The tree search in AlphaGo evaluated positions and selected moves using deep neural networks. These neural networks were trained by supervised learning from human expert moves, and by reinforcement learning from self-play. Here we introduce an algorithm based solely on reinforcement learning, without human data, guidance or domain knowledge beyond game rules. AlphaGo becomes its own teacher: a neural network is trained to predict AlphaGo’s own move selections and also the winner of AlphaGo’s games. This neural network improves the strength of the tree search, resulting in higher quality move selection and stronger self-play in the next iteration. Starting tabula rasa, our new program AlphaGo Zero achieved superhuman performance, winning 100–0 against the previously published, champion-defeating AlphaGo.”
Source: https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v550/n7676/full/nature24270.html.
“Thousands of scientific papers contain a fundamental error, according to a new study published in the online journal PLOS One.
In more than 33,000 publications, scientists unknowingly used the wrong types of cells for their experiments, and the mistakes remain uncorrected, contaminating the scientific literature.
It matters, the researchers say, because if scientists are using the wrong cells, their observations and conclusions might be inaccurate.
“We’re not saying those 33,000 articles are wrong,” said Willem Halffman from Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
“But among those 33,000 there are definitely some with wrong conclusions.”
It’s a dirty secret in science, one that many researchers don’t like to talk about. The problem was first identified in the 1960s by early whistleblowers.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/second-opinion-171021-1.4365023.
“Basic research in the space sciences holds essentially limitless potential for tackling profound questions of our existence and opening the doors of exploration, innovation and future economic opportunity. Space science continues to generate extraordinary discoveries, whether groups are exploring Mars, investigating the fundamental physics of the universe or discovering new exoplanets around nearby stars.
This drive to explore and exploit space has led to the emergence of new companies and innovations in traditional aerospace companies seeking to reform the way spacecraft are designed, built, launched and operated. There has also been a surge in private resources dedicated to creating new commercial capabilities and initiating the next wave of space exploration — though not yet for discovery-driven scientific missions. [NASA Could Reach Mars Faster with Public-Private Partnerships, Companies Tell Congress]”
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/space-science-needs-a-private-funding-boost/.
“THE PANDEMIC OF sexual harassment and abuse — you saw its prevalence in the hashtag #metoo on social media in the past weeks — isn’t confined to Harvey Weinstein’s casting couches. Decades of harassment by a big shot producer put famous faces on the problem, but whisper networks in every field have grappled with it forever. Last summer, the storywas women in Silicon Valley. Last week, more men in media.
Earthquakes of this magnitude are never any fun for people atop shifting tectonic plates. But the new world they create can be a better one. No one misses Gondwanaland.
Still, records of those lost continents remain in the fossil record. The downstream effects of sexual harassment have the potential to color everything from the apps you use to the news you read. From now on, when we watch movies that Weinstein touched we’ll think about the women actors, wondering what they had to go through to be there — or what happened to the ones who couldn’t bear it, who left, who didn’t get the jobs, who self-deported their talent from Hollywood. We’ll wonder who enabled it, who let it happen and then perhaps surfed to their own success on Weinstein’s waves of destruction. The same goes for movies directed by Woody Allen or Roman Polanski. Or others.
There’s a word for that kind of work: “problematic.” It’s stuff you love tainted by people you hate. It’s Steve Ditko’s weird Randian objectivism metastasizing into Spider-Man, and Dr. Seuss doing anti-Japanese propaganda work during World War II. It’s Roald Dahl, anti-semite. Can we love Kind of Blueand Sketches of Spain and also condemn Miles Davis for beating his wives? Is Ender’s Game less of a masterpiece for Orson Scott Card’s homophobia? Maybe. Looking hard at the flaws of the artist is an important way to engage with the art.”
Souce: https://www.wired.com/story/science-harassment-data/.
“Amy Hinsley has spent years studying wildlife conservation and she’s become an expert in her field. But whenever she attended a scientific conference, she felt reluctant to put up her hand and ask a question.
“I would wonder whether my question was good enough or I would hesitate to ask a question,” said Dr. Hinsley, a 33-year-old research fellow at the University of Oxford who studies the black market for endangered plants and animals.
A few years ago, she raised her insecurities with fellow researcher Alison Johnston, a statistician in the department of zoology at Cambridge University, and found she’d had similar experiences.”
“n ordinary discourse, a theory is a guess or a surmise, as in “that’s only a theory.” In science, however, a theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is supported by confirmed facts and/or observations. Verification of a theory’s predictions ensures its eventual acceptance by the community of scientists working in the particular discipline.
“Acceptance by the community” means that a consensus has been reached. In other words, at least a large majority, if not almost all, of the scientists who work in the discipline have agreed that the particular theory is the best way to explain or understand the relevant phenomena. In contrast to the bogus claim of some global warming deniers, reaching consensus is an integral feature of successful scientific theories. Once reached, the culmination of consensus is the publication of monographs and textbooks, and the introduction of university/college courses on the subject.
How consensus may be achieved is beautifully illustrated by the development of quantum theory.”
Source: https://blog.oup.com/2017/10/theory-consensus-in-science/.
“With time and money running out, Brazilian scientists are turning up the pressure on the federal government to avoid a total collapse of the national science and technology funding system before the end of the year.
Researchers last week delivered a petition with more than 82,000 signatures to congressional leaders in Brasília, demanding the reversal of deep budget cuts that have left research institutions struggling to pay even basic water and electricity bills. The petition delivery was part of a series of meetings and protests held across Brazil.
As a result of Brazil’s mounting economic woes, federal funding for science and technology is now at its lowest level in modern history, dropping by more than half over the past 5 years. The science ministry kicked off this year with a slim $1.8 billion budget, but President Michel Temer’s administration later reduced that by 44%, imposing a spending cap of just over $1 billion.”
Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/brazil-researchers-struggle-fend-deepening-budget-cuts.
“The three young dinosaurs had snuggled together to sleep when disaster struck. A thick layer of ash or soil, probably from a volcanic eruption or sand storm, poured over them and the animals, each the size of a large dog, died within minutes.
For 70 million years they lay entombed, cradled beside each other within a slab of rock, until US scientists uncovered their remains earlier this year. Subsequent analysis of the fossilised bones — which come from the Gobi desert — reveal the first known example of roosting among dinosaurs.
The discovery, outlined at the recent Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology meeting in Calgary, has caused considerable excitement among scientists because communal roosting — sleeping in groups — is exhibited by many modern species, including crows and bats.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/21/dinsoaur-roosting-secrets-revealed.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/22
“George Weigel’s Witness to Hope was written before its subject was canonised, but that exhaustive biography vibrated with confidence that the day of universal recognition would be inevitable. Weigel has become something of a pontifical Boswell, and his third volume about John Paul II is like the last wing on a vivid triptych by Memling or Rubens. The first two books were analytical, while this one — Lessons of Hope (Basic Books, £25) — is a portrait more ruminative and personal, and not without humour. It may even be more valuable precisely for that. History is disserved by those who think that private asides and impressions are secondary to major dates and deeds.
Weigel’s classical theological formation and his own urbane humanism made him a good fit for understanding Karol Wojtyła, and it would seem that the Holy Father sensed the same, enjoying his company and table talk. Through that association, Weigel was able to perceive the pope’s sources and initiatives, beginning with his pastoral work in Poland.
Wojtyła’s Polishness was not something to be thrust aside when he became Universal Pastor, like some gnostic shedding of irrelevant skin. Poland was an icon of Christ in its heroic deeds and salvific suffering, far more than most nations. That land, with trembling borders but unflagging chivalry, was crucified over centuries, only to rise with valour when its people cried out in 1979: “We want God.” And Wojtyła was there to hear them.”
“Twelve students. Many religions. One common goal.
A new program on campus called the Center for Religion and Global Citizenryis bringing together students of different beliefs, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and secular humanism, to promote inter-religious dialogue at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
The center, which had its first meeting Oct. 10, is a co-curricular, non-credit educational opportunity for a selected group of students, who each receive a $750 stipend for their work at the center. The 12 students who were selected from around 30 applicants will meet weekly to discuss a curriculum created by Ulrich Rosenhagen, the center’s director.
Rosenhagen, who is also a lecturer in religious studies, says the goal of the new center is for students to have “tough conversations” about religion in a meaningful and respectful way. The core group of students can then bring these interfaith discussions to the larger campus community by organizing events, panels and discussions for the whole campus.”
Source: https://news.wisc.edu/new-center-seeks-to-foster-religious-dialogue-on-campus/.
“Parents be vigilant! And this also is why groups like Humanists UK are so important, supporting such ideals. This is from them:
A Church of England school in Kent has been forced to stop a Christian group from delivering assemblies and lessons to its pupils after parents complained about their children being exposed to ‘a potentially damaging ideology’. Humanists UK, which campaigns against the privileged position given to religion in schools, has stood by the parents, and called for a ‘national conversation’ about religious influence and evangelising in the education system.
In a letter to parents, the headteacher of St John’s Church of England Primary School in Tunbridge Wells, Dan Turvey, stated that ‘After careful consideration I have decided that we will end our regular commitment to CrossTeach and that they will no longer lead assemblies or take lessons.’ However, he said he was ‘deeply saddened’ by the move.”
“For admirers of mainstream Bollywood films, the name Rahul Bose commands attention. But for audiences of Bengali and art house cinema, his name commands respect.
The actor, known for being choosy when it comes to signing films, is now also a director, and his second directorial venture Poorna is generating a great deal of buzz in showbiz circles.
Recently, Poorna got a standing ovation at the opening of the Indian film festival in Dublin. Many of those who saw it were pleasantly surprised because they did not have high expectations of the film, expecting it to be a simple story about a little girl who climbed Everest — a film for children.”
Source: https://images.dawn.com/news/1178627.
“Regardless of whether we are cognizant of it or not, we all have a worldview that shapes our ideas, gives a framework for our lives, and dictates our presuppositions about morality and mortality.
In the United States, two prevailing views are a Christian eternal worldview or humanistic view. Why do people who have so much in common see the world and make choices so differently? Why is there such deep chasm between people regarding what is right and wrong, just or unjust, or understanding of the meaning of life?
The humanistic view rejects God and sees man as the measure of all things, that man sets the standard for ethical and moral standards, that man is basically good, not sinful. This kind of thinking is based in moral relativism. If this life on earth is all there is for us, then as much pleasure as possible should be sought before it’s over.”
“I have been reading lately about the rise of humanism in Europe. The old scholars often described themselves as “ravished” by one of the books newly made available to them by the press, perhaps also by translation. Their lives were usually short, never comfortable. I think about what it would have been like to read by the light of an oil lamp, to write with a goose quill. It used to seem to me that an unimaginable self-discipline must account for their meticulous learnedness. I assumed that the rigors and austerities of their early training had made their discomforts too familiar to be noticed. Now increasingly I think they were held to their work by a degree of fascination, of sober delight, that we can no longer imagine.
John Milton said, “As good almost kill a man as kill a good book.” He was arguing, unsuccessfully, against licensing, the suppression or censoring of books before publication. This was usual in the premodern and early modern world, of course. How many good books were killed outright by these means we will never know, even granting the labors of printers who defied the threat of hair-raising punishments to publish unlicensed work, which others risked hair-raising penalties to own or to read.”
Source: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/11/09/what-are-we-doing-here/.
“The potential of Corbynism is enormous. But, for its full potential to unfold, we see it as essential that forms of politics beyond the purely electoral make use of all the capacities and enthusiasm of the Labour Party’s expanded activist base
In late 2016, Labour was polling in the mid-20s and many were happy to say that supporting the leadership was a foolish endeavour, if not an entirely futile one. It felt at the time as though the potential and energy of Corbynism was at risk of waning as it struggled to move beyond the immediate defence of Jeremy Corbyn’s position as leader. However, our aim when we imagined a new project was not so much to be at the vanguard of this defence, as vital as it was, but to pour our energies into being useful in other ways.
We want to bring together people in Labour, Momentum and trade unions who are already active and engaged. The aim is to assist and encourage these comrades in their efforts to broaden the reach of the labour movement and build a political force capable of radically transforming society.”
“”Please don’t jump down my throat,” Taylor Grin thought as he approached his training instructor with a request.
It was 2013, and Grin was a few weeks into Air Force basic training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He had just learned which religious services were available to trainees — Catholic, several Protestant denominations, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist, among others.
Grin, then 26, considered himself a secular humanist, someone who pursues an ethical life without a belief in God. With no chaplain-facilitated service for trainees like him, he wanted to start one — and became a key player in a national culture war playing out within the U.S. military.”
“It is his view of the death penalty, not theirs, that departs from Catholic teaching.
For decades, liberal Catholics have relativized Catholic dogma and dogmatized relativism. Pope Francis is the champion of this movement. One moment, he is pushing Jesuitical situation ethics, which is an outgrowth of moral relativism; in the next, he is hectoring Catholics that his flaky political opinions constitute “Catholic social teaching.” To adulterers, he says: Go and sin some more. To people who fail to recycle, he has urged confession and repentance.
To more fanfare from the media this week, he declared the death penalty “inadmissible” everywhere and always and says that he wants to change the catechism to reflect this absolutist view. Never mind that his entire pontificate has been devoted to saying that life is too murky for “black and white” moral norms. Somehow he has managed to find one.
Not a single one of his predecessors took the position that the death penalty is intrinsically unjust. But he does and says that anyone who disagrees is a proponent of “vengeance.” He claims a deeper understanding of Christian imperatives, even though the origin of his pacifism isn’t Christian. It springs not from the moral absolutes of the Christian tradition but from the relativistic humanism contained within post-Enlightenment moral and political philosophy. He is rendering not to Christ or Caesar but to Cesare Beccaria, the 18th-century father of left-wing criminology who set the modern world on its pro-prisoner course.”
Source: https://catholiccitizens.org/views/75471/pope-francis-vs-predecessors/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/22
“As allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein re-ignite discussions about sexual violence, the global advisor of the United Nation’s Global Safe Cities Initiative says Winnipeg is taking the right steps to help curb sexual violence.
Winnipeg became the first Canadian city to sign onto the UN’s initiative to reduce sexual violence against women and girls in 2013, and the program’s global advisor, Laura Capobianco, was in the city this week as part of the UN Women Safe Cities Initiative.
She told CBC News she’s been impressed by the efforts Winnipeg has undertaken since joining the initiative, which has since been adopted by 27 cities around the world.”
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sexual-violence-united-nations-winnipeg-1.4366218.
“Every so often in the United States, a scandal erupts to temporarily demolish the country’s marketed image as a pioneer in gender equality and related rights.
The name of the current scandal is, of course, Harvey Weinstein — the millionaire Hollywood film mogul accused of sexual assault by an ever-expanding number of women, as his decades-long impunity appears to be coming to an end.
Weinstein, however, is merely the tip of the iceberg. In a recent New Yorker piece titled All the Other Harvey Weinsteins, actress Molly Ringwald writes about her own history as a victim of sexual harassment in the film industry, noting, “I never talked about these things publicly because, as a woman, it has always felt like I may as well have been talking about the weather.””
Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/face-epidemic-sexual-harassment-171020091640079.html.
“KOBANE, Syria — The battle to take Raqqa, the Syrian capital of the Islamic state (IS) group, is almost over. But one of the main challenges that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) face after IS is not only the huge destruction but also how to expand their model of women’s rights to conservative tribal areas in northern Syria and ban people from marrying more than one wife.
Since the war broke out in 2011, there has been an increase in the rates of child marriage and polygamy, both in the country and among the refugee population. The amount of marriages registered as polygamous in Damascus has risen from five percent in 2010 to 30 percent in 2015.
The opposite has been true in areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, and a drive for equal rights for women has seen the practices largely abandoned.”
Source: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/kurdish-fight-women-rights-faces-challenges-syria-1018812004.
“100 Women: The male movie star campaigning for women’s rights
Farhan Akhtar is not only massive in the movie world, he’s also the founder of a movement to get men to support women’s rights.
He talks to Asian Network’s Haroon Rashid about why men need to take responsibility for their actions and raise their children to respect women.”
“The inaugural Animation is Film Festival supplied a family night of fun and culture on Friday at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatre in Hollywood.
Among the guests to arrive at the opening night and U.S. premiere of “The Breadwinner” was producer Angelina Jolie, with children Shiloh and Zahara in tow. Before the screening of the fest’s first premiere, Jolie-Pitt introduced the film she described to be “so exquisitely done and very important.”
The animated film is based on Deborah Ellis’ children’s novel of the same name, which follows a young girl in Afghanistan who disguises herself as a boy to provide for her family.
“There are few countries in the world where it is harder to be a young girl, where barriers between girls and their dreams and their rights are so high and so painful to experience and observe,” Jolie said, adding that the story was also able to highlight Afghanistan’s “deep humility, rich culture and a resilient warm people.””
“Laura Boldrini, president of Italy’s Chambre of Deputies, breezed into her boutique hotel in Old Montreal on Saturday followed by an entourage of elegantly dressed Italian diplomats and assistants.
She wore her newly acquired “Je parle féministe” sweatshirt.
“I didn’t know there would be a photographer,” she said, slightly embarrassed. “I could get you other photos of me, if you like.”
But the sweatshirt was a signpost for the conversation that would follow with Boldrini — a journalist turned refugee advocate turned politician — taking on fake news and Facebook, Harvey Weinstein and the (continuing) fight for women’s rights.
“Fake news is like drops of poison that we drink every day with water and in the end we get sick and we don’t even realize it,” Boldrini began. “It pollutes public debate and it’s dangerous to democracy.””
“Faculty at Okanagan College in Kelowna are speaking out on behalf of students after a recent anti-abortion protest on campus left some students feeling harassed, threatened and unsafe.
On October 11 and 12, an anti-abortion group called Expose the Reality demonstrated in a high-traffic area of the Okanagan College Kelowna campus carrying large, graphic signs showing aborted fetuses.
“Many of our students experienced [the signs] as very traumatizing. They experienced those signs as harassing,” said Sasha Johnston, an English professor at Okanagan College and the status of women representative for the faculty association.”
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/22
“MONTREAL—Calling it a North American first, the Quebec government passed legislation Wednesday forbidding anyone from receiving or giving a public service with their face covered — and even while riding the bus.
The opposition said the law doesn’t go far enough, while members of the province’s Islamic community said it targets Muslim women and violates their fundamental right to express their religion as they see fit.
“This has been a debate that’s been tearing Quebec apart for the past few years,” Premier Philippe Couillard told reporters. “We need to hail this exercise. We need to remind people we are the only jurisdiction in North America to have legislated on this issue.””
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is looking into the implications of Quebec’s Bill 62, which would require Muslim women wearing a niqab or burka and anyone else using public services to uncover their faces.
“I don’t think it’s the government’s business to tell a woman what she should or shouldn’t be wearing,” said Trudeau while campaigning in Alma, Que., with candidate Richard Hébert ahead of Monday’s byelection.
“As a federal government, we are going to take our responsibility seriously and look carefully at what the implications are.”
When asked if that would include taking the bill to court, Trudeau would only repeat that Ottawa is “looking carefully at the implications.””
Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-bill-62-implications-1.4363989.
“Major global conflicts and the need for justice will be the topics up for discussion at the 12th annual World Religions Conference.
The free event is taking place October 25 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Red Deer College Arts Centre.
Organizer Malik Agyemang says those in attendance will hear about global issues and thoughts on how we can all live together in harmony from a number of speakers of different faiths.
“It doesn’t matter whether we all have the same religion, or even for people who do not have any faith. How do we quell this? How do we live together in peace and harmony?” he asks.
Agyemang says the potential for global conflict is real and it must be spoken about.”
Source: http://rdnewsnow.com/article/557160/world-religions-conference-global-conflict.
“(JTA) — Jewish leaders in Canada are debating a measure meant to prevent intolerance aimed at Muslims and other minorities.
Earlier this month, the head of B’nai Brith Canada outlined his objections to M-103, a parliamentary motion passed earlier this year that “condemns Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.” The Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage held hearings on the measure this week.
Critics of the measure say it singles out Muslims for special treatment because it condemns only Islamophobia by name and does not explicitly mention other religious groups. Others have accused the motion of hampering free speech.”
“Across the world, Diwali celebrations are underway and thousands are gathering in Metro Vancouver to be a part of the festival of lights that starts Thursday.
One Hindu temple in Surrey was bustling to get ready for a morning of festivities and preparing for 10,000 people to attend the opening celebration.
The day before Diwali, on Wednesday, volunteers gathered at the Laxmi Narayan Mandir Temple to decorate.
“It’s the happiest moment,” said Santosh Joshi, one of the volunteers.”
“Current and former Jehovah’s Witnesses in Canada have filed a $66 million class-action lawsuit against the religion’s leadership claiming that its policies protect members who sexually abuse children.
The suit was filed in Ontario on behalf of alleged victims of sexual abuse across Canada, where more than 100,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses reside.
“It appears the organization has not established policies to prevent sexual abuse from happening and has faulty policies when sexual abuse is reported to it, at the hands of elders or otherwise,” said Bryan McPhadden, the lead attorney on the case.”
Source: https://www.revealnews.org/blog/jehovahs-witnesses-sued-in-canda-for-history-of-sex-abuse-cover-up/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/22
*This interview has been mildly edited for clarity and readability.*
Tell us about yourself — family background, culture, first language, and religious/humanist background.
I was born and raised in St. Louis. My parents were raised Catholic. Independently, they decided Catholicism and Christianity were not for them. They didn’t want to follow that any further. When they had kids, my brother and I, they realized that they did want us to have a religious education, but not necessarily in a Christian context.
We found the Ethical Society in St. Louis. We learned about the different religions and the core values of ethical humanism. That is what had me ‘hooked’ — the core values. I believed in them. I thought they were good principles. As I got older, I became more involved with it. I took on leadership roles at every stage. That’s my background.
My parents are still members. They attend regularly. They have a role at the local ethical society. English is my first and only language. I can speak some Spanish, but that’s from speaking Spanish in school.
When did you find IHEYO?
I found it a couple of years ago. FES, the Future of Ethical Societies, is the group that I was a part of. The connection to IHEYO grew from the national level of FES. At IHEYO, I applied to be the social media manager. Over time, that evolved into communications officer. Now, I am managing the social media and the blog. All outreach for humanists between the ages of 18 and 35.
Any demographic(s) analyses of humanist youth?
A lot of our humanist activity is in Europe. That’s not that surprising.
(Laugh)
Right.
There’s a lot of different organizations there. That’s where the funding comes from. What I found with our social media is a large number of people from Pakistan, India, and Nepal are active in following our page and reading our content, I found that interesting.
Anyone from Bangladesh?
There are quite a few from that region, specifically. Western Asia and the Middle East are becoming more active. They are up and coming.
So, what are some tasks and responsibilities that come along with being the social media person and communications manager?
I try to keep our presence active. It can be difficult. It is a volunteer role. I do what I can with the time that I have each day. I try to make the content diverse. I don’t want too much being posted on specific region of the world too. I know I can get carried away by posting on what is going on here, in the US. There’s a lot to be said now.
(Laugh)
There’s a lot going on in the world. I want that represented on the page because we are an international organization. Also, I manage our blog, Humanist Voices. I look at the content submitted to us. We have the regional groups submit one piece per month. Then I edit them or somebody on the team edits them. We look over them, have them published, and try to distribute over social media. We’re trying to get our newsletter back. We want to expand our presence online.
Who are some humanist heroes in history for you?
I always look to Felix Adler, who is the founder of the ethical societies here in the US. He came from Germany. He grew up Jewish. His father was a rabbi. He decided that he wasn’t really feeling being Jewish.
(Laugh)
(Laugh)
He came up with his own thing, ethical humanism. which I find different from classical humanism. People tend to associate atheism and agnosticism with traditional humanism. Ethical humanism is more inclusive, in my opinion. It welcomes people of all backgrounds, religious or not. It focuses more on the principles that we stand for rather than the beliefs and how we got to those principles which I really admire in the motto: deed before creed. That’s something that I believe in.
Outside of Adler, and inclusive humanism — that is, whether religious or not, if you were to take one core argument for humanism, what would it be?
It’s that we have this one life that we know of and we have science to help us understand how life works. That is really the best that we have. I think that we can make the most out of life with this scientific approach and by appreciating this life. Also, the placement of humans first is the main thing that I stand behind. It is human rights as the main principle.
It is like the Bill Nye line: ‘I want to save the planet for me!’
Yea, exactly!
(Laugh)
(Laugh)
It is silly that we prioritize profit. How can we prioritize profit when we don’t have a home to live in later? If we kill the planet, how can we prioritize profit later? With the Dakota Access Pipeline, for example, it blows me away. People can be obtuse about the world and what it offers us. The prioritization of the transfer of oil over access to clean water blows me away.
From an international vantage, what do you consider the most pressing concern for humanist youth?
This rise in pushback against principles of the classically ‘Left.’ It is threatening to the principles held dear by us. It is the result of hatred from both sides. Hatred isn’t doing any favors for us, as humanists. I know many, especially young, atheists have this belief that their beliefs and values are superior to those who don’t have those beliefs and values.
It is a grave mistake, I think, to have that attitude. It doesn’t do us any favors. It makes people less inclined to support the movement. They think the movement is supported by an elitist organization, which creates more pushback. We’re up against it. It creates a hateful divide. Some of us are complicit in it.
We need to reform the way that we think about ourselves and our values. We need to take a step back and ask, “What are we doing here?” We say, “We stand for all humans.” But do we, if we act like we’re superior to some humans? We need to do some self-reflection as humanists. We need to ask, “Are we trying to value all human beings?”
Does that trend, which you’re noticing among younger atheist humanists, of considering their own values superior to others lead to a certain type of self-exaltation that can exacerbate the trend seen in youth in general — possibly across time — of seeing their time as ‘The Time?’
Yes, it is hard not to think of it as that, when everything is coming to the climactic point with things as inevitable. Millennials have always prized themselves. That is not necessarily a bad thing. It has an innate value, but can have its disadvantages. One is thinking this time, this place, these values are the most important thing. If we don’t communicate those values for people to stand behind and with us, then we will create a greater divide. It will get worse. The way we go about standing behind this change is in an inclusive way.
You mentioned the pushback from the Left and the Right. Can you clarify the pushback from the Left, and the pushback from the Right?
The pushback follows politics and social behaviour, which, I think, follows the laws of physics. For example, we had Obama as president for 8 years, which is a long time. A lot can happen in 8 years. We saw many not liking anything done by Obama because it was Obama. That is some of the pushback seen now.
The whole Donald Trump era is the pendulum swinging back towards the Right. The more swing that this pendulum has, then the more extremism that will result. With this pushback from the Right, and Donald Trump as president, we are seeing this pushback against the Left and the push of the Left against the pushback of the Right. It is getting tense.
There’s a large, swinging pendulum. That’s what I mean by the physics of politics and social behaviour. The more you push in one direction, then the more pushback you’ll get in the other direction.
What are some near-future initiatives for IHEYO, communications-wise?
I want to push the outreach more as a resource for people concerned for our future. People are looking for guidance. They are looking for words of encouragement, which inspire hope. I hope IHEYO can jump on it, can provide it. I hope IHEYO can provide this need without furthering the divide.
What are your hopes within your lifetime for the humanist movement?
I would like to see the youth organization in a grand, sweeping effort. I think there’s a lot of activity going on around the world. It is so off and away. So, it can be hard for others to notice. I went to the youth section of the BHA. My vibe was the lack of awareness about other humanist organizations. They are unique, but they thought they were one-of-a-kind. I was surprised to hear it. There is a lot of humanist activity ongoing around the world. If people made more effort to connect around the world in a productive way, we could accomplish great things.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/21
I was reading the news. Something ‘struck’ me. An article by CBC News entitled “‘I don’t think it’s fair’: Ontario group pushing to end government funding for Catholic schools” (2017).
The basis appeared something of interest to me, for a decent amount of time now: working from first principles to enact secular change within province and territory, and the nation.
I saw (and see) different means by which to acquire change towards secularism. One is the use of national or provincial documents such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Government of Canada, 1982), as the organization is attempting to do in the article.
Another is temporary coalition building. For example, if you look at Humanist Canada, you can find a list of organizations counted as allies, or affiliates:
- The International Humanist and Ethical Union, (IHEU), based in London England with an office at the United Nations.
- Center For Enquiry, (CFI), based in the US and is represented in multiple Cana-dian cities.
- Atheist International & Atheists of America.
- AHQ our Quebec partners.
- Secular Ontario.
- Humanist Perspectives a humanist publication based in Ottawa.
- Dying With Dignity, Canada.
- One School System Network, OSSN, an Ontario based organization.
- Imagine No Religion Conference, INR5, 2015.
- Ontario Humanist Society, A positive force for Humanism in Ontario.
- Quinte Secular Humanist Society, QSHA. This is the “freethinking” group started by Bill Broderic many years ago. It is an active and collegial group of friends. (Humanist Canada, 2017).
I could see this extended between the moderately religious and the stripes of the irreligious to provide a framework for change: said coalition. But the coalition must retain common marks, goals, or targeted objectives.
Those targeted objectives amount to specific, identifiable marks. Those which start small, work into the medium, and then into the larger, e.g. municipal, provincial, and then federal/national, respectively. And why not? It has been the tide of history for this country and for the world, especially the developed world or as countries/nations become more developed.
Women gain rights; minorities gain rights; children gain rights; labor rights become more instantiated; quality of life rises; lifespan and health span rise; education access, completion, and level of final achievement rise; and so on. Also: religiosity declines in raw numbers and level of markers of religious life, and secularism increases.
If activism becomes oriented within this axis, then the tides of history seem easier to grasp, manage, and ride.
Another possibility seems like the utility in the Freedom of Thought Report (International Humanist and Ethical Union, 2016a), which contains a section on Canada (International Humanist and Ethical Union, 2016b). These kinds of documents can act as guides as to what inequality exists and then where to acquire the targeted objectives.
That makes temporary coalition building, finding targeted objectives, utilization of robust documents for activism. There does exist such a thing as first principles reasoning, working from the basics and then develop the strategy. It seems robust.
Insofar as activism may contain first principles, the utility in documents capable of the provision of the basic fruits of the secular activist ideals. I would argue for a first principles process: identification of inequality, targeted objective acquisition, examination for coalition need or not, the creation of or building on prior successes, and persistence.
The documents can help find the inequality, or the locale or nation’s controversial discourse in a relevant secular domain. Basing decision of the targeted objectives on the availabe resources for those inequalities to be reduced or eliminated, the determination of the need for assistance, or not, given the magnitude of the problem. Then the creation of successes and persistence in the activism, or looking to prior successes to simply make the job easier.
And in Canada, we have the open, easy capability to make those secular changes, not for superiority but for equality.
References
CBC News. (2017, October 19). ‘I don’t think it’s fair’: Ontario group pushing to end government funding for Catholic schools. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/toronto/ontario-catholic-funding-1.4361542.
Government of Canada. (1982). Constitution Act, 1982. Retrieved from http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/page-15.html.
Humanist Canada. (2017). Vision, Mission, and Values. Retrieved from https://www.humanistcanada.ca/about/vision-mission-and-values.
International Humanist and Ethical Union. (2016a). The Freedom of Thought Report. Retrieved from http://freethoughtreport.com/couhttp://freethoughtreport.com/countries/, ntries/.
International Humanist and Ethical Union. (2016b). The Freedom of Thought Report: Canada. Retrieved from http://freethoughtreport.com/countries/americas-northern-america/canada/.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/20
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Was religion a part of family life? If so, what was a big moment of awakening and leaving the faith?
Moninuola Komolafe: Religion was a major part of my family especially because my father owns a church. I began participating in three-day fasts, revivals, and vigils when I was barely eight years old.
Occasionally, I had doubts but the turning point came at an outreach my church organized sometime in 2012. About eight of us laid hands on this madman on the street. He appeared healed and we had a crowd behind us chanting and praising Jesus but looking at him, I didn’t think he was healed. We later realized this and two of us shipped him out of that community so that our ministry activities could continue because we knew people would question the message if they saw the man we healed roaming the streets. That raised questions that I just couldn’t push aside. Why wasn’t he healed? Why wouldn’t god heal him and convert unbelievers? Are miracles real? If miracles aren’t real, isn’t the bible just an ordinary book? Can the book be trusted?
I followed this questions and when I got my answers, I realized I no longer believed the Bible and its message.
Jacobsen: In the surrounding culture, how much did religion determine the style of social and political life? How does it do so today if at all?
Komolafe: Religion influenced impacted almost every aspect of our lives, from proscriptions against alcohol to relationships between people of different religions, to dictating how women should dress and how homes should be run, even sexual relations between unmarried people. It also played a major role on law-making with lawmakers refusing to pass laws on issues where their religious books had opposing views. Today, the influence remains but no longer has a stronghold because people are asking questions and are coming to the realization that times are changing and that some of those practices should become obsolete.
Jacobsen: What makes for the better arguments for a reason and against faith to you?
Komolafe: Faith, by its very definition, means believing without evidence and because of this, anything, no matter how ludicrous it is, can be believed. Faith in ideas such as demons, demonic oppression, and witches is why a sick person will be dropped at a church instead of the hospital. Faith is why we label any occurrence we do not understand as supernatural and why an innocent child can be labeled a witch and left to starve. Faith in a religious book is a reason for discrimination against people who don’t share our beliefs. Faith is why people will adamantly go against facts because it negates the dictates of their religion. Faith is harmful.
The truth, however, is that we do not apply faith to everything. We conduct investigations before moving to new locations. We check if the place is not constantly robbed if there’s constant power supply. We immunize our kids too and not rely on supernatural protection. Why not something that impacts our lives as much as religion?
Jacobsen: What are some common stories that you hear – over and over again – from those who have lost their faith? In short, what are their reasons for becoming irreligious in your locale?
Komolafe: For those that came out of my kind of setting, the absence of evidence to support the miraculous claims of the bible was a push for them. For others, it was the ridiculous stories of the bible and the disparities with our reality.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Moninuola.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/20
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How was religion in your family and community growing up?
Bayo Opadeyi: Religion was very important in our home growing up, Catholicism especially. Though my father came from an Anglican/Baptist family, he wasn’t much into church going when we were young, and so my mother a staunch Catholic was responsible for our religious education. The Nigerian society is made up of mostly Christians and Muslims, with some who still practice our traditional religions. It would have shocked me as a 10-year-old to hear from someone that there were no gods. A lot of the stories we heard were packed with the supernatural.
Jacobsen: Did this impact your own view on religion? How so? Also, what were some moments that were crucial for leaving religion?
Opadeyi: Looking at my childhood and my then firm belief in the teachings of the “church”, I can empathize with religious people I meet today and understand their visceral reaction when they hear for the first time that some people believe there are no gods. My religious upbringing, I think, has given me that. The seeds of disbelief for me started when I was in my teens and in the middle of an “evangelical” phase. I decided to read the bible from cover to cover but had to pause when I got to 1 Samuel, the story of Saul and his army going to kill all the Amalekites. My 15 yr. old’s sensibilities were shocked by the morality of killing children and animals just because, I could not understand how the “loving” god I worshipped would want this, and so I asked older people what they thought. They just beat about the bush and tried unsuccessfully to explain it away. And that was when I realized that the people whom I assumed understood the “faith” were more or less like myself. So why would I accept their views blindly? I started to read the Bible with a pinch of salt from that moment. Another important point was during a vacation we spent with our grandparents, I was going through their library and came across a book by Winwood Reade “The Martyrdom of Man” where he talked about the history of religion. This was the first time I was seeing religion being talked about from a secular, irreverent point of view. And from that moment I was on my way for another 20 years to call myself an atheist.
Jacobsen: What do you consider the strongest argument against religion and for reason, and for secularism and against theocratic tendencies (implicit or explicit, e.g. in culture and political life, or in law, respectively)?
Opadeyi: I think religion encourages a lot of harmful practices. In the North (of Nigeria), free-speech is often met with mob action that sometimes leads to death or serious injury. Women’s rights being trampled upon because some religious book says so. In the South, old women are assaulted on accusations of witchcraft, Mega-church pastors milk their congregation on promises of “divine favor”, and people fall into this “magical thinking” mindset that is not very useful for solving problems and planning long-term.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Bayo.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/20
Chiedozie Uwakwe is from southern Nigeria. Ukwakwe and I talk about irreligiosity in Nigeria.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Regarding family of origin, what are its language, culture, and religious background?
Chiedozie Uwakwe: I’m Nigerian, from the Southern part of Nigeria. The first language of my tribe is called the Igbo Language. The name of the tribe is Igbo. So, I’m basically am Igbo guy. Traditionally, we practiced a religion that is grouped under African Traditional Religion, it is a form of Animism, until the British Colonized Nigeria and brought with them Christianity. The Igbos embraced it, so they are more or less a Christian culture now. I was born and brought up a Christian. The traditional culture of the Igbos still reflects the animistic religion of their forebearers. With the land, bodies of water, animals, sky, and sun considered sacred.
Jacobsen: Was this religious upbringing a benefit for you? If so, how? Also if in some ways not, how?
Uwakwe: I would say the religious upbringing had a few benefits, for example, even though the bible is a poor book on the subject of morality, it gave me my first lessons on morality and I developed from there.
The disadvantage of religious upbringing for me that readily comes to mind is that it made me think that I wasn’t at fault for my problems, instead of me taking charge of my problems, it made shift the blame to some nonexistent entity, thereby robbing me of the opportunity to take charge of my life and assume responsibility for my actions and failures. After all, you can always blame it on the devil.
Jacobsen: What seems like some pivotal moments in movements towards the reduction in religious belief for you? Why those moments?
Uwakwe: Firstly, when I stumbled on books and articles on the history of religions, especially Christianity and Islam, it was nothing like what was written in their holy books, the metamorphosis of religious gods like Yahweh and Allah. How they went from obscure deities to huge forces. That was my first step towards doubt. Secondly, the issue of evil in within the concept of a benevolent and all-powerful god. I couldn’t wrap my head around that fact. It just didn’t make sense. Thirdly, watching people around me pray for things that didn’t come to pass, which is a direct contraindication to what is written in the holy books.
Jacobsen: Canadians can live in a cultural bubble. We hold internationalist values often, enshrined in things like the UN Charter, but we live lives high in life quality that can exacerbate our bubble. What should Canadians know about your own society’s dabbling in religion, faith, and superstition, and their impacts politics, law, and social interactions in daily life?
Uwakwe: I would say my society is largely religious because of the failure of the government and social structures. Religion and superstitions offer a kind of hope and succor that is not forthcoming from our political structure. So, this has greatly influenced our social relationships and interactions as they are all laced with religion as that is they only system they believe that can’t fail us. Since the political structure has made life unbearable for us on earth, there must be some sort of compensation in the afterlife. This has led to so many religious leaders feeding fat off of this false hope.
Jacobsen: What seem to have been effective methods in combatting religious superstition?
Uwakwe: Awareness campaigns, with increased penetration of the internet, there has been an insane increase in social awareness campaigns on social media especially. Irreligious people have been writing articles, debating on social media and forums, challenging religious superstitions and dogma, debunking and ridiculing them. Those honest enough to recognize a superior argument have been welcoming and they’ve been supportive.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Chiedozie.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Canadian Atheist
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/10/19
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: You met Richard Dawkins. Many consider him the most famous atheist of the New Atheist movement. Where did you meet him? What was it like? What did you get to ask him?
Mohammed Charlie Khadra: I met Richard Dawkins at the international conference of free expression which was the largest gathering of ex-Muslims in history. It was very brief as people were all over him. I just thanked him for being the spark which leads me to atheism.
Jacobsen: When did you become convinced of it? That is atheism.
Khadra: It was back in 2012 when I was on the midway between looking into sects and religions were. I started a new path to look into which was: what’s goes science say about all of this? Later that year I became an atheist.
We can all agree on one simple idea, no proof of a supernatural deity exists. That’s pretty much what we all have in common. Other than that we can’t say that we stand for something else although most of us appreciate free speech, science, and human rights.
Jacobsen: What are your current tasks and responsibilities in activist work for the non-religious?
Khadra: No one can say of at certain tasks or set of ideas that an atheist has. We are left wing and right wing, active and non-, so some choose to be “militant” some might focus on saving those at risk, some choose to just keep it to themselves. What I mean is there are no responsibilities that come with atheism.
Jacobsen: What do you see as the next steps for atheism in North America?
Khadra: While we win on some grounds and lose in another North America is soon to be a ground to lose in. With the introduction of laws to limit people’s rights, Canada and Trump’s “protection” of religious “rights”, people there are giving up their rights in exchange for peace. What they don’t understand, this type of behavior, especially with a fascism, the only result is more rights being asked to be dropped and more lives to be lost if they don’t obey.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Mohammed.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
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