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Terrorism has no religion?

1 December 2008 / / 4 Comments

Here’s a meme to watch, and it’s been popping up pretty frequently lately: “Terrorism has no religion.” People mean different things by it, so let’s scan some news stories.

Meaning one: People in religions should not be persecuted for the actions of their most violent minorities.

This article is from 2002, and the quote is from Iqbal Sacranie, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, talking about 9/11.

For me and many of my colleagues in the MCB, there is no such thing as family life any more; we are under so much pressure. It cannot be right that an entire civilisation is tarnished because of the actions of a few. Terrorism has no religion. We must not fall into the trap of responding with anger and hate. Our emphasis should be on justice, not vengeance.

Okay, scapegoating sucks. And in many of the news stories that contain this phrase, they’re trying to tamp down religiously-motivated violence between Hindus and Muslims. A real nightmare scenario. I get that.

But here’s the other reading, and it’s this one I object to:

Meaning two: Extremists are not members of any religion.

Senior Congress leader B. Janardhan Poojary has said the terrorism has no religion and this has been revealed in the arrests of alleged Hindu extremists in connection with the Malegaon blast case.

Mr. Poojary condemned the Malegaon blasts by the Hindu community and said the “People who commit acts of aggression in the name of Hinduism are not Hindus. People who take to violence in the name of Islam are not Muslim.”

Does he mean they’re not good Hindus or Muslims? No, he’s saying they’re simply not Hindus or Muslims at all, which is untrue.


About one instant before 5 guys stopped being Muslims, protecting Islam from criticism.

Here’s another recent article on the same theme.

Bollywood star Aamir Khan wrote on his blog on Friday that politicians may try to use the Mumbai terror attack to their own advantage and stressed that terrorists have no religion.

“I dread to think of how various political parties are now going to try and use this tragedy to further their political careers. At least now they should learn to not divide people and instead become responsible leaders,” wrote Aamir on his blog.

“When will these politicians realise and admit that terrorists have no religion. Terrorists are not Hindu or Muslim or Christian. They are not people of religion or god. They are people who have gone totally sick in their head and have to be dealt with in that manner,” he added.

Does he mean that terrorism is not confined to one religion? No, he’s saying that a religious person in the midst of committing a terrorist act ceases to be a member of that religion.

This seems like an attempt to shield religions from criticism by performing ad hoc disavowals of anyone who commits a terrorist act. But this is irresponsible. You can’t raise someone in a faith, tell them the doctrines are literally true and must be obeyed, tell them that they must always be true to their faith, teach that they must sacrifice for the cause, and then cut them loose when they sacrifice their lives in a mistaken effort to promote their religious ends. Religions are responsible for the consequences of their doctrines.

I wish people in religions could honestly confront the possibility that they enable terrorism by promoting unquestioning faith as a virtue and holding out the hope of an eternal future of happiness if followers obey the commands of a god. But I suppose that’s too much to ask.

Boy decided 1000th beating would be his last

30 November 2008 / / 3 Comments

A tragic story about the 8-year-old boy that killed two men.

The double murder on Nov 5 shocked the US, with investigators initially struggling to find any motive.

However, according to police records reported by the Arizona Republic, the boy “is believed to have made ledgers and/or communicated in the form of writings about his intentions” if his father and stepmother continued to smack him.

According to the police records, the boy told a Child Protective Services official that “when he reached one thousand spankings . . . that would be his limit. [The boy] kept a tally of his spankings on a piece of paper.”

The article doesn’t detail the severity of the beatings, but one thousand? By age eight? How many could you rack up by 18? This was a parent with a limited disciplinary repertoire. (On the other hand, this is perfectly sound biblical technique.)

According to child psychologist Rudolf Dreikurs (discussed here), children have different motives for misbehaviour. They may seek attention, they may try for power, or they may act out of discouragement. But the most dangerous motive is revenge. They may lash out at parents, or try to harm themselves. Some suicides contain elements of revenge.

It’s important for children to experience the consequences of their actions, both good and bad. That’s how they learn to become responsible adults. But beating, spanking, and hitting are not good consequences. They do not follow as a result of what the child has done, and they set the parent up as One Who Must Be Obeyed. Then, you get (at best) sneaky kids with no internal sense of responsibility, and (at worst) ticking time-bombs of simmering revenge. It doesn’t take a thousand beatings for this to happen.

The alternative to this grim scenario is to allow the child to have logical consequences for their actions. If they get ready for bed on time, they get a story. If they break a window, it comes out of their pocket money. If they fight over toys, the toy has to go in time-out.

I’ve used this principle on my two boys, and so far they seem to be learning to anticipate the consequences of their actions. I don’t need to hit them or even yell at them. (Which is not to say that I don’t lose it sometimes, but it’s rare.) And they listen to me because we have a good relationship based on mutual respect and not punishment.

The McCarthy gene

30 November 2008 / / Comments Off on The McCarthy gene

An amazing read in the L.A. Times this morning about the genealogy of modern conservatism. It’s not about Goldwater; it’s about McCarthy.

In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn’t run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. It centralizes what one might call the McCarthy gene, something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office, and because it is genetic, it isn’t likely to be expunged any time soon.
…
McCarthyism is usually considered a virulent form of Red-baiting and character assassination. But it is much more than that. As historian Richard Hofstadter described it in his famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” McCarthyism is a way to build support by playing on the anxieties of Americans, actively convincing them of danger and conspiracy even where these don’t exist.

So for McCarthy, it was ‘Commies!’ For Nixon, it was ‘Hippies!’ Or perhaps ‘Hippie commies!’ And at various times the scapegoat group has been blacks (Willie Horton and others), gays (destroying the family), women (uppity), and of course liberals liberals liberals. Demonisation has turned out to be a very successful electoral strategy, which is why the GOP is having such a tough time reeling in its McCarthyish habits.

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That’s why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama’s relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

Read the rest.

Atheist bus ads denied in Australia

28 November 2008 / / 2 Comments

In the news:

Australia is supposed to be a secular society, but the Atheist Foundation of Australia says the nation’s biggest outdoor advertising company has refused to run its advertisements.

One of the humorous messages the foundation hoped to put on the back of buses was, “Sleep in on Sunday mornings”.

But the foundation says Australia’s biggest outdoor advertising company, APN Outdoor, had a problem with it.

That does it. I’m boycotting all advertising from APN Outdoor. Next time there’s a billboard, I refuse to look.

Can APN Outdoor turn down the ads, since they are a private company after all? Well, this is some muddy water. A restaurant is a private company, but if they tried refusing atheist customers, they could expect some bad mojo. Even then, there are other restaurants I could go to. But here, APN has a monopoly on the right to sell ad space on buses — public buses at that.

If they were smart, they’d allow it. Every other religion would rush to copy the success of the atheist ads, and APN would be rolling in it. There might be a slight uptick in vandalism on some weeks, but that’s no reason to be a party pooper.

Kraftwerk, Perth 23.11.2008

25 November 2008 / / 1 Comment

Last time Kraftwerk came to Perth, it was 2003 at the Big Day Out. I didn’t go because… it was on a Sunday and I was still religious. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Fortunately Zeus saw me kicking myself and blessed me with bootleg MP3s of the show.

Well, last Sunday, Kraftwerk was back in Perth for Global Gathering. And where was I? Front and center, bitchez.

Before the show, I was talking to some other festival-goers. Everyone was 18 or so, and it struck me that all these younger people were here watching a concert headlined by a bunch of 60-year-olds. Of course, Kraftwerk are the elder statesmen of electronic music, and they’ve been hugely influential. But for an old fart like me, easily double the age of 90% of the people in the audience (and someone who’s been listening to Kraftwerk for 25 years), it was gratifying to see that the influence of my early heroes has grown and not diminished.

For another 80s moment, consider also that Mark Ronson’s crew finished their set with their version of the Smiths’ “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”, and was very well received.

But back to the ‘Werk. It’s strange to watch Kraftwerk live. As sequenced as the show must be, one wonders what it is they’re doing up there. They stay in one place the entire time busily focused on their Sony Vaio’s (ugh). Occasionally a foot will tap or a mouse will click. Ralf (on the far left) sings. Other than that, the band gives very little indication that anything’s going on. Yet Ralf says that everything’s being done live and in real time. And in fact the band did have to suspend their Melbourne performance as Fritz was having heart trouble before the show, which suggests that they couldn’t have sent a robot to do his part.

It’s part of their act. They approach the making of music in a very workmanlike way. The ask very little of the audience, no requests to put your motherfuckin’ hands in the air, no jumping around, or any of that nonsense. And the audience gets to enjoy the music in their own way. Which they did. The crowd was really soaking up the hypnotic beats, enjoying the music as much as being in the presence of these techno pioneers.

Ms Perfect said it best: It’s like being able to say that you saw Mozart. I don’t think this is an overblown comparison. These men changed music forever, and it was a pleasure to see them at last, doing their thing in their own perfect way.

God shoots, rescues man

24 November 2008 / / Comments Off on God shoots, rescues man

In the news:

COVINGTON, La. (AP) — R.J. Richard says he doesn’t normally put his cell phone in his chest pocket. But he says it saved his life the one time he did.

The 68-year-old man from Covington, La., was mowing the lawn on his 5-acre property when a stray bullet from nearby woods struck that cell phone. He figured a rock kicked up by his tractor hit him. That is, until he took out the phone and a .45-caliber bullet fell from its case.

Richard told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans he doesn’t think it was a coincidence, either.

“I look at this as God telling me to put my cell phone in that pocket, and I’m grateful and humbled,” he said.

He may not think it’s a coincidence, but with so many people getting shot, it’d be unusual if someone didn’t escape once in a while.

But why give the credit to a god? That’s who allowed someone to shoot him in the first place. You could use this story as evidence of a perfectly evil god. “God tried to make someone kill me, but I managed to thwart his malevolent intentions with my phone.”

Meanwhile, God’s been killing people left and right. We can’t hear their stories about how God didn’t save them because they’re no longer around to tell us. We only hear from the survivors.

Would they rather win elections or go to heaven?

19 November 2008 / / 1 Comment

Can you throw God under a bus so big that he can’t lift it?

Giving Up on God

By Kathleen Parker

Wednesday, November 19, 2008; 12:00 AM

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I’m bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn’t soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we’re setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

I think she’s figured it out. I don’t envy her email inbox though. It will soon be scorched with the rantings of the True Believers, who really seem to think that overreach is impossible if it’s in the service of the Sky Fairy.

Since the 80s, the GOP has angled for the votes of the Christian Right, and now they’re having trouble separating themselves from the delusion-prone. It’s a lose-lose for them.

Option 1: Continue to play to the Christianist right, and alienate even more moderate voters and intellectual conservatives until the Republican Party really is a tiny regional faction, or

Option 2: Cut the Christianists loose in an effort to move center-ward. They won’t be happy about that, and they don’t have to stay with the GOP. Watch as some of them move ever farther into extremist country. The Constitution Party (or worse) will experience an influx, and the Republican Party will shrink.

Too bad for them that the trouble centers around an all-powerful being whose will must be guessed at. That makes this conflict both high-stakes and unresolvable. An explosive combination.

Religion in the news: Gayness edition

18 November 2008 / / Comments Off on Religion in the news: Gayness edition

The divine will can be so inscrutable sometimes.

Got wildfires? Must be teh gays.

Today, people are running for their lives as 800 California homes have burned down and the firestorm is spreading like a nuclear holocaust. Yet, the radical homosexual anarchists rampage upon the streets of this state demanding the destruction of marriage and family, and the establishment of their socialistic dark vision for society.

You see, the problem is this: God has plans for California in the near days ahead. Thus, these attempts to force an ungodly tyranny on this state are being met blow with blow by God. God is saying, “California shall be a refuge for America when the catastrophes come. California belongs to Me, not the advocates of sexual anarchy.”

Blow with blow by God. Heh.

Actually, it’s my fault. I haven’t been marking exams fast enough, and God is displeased. Sorry about that, everyone.

In other news, Focus on the Family is laying off people.

Focus on the Family announced this afternoon that 202 jobs will be cut companywide, bringing the total number of employees to around 950.

Focus on the Family is poised to announce major layoffs to its Colorado Springs-based ministry and media empire today. The cutbacks come just weeks after the group pumped more than half a million dollars into the successful effort to pass a gay-marriage ban in California.

It can’t be that God is displeased, because James ‘Spanky‘ Dobson is fighting gays, which is always good, infinity, no touchbacks. Wonder what he thinks God’s trying to tell him.

But here’s a guy who knows what God’s all about.

When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ”

The comments were made by this man:

Kerry’s 2004 loss: Not all bad

17 November 2008 / / Comments Off on Kerry’s 2004 loss: Not all bad

I’ve been thinking this for a while now:

After the 2004 presidential election Democrats were crushed. Four more years of George W. Bush seemed unthinkable, disastrous. But now that the Obama era is beginning, Democrats should view John Kerry’s defeat as something else entirely: the luckiest break the party has caught since at least the 1964 election

Yes, the nation and its people suffered mightily under Bush. People died as a result (Iraq, Katrina). But imagine the alternative. Kerry wins, and If anything then goes wrong, for the next 20 years we have to hear about how everything’s Kerry’s fault. We coulda won Iraq if it wernt fer Kerry. Economic meltdown? Kerry’s fault. Yadda yadda. (Okay, so they’ll still blame some Democrat. But now they have to go all the way back to Clinton, which is obviously reaching.) As it happened, the Republicans had to fully own the mess, and it’s destroyed the brand. Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

Perhaps Prop 8 could be seen the same way. (No, I’m not even close to done with that issue.) The theocrats overreached, and people are now horrified. They’re realising that godbots can do some real damage to freedoms we enjoy, and they’re increasingly standing with gay people. Like the 2004 election, it really stung. But we won’t forget that sting, and we’ll make sure that Prop 8 and the like were the last victories of their kind.

Sine-wave speech

17 November 2008 / / 2 Comments

This is very cool. Listen to the first clip. Sounds like twitters and blips.

Then listen to the second clip.

Now go back and listen to the first. It becomes comprehensible once you know what you’re looking for.

This is called ‘sine-wave speech’. When a linguist records your speech using a spectrometer, there are dark patches of high intensity, called formants. Draw the formants using sine waves, and you get the twittery sound that resembles somewhat-but-not-quite speech.

I guess this is yet another example of how perception depends on the knowledge and expectations of the perceiver. Something to remember when I try and understand the voting habits of others.

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