It can be Dangerous to Quote the Bible too literally ...

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a US resident, which was posted on the Internet.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 affirms that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it .

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?

7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I'm confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging. Your adoring fan.

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia (It would be a damn shame if we couldn't own a Canadian :)

The Pope, the Prophet, and the Religious Support for Evil (Mar 10)

What can make tens of millions of people – who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring – suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite – religion. In the past week we have seen two examples of how people can begin to behave in bizarre ways when they decide it is a good thing to abandon any commitment to fact and instead act on faith. It has led some to regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand "respect" for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children.

In 2005, 12 men in a small secular European democracy decided to draw a quasi-mythical figure who has been dead for 1400 years. They were trying to make a point. They knew that in many Muslim cultures, it is considered offensive to draw Mohamed. But they have a culture too – a European culture that believes it is important to be allowed to mock and tease and ridicule religion. It is because Europeans have been doing this for centuries now that we can no longer be tyrannised into feeling bad about perfectly natural impulses, like masturbation, or pre-marital sex, or homosexuality. When priests offer those old arguments, we now laugh in their faces – a great liberating moment. It will be a shining day for Muslims when they can do the same.

Some of the cartoons were witty. Some were stupid. One seemed to suggest Muslims are inherently violent – an obnoxious and false idea. If you disagree with the drawings, you should write a letter, or draw a better cartoon, this time mocking the cartoonists. But some people did not react this way. Instead, Islamist plots to hunt the artists down and slaughter them began. Earlier this year, a man with an axe smashed into one of their houses, and very nearly killed the cartoonist in front of his small grand-daughter.

This week, another plot to murder them seems to have been exposed, this time allegedly spanning Ireland and the United States, and many people who consider themselves humanitarians or liberals have rushed forward to offer condemnation – of the cartoonists. One otherwise liberal newspaper ran an article saying that since the cartoonists had engaged in an "aggressive act" and shown "prejudice... against religion per se", so it stated menacingly that no doubt "someone else is out there waiting for an opportunity to strike again".

Let's state some principles that – if religion wasn't involved – would be so obvious it would seem ludicrous to have to say them out loud. Drawing a cartoon is not an act of aggression. Trying to kill somebody with an axe is. There is no moral equivalence between peacefully expressing your disagreement with an idea – any idea – and trying to kill somebody for it. Yet we have to say this because we have allowed religious people to claim their ideas belong to a different, exalted category, and it is abusive or violent merely to verbally question them. Nobody says I should "respect" conservatism or communism and keep my opposition to them to myself – but that's exactly what is routinely said about Islam or Christianity or Buddhism. What's the difference?

This enforced "respect" is a creeping vine. It soon extends beyond religious ideas to religious institutions – even when they commit the worst crimes imaginable. It is now an indisputable fact that the Catholic Church systematically covered up the rape of children across the globe, and knowingly, consciously put paedophiles in charge of more kids. Joseph Ratzinger – who claims to be "infallible" – was at the heart of this policy for decades.

Here's what we are sure of. By 1962, it was becoming clear to the Vatican that a significant number of its priests were raping children. Rather than root it out, they issued a secret order called "Crimen Sollicitationis"' ordering bishops to swear the victims to secrecy and move the offending priest on to another parish. This of course meant they raped more children there, and on and on, in parish after parish. Yes, these were different times, but the Vatican knew then that what it was doing was terribly wrong: that's why it was done in the utmost secrecy.

It has emerged this week that when Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich in the 1980s, one of his paedophile priests was "reassigned" in this way. He claims he didn't know. Yet a few years later he was put in charge of the Vatican's response to this kind of abuse and demanded every case had to be referred directly to him for 20 years. What happened on his watch, with every case going to his desk? Precisely this pattern, again and again. The BBC's Panorama studied one of many such cases. Father Tarcisio Spricigo was first accused of child abuse in 1991, in Brazil. He was moved by the Vatican four times, wrecking the lives of children at every stop. He was only caught in 2005 by the police, before he could be moved on once more. He had written in his diary about the kind of victims he sought: "Age: 7, 8, 9, 10. Social condition: Poor. Family condition: preferably a son without a father. How to attract them: guitar lessons, choir, altar boy." It happened all over the world, wherever the Catholic Church had outposts.

Far from changing this paedophile-protecting model, Ratzinger reinforced it. In 2001 he issued a strict secret order demanding that charges of child-rape should be investigated by the Church "in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret." Since it was leaked, Ratzinger claims – bizarrely – that these requirements didn't prevent bishops from approaching the police. Even many people employed by the Vatican at the time say this is wrong. Father Tom Doyle, who was a Vatican lawyer working on these cases, says it "is an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child sexual abuse and to punish those who would call attention to these crimes... Nowhere in any of these documents does it say anything about helping the victims. The only thing it does say is they can impose fear on the victims, and punish [them], for disclosing what happened." Doyle was soon fired.

Imagine if this happened at The Independent. Imagine I discovered there was a paedophile ring running our crèche, and the Editor issued a stern order that it should be investigated internally with "the strictest secrecy". Imagine he merely shuffled the paedophiles to work in another crèche at another newspaper, and I agreed, and made the kids sign a pledge of secrecy. We would both – rightly – go to prison. Yet because the word "religion" is whispered, the rules change. Suddenly, otherwise good people who wouldn't dream of covering up a paedophile ring in their workplace think it would be an insult to them to follow one wherever it leads in their Church. They would find this behaviour unthinkable without the irrational barrier of faith standing between them and reality.

Yes, I understand some people feel sad when they see a figure they were taught as a child to revere – whether Prophet or Pope – being subjected to rational examination, or mockery, or criminal investigation. But everyone has ideas they hold precious. Only you, the religious, demand to be protected from debate or scrutiny that might discomfort you. The fact you believe an invisible supernatural being approves of – or even commands – your behaviour doesn't mean it deserves more respect, or sensitive handling. It means it deserves less. If you base your behaviour on such a preposterous fantasy, you should expect to be checked by criticism and mockery. You need it.

If you can't bear to hear your religious figures criticised – if you think Ratzinger is somehow above the law, or Mohamed should be defended with an axe – a sane society should have only one sentence for you. Tell it to the judge.

Johann Hari
www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-pope-the-prophet-and-the-religious-support-for-evil-1923656.html

Climate Change – a new religion? (Mar 10)

Robin Roy

I’m going to very briefly look at the question whether belief in Climate change is a new religion. I haven’t had time to delve as deeply as I would like into an enormous topic. So I’ll briefly introduce the subject and then open things up for discussion.

What does climate change – a new religion mean?

To me it means that a growing number of people are arguing that the view that climate change is largely the result of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions from relatively recent human economic activity is not based on reliable scientific evidence but instead has become an unquestioned article of faith like religious belief. The people who say climate change is like religion point out that it has become a new orthodoxy held by most scientists, governments and environmentalists, i.e. is. like a religion, they say the belief in human-induced climate change no longer allows criticism or question.

This religion rather than science argument has been emerging since the late 1950s when an American scientist Charles Keeling started measuring rising CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over Hawaii over past 50 years until now the reality of climate change and global warming linked to rising human generated CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions like methane from belching cattle was acknowledged by almost every govt in the world at the UN Copenhagen Climate summit in Dec last year.

Up until recently the climate change is like religion was argued by a weird coalition of critics. These ranged from a few sceptical scientists, various mainly right wing, newspapers, TV and radio stations, a variety of non-scientist commentators like Nigel Lawson and journalists and TV producers out to create a controversial story to politicians and industrialists aligned with the oil industry.

Perhaps the purest example is the BNP which on its website has a poster headed ‘Church of Climatology: how to deal with global warming heretics’ showing climate change sceptics being burned like medieval sinners.

Below the burning climate change sceptics is comment’ be sure to use smokeless fuel’ (the supposedly humorous but revealing ignorance of the link between fuel burning and climate change, smoke actually can cause atmospheric cooling rather than warming). More seriously, the BNP issued a 40 page briefing arguing the case against human-inducted climate change for the UN Copenhagen conference last December.

And of course there has always been a proportion (in some countries a majority) of the general public who either don’t know who the believe given the publicity given to the sceptics or think climate change is a plot to deprive them of their right to drive their cars, consume as much as possible and fly on holiday whenever they can afford it.

Up until now governments, scientist and environmentalists have been able to dismiss the sceptics as misinformed, mischievous or ignorant. But recently the sceptics’ views have gained much new impetus as a result of some perceived scandals in the work of climate scientists, These scandals have played right into the sceptics’ hands and have been fuelled by world-wide media coverage, much journalistic hype and outright misleading campaigning. E.g. Simon Hoggart (who says he is a climate change agnostic) wrote an article in Guardian on 6 Feb 2010 headlined ‘Is climate change the new faith?

In it he argued that Humans have always wanted to attribute natural disasters to their sinful behaviour and instead of god bringing earthquakes or famines or epidemics on us we now have climate change to blame for our profligate lifestyles.

The first scandal was so-called ‘emailgate’ in which scientists at the Climatic Change Unit at UEA had sent emails to a climate change sceptic among other things refusing to release the original global weather station data on which the famous ‘hockey stick’ chart of the relation between average global temp and Keeling’s rising CO2 concentrations is based. When the sceptics tried to force UEA to release the data, they then said the data had been discarded. There were also some other emails that someone had managed to hack into that seemed to suggest that the data had been manipulated to disguise some contradictory evidence.

The controversy got so great that the scientist at the centre of the row Prof Phil Jones had to step down from his position as head of the CRU and was quizzed by House of Commons Select Committee on Science & Technology on 2 March. Under questioning he admitted some emails he sent were ‘pretty awful’ but that the person asking for the data under Freedom of Info was only doing so in order to discredit the data and the conclusions and that releasing raw scientific data + the codes to analyse it to the public was not usual scientific practice.

I can very much sympathise with Prof Jones. It’s extremely difficult to supply huge amounts of raw scientific data collected from all over the world over many years. Just imagine the vast amount of paperwork, computer files etc. you’d have to assemble and given them to someone who only wants to pock holes in it.

But in another sense the UEA scientists are mistaken. Science is not like religion, it should always be open to criticism and contradictory evidence. Science must not ignore contradictory evidence from reputable sources or even from rebel scientists. That’s how it evolves and changes. Occasionally the conventional wisdom is overthrown when a new theory gains evidence e.g. when it was accepted that the earth revolves round the sun rather than vice versa. (Thomas Kuhn’s scientific revolutions). As the ‘sceptical science’ website aimed at climate scientists says:

‘Scepticism is healthy, scientists should always challenge themselves to expand their knowledge and improve their understanding’.

Scientists also have to admit when their ideas are merely hypotheses without firm evidence yet or when there are many assumptions behind results or conclusions e.g. as is the case with climatic modelling which is a very complex and uncertain business.

Indeed despite some sceptics view that the scientists are like religious believers and are absolutely certain about their conclusions, in fact climate science doesn’t claim recent climate change is definitely mainly due to human activity, it gives probabilities. E.g. The last 2007 IPCC report, gave the probability that changing climate is human induced was about 90% which was an increase in certainty on previous IPCC reports. Just recently a March 2010 Met Office study of all the evidence in the peer reviewed journals says the probability is now up to 95%, i.e. that the changing climate is mainly due to something else (sunspots, volcanoes, water vapour, you name it as the sceptics claim) is not impossible but only 5% probable.

So science isn’t trying to be definite like religion – believers don’t generally say the existence of God is 50% or 90% or 95% likely, it’s a matter of 100% faith.

Scientists also are of course human, no data is perfect and it is not unknown to for them do a bit a data massaging or simplification to come to a neat conclusion, to get the next research grant, to be able to write good paper. [I can’t claim to have been totally guilt free myself when analysing research data, it’s often very awkward to explain some findings if you want to come to a clear conclusion, so you might play them down.]

But it doesn’t mean scientists have to spend ages dealing with or take into account every criticism from cranks, those that are trying to create mischief, making a name for themselves, those funded by commercial organisations with political or economic axes to grind. While some of the climate critics may be genuinely concerned about evidence, others are making their criticisms from highly dubious personal, commercial or even political motives.

There have of course been some scandalous examples of deliberate scientific fraud, distortion and manipulation. A good example is the storm over the MMR vaccine, which a doctor Dr Andrew Wakefield claimed could cause autism. This caused enormous worry among parents, the usual (largely ignorant) media storm, a drop in vaccination rates from 92-80% with an increase in childhood measles. He has since been found to have manipulated the data and is subject to charges of serious misconduct by General Medical Council. And maybe the some UEA scientists are partly guilty of some of this, which is inexcusable. But in general science proceeds on the basis of objective evidence with the process of peer review pointing up flaws, even if results are not always perfect.

The second controversy that erupted has been called Glaciergate’. It arose from a mistake that appeared in the 4^th IPPC report that Himalayan glaciers would be 80% melted by 2035. This turned out was based on a non-scientific source and was a mistake by one of the authors in one section of a huge report. But you’d think from the vast row that it led to, the crowing of the sceptics, and the reports in the media dying for a good story, that the whole 4 volume IPCC report was flawed. The estimated glacier melting dates were given correctly elsewhere in the report - it could even have been a typo mistake quoting 2035 instead of 2350 that the Himalayan glaciers would have melted by.

It seems likely that both the email and glacier rows were deliberately fuelled by climate sceptics wanting to derail the Copenhagen climate change conference. There’s even some evidence that hacking into the UEA emails was so professional that it could only have been done by a hostile government agency or major corporation of some sort.

These controversies have of course done nothing to increase the public’s confidence in the science of climate change.

A Feb 2010 BBC poll found that 25% public felt climate change was not even happening (many mix up the weather and the climate), 48% doubted it was human caused and only 26% agreed it was due to human activity. All these results have changed since the climate scandals.

In any case it’s much more convenient for people to believe it’s not happening or not caused by our profligate lifestyles so we can keep in flying, driving and shopping with a free conscience. Developing countries likewise can feel free to develop along the same path as industrial countries. 

So, I would argue that despite flaws, scientific methods and scientists are not perfect, it is nothing like religion. It is open to being challenged and it evolves in response to new evidence. [Since when have atheists, humanists and agnostics been able to criticise religion in the way that climate change sceptics have and produced much media fuelled mischief and misleading information.]

I would argue it’s the sceptics that are being non-scientific and are the religious believers. They seize on every small bit of evidence or error in the conventional wisdom that human activity is at least mainly responsible for recent changes as proof that something else is responsible or its not happening, but blindly accept other explanations.

My view is that climate change is not a new religion; it’s just very convenient for those who don’t want to accept the implications for our economy, lifestyles and values to say it is.

Should Catholic Priests Remain Celibate? (Mar 10)

Pope Benedict XVI has defended celibacy among priests, saying it was a sign of "full devotion" to the Catholic Church. The Pope was speaking at a theological conference before meeting Germany's top bishop for talks about a new crisis over sexual abuse of children.

The Archbishop of Vienna had suggested that the Church should examine celibacy and priests' training. He said, "It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the Church and of society as a whole." But the Pope said on Friday that celibacy is "the sign of full devotion, the entire commitment to the Lord and to the 'Lord's business', an expression of giving oneself to God and to others".

Is the Pope right to reaffirm celibacy for priests? Would removing the vow of celibacy make priests less devout? Does celibacy show a priest commitment to the Catholic Church? Should Catholic priests be allowed to marry and have families?

Questions & Answers with Peter Singer (Mar 10)

Peter Singer is an internationally renowned philosopher and author of over 25 books on ethics. He is best known for Animal Liberation, widely credited with starting the animal rights movement. The Ethics of What We Eat, (2006), and his most recent book, The Life You Can Save: Acting now to end world poverty (2009) were both international bestsellers.

Peter Singer is a speaker at the 2010 Global Atheist Convention at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre 12-14 March 2010.

Q: Studies now show that the so-called 'human' qualities of compassion and altruism are present in dolphins, chimps and gorillas. What does this tell us?

It tells us what Darwin already noticed, that it is not only in our anatomy, but also in our emotional and mental lives, that we are on a continuum with the other animals. It also tells us that our ethics need to change. Now only human beings can have basic rights, or the moral status of a person. All animals are just 'things' at law, items of property. That needs to change. We should not disregard or discount the interests of another sentient being just because it is not a member of our species.

Q: Do you think zoos play any role in preserving endangered species and educating the public?

The best zoos do play a role in educating the public about the importance of conservation, but it is always a mixed message because at the same time they tell the public that it is okay to keep animals in captivity so that we can enjoy looking at them. Zoos need to put the interests of the animals first, and that of the spectators second. Otherwise, even if they do occasionally preserve an endangered species, what is the point of preserving animals if they are having miserable lives?

Q: Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who five years ago inflamed hard-line Muslims with cartoons they considered blasphemous, still lives in fear of his life; there was an attempt on his life last month. Is it becoming harder to criticise religion?

Yes, it is becoming more dangerous, especially if you are criticising Islam. But fundamentalist Christians in the US are also a problem, of course. We need brave people who are prepared to stand up to the threats, because if we are to solve the problems that face us, we need to take an open-minded, evidence-based attitude to the world.

Q: Why do human beings have such a fervent need to believe in God?

Richard Dawkins has suggested that during much of our evolutionary history, groups of people who believed in a god or gods may have had an evolutionary advantage, in that individuals were more ready to make sacrifices for the group as a whole. That could explain why we have a widespread propensity to believe in a being that none of us has seen. Of course it could just be that it is comforting to think that, even though our bodies die, we will somehow live on. It's a kind of nice fairytale that adults tell each other.

Q: Many people say that life would be meaningless without a god. What do you say to them?

I have no problem finding meaning in what I do. What could be more fulfilling and meaningful than trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering in the world, and make the world a better place? The more I think about it, the more discomforting I find the idea of believing that this world, with all the suffering and misery experienced by both humans and non-human animals, was created by an omniscient, omnipotent being. How could one love a being who could stop all that suffering - or never have allowed it to start - and yet knowingly allows it to continue?

Q: What role do you think philosophers have in the world today?

Philosophers are now contributing to raising the standard of public discussion on a huge range of ethical questions - making that discussion more probing, questioning assumptions, and putting forward new ideas for consideration. That's a very important role.

Q: Most major religions emphasise the connection between family values and their religion. Is this valid?

Religions tend to reinforce the value of the family, but our love for our children is something we get from our biology anyway. We are mammals, and we need to care for our young for many years before they can fend for themselves. The values don't themselves come from religion.

Q: Osama bin Laden urges followers to prepare for a drawn-out conflict with the West and Christianity. Isn't it more a conflict with modernism?

There are several strands to this conflict. But one interesting aspect of it is that it undermines the claim that we should always respect religious faith. The faith of the terrorists who were prepared to die to bring down the World Trade Centre must have been very strong. That doesn't make it a good thing. The lesson should be that we have to move beyond faith in order to discuss whether a belief is right or wrong.

Q: What do you think are the three biggest mysteries of the universe?

Some things that many people consider unknowable I believe we do already understand quite well - for example, that the universe was not created by a divine being, and that there is no survival after death. Of course, I admit that I could be wrong about these things, but I think it very unlikely. So what does that leave? I'd love to know if there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. If there is, I'd like to know if the other intelligent beings have conceptions of reason and of ethics that are similar to ours.

Q: What would be your advice to a young Peter Singer today?

Set your sights high. Try to make a difference to the world. It's the most fulfilling way to live.

[http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/2010/03/08/qa-with-peter-singer-in-the-weekend-australian-magazine] 

Traditional African Practices and Islam

Traditional African Value System

Africa is a deeply patriarchal society. Men dominate the socio-economic and political machinery and organizations. Men are regarded as natural leaders, who are superior and born to rule over women. Women are considered weaker vessels-extensions of men and secondary human beings. The pride and dignity of women are derived from and dependent on men.

Hence, African societies attach more value and importance to a male child than to a female child. Ten daughters are not worth a son. No woman is regarded as complete or real until she gives birth to a male. Delivering a son gives a woman pride and a place at her husband's home. It is said that every married woman stands with one leg in her husband's house until she gives birth to a male child.

Traditional African Practices

Like the traditional African value system, most traditional African practices are fundamentally biased against women and gender-insensitive. Little wonder, then, it is upheld as a traditional practice in many parts of Africa for girls as young as seven to be married to men old enough to be their fathers, and in some cases, grandfathers. Parents determine who marries their daughters before they are old enough to decide for themselves. Moreover, with the payment of the dowry, a girl is bought and automatically becomes the property of the man, who uses, mistreats, and dumps her when he deems fit.

Polygamy is another traditional custom that prevails in Africa. Men are licensed to marry as many wives as possible. In fact, in many communities, men measure their wealth and influence by the numbers of women they have and control. It is regarded as a taboo, however, for a woman to have more than one husband. In the event of the husband's death, the woman is subjected to several gory and excruciating traditional funeral rites popularly known as widowhood.

This is a period of mourning, which lasts one, two, or more years commencing with the death of a woman's spouse. During this period, a woman is made to walk and move barefoot, haggard, unkempt, and wearing rags or black clothes. She is not allowed to wear earrings, cover her hair, or even smile.

In some communities, the widow pours ashes on her body and is made to sleep with the husband's corpse for a night, or drink the water used in washing the corpse if she is suspected—as is often the case—of causing her husband's death. As part of the tradition, the eldest man in the family inherits the woman. Otherwise, she is evicted from the husband's house with her children, and her property is confiscated.

The practice of female genital mutilation (fgm)-otherwise known as female circumcision-prevails as a tradition in Africa. This process entails the partial or total cutting away of the external female genitalia. Traditional healers, birth attendants, or elderly women usually carry out the practice. The procedure is often carried out in a septic environment with crude instruments such as knives, razor blades, and broken glasses, without anesthetics, or, at best, herbal medication to check bleeding and lessen pain. This crude and hazardous procedure is grounded in and surrounded by various myths, misconceptions, and superstitious nonsense. For instance, the ritual is performed as a rite of passage, for preparing young girls for womanhood and marriage. Many also believe that it prevents a woman from giving birth to a stillborn child. In some parts of western Nigeria, it is regarded as a taboo for the head of the child to touch the mother's clitoris during delivery. Some of the proverbs that support and underscore these mythical postulations include:

"The clitoris is a cap of prostitution which the vagina wears from heaven."

"If we don't clip the clitoris, it is going to be asking great sacrifices from the penis when it grows."

"The fortune gathered by the penis is taken up by the vagina."

Even though they predate the coming and spread of Islam, traditional African practices are closely related and allied with Islamic teachings, traditions, and customs.

Relationship with Islam

Islam is a male-made religion, founded on masculinity, patriarchy, and male domination. It is notorious for its repression, subjugation, and discrimination against women. Islamic religion portrays women as inferior to men in every respect-spiritually, physically, mentally, and even intellectually. Islam's holy book, the Koran, divinely sanctions and decrees this negative impression. The Koran has been corroborated by the Hadiths (traditions of Muhammad's sayings and deeds) and perpetuated by the interpretation of the mullahs, the sheiks, and the imams.

As in the traditional African context, men are regarded as superior to women. "Men are in charge of women because Allah hath made one to excel the other" (Sura 4:34). Male children are preferred to females that bring gloom and despair. As Sura 43:15 relates: "yet when a new-born girl is announced to one of them his countenance darkens and he is filled with gloom."

As a religious norm, Muslim women and girls are subjected to various forms of victimization and discrimination. They are not allowed to move about unveiled, nor are they allowed to vote, hold public office, or have social, political, or economic power. They are not given the freedom to choose their marriage partners. Their parents betroth them to the Mallams and the Alhajis in order to cultivate friendship, and to extend and cement bonds between families. For instance, in Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria, child marriages and arranged marriages are still commonplace. Consequently, the dreadful disease called vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF) is widespread and endemic.

Islam also endorses polygamy. Though Muslim men are allowed to marry more than one wife, their women are forbidden to keep more than one husband. If the woman loses her husband, she is subjected to all sorts of deprivations and humiliation akin to the widow's plight in the traditional African setting. She is entitled to only a quarter of the legacy, and if the deceased has more than one wife, the wives are obliged to share a quarter or one-eighth of the legacy.

Traditional African practices are closely related to Islam where fgm is concerned. This vicious ritual has been defended and justified by many Muslim scholars and jurists as an Islamic custom. They have argued that it is consistent with Islamic piety and purity. Muslim women and girls are therefore excised and infibulated in the name of Allah and Muhammad, his prophet.

Here is a short description by a Muslim, M.A.S. Mustafa, of the process of infibulation in a Muslim community in Djibouti:

"The little girl, entirely nude, is immobilized in the sitting position on a low stool, by at least three women. One of them has her arms tightly around the little girl's chest. Two others forcibly hold the child's thighs apart, in order to open wide the vulva. The child's arms are tied behind her back or immobilized by two other women. The traditional operator says a short prayer: 'Allah is the greatest and Muhammad is his prophet. May Allah keep away all evils.' She then spreads some offerings on the floor to Allah (split maize, or, in urban areas, eggs). Then the old woman takes her razor from top to bottom of the small lip, and scrapes the flesh from inside the large lip. This nymphectomy and scraping are repeated on the other side of the vulva."

Moreover, the Islamic faith is associated with the use of Juju, charms, and amulets-another practice very common in Africa. Muslims and Africans believe these fetishes and concoctions scare away evils and misfortune, to kill one's enemies, and to enhance one's progress and success in life. In Nigeria, Muslim spiritualists are reputed for their extraordinary feats in Juju and the production of talismans.

By sanctioning many traditional African practices, Islam, unlike other alien religions, has been very instrumental in the continuation of these customs. Islam is one of the greatest obstacles to the efforts to eradicate harmful and inhumane traditional practices in Africa.

Changes and Challenges

One of the most interesting and challenging experiences I have had as a humanist in the past couple of years has been trying to persuade my people to abandon these horrible and primitive customs. I have tried to persuade them to see the need for progress and improvement in our attitudes, value and society. We must openly examine the traditions we have held and accepted as sacrosanct. Many of these traditions are founded on traditional dogma, ignorance, and superstition.

I am glad to say that the momentum is building, and the changes are coming. Increasing numbers of individuals and groups are rising up against traditional practices that cannot withstand logical and/or scientific scrutiny. Those beliefs, customs, and rituals are founded on myths, pseudoscience, or fringe science.

Today Africa is witnessing enormous and appreciable changes in the perception and status of women. Many African women have been consistent and courageous in their demand for justice and equality with men. They want recognition and respect for their right to marry the mates of their choice, whenever and wherever they wish. They want their rights to reproductive health and integrity respected. They want the right to divorce and to own property.

In spite of the threats of Islamic fundamentalism, many Muslim institutions, individuals, and groups have been very supportive of and solidly behind the process of change and moral progress. In December, 1997 we witnessed a landmark and unprecedented judgment when an Egyptian court upheld the ban of female genital mutilation and rejected the claim of Islamic religious justification. This timely verdict sent a very clear message to the Islamic world. Islam cannot stop the process of eradicating female genital mutilation and harmful traditional practices. Islam cannot subvert or obstruct enlightenment, progress, socio-economic reforms, and moral improvement in Africa.

Nevertheless, I must say that it is not yet "uhuru." Africa is still under the hard and harsh grip of poverty, illiteracy, superstition, and religious fundamentalism. So long as these social and mental cankerworms are at work, the struggle continues.

_____

About the author: Leo Igwe is director of the Centre for Inquiry in Nigeria. He can be reached at nskepticleo@yahoo.com. 
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/Leo_Igwe/african_practices.htm
 

Women in Religion (Feb 10)

Women in Religion

Where have all the Goddesses gone?

Religions haven't always denigrated women. The Greeks and the Romans had as many goddesses as gods and they were equally important. The Greek goddess Gaea represented the Earth. She was worshipped as the universal mother who had created the universe and borne both the first race of gods, and the first humans.

The Matriarchy

Women vs the Patriarchy

One such text is the remarkable book by Matilda Joslyn Gage called 'Woman, Church & State' published in 1893. This was one of the first books to draw the conclusion that Christianity is a primary impediment to the progress of women as well as civilisation. She said that religious doctrine at that time was being used as a justification for the de-humanising of women, depriving them of civil, human, economic and political rights; perpetuating the archetype of the ideal woman as mother, wife and homemaker. She argued that inequality of women was a relic from the past when 'might was right' and saw this inequality as a hindrance to human development since half the human race were unable to contribute to society outside the home.

Unclean, unclean

More ways the church found to demean women

Which creation myth shall we choose?

In a more light-hearted vein, I found these stories from Oceanic mythology about the origins of the different sexes. In the creation myth of the Palace Islands the first man was created by the god and the first woman by the goddess, and they formed the primeval couple. According to the legends of the Banks Islands, the first man was moulded in clay and the first woman woven in basketwork. And among some Queensland tribes man was made from stone and woman from boxwood.

What price honour?

I will now move on to the subject of Women and Religion in modern times and will be referring to 'Does God Hate Women?' However, before that I would like to mention an article in the New Statesman in 2008. It reported that according to official figures 17,000 women in Britain are subjected to 'honour' related kidnapping, sexual assault, beatings and murder every year. And the crime is not limited to older, first-generation immigrants. Parents are passing on customs they brought with them to their children. The article states that 'honour killings are a direct result of forced marriage and have nothing to do with Islam. For many Muslims Islamic ideals are subservient to tribal custom. Among certain tribes in Asia 'honour' is associated with women. Izzat, as honour is called in Urdu is quite literally located on the female body. Thus women have to be guarded, protected and passed on to another member of the tribe. A woman dishonours her family and tribe if her body is violated, even by force.

Does God hate women?

'Does God Hate Women?' by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom was published last year and is a very powerful and well-researched book. The first chapter, 'A God of bullies' is a harrowing catalogue of cruelty and injustice towards women some of which is still going on. They cite real examples such as young women in Pakistan being buried alive for attempting to marry men of their own choosing. They talk about Pakistan's Hudood Ordinance, introduced by General Zia ul Haq in 1979 as part of his programme of Islamisation. Under this ordinance a woman making an accusation of rape had to provide four Muslim men of good standing as witnesses to the crime. If she failed to do this she would be charged with zina, for which the prescribed punishment was flogging or stoning. 'Zina' is sexual intercourse between a man and a woman not married to each other, irrespective of whether one or both are married to someone else. Although such punishments were never actually carried out in Pakistan, thousands of women were imprisoned as a result of unsuccessful charges of rape. The result was that rape could be committed with impunity in Pakistan. In spite of strong opposition from religious groups, Musharraf's government passed the Protection of Women Bill in Dec. 2006. The bill placed rape laws under the penal code and did away with the four male witnesses etc. Religious groups held protests throughout the country when the bill was passed.

Religious apologetics

In Ch. 2 'Religious Apologetics, Islam and caricature', they counter the arguments of those religious people who argue that misogyny is not an inherent part of their religion but simply a matter of the customs and traditions of a place. They cite the work of Karen Armstrong, a one-time Catholic nun. She argues that Mohammed's original message included a commitment to the emancipation of women. But this book argues that you have to consider the fact that Mohammed's favourite wife Aisha was only 9 years old when she was 'betrothed' to Mohammed and that the marriage was consummated once she reached puberty. He also had a concubine called Mariyah who had a child by him. Religious apologists claim that all this behaviour was normal at that time and can't be used to criticise modern day Islam. However, Mohammed is meant to be considered exemplary. Armstrong herself says, 'Muslims seek to imitate Muhammad in their daily lives in order to approximate as closely as possible to this perfection.... The sunnah taught Muslims to imitate the way Muhammad spoke, ate, loved, washed and worshipped...'

In Summary

Morality evolved first, long before Religion (Feb 10)

Which came first, religion or morality? Listening to religious people, you'd hear how people need religion's instructions, or else we'd be morally clueless. God comes first, then God's Law comes to humanity, and only then can people be good.

But there's no good evidence for any part of this fable. Such a religious fable itself is a relatively recent creation, reduplicated in many forms all over the world. Different religions talk about all manner of strange supernatural agents perpetually obsessed with correct human conduct. (You'd think any actual self-respecting deity would have more interesting things to do.) Yet basic morality itself is remarkably consistent across human societies. Long before humans had language complex enough to spin stories of heaven, our distant ancestors had to deal with their own problems on earth.

Religion is an artificial way of enforcing humanity's natural morality

We are a highly social species, using social structures like monogamy, family, clan, and tribe. Our ancestors were using these structures at least 500,000 years ago. If you were suddenly plucked from your life and sent back in time to live with people in Indonesia about 15,000 years ago (or even Ethiopia 150,000 years ago), you would be able to figure out what is going on. The basic social roles, responsibilities, and civil rules would seem somewhat familiar to you, and you'd fit in pretty fast. How is that possible?

Cultural anthropologists have long recognized how all human societies have similar basic norms of moral conduct. Marc Hauser, professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard University, has just published a paper about additional studies showing that people’s moral intuitions do not vary much across different religions all around the world. From an evolutionary perspective, that means that human morality is very old -- old enough to pre-date any religion that exists today. Furthermore, basic morality is highly resistant to religious influence -- most people easily reject religious rules that violate their basic moral intuitions. Rather, religions all tend to confirm and support human morality, because that essential morality sustains our schemes of social cooperation.

Hauser concludes that

"... religion cannot be the ultimate source of intra-group cooperation. Cooperation is made possible by a suite of mental mechanisms that are not specific to religion. Moral judgments depend on these mechanisms and appear to operate independently of one's religious background. However, although religion did not originally emerge as a biological adaptation, it can play a role in both facilitating and stabilizing cooperation within groups, and as such, could be the target of cultural selection." [read the entire article here... ]

The rich diversity of supernatural fantasies hides their common function: to enhance willing obedience. Religion did not evolve independently from, or earlier than, our moral capacities. Morality is independent from religion, while religion is dependent on human morality. And that's a good thing.
 

John Shook, Centre for Inquiry, 10 February 2010
www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/morality_evolved_first_long_before_religion/

Kathy Orlinsky comments:

"There’s also the fact that non-human primates and other animals display behaviors that are indistinguishable from what we’d call morality.  Clearly, they did not get those behaviors from any kind of religion." (ibid)

The Haitian Earthquake: Where Was God? (Jan 10)

The Bible-thumpers have been having a field day over the Haitian earthquake, trying to explain god's involvement -- or more's the point, his absense in the face of such unbelievable suffering. There are many examples on the internet which show just how far people will go with their rhetoric. We'll ignore the rantings of the American Christian televangelist, Pat Robertson, who claimed that the Haitians were themselves to blame because they had "sworn a pact with the devil". [http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/13/crimesider/entry6092717.shtml].

Try this one by Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Convention in the States:

“The earthquake in Haiti, like every other earthly disaster, reminds us that creation groans under the weight of sin and the judgment of God. This is true for every cell in our bodies, even as it is for the crust of the earth at every point on the globe. The entire cosmos awaits the revelation of the glory of the coming Lord. Creation cries out for the hope of the New Creation. In other words, the earthquake reminds us that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only real message of hope. The cross of Christ declares that Jesus loves Haiti -- and the Haitian people are the objects of his love. Christ would have us show the Haitian nation his love, and share his Gospel.”  [http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/01/14/does-god-hate-haiti/]

Now contrast this extraordinary 'logic' with BHA's new Director Andrew Copson and his reasoned comments in a recent radio discussion on the Haiti crisis:

"It is obviously true that people are comforted by thinking that things happen for a reason,” but “terrible disasters like this fatally undermine belief in a good and just god". And when one caller to the programme asserted that "god was demonstrating his superiority as a lesson to us to live better", Copson retorted that this was "as if a parent whose child was misbehaving beat his other child to death to teach his naughty child a lesson ... this was hardly behaviour one would call ‘good’. ...It was not gods that that would help the victims of the Haiti earthquake but good men and women who will give their time, money and compassion."
 

How Should Humanists Celebrate Christmas? (Dec 09)

Christmas is a strange time of the year for agnostics and atheists. One can be all in favor of celebration and ritual  but not much care for the baggage and bigotry that accompanies most religious festivals these days.

At our recent Winter Solstice Party we discussed the idea of  celebrating, not the birth of Jesus, but the birth of the UNIVERSE, some 14 billion years ago -- it's a bit difficult to identify the exact day (just as with Jesus's birth), especially when we can't be too certain about the nature of time in the early stages of the Big Bang!*

Instead of going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, how about a little star-gazing, fireworks and champagne: is there anything more inspiring and thought-provoking than the night sky? And if it’s overcast perhaps one could feast one's eyes on photos from space from Hubble and the new Hershel telescopes.

Good to get some awe and wonder back into our lives and less of the ‘shock and awe’! We Humanists just don’t have enough rituals and celebrations!

*   The idea of celebrating the ‘Big Bang’ at Christmas comes from an article by Simon Singh in an interesting book, 'There's probably no God: the Atheist's guide to Christmas', edited by Ariane Sherine.

Humanist Confirmation in Norway - a rite of passage comes of age (Nov 09)

Every year in Norway over 10,000 youths aged 15 celebrate their Humanist confirmation. Keeping up an over 50 years old tradition they meet in concert halls and medieval castles, municipal cinemas and cultural centres, city halls and community houses. They gather in bigger and smaller towns all over the country. They celebrate from the southern "bible belt" of small towns with white painted wooden houses to the far north close to the border of Russia and in the Sami community of Karasjok. And of course, they celebrate in the bigger towns and regional centres as Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim as well. These Saturday or Sunday events take place from late April till late May every year.  

But still, the Norwegian Humanist Association is not present everywhere with active groups able to arrange this. If the youth lives in isolated communities like Norway's northernmost possession, Svalbard, between 74 and 81 degrees northern altitude, we will have to use a different approach. The same when the youth lives in a foreign country, often the children of Norwegian staff in companies or institutions around the world. So, while most confirmands join the course in life stance and ethics in their homeplace in Norway, they join a course by e-mail. Some celebrate with their friends and families in the place they are located – some come back home to Norway in the summer and celebrate. An extra ceremony for the "foreigners" is set up in Oslo in June. To sum up: Everywhere youths choose to mark their coming of age in a secular way.   

In Oslo, the capital, over 800 youths walk in procession down the great marble staircase decorated with golden seagulls of the impressive City Hall (where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is being held), while their friends and families all rise for them. In the great hall seating 1400, in eight ceremonies over three succeeding Saturdays or Sundays, they receive their diplomas for having finished the course in life stance and ethics, as youths have done since 1951. For Humanist confirmation, in 2007 chosen by 16,4 % of the 15year olds of Norway, is an institution in the land.           

CONFIRMATION- CONFIRMATIONS  

For hundreds of years the Lutheran state churches of the Nordic countries had held the key to adulthood with their confirmation ceremonies, in Norway compulsory by law until 1912. Every youth was to be interrogated by the parson to see if he or she understood and shared the dogmas of the church. If one did not, one did not have the right to marry, to wear adult clothes or to do adult work. But it was not only a religious tyranny exercising its prerogatives, it was also a proud occasion for the family and the youth concerned, a tender and joyful celebration of coming of age in the local community, which struck deep roots in traditional popular culture.  

With religious liberty, modernisation and secularisation, those outside the church felt a need for a new celebration, equally emotionally satisfying for the participants, but based on new knowledge of the world, and the new ideas of the "good life", freed from religious dogma. The first civil confirmation in the Nordic countries took place in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1915.  It was held by the fiercely named "Association Against Church Confirmation", which a few years later became "The Association for Civil Confirmation". Today it is still celebrated (very small scale) each year by the Danish labour movement's organisation for youth and children, DUI.  

In Norway an "Association for Civil Confirmation" was founded in 1950, with support from the academic community and from leading personalities in the labour movement. The first ceremony took place in 1951, with 34 youths. Its yearly celebration in the City Hall has become one of the great traditions of Oslo, with over 20 % of the city's 15 year olds taking part, as well as in the Greater Oslo area, where a similar high rate of participation has become the norm. This also goes for other regional centres.           

LEARNING AND CELEBRATION           

In 1956 many members of the "Association for Civil Confirmation" helped in the foundation of the Norwegian Humanist Association, Human-Etisk Forbund (HEF), and the responsibility for civil confirmation passed to the new organisation the next year. For many years it rested an Oslo phenomenon. In 1968 local branches of HEF started their own courses and their own celebrations, and it exploded in the '80s, with 110 local branches celebrating it in 1990. Based on the confirmand book "Think about it!", in the course proceeding the confirmation ceremony, the participants discuss life stances, humanism, human rights and ethical issues, often based on important issues for young people. In short, the questions: how shall we behave towards one another? Some issues are dealt with in every course wherever it is arranged. These issues are considered to be compulsory (life stance, humanism and human rights). Other issues are chosen by youths and leaders, often on the background of local circumstances.  

The course is held in the evenings through the winter period and the youths normally attend about ten evenings. Some arrange weekend gatherings – usually in the woods, mountain areas or at the sea side.  

Growing up means making choices, and the aim of the Humanist confirmation is to help and to strengthen awareness of ones situation and the choices one must make, not as a teaching of dogmas, but as an acknowledgement of rights and responsibilities in society.  

The celebration itself changes from locality to locality, but certain features recur: Music and poetry frame the ceremony and there are civic and cultural dignitaries taking part. A standard part of the ceremonial programme is the speech of the day: A speech addressing the confirmands in encouraging words, maybe telling them they are important, addressing them about making choices, getting more responsibility and about engaging in more than the little family circle. Even on a day dominated by family gatherings this might be the focus of the speech. Another standard part is the speech from  one of the youths on behalf of them all, a speech often summing up what the course has been all about, what the time of coming together has been like, about the position to the young people of today. Often one sings the classical freethought song "Your thoughts are free", sang in the Norwegian language, though, and the audience joins in the singing. The Norwegian poet Nordahls Grieg's poem "To Youth" is read or sung by an artist contributing to the ceremony from the stage.  In some ceremonies an artist sing "Imagine" by John Lennon, there is classical music, choirs and orchestras or readings by local poets, depending on the availability of art and artists. When the confirmand is presented with the diploma for having taken part and finished the course in life stance and ethics, he or she is probably on the tensest point in the ceremony. Every confirmand is called forward to get this. After all in the confirmand group have got their diplomas, and are lined up on stage, the audience warmly applauds them. When the ceremony starts and ends the confirmands come in and leave in a procession accompanies with suitable music. Duration of a ceremony is about an hour.          

DEVELOPMENTS           

Over the years many confirmands have made their mark on Norwegian society, ranging from the great jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek to former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, leader of the UN commission on Environment and Development. But it is a rite of passage reaching outside the intellectual middle class, even outside those with an ethnic Norwegian background, with each year a leaven of immigrant youths, children of political refugees or from families of mixed cultural background taking part, finding in it an institution supportive of their sense of being and becoming. 80 % of those taking part in Humanist confirmation do not have a family background with membership in the association. This means it also serves as an annual outreach by our organisation to the greater society, a way in which new people become aware of our existence and come in touch with our activities and ideas. More than 200.000 are taking part in humanist ceremonies in Norway every year – celebrating or marking the child with a naming ceremony, confirmation, marriage and same sex partnership and funeral. We humans have throughout our existence, in all cultures, at all times, celebrated the great turning points of life in our rites of passage.  

In the international humanist movement these celebrations are a feature not only of our organisations with an historical background as a religious organisation, but also among German free-thinkers and the Belgian laïque/vrijzinnig organisations. Swedes and Icelanders has found inspiration in the Norwegian Humanist confirmation (former Civil confirmation) for their own coming-of-age ceremonies these last years, celebrated in both Reykjavik and Stockholm and other parts of Sweden.  

Humans need not only intellectual clarity and truth, but also sharing the ideas one hold at the significant points in ones lifetime and celebrating them in forms fitting the occasion.

Norwegian Humanist Association [http://www.human.no/templates/Page____6736.aspx]

Published 24.11.2009

Thought for the Day (Nov 09)

18 NOV 09: The Today programme's Thought for the Day slot it to remain closed to non-religious contributors after the BBC's governing body rejects accusations that it breaches editorial guidelines. The fight goes on...
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6589760/Radio-4-God-slot-will-rem...
6 NOV 09: Lord Birt, former BBC Chief, has said that the BBC must “loosen the stranglehold” of established religious organisations and “embrace” the humanist movement. He was speaking in a debate at the House of Lords on the eve of the BBC Trust’s deliberations on whether to allow non-religious contributors to the Today programme’s religious slot. "The BBC," he said: “must one day soon loosen the stranglehold of the established religious organisations and more fully embrace the humanist movement.” He described the humanist tradition as “a loose network of individuals broadly exercised by questions of the spirit, concerned to optimise the sum total of human happiness here on earth; individuals naturally respectful of others, wedded to rationalism and to scientific rigour, revering all life, unafraid to proclaim and to celebrate the joy of existence and the richness of human expression.” When plans for a non-religious Thought for the Day on Radio 4's Today programme were mooted earlier this year, it sparked criticism from faith leaders. They said that in an increasingly secular climate, it was "vitally important" that religion retains its voice. However a number of peers declared their interest as ‘Happy Humanists’ in the debate on Wednesday night. It comes after John Denham, the communities secretary, disclosed he is a humanist.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6509648/Former-head-of-BBC-calls-for-atheists-on-Radio-4-God-Slot.html

Charter for Compassion (Nov 09)

15 NOV 09: We would be interested to get some Humanist comment on the recent launch of 'Charter for Compassion' with its "call to bring the world together". According to one of its founders, Karen Armstrong, CFC is about the centrality of compassion and the importance of action rather than simply belief.
"The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect. It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion. We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies. We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community."
http://charterforcompassion.org/

Getting Out (Nov 09)

For many brought us as Roman Catholics but no longer practising, remaining 'lapsed' is not sufficient: they want a clean break. The Count Me Out website provides all information you will need. And there's an interesting artlce about leaving the church in the Irish Times. www.countmeout.ie www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1118/1224259040599.html

A Challenge to Atheists (Mar 08)

We would be interested to know if anyone has a better (ie more convincing) example of arguments made against Atheism than the attached article, and in particular the arguments put forward by Prof Richard Dawkins in 'The God Delusion'. Is this really the best that people of faith can come up with?

Author, Dr Graham Tomlin, writes: "Richard Dawkins reminds me of someone passionately convinced of the virtues of sight, confronted by people trying to explain to him the concept of smell. Such a person might be absolutely committed to the view that vision alone can explain reality. Perhaps the main problem with Dawkins is that he starts the discussion in the wrong place. Nowhere does the Bible show any interest in the question 'Is there a God?' The writers do not try to prove it, demonstrate it, or argue for it. They simply assume it. This is the only way that God can be found... The God of the Bible is not interested in whether we happen to entertain the opinion that he exists or not. He is interested in changing us. And only those prepared for that challenge will ever find him." (UK Focus, March 2008)

http://richarddawkins.net/article,3215,Dawkins-a-theologians-perspective...

Religion vs. Free Speech (Summer 06)

"We are in an intellectual battle against religion—at home and abroad—to maintain freedom of speech. There is no middle ground here: Either religion is valid, or we have the right to speak our minds. We can lose certain liberties (as we tragically have been doing and continue to do) yet still work peacefully toward resecuring them—so long as we can say what we think. But to lose freedom of speech would be to lose liberty as such. If we are not free to criticize religion or 'offend God,' then we are not free; we are by that fact fully under the rule of religion. 'You can do or say anything except that which offends God' is the law of theocracy—that is: rule by men who embrace faith and thus reject reason."

In the midst of the Cartoon Jihad, much has been said in defense of the right to free speech, especially by those on the religious right (such as Jeff Jacoby and Michelle Malkin). This effort is remarkable because, on the premises of religion, the Islamic militants are correct: There is no right to free speech.

Rights are principles specifying the kinds of actions that a person should be able to take. The right to free speech, if it exists, is the prerogative to express one’s ideas, whether in spoken, written, or artistic form—regardless of what anyone else thinks, believes, or feels about those ideas. If there is no right to “offend God,” as the Islamic militants insist, then there is no right to free speech. And whether or not we have the right to “offend God” depends on the source and nature of rights.

Where do rights come from? Do they come from the natural world or from a supernatural dimension? And how do we know that we have them? Are rights rationally understandable facts of reality or mystically intuited articles of faith? The answers one gives to these questions determine how one holds the concept of “rights” in one’s mind, how one uses the concept in practice, and whether or not one is able intellectually to defend rights when they are attacked.

On the religious worldview, quoting Alan Keyes: “Our rights come from the will of God.”1 President George W. Bush concurs: “We received our rights from God.”2 Newt Gingrich challenges anyone to cite another source for rights: “If you are not endowed by your Creator with certain inalienable rights where do they come from?”3 In other words: If there is no God, there are no rights.

This idea is not only wrong; it is exactly backward. The fact is that if there were a God (which there is not), there would be no rights—and as long as people believe that rights come from God, they will be unable to understand rights or to properly defend them. To see why, let us begin by reviewing the basic tenets of religion.

According to religion, there is a God—an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being—who is the creator of the universe, the source of all truth, and the maker of moral law. The essence of His moral law is that we must have faith in His existence and goodness and that we must obey His commands without question. That is the general theory. Practicing religion consists specifically in having faith in God and being obedient to His will. Let us take the issue of obedience first.

In the words of Harry V. Jaffa, a distinguished fellow at The Claremont Institute: “As God’s creatures, we owe unconditional obedience to His will.”4 Unconditional obedience to God’s will is, of course, the kind of obedience exemplified by Abraham’s willingness to murder his beloved son Isaac because God told him to.5 Rabbi David Aaron writes: “Our neglect to obey God’s will becomes the source of our own personal destruction.”6 Bearing in mind this requirement of unconditional obedience, observe that, like Islam, both Judaism and Christianity prohibit speech offensive to God—and both call for those who violate this tenet to be put to death. From the Old Testament:

Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death.7

If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, “Let us go and serve other gods,” . . . you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. But you shall kill him.8

Those are just two such passages; there are many more in the Bible. While some religionists try to brush aside such divine decrees—saying “God didn’t mean those parts” or “I don’t accept those sections” or “Let’s be rational here”—in so doing, they deny a fundamental tenet of religion. Either God is to be obeyed, or He is not. If one chooses to obey God only when one thinks He got it right, or only when one wants to obey Him, or only when one thinks it is rational to do so, then one denies God’s divine authority—which, according to religion, is a very bad thing to do.

Religion holds that we must obey God’s will regardless of what we think. “Above all,” writes the devoutly religious René Descartes, reminding us of the applicable tenet, “we ought to submit to the Divine authority rather than to our own judgment even though the light of reason may seem to us to suggest, with the utmost clearness and evidence, something opposite.”9 According to religion, God’s will, however objectionable, is by definition good; and human judgment to the contrary, however rational, is by definition bad. The “real distinction between right and wrong,” explains Bishop Robert Mortimer, “is independent of what we happen to think. It is rooted in the nature and will of God.”

When a man’s conscience tells him that a thing is right, which is in fact what God wills, his conscience is true and its judgment correct; when a man’s conscience tells him a thing is right which is, in fact, contrary to God’s will, his conscience is false and telling him a lie.10
No matter how people choose to “interpret” the holy books or “cherry-pick” from God’s commands, the basic principles of religion remain: God’s word is the fundamental law; He is to be obeyed by all people at all times without question or exception; those who violate His law in any way, to any extent, are sinners; and those who dare to insult or second-guess God—those who commit blasphemy or heresy or the like—are beyond redemption and deserve the corresponding, divinely ordained punishment: death.

This ultimate punishment is perfectly fitting for what is, on the religious worldview, the ultimate crime: offending God. According to religion, the whole universe, all of reality, and everything in it, was created by God. His will is why existence exists. To offend God is to offend all of existence—and thus to deserve to be put out of existence.

What does this principle of religion mean when applied to the realm of politics? It means—as the seriously religious John Calvin put it—that the government must ensure that no idolatry, no blasphemy against the name of God, no calumnies against his truth, nor other offences to religion, break out and be disseminated among the people. . . . [Government must] prevent the true religion, which is contained in the law of God, from being with impunity openly violated and polluted by public blasphemy.11

Calvin, true to biblical law, had the Spanish physician Michael Servetus burned at the stake for heresy. (Servetus denied the Trinity.) Although some of Calvin’s contemporaries felt uneasy about this divine justice, Calvin reminded them:

Those who would spare heretics and blasphemers are themselves blasphemers. Here we follow not the authority of men but we hear God speaking as in no obscure terms He commands His church forever. Not in vain does He extinguish all those affections by which our hearts are softened: the love of parents, brothers, neighbors and friends. He calls the wedded from their marriage bed and practically denudes men of their nature lest any obstacle impede their holy zeal. Why is such implacable severity demanded unless . . . devotion to God’s honor should be preferred to all human concerns and as often as His glory is at stake we should expunge from memory our mutual humanity.12

Calvin, of course, was one of the more barbaric religionists in history—precisely because he followed the word of God as written in the Bible. Either God is to be obeyed, or He is not. According to religion, He is to be obeyed, and Calvin took religion seriously.

As objectionable as God’s law is regarding such matters, there is no way for a serious religionist to take a principled stand against obeying His will. This is why even the most rational theologian of all time, Thomas Aquinas, insisted on the death penalty for verbal or written offenses against God. “Blasphemy is vilification of God’s excellence and goodness,” wrote Aquinas. “Of its nature, vilification of God’s goodness is a fatal sin. . . . [B]lasphemy which intends to harm God’s honour is graver, simply speaking, than murder, the gravest sin against our fellowmen.” About heretics, Aquinas wrote, “there are two things to say”:

Their sin deserves banishment not only from the church by excommunication but also from the world by death. But the church seeks with mercy to turn back those who go astray, and condemns them not immediately but only after a first or second warning. If, however, a heretic remains stubborn, the church, despairing of his conversion, takes care of the salvation of others, separates the heretic from the church with a sentence of excommunication, and delivers him to the secular courts to be removed from the world by death. . . . Our Lord told Peter we should forgive seventy times seven times—meaning always—offences committed against ourselves; but that does not mean we are free to forgive offences against God. . . .13
Like everything in the world, religion is something specific; it has a nature. And part of its nature is that it demands absolute devotion to God and unconditional obedience to His will.

What then of the right to free speech? Does religion provide a viable foundation for freedom of expression? For instance, are books or cartoons mocking the Creator in order? The question is absurd.

Thanks to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, religionists in the West today do not take religion as seriously as did their forebears; they do not call for blasphemers to be stoned to death or burned at the stake. But western religionists today do call for censorship—of television, radio, the Internet, video games, and so on—and they are making headway in their efforts.

In 2005, for instance, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act with an overwhelming 389 to 38 vote. In 2006, the Senate unanimously approved its own version of the Act—including a tenfold increase in existing broadcast “indecency” fines (up from $32,500 to $325,000 per airing of “indecent” material). In response to this blow to freedom of speech, Daniel Weiss, a senior analyst at Focus on the Family—an organization committed to forcibly imposing religion on the public—said: “Today we have a hard-won victory over an entertainment industry intent on polluting the public airwaves.”14 “Polluting” by what standard? By the standard of God’s will.

While western religionists today are not calling for death to those who “offend God,” they are calling for—and increasingly achieving—punishment for such “offenders.” They seek to limit and further limit freedom of speech—to build “victory” upon “victory.” Their ultimate goal is—as according to the Bible it must be—to bring all art and communication under God’s authority. The Coalition on Revival makes this point openly:

God is the Author of creation and communication. As the supreme Creator and Communicator, He is the source of art and communication. . . . [We] must bring all art and communication under His authority. . . . [There are no] Biblical justifications for censorship of the truth; [but] evil, blasphemy, profanity, and pornography are neither truth nor legitimate speech and must be rebuked and censored. . . . [Neither] pornography [nor] blasphemy [is] permissible as art or “free speech.”15
On the premises of religion, there is no right to free speech; there is only the “right” to speak the “truth” as revealed by “God.”

The fact that some religionists do not take the holy books seriously does not change what the holy books say. It does not give them a passkey to have their Bible and throw it out too. Nor does it grant them any credibility with those religionists who do take the scripture seriously. Rather, these religionists’ halfhearted embrace of religion renders them inconsistent in their convictions (holding religion as both true and not true), hypocritical in their actions (obeying God’s will and not obeying it), and thus intellectually disarmed in the face of those who wholeheartedly embrace religion (e.g., Islamic militants).

Because western religionists accept religion to some degree—and because religion forbids speech offensive to God in any degree—they are unable to understand, to accept, to apply, or to defend the right to free speech. While some of them claim to uphold the right to free speech, when they are faced with something like “ungodly” broadcasting, they compromise freedom of speech in the name of “family values” (a euphemism for religious values). When they are faced with something like the Cartoon Jihad, they are reduced to making such contradictory statements as this remarkable pair from the Bush administration: “We vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of view”—and—“Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief.”16 Translation: Individuals have a right to free speech but may not criticize religion. Or: Individuals have an unlimited right to free speech, which must be limited as God commands.

On the premises of religion, there is no right to free speech; there is only the “right” to say what is permitted by “God.” This conclusion follows logically not only from the content of religion, but also, and more fundamentally, from its method—that is, from the means by which its content is “known” to be “true.”

How, according to religion, are people to know that God exists, or what He commands, or that they must obey Him? While the holy books claim that He exists and said certain things and must be obeyed, they do not present any evidence in support of these claims. Statements written in books are not themselves evidence that those statements are true. Moreover, in addition to claiming that an all-benevolent God demands murder, the holy books contain many other wild claims: that a bush spoke, that a woman turned into a pillar of salt, that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that God created the universe six thousand years ago (a millennium after man created the first balance scale). How, according to religion, is one to know that the claims of the scripture are true? The answer is: by means of faith.

Faith is the acceptance of ideas in the absence of evidence and in defiance of logic. In biblical terms, it is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”17 Faith is the only way to “know” of God’s existence, laws, or desires, because there is no evidence for them. There is no science or logic to religion. God is purported to be beyond nature (i.e., “supernatural”) and thus beyond rational comprehension. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel puts it, God “surpasses nature” and “lies beyond all things and all concepts.”

The moment we utter the name of God we leave the level of scientific thinking and enter the realm of the ineffable. Such a step is one which we cannot take scientifically, since it transcends the boundaries of all that is given. . . . Every religious act and judgment involves the acceptance of the ineffable, the acknowledgement of the inconceivable. . . . [T]he ineffable [is] that aspect of reality which by its very nature lies beyond our comprehension, and is acknowledged by the mind to be beyond the scope of the mind.18
To know the truths of religion, one must give up one’s mind, accept the ineffable, and acknowledge the inconceivable. In a word, one must reject reason.

Religious “truths” cannot be understood by reason and are not to be put to its test. If it is right to accept God and His laws on faith, then it is wrong to question Him or them with reason. To demand reasons for accepting the tenets of religion is to challenge the very existence and authority of God. According to religion, reason is, as Martin Luther put it, “The Devil’s bride” and “God’s worst enemy.”

There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason, especially if she enters into spiritual matters which concern the soul and God. For it is more possible to teach an ass to read than to blind such a reason and lead it right; for reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. . . .

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees it must put out of sight, and wish to know nothing but the word of God.19

Granted, few religionists in the West today are as openly anti-reason as Luther was. Not even Jerry Falwell announces that “Faith must trample under foot all reason . . .” But insofar as a person accepts faith as a means of knowledge, he thereby denies that reason is man’s only means of knowledge—and thus denies the possibility of rights.

Think about it: If a person has faith that God exists, that He must be obeyed, that He must not be offended—and that if He is disobeyed or offended, He must be avenged—how on earth can this person be expected to respect anyone’s “right” to disobey or offend God? What the believer purports to know here is not a trivial matter; it is a matter of the gravest importance in the world: the will and honor of the creator of the universe. There is no reasoning with such a person; his faith will not permit it. Evidence of the destructive nature of his beliefs will not sway him; logical argument will not enlighten him; human suffering and death are of no consequence to him. He is, by choice, immune to reason.

This mentality was the cause of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, and the Thirty Years’ War. It is the cause of the current Islamic assault on the West and on freedom of speech. In mitigated form, it is also the cause of the current Judeo-Christian attack on freedom of expression. And it will continue to cause rights violations, suffering, and death until faith is widely recognized as invalid and immoral.

“Faith and force are corollaries,” wrote Ayn Rand. The claim to a non-sensory, non-rational means of knowledge is the rejection of reason. “When men reject reason, they have no means left for dealing with one another—except brute, physical force.”20

Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when men deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, no persuasion, communication or understanding are possible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which [faith] reduces mankind—a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence.21
Far from providing grounds for the existence or protection of rights, religion necessarily leads to the systematic denial and violation of rights. When faith is accepted as a means of knowledge, force inexorably follows.

Just as faith and force are corollaries, so too are reason and freedom. Freedom in a political context means freedom from physical force—and rights specify the kinds of actions that a person is properly free to take. Our need of freedom and our possession of rights are consequences of the fact that reason is our basic means of survival. We survive by using our minds: observing reality, discovering causal relationships, forming concepts and principles on the basis of these identifications, and acting on our best judgment. The faculty that makes all of this possible is reason—and the purpose of rights is to enable us to use it.

Rights are moral (i.e., life-serving) principles specifying an individual’s proper freedom of action in a social context. The basic right, the right to life, is the right to act freely on the judgment of one’s mind; we need this freedom because using reason is our basic means of surviving, producing values, accomplishing goals, and achieving happiness. The right to liberty is the right to be free from physical force by other people; we need this freedom because physical force stops us from acting on our judgment—our basic means of living. The right to property is the right to keep, use, and dispose of the product of one’s effort; we need this freedom so that we can produce and trade according to our judgment—and reap the benefits thereof. The right to the pursuit of happiness is the right to seek the goals and values of one’s choice; we need this freedom because choosing and pursuing our own goals by means of our own judgment is what makes life worth living. And the right to free speech is the right to say or write or otherwise express what one thinks; we need this freedom because expressing our ideas and judging the ideas and actions of other people is part and parcel of using our minds.

We are in an intellectual battle against religion—at home and abroad—to maintain freedom of speech. There is no middle ground here: Either religion is valid, or we have the right to speak our minds. We can lose certain liberties (as we tragically have been doing and continue to do) yet still work peacefully toward resecuring them—so long as we can say what we think. But to lose freedom of speech would be to lose liberty as such. If we are not free to criticize religion or “offend God,” then we are not free; we are by that fact fully under the rule of religion. “You can do or say anything except that which offends God” is the law of theocracy—that is: rule by men who embrace faith and thus reject reason.

There was a time when westerners were unable to criticize religion or “offend God” for fear of punishment or death; it is called the Dark Ages. To lose our freedom to speak our minds would be the end of peaceful civilization and the beginning of a new, darker Dark Age—one in which the Church would have at its disposal highly advanced eavesdropping technology (not to mention modern weaponry).

The tenets of religion are incompatible with the right to free speech. The only way to mix the two in one’s mind is to take neither of them seriously. But not taking religion seriously does not change what religion is or says or means. And not taking freedom of speech seriously does not alter the fact that it is a fundamental requirement of human life.

The right to free speech is the recognition of the fact that in order for people to live together peacefully, they must be free to express their thoughts—regardless of what others think, feel, or “just believe.” We need freedom of expression; and to establish and maintain it, we must repudiate religion and embrace the rational foundation for rights.

If we fail to challenge the growing threat to freedom of speech at the most fundamental level, we will lose the freedom to express our ideas—which means, we will lose our ability to live as civilized human beings. In order to disarm those who attack the right to free speech, we must identify religion—all religion—as what it is: illogical, invalid, inhuman, and immoral. Nothing less will save the West.

Author: Craig Biddle

Source: www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-summer/religion-vs-free-speech.asp

Endnotes

1 Quoted by Isabel Lyman in “Keyes Tells It Like It Is,” Edmond Sun, March 12, 2000.

2 Quoted by Scott Rosenberg in “God Stoppers,” Salon.com, http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2002/06/28/god_stoppers/index.html.

3 “A Conservative Plan for Victory,” Front Page Magazine, http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17624.

4 Harry V. Jaffa, “The Central Idea,” The Claremont Institute, http://www.claremont.org/writings/022006jaffa.html.

5 See Genesis 22.

6 “Rosh Hashanah: Who’s Judging?” Jewish World Review, http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0904/aaron_rosh.php3.

7 Leviticus 24:16.

8 Deuteronomy 13:6–9.

9 The Philosophical Works of Descartes, translated by Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), vol. I, p. 253.

10 Robert C. Mortimer, Christian Ethics (London: Hutchinson’s University Library, 1950), p. 8.

11 Francis William Coker, Readings in Political Philosophy, revised ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1938), p. 337.

12 Quoted in Roland H. Bainton, Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus, 1511–1553 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), pp. 170–71.

13 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation, edited by Timothy McDermott (Allen: Christian Classics, 1989), pp. 342–44, emphasis in original.

14 “Ten-Fold Boost on Broadcast Indecency Fines Approved,” in The Christian Post, Friday, May 19, 2006, http://www.christianpost.com/article/society/2531/section/ten-fold.boost.on.broadcast.indecency.fines.approved/1.htm.

15 “The Christian World View of Art and Communication,” from The Coalition on Revival, http://www.reformation.net/cor/cordocs/art.pdf.

16 State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/04/MNGOSH2TSD1.DTL.

17 Hebrews 11:1.

18 Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1983), pp. 102–104.

19 Quoted in Walter Kaufmann, Critique of Religion and Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1958), pp. 305–307.

20 Ayn Rand, “Censorship: Local and Express,” in Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Penguin, 1984), p. 187.

21 Ayn Rand, “Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World,” in Philosophy: Who Needs It (New York: Penguin, 1984), p. 70.

Richard Dawkins on Militant Atheism (Feb 02)

Virgins? What Virgins? (Jan 2002)

It is widely believed that Muslim 'martyrs' enjoy rich sensual rewards on reaching paradise. A new study suggests they may be disappointed. Ibn Warraq reports

 The Guardian, Saturday 12 January 2002

In August, 2001, the American television channel CBS aired an interview with a Hamas activist Muhammad Abu Wardeh, who recruited terrorists for suicide bombings in Israel. Abu Wardeh was quoted as saying: "I described to him how God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness." Wardeh was in fact shortchanging his recruits since the rewards in Paradise for martyrs was 72 virgins. But I am running ahead of things .

Since September 11, news stories have repeated the story of suicide bombers and their heavenly rewards, and equally Muslim scholars and Western apologists of Islam have repeated that suicide is forbidden in Islam. Suicide (qatlu nafsi-hi) is not referred to in the Koran but is indeed forbidden in the Traditions (Hadith in Arabic), which are the collected sayings and doings attributed to the Prophet and traced back to him through a series of putatively trustworthy witnesses. They include what was done in his presence that he did not forbid, and even the authoritative sayings and doings of his companions.

But the Hamas spokesman correctly uses the word martyr (shahid) and not suicide bomber, since those who blow themselves up almost daily in Israel and those who died on September 11 were dying in the noblest of all causes, Jihad, which is an incumbent religious duty, established in the Koran and in the Traditions as a divine institution, and enjoined for the purpose of advancing Islam. While suicide is forbidden, martyrdom is everywhere praised, welcomed, and urged: "By the Being in Whose Hand is my life, I love that I should be killed in the way of Allah; then I should be brought back to life and be killed again in His way..."; "The Prophet said, 'Nobody who enters Paradise will ever like to return to this world even if he were offered everything, except the martyr who will desire to return to this world and be killed 10 times for the sake of the great honour that has been bestowed upon him'." [Sahih Muslim, chapters 781, 782, The Merit of Jihad and the Merit of Martyrdom.]

What of the rewards in paradise? The Islamic paradise is described in great sensual detail in the Koran and the Traditions; for instance, Koran sura 56 verses 12 -40 ; sura 55 verses 54-56 ; sura 76 verses 12-22. I shall quote the celebrated Penguin translation by NJ Dawood of sura 56 verses 12- 39: "They shall recline on jewelled couches face to face, and there shall wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup of purest wine (that will neither pain their heads nor take away their reason); with fruits of their own choice and flesh of fowls that they relish. And theirs shall be the dark-eyed houris, chaste as hidden pearls: a guerdon for their deeds... We created the houris and made them virgins, loving companions for those on the right hand..."

One should note that most translations, even those by Muslims themselves such as A Yusuf Ali, and the British Muslim Marmaduke Pickthall, translate the Arabic (plural) word Abkarun as virgins, as do well-known lexicons such the one by John Penrice. I emphasise this fact since many pudic and embarrassed Muslims claim there has been a mistranslation, that "virgins" should be replaced by "angels". In sura 55 verses 72-74, Dawood translates the Arabic word " hur " as "virgins", and the context makes clear that virgin is the appropriate translation: "Dark-eyed virgins sheltered in their tents (which of your Lord's blessings would you deny?) whom neither man nor jinnee will have touched before." The word hur occurs four times in the Koran and is usually translated as a "maiden with dark eyes".

Two points need to be noted. First, there is no mention anywhere in the Koran of the actual number of virgins available in paradise, and second, the dark-eyed damsels are available for all Muslims, not just martyrs. It is in the Islamic Traditions that we find the 72 virgins in heaven specified: in a Hadith (Islamic Tradition) collected by Al-Tirmidhi (died 892 CE [common era*]) in the Book of Sunan (volume IV, chapters on The Features of Paradise as described by the Messenger of Allah [Prophet Muhammad], chapter 21, About the Smallest Reward for the People of Paradise, (Hadith 2687). The same hadith is also quoted by Ibn Kathir (died 1373 CE ) in his Koranic commentary (Tafsir) of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: "The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'."

Modern apologists of Islam try to downplay the evident materialism and sexual implications of such descriptions, but, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam says, even orthodox Muslim theologians such as al Ghazali (died 1111 CE) and Al-Ash'ari (died 935 CE) have "admitted sensual pleasures into paradise". The sensual pleasures are graphically elaborated by Al-Suyuti (died 1505 ), Koranic commentator and polymath. He wrote: "Each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetising vaginas."

One of the reasons Nietzsche hated Christianity was that it "made something unclean out of sexuality", whereas Islam, many would argue, was sex-positive. One cannot imagine any of the Church fathers writing ecstatically of heavenly sex as al-Suyuti did, with the possible exception of St Augustine before his conversion. But surely to call Islam sex-positive is to insult all Muslim women, for sex is seen entirely from the male point of view; women's sexuality is admitted but seen as something to be feared, repressed, and a work of the devil.

Scholars have long pointed out that these images are clearly drawn pictures and must have been inspired by the art of painting. Muhammad, or whoever is responsible for the descriptions, may well have seen Christian miniatures or mosaics representing the gardens of paradise and has interpreted the figures of angels rather literally as those of young men and young women. A further textual influence on the imagery found in the Koran is the work of Ephrem the Syrian [306-373 CE], Hymns on Paradise, written in Syriac, an Aramaic dialect and the language of Eastern Christianity, and a Semitic language closely related to Hebrew and Arabic.

This naturally leads to the most fascinating book ever written on the language of the Koran, and if proved to be correct in its main thesis, probably the most important book ever written on the Koran. Christoph Luxenberg's book, Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran, available only in German, came out just over a year ago, but has already had an enthusiastic reception, particularly among those scholars with a knowledge of several Semitic languages at Princeton, Yale, Berlin, Potsdam, Erlangen, Aix-en-Provence, and the Oriental Institute in Beirut.

Luxenberg tries to show that many obscurities of the Koran disappear if we read certain words as being Syriac and not Arabic. We cannot go into the technical details of his methodology but it allows Luxenberg, to the probable horror of all Muslim males dreaming of sexual bliss in the Muslim hereafter, to conjure away the wide-eyed houris promised to the faithful in suras XLIV.54; LII.20, LV.72, and LVI.22. Luxenberg 's new analysis, leaning on the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, yields "white raisins" of "crystal clarity" rather than doe-eyed, and ever willing virgins - the houris. Luxenberg claims that the context makes it clear that it is food and drink that is being offerred, and not unsullied maidens or houris.

In Syriac, the word hur is a feminine plural adjective meaning white, with the word "raisin" understood implicitly. Similarly, the immortal, pearl-like ephebes or youths of suras such as LXXVI.19 are really a misreading of a Syriac expression meaning chilled raisins (or drinks) that the just will have the pleasure of tasting in contrast to the boiling drinks promised the unfaithful and damned.

As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.

· Common era is an alternative to Christian era as a method of historical dating

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jan/12/books.guardianreview5