i’ve not posted for a while, mostly because of pressure of work, but there are a number of things which are currently causing me to more or less lose sleep.
recently, i gave up posting on pickled politics, partly because of the level of personal animosity i was facing, but mostly just in frustration at my apparent inability to get my point across. now, i suppose i have nobody very much to blame for that apart from myself, but i’ve never felt that was a problem before now. now, i think i’m starting to work out what it is that is bothering me; certainly, it’s not about the denizens of one blog, or even the blogosphere, or even the media. it’s not any one set of views, not any one person, but a set of trends, a collective movement i sense in wider society.
one of the things i like about the spittoon and my co-contributors is that they take a robust approach towards the cosy relationship between the left and the various apologists for, supporters of and partisans of islamist extremism. they take, of course, an equally dim view of other forms of clerical fascism, whether it be jewish, christian, or hindu, although, of course, we are often excoriated for not writing sufficiently on these subjects. and why is that? well, the answer that “they’re not as big a problem” simply won’t do. clearly, the activities of the likes of rss/shiv sena in india, or hardcore fundamentalists in the american south ultimately affect all of us. for me personally, the behaviour of both the extreme west bank settlers and that of rejectionist ultra-orthodoxy evokes both profound heartache and deep anger – just as the “as-a-jew” clique that only appear as jews in order to display their preening self-importance whenever an opportunity to attack israel arises. however, i would nonetheless argue that, from the perspective of wider UK society, these concerns are less immediate, in that these groups have no meaningful accommodation with either our government or the UK media, however influential they may be in the communities they come from. what bothers me, really, is what the effects of ongoing and intensifying fundamentalism on me, my family and community and wider society – in this, locally speaking, islamists are in the vanguard, as the leading proponents and practitioners of violence against my community specifically and, generally, against UK civil society.
the question inevitably arises – who’s really worse? well, i think i would on balance come down in favour of the idea that wherever a particular group becomes influential and the closer they come to the levers of power, the more of a problem they are in a particular country. thus, in the UK, the utterly misguided, racism-of-lower-expectations the-west-is-ultimately-responsible-for-everything-bad-y’know attitude has allowed the entryism of islamist organisations and sympathisers everywhere from the police to government to the left-wing media. but would it be any different anywhere else? i expect not – militant fundamentalist christians are busily inching closer to the levers of power in washington, india has had already had one bjp government and i think we’re all aware of the subversion of mainstream democracy and the processes of civil society in israel by the religious parties and the settler lobby. we’ve got a lot of muslim fundamentalists here in the UK and, in a profound act of ignorance and credulity, we’ve allowed islamic education to be systematically outsourced to salafi and wahhabi dawa organisations for a generation, with entirely predictable results – i think we can say the same of many european countries, although i would fall well short of the apocalyptic and hysterical “eurabia” scenario – in fact, i’d be more worried personally about the behaviour of the catholic party in poland led by an anti-semitic priest and any prospective alliance of a russian political party with the orthodox church – not trend anyone jewish can afford to ignore.
of course, in europe particularly, this isn’t the first time we’ve been here. there was of course an “enlightenment”, which consisted in large part of reaction against the authoritarianism of various forms of christianity, whether by trying to eliminate it altogether and replace it with a sort of ersatz state paganism, as in france, or whether to regulate it as a sort of national industry, as in germany and scandinavia, or whether to simply satirise and philosophise it into a manageable social pressure and community support lobby, as in britain. the enlightenment taught that religion was nothing but a corrupt power structure which only the mad, the bad and the deluded would indulge. as we also know, removing religion simply forced the mad, the bad and the deluded to find other channels for their unpleasant attitudes and activities. we still see this outdated and reductionist position being reinvented for modern times using all the tools of modern cultural influence, from popular science to childrens’ books to comedy. religious people are portrayed as knaves or fools. there appears to be no middle ground, no compromise possible – religion must be rooted out, cleansed and exterminated.
of course, we’ve been there before too – modern fundamentalism, as karen armstrong (before she started to become part of the problem by sucking up to the goons at MPAC-UK) pointed out in her still masterful study of fundamentalism “the battle for G!D” evolved largely as a reaction against the enforced, clumsy and often brutal imposition of modernity on societies all around the world. the fundamentalisms we have today have reached their current forms because of the political, technological and social realities of the societies in which they evolved. their priorities and obsessions are driven by the battles they originally fought, against pluralism, liberalisation of dress, behaviour, increased social equality (or inequality), against practically irreversible geopolitical realities, against the aftereffects of wars and economic dislocation. those who give aid and comfort to fundamentalists are inevitably picking and choosing where they have shared priorities and obsessions – anti-imperialism, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-israel, social breakdown, the emancipation of women, the legacy of slavery – but they are always at odds with fundamental features of the societies they criticise.
what i see developing, however, is a sort of multi-lateral polarisation in which the first casualty is moderation, the second is tolerance and the third is social consensus. the effects of this, however, touch all of us, but the effects are peculiarly corrosive on those of us who are able to combine amd integrate reason and religion and deal with the subtleties of creation, revelation and evolution. we are frequently at odds with obscurantists and bigots within our faith, but we are now fighting a rearguard defence against anti-religious forces, without any letup in the attack on reasonableness, complexity and dialogue that continues from reactionary fanatics. both sides, naturally, accuse us of giving aid and comfort to the other in its mission to destroy them – if we’re not with them, we’re against them – and no prisoners will be taken.
so, on one hand, we have the forces of militant anti-religion mounting attacks on everything from headgear to faith schools, on the other we have the walls of the ghetto being built anew, only with gun-ports this time. we can also see the social contract of the enlightenment renewed; previously, the deal was “give up your difference and you’ll get rights as a citizen” – this time, it’s “you’ve abused your rights as a citizen, we can no longer tolerate your differences”. the behaviour of religious fanatics, in their quest to dominate their own communities, has destroyed the delicate balance which allowed religion to be an integrated part of civil society. naturally, comes the response: they want all or nothing? fine – let them have nothing. but what of those of us who always wanted to co-exist? who prize our cultural and spiritual distincitiveness? oh no, distinctiveness is still allowed – but religion will no longer be a valid reason for it. diversity in sexuality, gender, disability, intelligence, talent, wealth – all these are permitted, but not religion. we are offered the choice – everything or nothing. well, we want neither.
i refuse to hide in the ghetto. i contribute to this society. i work. i pay my taxes. i don’t walk about naked, nor do i hide my face from the world. i will not assimilate, nor will i act as if i am living in another country or another century. i refuse to eat foods that are forbidden to me and i refuse to forbid those foods to others who may want them. i refuse to give up the sabbath, the festivals, the Torah and my other sacred texts – and i refuse to impose my vision of them on those who do not share my perspective. if i am attacked, i will defend myself. if i am insulted, i will respond in kind. i am not looking for a fight, but i will not shrink from one. i will not allow others to define what i am. the search for social consensus has been a long and painful one – and now it has been destroyed again, by the hubris and arrogance of religious and anti-religious fanatics. i do not know if we can put the pieces back together again, but there has to be a basis for us to live together – both enforced segregation and enforced assimilation are fascistic responses.
judaism has always been not so much a culture or a religion as it has been a 3000+ year-old argument. there is nothing so boring as loads of people violently agreeing with each other – except perhaps two groups of people refusing to concede anything that the other is saying has any value or validity. the counter-enlightenment is in full swing, without any sign that it has learnt anything from the enlightenment.
37 Comments
As you know, I have long had serious problems with the paradigm (chiefly put about by modern English-language militant atheists) that The Enlightenment was quintessentially an atheist turn in human history.
I have repeatedly argued that this is anachronistic – the leaders of the Continental and English language communicated Enlightenment were mostly – at best (or worst, it depends upon your perspective on these matters) – religious sceptics, some were religious reformers, others were agnostic, others were concerned with re-mapping and reunderstanding the relationship between religious belief and other parts of human understanding (and this goes as much for Hume, for example, as Kant).
Repeatedly (and conveniently for modern militant atheism) anti-clericism, or laicism (especially in their “classic” French forms) have been mistaken for anti-religious movements – yet some of those social movements that preceded the intellectual movement called the Enlightenment, in particular Nonconformist Protestantism in countries like England were both highly anti-clerical in character AND deeply religious.
What is ironic is that, in inspection of the history of ideas, some of those thinkers that stand closest to the views of the modern militant atheists were themselves some of the hottest critiques of the social values of the Enlightenment (and these values remain best expressed in the slogan of the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) – these include those thinkers, like Nietzsche, who were convinced of the natural inequalities of social orders.
The danger comes not so much from anti-religious bigots, nor from religious bigots (as BB points out), but from the abandonment of the core ideas of freedom, equality and solidarity that underlay much of the impetus of the Enlightenment.
That religious and non-religious forms of expression have been found for this onslaught should perhaps indicate that – despite all rumours to the contrary – the languages of religion and the dissent from religion continue to play key roles in the expression of a battle for the real soul of humanity begun some three hundred years past in Europe and still continuing to this day.
Excellent post and worrying, potentially volatile times ahead…
Very interesting post.
But the problem you mention with Pickled Politics is simply down to the fact that it is not really a serious political site and Sunny and his acolytes are incapable of any kind of intelligent debate.
Don’t blame yourself for their very obvious failings.
Pete
As evidenced in the gaff-prone article up today on HP written by Sunny, in his inimitable facts-free style.
Opponent Of Cordoba House Is Building A Museum On Top Of A Muslim Cemetery In Jerusalem
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/08/06/marvin-hier-museum/
ZH – directly above – also posted the same irrelevant nonsense on PP.
I see Douglas Clark is now adding blatant anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism to his (less than sober) repertoire on PP. Although so far all complaints about the same are being deleted (is PP turning into SU without the spelling mistakes?).
Perhaps somewhat OT, but the counter-Enlightenment takes many forms – from the sophisticated to the plain evil. A case in point, Douglas Clark over on Pickled Politics:
He then, clearly realising that this is blatantly anti-Semitic, decides that the best solution is to extend his racist generalisations to Arabs as well:
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/9487#comment-215310
Who is this “we”?
He then continues in a similar vein, managing to insult both Jewish and Muslim religious believers – and in the process once again confirming his credentials as an anti-Semite and anti-Arab racist:
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/9487#comment-215312
Fascinating company you are keeping, Sunny.
I don’t believe Terry Fitzpatrick has ever posted a single comment on this blog. So that accusation by Sunny (“poorer sidekick” – l love that!) is baseless. Proves once again how Sunny never troubles himself with research and evidence when baseless and deleterious opinions will do.
I don’t know Terry FitzP but there are plenty of people who know him personally who attest he is not a racist. The personal vendetta against him by Socialist Unity is simply disgusting and Pickled Politics’ alignment with Andy Newman’s campaign is just typical. There isn’t a blogwar that Sunny won’t get involved with and attach himself to the nastier end of.
“The danger comes not so much from anti-religious bigots, nor from religious bigots (as BB points out), but from the abandonment of the core ideas of freedom, equality and solidarity that underlay much of the impetus of the Enlightenment.”
I agree with this entirely AF.
I think people here will find this interesting. I am posting this comment which I received in an email from a friend, but I’m sure he won’t mind. It’s part of an ongoing discussion about the kind of issues raised here by BB and, amongst other things, the similarities between sects like the Neturei Karta – the anti-Zionist Jewish sect and Salafis – the anti-modernity Muslim sect.
start <snip and paste>
NK are doctrinaire religiously extreme anti-Zionists. Their home life will be like a Salafi’s. Theologically, their position is that the Jewish exile from Jerusalem was divinely mandated, and that it is shirk to attempt to re-enter before the Messianic Age. Their eschatology involves a return of a return of a Davidian Messiah, who will slay the enemies of the Jews, and establish a reign of peace and justice on earth.
What this means, in practice, is that they have always cultivated close relations with any movement or state that they believe will destroy Israel. In the past, they have endorsed Fatah. More recently, they attended Ahmedinejad’s Holocaust Denial conference. They do this, because they believe that the Messiah will not come, until Israel is disestablished.
A small but interesting point about them is that they are not Hassids, but rather Litvishers or “mitnagdim” (i.e. Lithuanians and ‘Opponents’). This is who they are. Back in the 18th century, in Eastern Europe, Jews were trying to cope with both antisemitism and the challenges of the Enlightenment, which robbed religion of much of its traditional claim to authority.
One response was the Hassidic movement, founded by a chap called the Baal Shem Tov. Hassidism escapes rationalism by going big on prayer, miracles, singing…. they’re basically Sufis… in fact, here’s one of the more nutty sects
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHbwWo6f0rY
(they’re singing about their Rebbe, who died in the 18th century and was deemed so holy that he was never replaced).
The Baal Shem Tov’s big opponent was a guy called the Vilna Gaon. The Vilna Gaon basically took the view that Hassidism was heretical – specifically because of the status of the Pir-like Rebbes of each sect. His fear was that these Rebbes would turn Messianic – the last time something like that happened, it was a bloke called Shabbatai Zvi, and it ended in disaster and his conversion to Islam. The time before, it ended up with the Bar Kohkbar rebellion, and then the destruction of Jerusalem. The time before that, it resulted in Christianity.
Most Hassidic sects cherished the belief that their Rebbe was perfect, and some hoped that he might be the Messiah – according to Jewish teaching, a person capable of being the Messiah is born into each generation, and only the failure of Jews to keep God’s Commandments prevent him from revealing himself. (One of the largest contemporary sects – the Lubavich – have basically decided that their last Rebbe was the Messiah, and we’re now living in Messianic Times, apparently!)
So opposed were the Litvishers to Hassidic heresy, that they actively persecuted them, and even got the Russian authorities to persecute them as troublemakers.
Doesn’t this remind you of the loopier end of Salfaism v Sufism?
end <snip and paste>
Faisal
I think Sunny is presently channelling Andy Newman – either that or he is sleeping in Cardinal Newman’s Swindon front room and copying (nearly word for word) His Eminence’s latest posts whilst the Scourge of the Neo-Cons cat-naps in front of the telly.
Newman has a bee in his bonnet; but nothing so fierce as the sheer bile that is emanating from the repellent Dickie Seymour over at the Tomb at the moment.
Lenin’s Tomb? Ewgh! I’m afraid I developed Tomb-fatigue very early on.
I liked Hundal’s (unchecked) “fact” that the supposedly “offending” HP thread had been deleted from the HP site… when, in fact, it is still freely available on the site (sans comments).
This is what happens when you believe everything that Newman writes without checking your sources, Sunny.
There was one cross post from harrys place by Terry Fitzpatrick
http://www.spittoon.org/archives/6417#comments
This issue of Fitzpatrick being charged with racially agravated harassment seems to have become generally known on June 8th:
http://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/terry-fitzpatrick-charged/
I don’t see spittoon promoting him since then or running any comments from him. I did a search and can’t see anything written in the comments (or articles for that matter) since so Sunnys statement that “and their poorer sidekick kept publishing his comments etc. ” (with spittoon linked in the poorer sidekick hyperlink) seems to be totally mistaken and false. If their was such a continuation of comments he could well have linked to one to illustrate his point.
Really he should offer a retraction on that point if he is concerned about letting misinformation stay.
This being said it is sad to see Terry Fitzpatrick having used racially abusive language which is totally unacceptable even in the face of being abused and having your mother called a whore as he says in a socialistunity posting.
One can see that Terry Fitz clearly has some problems to deal with. He is certainly facing some kind of breakdown that he cannot see this clearly. I would hope he could face his demons and realise what he has said is totally unacceptable.
Kisan
Sunny also seems to want to stand by his false statement (lifted without source being checked, seemingly, from Socialist Unity) that HP have deleted a thread by Edmund Standing – a thread that (again, following after Newman) Sunny claims was some how pertinent to the Terry Fitz issue – when it had absolutely nothing to do with the charges against Terry Fitz and concerned itself with unrelated conduct on the part of Lee Jasper.
It has now been repeatedly and publicly pointed out to Sunny and the PP editors that Sunny’s assertion that this thread had been taken down (“deleted”) by HP was false. He and PP have done nothing to correct this their false and untrue statement.
People must draw their own own conclusions.
It would also appear that at least one person with editorial rights at PP, earwicga, wants to stand by the demonstrably racist and anti-Semitic comments made by the PP regular, Douglas Clark.
Again, it is up to others to reach their own conclusions.
I would be very surprised if Sunny lifted a finger to correct the intentional misinformation he has directed at the Spittoon. Oh sorry, at HP’s poorer sidekick!
Integrity and honesty have never been his strongest points.
Unless it is to delete your comments of course, Kisan and Abu Faris! What did I tell you.
Good prediction Faisal. You got that one right. Seems to be a bit of an ego issue.
Hi. I’m trapped in Doha airport, waiting for a colleague to connect from Cape Townm when we can hit the business class lounge and the forbidden fruits therein (mostly of a golden amber colour and fizzy).
Hundal is now deleting my comments. Well, am I surprised? No.
Kisan is right. It is an ego issue. An ego the size of a zeppelin trying to fit inside a head the size of a pea.
to which i would probably say something like:
freedom – but not the freedom to oppress other members of society
equality – but not facile moral equivalence
solidarity – but not with those who seek not merely to challenge, but to overturn the social consensus entirely (e.g. totalitarians who wish to exchange democracy for a dictatorship of race, class, religion or any other basis)
i might even go so far as to invoke the talmudic principle: the will of the majority must prevail, but the opinions of the minority must be protected.
i’m not seeking to start or propagate a blogwar. i have, i believe, made some good friends via pickled politics and i have, until about a year ago, been able to have some very good discussions and debates, so i have to give them that credit. furthermore, nothing could be more boring than a bunch of people slagging each other off on the internet, except possibly in a student union. this isn’t about one blog, or one person, but about the tone of debate and my feeling that i have been excluded and that my concerns are not only not being taken seriously, but discounted in a peculiarly unpleasant way. it isn’t personal, so i’m not going to get involved in name-calling. it’s about a larger issue in society and its causes, not the symptoms which surface in discourse.
in regard to neturei karta, see my earlier piece:
http://www.spittoon.org/archives/2380
b’shalom
bananabrain
When you talk about “militant” atheists, do you mean that new wave of outspoken atheists who write books, give talks, and lobby against special privileges being granted by the government to groups which define themselves by their shared metaphysical opinions?
Because they seem a lot less militant – indeed hardly militant at all – when compared to genuinely militant religious fundamentalists who bomb, murder and maim.
So you might want to consider dropping the militant label when refering to these campaigning atheists. We are not the godless counterparts of militant religious fundamentalists. We are not the other side of the same coin.
davidmww:
i’m glad you brought this up, david, because it gives me a chance to point out that i – and my co-religionists (apart from a small group in the middle east) do not bomb, murder or maim. however, the fact that other militant religious fundamentalists do apparently means that i lose my human rights in europe. because of honour killings and discrimination against women in shari’a courts, maryam namazie and others campaign to ban the beth din as well, which does not engage in either. because there is no quality control on halal butchers and because schools in harrow ask for only halal meat to be served, people campaign to outlaw kosher slaughter as well. because of somalis and FGM, people campaign to outlaw brit milah. because some people want to veil themselves, we are told we have to give up wearing our skullcaps in public. when synagogues and jewish schools are firebombed, we are told that the police can no longer protect us. we are told that because the israeli government behaves the way it does, we have only ourselves to blame when we are victimised unless we stand up and disassociate ourselves from judaism – not just the curent israeli government. in fact, most muslims i know would say the same thing about their beliefs and practices!
there are less than 400,000 jews in this country and 2,000,000 muslims – that’s something like six muslims to every jew – that is why this stuff is now an issue, it’s simply a question of numbers. more to the point, no jew has ever engaged in a terrorist attack here, nor do any jewish groups march in the streets screaming that we wish to bring british society to an end or kill british troops abroad. i – and we – are ” a lot less militant – indeed hardly militant at all” – but we are still expected to lose our hard-won freedoms, which we only gained a couple of hundred years ago in any case – just because a bunch of fanatics don’t know when to quit.
if someone campaigns to outlaw the way i dress, behave, eat and parent, then i think that’s pretty fecking militant and an outrageous interference in my liberty. i’m not campaigning to outlaw anything that the “militant atheists” do, am i? am i lobbying to have science taken out of school? no. am i lobbying to ban sex education, or make discrimination against gays legal? no. am i demanding that everyone changes the way *they* live to accommodate me? no. the way i live – and the way that the vast number of religious people live – harms nobody physically, intellectually or emotionally. that should be the yardstick, not doctrinaire assertions about value which fail to understand what they are judging.
b’shalom
bananabrain
I get your point, bananabrain. But I am not sure that you get mine. Even atheists who campaign vocally for changes in legislation cannot be fairly described as “militant” in the same way as militant religious fundamentalists can.
You need a better adjective.
i don’t see why not. i am denounced, for my unexceptionable lifestyle, as an abuser of humans and animals, a mutilator of the minds and bodies of children, an apologist for the nutty politics of the middle east and a mediaeval-minded wearer of historical-reconstruction clothing. i do not act the same way in return. for me, there is little difference between the fundamentalism of richard dawkins and the fundamentalism of, say, inayat bungalawala. both would gladly see me consigned to the dustbin of history for their own reasons. i dare say you would consider a “militant” atheist one who acts like the french revolutionaries who beheaded members of the clergy, or the communists who sent rabbis to labour camps in siberia. well, if i am having my liberties removed, i consider that the aspirations of a militant, the same way as the “pact of umar” or living under the saudi arabian or iranian regimes would remove my liberties. if you consider the people who want my liberties curtailed to not be “militant” and you can draw a line there, then why am i being attacked with the same weapons that are being used on religious militants? are you incapable of telling the difference between militant and non-militant in the case of religious behaviours?
b’shalom
bananabrain
One more time:
- militant religious fundamentalists blow up, murder, and maim.
- “militant” atheists denounce.
no, david.
you are totally missing the point. militant atheists seek to make me a criminal – they would prosecute me for “maiming” my own child or “murdering” an animal. they seek to make this a society in which i cannot participate, the same way as militant fundamentalists, if they run a society, do in practice. a militant is not defined by his / her violence, but by his /her attitude. if someone wants to get violent, we have criminal laws to deal with that. you are nitpicking about the semantics, instead of dealing with the issue. it’s a continuum, but you seem unable to accept that violence in language and regulation has a connection to violence in the physical world. there’s a saying “where once they burned books, they now burn people” – we know how true that is. we have considerable experience in this department. we can also see it from the militant fundamentalists – they use violent language against us and we are then screamed at, mugged, stabbed and petrol-bombed. it’s a pattern. first come the denouncements, then the legal restrictions, then the riots-which-we-can’t-do-anything-about, then the officially sanctioned persecution. we’ve been there before. we just haven’t got there yet – although atheist regimes in the past have shown us exactly what it looks like. just study some french or german C19th history, or the history of the soviet union. you seem unable to deal with the fact that the logical consequence of your denouncements, if they win the argument, is to destroy liberty far more effectively than bombs ever c0uld.
believe me, i’m not saying, oh, let’s let the bombers off and feel their pain, nor am i saying that we should be exempt from the laws of the land – i’m saying it’s time for you people to realise we’re not your enemies. the bombers already know we are theirs. a truly free society needs to understand that there has to be a place for religious liberty, but it is NOT a place that religious fundamentalists think it is. i am not part of the problem, but the terms in which you conduct the argument penalise and criminalise me A LONG WAY BEFORE they affect the people that actually have a propensity to violence.
b’shalom
bananabrain
It is ironic, when you consider that your major complaint is that you are being unfairly lumped together with undesirable fundamentalists, that you persist in lumping atheists together with terrorists under the same “militant” label.
Anyone can play that game if they want to stretch defininitons – but it isn’t really conducive to clarity of thought or rational debate. For example, I could describe your prioritising of your right to follow the dictats of your tradition over the conflicting rights of children and animals to be protected from cruelty as “militant”.
But that wouldn’t be very helpful, would it?
Abu Faris
“Militant” is not a synonym for murderous-lunatic-ideology-likely-to-lead-to-exploding-something-in-public. I think it is ridiculous to make this equivalence and then complain that others are using a word that is being distorted out of all proportions by the very person who is complaining that it is being so stretched beyond its usual meaning.
Incidentally, this website is blocked in China and I am using a proxy to access it. However, HP is not. Go figure.
i am mystified as to why we seem to be discussing the a lack of shared operational definition for the term “militant”. look, my argument is very simple:
1. certain people want to attack me with violence because of my origins.
2. people who oppose the people in #1 *also* want to attack and persecute me, by other means because of my views.
3. i would like to oppose the people in #1 – particularly if they may have some connection with myself, but i am too busy being attacked by the people in #2 to do so effectively.
4. the people in #2 are being so dense about how they are opposing the people in #1 that they are designing attacks which penalise me, whilst doing very little to affect the people in #1.
5. i am frankly finding it difficult to see how i can live with either the people in #1 who refuse to leave me alone physically, or the people in #2 who refuse to leave me alone by non-physical but far more comprehensively oppressive action.
6. the people in #2 don’t appear to understand the implications of their actions, preferring to term it “hysteria” and “special pleading” to be met with obfuscation, despite the very obvious historical parallels.
7. the effect of both is ultimately to either force me to surrender my liberty, either by living behind barbed wire and cctv, or by restricting my life to conduct my life on terms which have never disturbed society since the enlightenment, at least until the people in #1 started blowing stuff up.
8. i am not happy about this situation.
you don’t like my use of the term “militant”? well, there’s a reason i used it – if you don’t like my conclusions, perhaps you should try and understand some of my criticisms.
as for the rights of children and animals, if you truly understood how my tradition (and i’m only talking about judaism here, let the muslims speak for themselves) understands, carries out and contextualises both the acts and the consequences, you would understand that to talk of “conflicting rights” is to talk at cross-purposes.
in the case of circumcision, i am speaking from experience. i had this done to me. i do not object. only a statistically anomalous number of people have any objection to a procedure which is often carried out on medical grounds. if people object, there are grounds on which they may rely if they wish, but it is the price of inclusion. if you do not wish to participate, don’t participate. nobody’s forcing you.
in the case of kosher slaughter, again, nobody’s forcing you to eat it. the basis of the procedure is to AVOID cruelty – and if you look at how “stunned” meat is slaughtered, it’s not very pleasant either. if it can be shown that a procedure is cruel, it cannot in conscience be argued that it is nonetheless halakhically permissible, either, so there are at least in theory strong safeguards and i have no objection to making them stronger. finally, judaism does not prohibit vegetarianism and, indeed, our position on eating meat is pretty ambivalent, with a number of authorities taking the position that it is ultimately something to transcend.
for religious people, the enlightenment emancipated us from being FORCED to abide by the laws and procedures of our communal authorities – now, we opt in. it is up to us whether we do that or not. we can leave if we want – and many people have. if we want people to stay, it is up to us to demonstrate the benefit in so doing, not for civil society to decide whether we should be allowed or not. that is not liberty as i understand it, but fascism.
b’shalom
bananabrain
It is when it refers to militant religious fundamentalist. It isn’t when it refers to “militant” atheist. Using the same label for the two different things in one articile is just childish name-calling – an attempt at creating an equivalence where there is none. It is not conducive to clear communication or reasonable debate.
but i am being labelled – and, more importantly, discriminated against – in exactly the same way. you don’t like it when atheists are CALLED militant? well, i don’t like being TREATED as if i am some backward mediaeval pillock, when i am nothing of the sort. these militant atheists propose to do precisely that and they don’t appear to realise the terrible harm they are about to do to society. it is typical of their intellectual arrogance to throw the baby out with the bathwater. why do you have such a problem recognising your own prejudice and the collateral damage your little war is inflicting?
b’shalom
bananabrain
Because that is what my first – and every subsequent comment (apart from this one) – was about. A minor point, perhaps, but one I felt was worth making. Nevermind. I can see I’m not going to convince you. Militant atheist I am.
I agree that this is wrong. That should be Iron Age. Islam is the mediaeval one.
i agree, insofar as it made me clarify my argument. thank you.
please qualify this; i have no idea what you mean by it.
b’shalom
bananabrain
It is a joke.
besides, iron age? that’s newfangled for us. now the bronze age, that’s what i call an age.
b’shalom
bananabrain