Author Archives: bananabrain

religious people need to recommit to and engage with critical thinking

By bananabrain | Published: August 23, 2010

following an unusually thoughtful broadcast last week by richard dawkins (he’s obviously trying to take on board how much his militancy turns people off by some of the pleas he made on behalf of sacred texts as fine language, cultural literacy and so on) i am grappling again with some of the issues raised by faith schools in the critical thinking debate. dawkins, as per usual, lumped all faith schools together as a) proponents of segregation (for which there is some justification) and b) closers, rather than openers of young minds – the segment in which he, somewhat exasperatedly, grappled with the islamic school science class with an apparent 100% rejection of evolution was a powerful statement. however, also as per usual, he implied (by saying that he “worried that”) this was inevitable in a situation where the parents’ wishes about what they wanted their children exposed to overruled the presumed human rights of children to make up their own mind about what they thought was interesting or worthwhile. this argument was given short shrift by a catholic educationalist from northern ireland, who told him he was simply imposing his own expectations over those of the parents concerned; i personally thought they struggled with the editing a little if they were seeking to show that the wishes of parents were unreasonable; this wasn’t the strongest argument i’ve ever seen against faith schools. in my opinion, they’d have done better to concentrate on the ethos of these schools as exclusivist and contrary to “community cohesion”, but then again, what do i know?

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Democracy, Exegesis, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Religion, Hate Speech, Hermeneutics, Human Rights, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism | 17 Comments

Is this the “counter-Enlightenment”?

By bananabrain | Published: August 6, 2010

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.

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Posted in Anti Fascism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Christian Evangelical Nutters, Civil Rights, Democracy, Entryism, European Fascism, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Religion, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Islamism, Jewish Extremism, Moral relativism, Multiculturalism, Obscurantism, Sectarianism, Secularism, The Far Left, The Regressive Left, UK Politics | 37 Comments

meanwhile, in israel…

By bananabrain | Published: June 4, 2010

with the flotilla imbroglio (or fiasco, if you prefer) in full swing, yours truly has just arrived back from the zionist entity, where numerous representatives of clan bananabrain continue to live as normal a life as one might expect in what hussein shobokshi of asharq al-awsat describes as “a state established on a lie based on a myth” – and he was chosen as one of the “global leaders for tomorrow” by the world economic forum in 1995, so 15 years later he must be therefore a global leader and not at all the sort of bloke to make wild accusations about a massacre of 60 people (oh, hang on, what am i saying?). i’ll write separately about the flotilla stuff when i have a moment, but i thought it might be interesting to put up a few insights that i think you’ll find interesting, based as they are on a visit on a ground and interacting with normal, sensible [well, members of my family at any rate], well-educated israelis as well as a range of other social observations.

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Posted in Civil Rights, Democracy, Freedom of Religion, International Affairs, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Extremism, Politics | 13 Comments

religious idiots round up: vengeful volcanoes

By bananabrain | Published: May 12, 2010

of course, nobody should be surprised that when a natural disaster occurs, the usual suspects jump on the bandwagon to explain why it proves their wacky theologies and that G!D Is Having a good old Smite at people of whom they disapprove or, alternatively, that it’s all part of the dastardly plans of the illuminati or reptilian space overlords.

a reptilian overlord yesterday

anyway, we’ve had boobquake, gayquake and immorality-inspired flooding so, predictably, our new icelandic friend eyjafjallajökull has been pressed into surface for this purpose, proving variously that:

1. we should never have turned on that large hadron collider

2. iceland is being too tolerant of neo-paganism and europe of gay rights

3. G!D Disapproves of “obamacare”

4. people are having a go at the pope

5. aliens (or satan) are doing space paintings with ufos

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Posted in Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Blogosphere, Environmental, Esoterica, Farce, International Affairs, Israel/Palestine, Media, Misc, Obscurantism | Leave a comment

G!D the “misogynist” and other cyclical lepidopterisms

By bananabrain | Published: May 6, 2010

thanks to the delightful sonia from pickled politics, i ended up in a jolly discussion over at butterflies and wheels on feminism and religion. they seem to have closed the comments for some reason, but i still thought it was an interesting subject and thought i’d continue it here if anyone (like ophelia benson or amy clare) was interested. there are some unresolved questions. amy asks:

“Do Anglicans, even moderates, really think of G!D as a sexless being? I was under the impression that most moderate religious people still think of G!D as male. People could use the singular ‘they’ and refer to a ‘parent’ if they were really that bothered.”

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Posted in Blogosphere, Esoterica, Ethics, Exegesis, Feminism, Hermeneutics, Human Rights, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Moral relativism, Obscurantism, Secularism | 8 Comments

religious idiots round-up

By bananabrain | Published: April 21, 2010
 
immodest dress
a woman causing an earthquake yesterday by blatantly showing her elbows and knees

well, i expect most of us have probably heard by now that, according to the not-at-all-bonkers iranian regime, that immodestly dressed women cause earthquakes. i expect the haitians are buying their chadors as we speak. in the interests of balance, i thought it might be instructive to see which other religious figures are saying and doing stupidly daft things this week:

1. mobile phones damage your neshama

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Posted in Esoterica, Farce, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Obscurantism | 18 Comments

would it kill me to go along with dawkins and hitchens for once?

By bananabrain | Published: April 12, 2010

as you have probably heard, the hierarchy of the catholic church is coping with plenty of more-than-usually-unpleasant scandal involving the usual suspects: priests, paedophiles, children, cover-ups, pay-offs, not-quite-apologies, denials, denouncings and defrockings which have, for the first time i can remember, started to take on a somewhat apocalyptic tone, that’s apocalyptic in terms of the catholic church if not the rest of us. even the commentariat at the times smell blood:

“A pope with no moral authority simply cannot function as a pope. Yes, he has ecclesiastical power. But ecclesiastical power without moral authority merely exposes the hollowness of an unaccountable, self-perpetuating clerisy. Does he think we don’t know? Does he understand that any parent of any child will be unable to imagine themselves in the same moral universe as this man?”

and some of them are even sort-of-default-catholics for whom this is the final straw:

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Posted in Activism, Farce, Freedom of Expression, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Lawfare, Obscurantism | 9 Comments

seven modest proposals for the british jewish community

By bananabrain | Published: March 16, 2010

the ferocious but charming miriam shaviv over at the jc is blogging a number of “daily proposals to transform the british jewish community” during march. i was discussing this with my redoubtable other half over friday night dinner and we thought the following might be worth submission:

1. transparency at the jewish leadership council

ok, we know who the board of deputies are. we know what it’s for. we know how it’s funded. we know how you get to be on it. we know who it represents. now, we have this new organisation called the “jewish leadership council”. on it, you have various movers and shakers, you’ve got the vc/banking/property tycoons, you’ve got the charity/safety/israel activists, you’ve got synagogue movement machers, you’ve got access, you’ve got international connections, you’ve got lords, baronesses, knights and the chair of ujs – you’ve got two women and no rabbis, for some reason. you’ve got no haredim, for some other reason. you’ve got leaders from the most broad-based and influential organisations in the community – but what are they for? clearly, this is an influential bunch of people, but who chooses them? who decided that there should be a jewish leadership council in the first place? how are they accountable? what is their strategy? what is their relationship with the board? how is it funded? i for one would like to know.

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Posted in Activism, Antisemitism, Democracy, Education, Entryism, Environmental, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Extremism, Misc, Obscurantism, Politics | Tagged , | 6 Comments

the kangaroo court of militant atheism is a toxic, anti-reason fallacy

By bananabrain | Published: March 5, 2010

on a recent visit to the natural history museum, i was struck by the number of hijabs, kippot and crucifixes on display. unfazed by fossils, geological displays of the age of the earth, australopithecine skulls and the marble statue of darwin that gazes enigmatically over the entrance hall, they gamely queued for the dinosaur exhibit, children in tow, back and forth beneath the massive skeleton of diplodocus, eager to expand their knowledge of the universe. it was an inspiring sight and one that i found immensely encouraging given the current level and tone of debate between religion and science. nobody appeared to be there to tell their children “and these are the fake animals G!D Placed in the earth to Test our faith”. everywhere were children asking clear, in some cases unsettling questions about how things came to be.

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Posted in Antisemitism, Freedom of Expression, Hermeneutics, Interfaith, Obscurantism | 63 Comments

how to complain before you see the programme!

By bananabrain | Published: March 2, 2010

now, i haven’t seen the “dispatches” programme yet, it’s on my sky+ box waiting to be viewed. however, i was quite amused to be warned by one naeem darr, who i understand is some sort of spokesman for our old friends the muslim safety forum, to have my complaint ready. helpfully, he then went on to provide me with a set of points to complain about to channel 4 and jim kirkpatrick mp. i reproduce his email in full – and include in bold the bits which he appears to know before broadcast:

Dispatches Islamophobic documentary

Channel 4’s Dispatches is due to broadcast a damaging and misleading programme on Monday 1st March at 8pm. For nearly a year the programme had undercover reporters attending events (including private meetings) of Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) and passing themselves off as Muslims and friends, but acting as agents provocateurs to solicit replies to use against IFE.

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Posted in Activism, Entryism, Farce, Freedom of Expression, Identity Politics, Islamism, Media, PVE | 5 Comments

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