Athée Canadien
Crommunist
Ian Cromwell was born in Vancouver, and has spent half his life living in Ontario. Ian's academic background is in health care and epidemiology, with a master's degree in epidemiology from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Currently living and working in Vancouver, Ian spends his off-work time volunteering with the Centre for Inquiry and as a member of the Vancouver Secular Party. Additionally, Ian is a musician and blogger, and has been known to bust a dance move on an occasional basis.
Homepage: http://crommunist.wordpress.com
Posts by Crommunist
Rumblings of secularism in Bangladesh
Sep 1st
This is a promising turn of events:
A Bangladesh court has ruled that people cannot be forced to wear skull caps, veils or other religious clothing in workplaces, schools and colleges. The ruling came after reports that a college in the north had forced students to wear veils. The high court also ruled that women cannot be prevented from taking part in sports or cultural activities.
Bangladesh is a Muslim country, with nearly 90% of its population professing Islam. Despite this handicap, however, the courts have passed a law that stands in stark contradiction of those of the stereotypical Islamic nation (think Iran, Pakistan, Maldives). This is good news for a few reasons: first, it suggests that perhaps moderately-religious people are willing to, and capable of, shouting down the more conservative forces in society and embrace equal rights. Second, it suggests that there is no religious tradition for which this can be true (debunking the tired trope that Christianity birthed secular philosophy). Third, it is strongly suggestive that countries like Bangladesh are motivated to embrace secular philosophy and move forward along with other parts of the world.
Why is everyone stupid except me?
Aug 31st
From time to time, I find intense gratification when people whose opinions I respect overlap with mine. An author or musician or public figure who I admire will come out and say something that I agree with completely. Obviously it’s no accident that the people I admire will largely share my opinions on things, but when someone like John Legend makes a salient point about race, or Roger Ebert goes outside of film critique to say something I’m down with, I get a little tingle in my lobes.
So you can understand how depressing it is to see the nearly-universal negative reaction to CFI’s statement about the “Ground Zero Mosque” – truly there has never been a dumber name. I don’t need to re-hash either the content of the complaint, nor summarize the reactions to it. You can just scroll down the page and see it all over this site (or just click here). I’m fine with the people here at Canadian Atheist disagreeing with me – I don’t think we’ve agreed on anything yet. It seems that this site is structured primarily as an exercise in opposing viewpoints; a frustrating but I suppose ultimately useful exercise.
But Orac? Et tu, man?
I never thought I’d ever be aiming a heapin’ helpin’ of not-so-Respectful Insolence at the Center For Inquiry (CFI), one of the premier secularist organizations in existence, but yesterday I found in my e-mail a mind-meltingly moronic press release that came from an organization that should never, ever produce anything this mind-meltingly moronic.
I read Orac’s blog, Respectful Insolence daily. As someone who works in the field of health care, I find the discussion of alt-med woo and critique of medical studies interesting. Nothing puts a smirk on my face quite like reading another well-crafted takedown of this anti-vax loon or that homeopathic quack. That’s why this piece was such a let-down to me. For those of you who don’t want to read it, I’ll summarize it for you briefly:
Waah, waah, not all religious people are evil. Waah, waah, CFI is mean to the faithful. Waah, waah, you can’t condemn religion but stand up for religious freedom.
It’s a poorly-kept secret that the man behind Orac is a practicing Catholic Crommunist will present any old rumour he reads on the internet as though it were fact (sorry Orac :P). I will save any criticism of the level of compartmentalization and mental gymnastics it requires to be a well-published skeptic but also be a religious believer. There are authors on this site who fit that description who will probably do a more judicious (and polite) job of describing the intricacies of cognitive dissonance than I can. Most of the time, Orac doesn’t talk about religion, and his beliefs are not related in any way to his blogging. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt here and assume that he’s not just griping because someone took a swat at him as a Christian [or not, as the case may be].
But he is parroting a largely vacuous argument that I see cropping up all over the place: that CFI’s statement equates religious people with terrorists. I read the statement after reading the reaction to it. I read it again, many times, looking for the sentence (or even the single word) that states that religious people are evil, or terrorists, or that adherents to a faith-based doctrine are going to blow stuff up. It isn’t there.
I am baffled again and again by the inability of people who I otherwise think are fairly intelligent to see the distinction between the idea and the person. I have a well-established hate-on for conservatism. I think it’s a largely unvarnished, un-nuanced, overly-simplistic philosophical doctrine that neglects to take into account very important information about the world, preferring instead to argue about what ought rather than what is. That being said, it is child’s play for me to be friends with a conservative person, by merely recognizing that my beef is with their ideas, not with them as a person. If they do something I disagree with, I say so, and we move on. Some of my close friends here in Vancouver are religious, some are alt-med, some are into supernatural woo-woo of all kinds. Big deal – we disagree, I say so, and we move on.
CFI’s statement was simply that – faith is a bad thing. Faith doesn’t make people good, but it is used as a justification for a great deal of evil. Respect for faith-based anything grants an undue amount of privilege to a philosophy that is basically “I believe in it, therefore it is so.” As a skeptic of any type, you simply must reject that kind of belief out of hand. It is faith that gives fuel and credibility to child-touching priests, to soul-sucking leeches like John Edward, and to terrorist groups. When we say that faith is something to be encouraged, we are granting implicit license to those actions that are based on faith – the good and the bad.
The CFI statement was a recognition of this. Faith spurred the terrorist attacks. Any encouragement of faith rather than reason is a betrayal of people who were the victims of this faith-based initiative. Does this mean that religious people are terrorists? Does CFI think that churches should be razed to the ground? Only in crazy-town, which is where these posts seem to be originating, based on a quick IP-check of those posting. What CFI has said is that the encouragement of faith is bad, not that people who have faith are bad; misguided, perhaps, or poorly-informed. You simply cannot deny that the most religiously-pious and rigidly faithful people who died on September 11th, 2001 were those hijacking the plane (well you can, but you’d be wrong). Building any monument to faith is granting prestige and license to all of the outcomes of faith, even the ones we deplore.
Now it will come as literally zero surprise to me when every other author here (and most of the readers) jump on my head about this. All I can say is go back and re-read the release. If you still disagree with me, say so, and we’ll move on.
Join in a protest against stoning executions
Aug 27th
Ian’s post reminds me that tomorrow there is a worldwide rally to protest stoning. The details, available at the movement’s central website are presented below for Canada. I will be at the Vancouver rally starting at 5:00, and I encourage all of you to be present. We may not be willing to pick up a gun and invade a country, but we can still stand up and be counted among those who won’t sit quietly while these atrocities are going on.
CANADA
Hamilton,
Ontario
Time: 14.00-16.00
Place: Front of Jackson
Square mall
Contact: Amir Zahedi,
905-962-9638
Montreal
Time: 17.00
– 19.00
Place: Des
Artes (St. Cathrine and Jeanne Mance)
Niagara Falls
Time: 14:00-16:00
Place: Just beside the
Falls
Contact: Mehran Mahbobi,
1 647 274 7149
Mehranmahbobi1917@gmail.com
Peterborough,
Ontario
Time: The march will
start at 2 p.m. on the steps of City Hall, go through downtown, and end in front
of the Superior Courthouse at 3 p.m.
Co-Organizer: Jane
Campbell, with federal Liberal candidate Betsy McGregor.
Ottawa
Time: 12.00-14.00
Place: In front of
Parliament Hill
Contact: D Aram,
613-859-7929,
d_aram@sympatico.ca
Toronto
Time: 13.00-16.00
Place: 250 Front Street
West (in front of CBC)
Contact: Yadi Mahmodi,
416 726 9321;
wpicanada@yahoo.com
Vancouver
Time: Rally at 17.00
(information table at 15.00)
Place: In front of Art
Gallery on Robson St.
Contact: Zari Asli,
zariasli@yahoo.ca
Victoria
Time: 16.00-18.00
Place: Douglas & Fort in
front of Royal bank
Contact: Abbas Mohamadi
abbas@cawvidc.bc.ca
We don’t need to destroy religion – religion’s doing that already
Aug 26th
There’s a common fear that ripples through the masses of believers whenever a group of atheists does anything to draw attention to itself; the fear that the evil, soulless Satan-worshipers (although why we’d worship something we don’t believe in is never explained) will take away people’s religion. That a bunch of jack-booted brownshirts under the Dawkins standard will start kicking in doors and arresting people for praying in their living rooms. That children will be forced to make public confessions of their belief in evolution and logical positivism, or be forced out of school in humiliation.
I try not to call things “stupid” when I can avoid it, but sometimes there’s no other term. This fear of atheists is stupid. If there’s any atheist out there who is actually suggesting these things, then he/she is stupid too, and would be laughed out of the room even at an all-atheist gathering. The whole point of the secularist movement is to enshrine the civil rights of all people, and give everyone equal access to government services, with all the associated privileges and responsibilities inherent in citizenship. A major plank of that is to remove the special status of religion, which is hardly the same thing as legislating against thoughtcrime.
No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, but the atheists aren’t going to force you to stop believing if you really want to.
So then who should religious people be afraid of?
At least 24 people have been killed and 25 injured in a bombing at a mosque in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, officials say… Officials in Wana told the BBC it was carried out by a suicide bomber who walked up to Mr [Maulvi] Mohammad and detonated his explosives as they shook hands.
As if Pakistan didn’t have enough problems to deal with already, they’ve also got to deal with al-Qaeda suicide bombers destroying mosques in the name of religious belief. Mr. Mohammad was a former member of Parliament who was an outspoken supporter of the Taliban (a real sweetheart angel, for sure). He was targeted by the terror group for allegedly providing information that allowed authorities to kill three al-Qaeda operatives.
But even barring terrorist attacks on sites of worship, religion is self-defeating by embarrassing itself horribly:
A Saudi judge is reported to have asked hospitals if it is possible to cut the spinal cord of the man, found guilty of paralysing another man in a fight. Under Islamic law in Saudi Arabia, retribution sentences can include eye-gouging and, for murder, beheading.
How could any reasonable, moral person think that it is appropriate to intentionally cripple someone for the act of accidentally crippling someone else. Even if the assault was intentional, the whole point of a judicial system is to model the way that humanity should behave. In a base, twisted sense, I suppose one could call revenge “justice”, but the greater justice is in showing restraint from animal and primitive urges to lash back, and modeling good conduct. Should assault be met with punishment? Absolutely. Is is reasonable to perform life-altering surgery on someone as a means of extracting the pound of flesh? Only if you’re a Saudi judge, I guess.
Yes, how could any reasonable and moral person tolerate such things? But I forget, we’re not talking about reasonable moral people, we’re talking about religious people. When an unobservable, immeasurable and constantly-shifting standard is granted special status by virtue of the fact that it’s couched in magical language and old books, this is the result. Sure, we could bicker and nit-pick about whether al-Qaeda was striking a military target, and whether or not Islam is to blame for Saudi Arabia’s corrupt and intellectually bankrupt legal system, but the justification for these things is appeal to religion.
The more these atrocities continue to pile up, and the more we are willing to call them what they are – religiously-motivated crimes against humanity, the faster religion itself loses its special status and becomes ripe for criticism. And atheists don’t have to lift a finger – the Jesus fish rots from the head.
My take on the “Ground Zero Mosque” (what a stupid name)
Aug 25th
I’ve read some depressingly stupid responses to the so-called “Ground Zero mosque“. One came from leading skeptic and atheist Sam Harris:
But the margin between what is legal and what is desirable, or even decent, leaves room for many projects that well-intentioned people might still find offensive. If you can raise the requisite $100 million, you might also build a shrine to Satan on this spot, complete with the names of all the non-believing victims of 9/11 destined to suffer for eternity in Hell.
Nice, Sam. Very nice.
Also flogging the “desirable and decent” horse is Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid:
Spokesman Jim Manley said in a statement that the senator respected that “the First Amendment protects freedom of religion”, but still thought the mosque, planned for a site about two blocks away from the former World Trade Center, should be built in a different location.
Way to stand up for Democratic principles, Harry.
And yet, surrounded by the raging storm of stupid, President Barack Obama has stood up and said that the construction should be allowed to go ahead:
At a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan on Friday, Mr Obama vigorously defended the developers’ right to put the mosque there “in accordance with local laws and ordinances”. Muslims “have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country”, the president said.
As far as his personal feelings on the “desirable and decent” pseudo-argument, President Obama declined to comment, which is his right. His statement, however, reasserted the principles of freedom of religion, tolerance and secular authority that the United States was built on.
That’s really not going to help his poll numbers:
Some 18% said the president was a Muslim, up from 11% in March 2009, according to the Pew Research survey of 3,003 Americans. Among Republicans, that number was 34%. Just a third of those quizzed correctly identified Mr Obama as Christian.
Republican critics have accused the President of being out of step with mainstream Americans. If “mainstream Americans” are this stupid and have memories this short (Rev. Wright? Remember that guy?), I’d prefer to be out of step with them. “Mainstream Americans” are in dire need of a civics lesson. So, to help our knowledge-impoverished neighbours to the south (including Sam Harris, apparently), I’ll remind you of three important facts.
1. The “Ground Zero Mosque” is not at Ground Zero
The proposed Cordoba Centre is being built 4 blocks away from the site of the World Trade Centre remains. It is being built in an abandoned coat factory. Opponents of the building have not provided a proposal for how far away it is okay to built a mosque, nor have they provided some rationale for why such a distance is more acceptable than 4 blocks.
2. The “Ground Zero Mosque” is not a mosque
The Cordoba Centre is being built as a Muslim community centre. It does contain a prayer room (which should surprise exactly nobody, since prayer is a part of Muslim life), but it also contains a basketball court, a gym, a book store, and a culinary school. There is a giant Jewish community centre of the same type sitting at the corner of Bloor st. and St. George in Toronto. I’ve been in there, and I’m pretty sure everybody knew I wasn’t Jewish. It’s a community centre, not a synagogue. The proposed Cordoba Centre is exactly the same thing.
3. There’s already a “Ground Zero” mosque
Apparently there’s some confusion about what was there first – the Muslims or the terror. There’s been a mosque (Masjid Manhattan) 2 blocks from the World Trade Centre site since before there was a World Trade Centre. Muslims have been part of the population of Manhattan since far before these critics knew what Islam was.
Now that we know how intellectually bankrupt the arguments against being allowed to construct a mosque in that “holy site” are, let’s look at this risible “desirable and decent” argument of Sam Harris. Sam, you’re an atheist, right? A pretty vocal one, if I remember correctly. You know who might not find your beliefs, or your out-spoken defence and promotion of them, “desirable and decent”? Millions of Christian Americans. That’s right Sam, by your own argument, you should be keeping your damn mouth shut.
I’m not sure how much I want to explore the stupidity of the conservative critics:
“It’s unwise to build a mosque at the site where 3,000 Americans lost their lives as a result of a terrorist attack,” Senator John Cornyn of Texas said on Sunday on Fox News.
This is about as sterotypical as Islamophobia gets. Senator Corwyn is asking us to complete the following logic assignment:
A. Terrorists blew up the World Trade Centre
B. ???
C. Muslims pray at mosques.Therefore, we shouldn’t have mosques near the World Trade Centre
The solution to that little logic problem up there, incidentally is B: All Muslims are terrorists. I doubt anybody reading this needs me to explain why the proposition is not only offensive, but incorrect.
The main crux of Sam’s piece is that Islam is not merely just another peaceful religion with a few deluded followers – that it, more than Christianity or Judaism or Hinduism or Sikhism (or any number of other -isms) promotes violence and the subjugation of women. I’m not sure I disagree with Sam on this one. In its current incarnation, Islam worldwide is a consistent force for evil (see Somalia, Iran, Pakistan, the Maldives, for evidence of this). I wonder if Sam knows that there is a surefire method to blunt a religion’s influence – secularize it. If Muslims feel cut off from secular America (if you, for example, protest when they try to build a community centre), they will band together under the banner of their religion. This means that the moderate elements are going to feel strong solidarity with the radical elements. No Sam, the answer is to make them feel welcome as possible, and start sending your kids to play basketball and cook with Muslim kids. It’s harder to draw barriers around yourself when there are people who don’t share your religious beliefs eating at your table or slam-dunking for your team.
Finally, there’s a major flaw in the argument that I haven’t really heard discussed. Even if the mosque was at ground zero. Even if the mosque was a mosque. Even if there was no other mosque there, this thing would still be a good idea. One of the reasons the United States is reviled by the Muslim world is that it is built on the idea that all people are free to believe what they want. In Muslim countries, it is illegal to convert from Islam. Some even require you by law to be a Muslim. They enforce laws that are based on Muslim scripture that supersede secular law. The idea of a place where Muslims aren’t special, where Allah is not even recognized in passing, is offensive to these dictatorial assholes. Putting up a Muslim centre at the site of a terrorist attack sponsored by “the Muslim world” (or rather, a handful of homicidal Muslim fanatic assholes) is essentially a big “screw you” to those same assholes. It says essentially that not only are we not going to allow your attacks to change our way of life, we’re going to go out of our way to promote those same ideas you find repulsive, and we’re going to use your religion to do it.
This “controversy” is nothing but appeals to what is least-informed and most bigoted in our society, and has no place being defended by thinking people. I’m disappointed in you, Sam.
TL/DR: Sam Harris is kind of a dick, the “Ground Zero Mosque” is neither of those things, and even if it was we should build it anyway.
Much ado about India
Aug 24th
It never fails to amaze me that since I started blogging about religion, that a simple scan of the morning’s headlines can provide me with more than enough fodder for posts. I used to worry that there would be days or even weeks when I’d have to fill in the blanks with slides from my family vacation to the Ozarks.
Luckily for me, there’s always India:
Two more tribal women have been stripped and forced to parade naked in front of large crowds in the Indian state of West Bengal, police say. The incidents were in the same area – the Birbhum district – where a similar case took place four months ago.
There’s something fundamentally wrong with our species, it seems. I can’t for the life of me fathom why we seem to hate women so much. As a single guy, I’ll admit to going on the occasional tirade against the crazy girls I date. I’ll admit to frustration with the decisions my female friends make that seem, to me, to be completely unreasonable. Gun to my head, I’ll admit to occasionally thinking negative thoughts about all women in general.
Never at my weakest, darkest, angriest moments would I even entertain the shadow of the prospect of forcing a woman, any woman, to sacrifice her dignity and march naked through the streets, subject to the jeers, taunts, and physical abuse of a rapacious crowd, barking like dogs for some twisted form of justice.
“Local tribespeople did not like these women enjoying close relations with men from other communities,” [Police superintendent Humayun Kabir] said. He said that they were subjected to this this “extreme punishment of public stripping” after they were found pillion riding with them on motor-bikes.
For the unforgivable crime of having “close relationships” with men from another community, these women were punished and forced to parade through their community, forever cast out and shamed. The great irony of this whole story is that the only way to stop acts of barbarity like this is to incorporate values and traditions from other communities. What these women were doing is precisely what is required in order to prevent other such “punishments” from happening to future generations. Sort of like a Rosa Parks thing, but from the back of a motorcycle.
Hopefully the scrutiny of the international community will force major sociopolitical changes in those parts of the world that have apparently somehow been completely isolated from the idea that women aren’t the inferior sex.
Crommunist says hello
Aug 24th
The fine folks here at Canadian Atheist have kindly invited me to be a contributor here. I thought I would tell you a bit about myself. I was born in Vancouver, lived in the interior for a few years, then moved out to Ontario. I lived in various places around southern, western and eastern Ontario before moving back to Vancouver to live and work.
In addition to writing skeptically about religion, free speech, civil rights, women’s rights and politics, I’m interested in (obsessed with would be a more accurate term) race and racial issues. Most of what I write here at Canadian Atheist will be primarily concerned with religion, free speech and civil rights, with my more personal writings going up on my own blog, The Crommunist Manifesto.
I’m looking forward to being part of the team here at Canadian Atheist, and to hearing your feedback.
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