Secular doctors are realizing that demonic possession is real, and needs special attention – Catholic Online

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Yes, demons are real, and they can harm you.

Last week, CNN featured Dr. Richard Gallagher in a story about demonic possession. Gallagher is one of a growing number of secular mental health professionals that are convinced that demonic possession is real, and should be treated as a unique condition.

Demonic possession is real, and the number of cases are growing.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- Mental illness and demonic possession are two different afflictions. They require different treatments, and this has been understood for centuries. As far back as the 17th century, the Catholic Church has made clear that people with treatable medical conditions need doctors, rather than priests. However, there are cases which exceed all medical and scientific understanding, and in such cases, a priest may be required.

Demonic possession is real and has been increasing in the modern age. The rising tide of secularism, fascination with magic and witchcraft, and the public acceptance of things such as atheism and Satanism have rendered people much more vulnerable to demonic possession. Professional exorcists have noted the trend as their workload increases.

This has been the experience of Dr. Gallagher, a secular, Ivy-League trained psychiatrist. Dr. Gallagher is also a professor, teaching at Columbia University and New York Medical College. According to conventional wisdom, a man with his credentials ought not seek the spotlight, acknowledging the existence of the supernatural. It could hurt one's reputation. However, as demonic possessions grow in number, they are also gaining acceptance as psychiatrists recognize them as a real phenomenon.

Are they a form of mental illness not yet understood? Are they elaborate hoaxes? Or could they be genuine cases, situations where demons possess the bodies of vulnerable people?

Whatever the case, there is talk about adding demonic possession to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This hasn't happened yet, and it would be debatable. Do spiritual issues belong in a manual of mental disorders? Is demonic possession a problem of the brain, or of the spirit?

The view that the human person is simply a bundle of cells is incomplete. Humans possess a spiritual sense and there is a spiritual realm. As more doctors recognize this, they are pushing for patients to receive both spiritual and medical care as part of the healing process.

Dr. Gallagher has personal experience with demonic possession, which you can learn about here by reading the article on CNN. It is encouraging to see that more doctors are recognizing the role that God and the supernatural plays in the human experience.

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Pope Francis Prayer Intentions for JULY 2017 Lapsed Christians. That our brothers and sisters who have strayed from the faith, through our prayer and witness to the Gospel, may rediscover the merciful closeness of the Lord and the beauty of the Christian life.

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Secular doctors are realizing that demonic possession is real, and needs special attention - Catholic Online

‘A Parallelogram’ Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name – The Edwardsville Intelligencer

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This gentle comedy is like the Midas Touch, teaching us how our fondest dream can turn into a living nightmare

Robert Hofler, provided by

A Parallelogram Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name

I saw the Los Angeles premiere of Bruce Norriss A Parallelogram four years ago, and remember almost nothing about it. Having just seen the first New York production of this gently nihilistic comedy, which opened Wednesday at Second Stage, I think Ill never forget it.

Like Norris wonderfully mad heroine Bee (Celia Keenan-Bolger), perhaps Im living in a parallelogram, having experienced the same play in different planes of time and space. (Its doubtful this is the way Norris would describe a parallelogram. You need to see the play to get a much more cogent definition.) The major difference between Bee and most of us is that shes cursed with an older version of herself (Anita Gillette) who keeps telling her what will happen in the next 60 seconds, if not the next few decades of her life. In this sense, A Parallelogram is a lot like the Midas Touch and other ancient fables that teach us how our fondest dream can turn into a living nightmare.

Also Read: 'Napoli, Brooklyn' Theater Review: Italian American Saga With Extra Kick in the Sauce

Unlike most plays about madness, A Parallelogram takes us inside the lead characters feverish mind to reveal the logic of hallucination and how lucid it can make a person. Bees knowledge of the future does not give her the ability to change her life, she learns, except in the most insignificant ways. Extrapolating that nihilism outward, she finds that shes grossed out by childbirth and young children, and, truth be told, is not really affected by mass deaths on the other side of the world or, for that matter, the Holocaust and 9/11. Its with her mention of these latter catastrophic events that Norris shows his true bravery as a playwright. Its the older Bees casual rant here that separates the curmudgeons in the audience from the true misanthropists. And the younger Bees total disgust at a nearly born baby (a living turd) is equally breathtaking in its negativity.

Also Read: 'Hamlet' Theater Review: Oscar Isaac Strips to His Skivvies in Earthy Revival

Keenan-Bolgers gift as an actress is to keep her faade abnormally placid while revealing whats just below the surface, as well as whats wrenching her gut. Michael Greifs direction pairs her beautifully with Gillette, who personifies not a disgraceful version of Bees older self but someone who is definitely a deep disappointment to the younger Bee. Equally effective is Keenan-Bolgers pairing with Stephen Kunken, who plays Bees first boyfriend. Kunken is asked to repeat his characters actions, often three or four times a la Groundhog Day. He does this was astounding precision, but also gives the impression that hes as unaware of whats going on as Bee is hyper sensitive to everything around her past, present, and future.

For Bee, life turns out to be so much less than what she wants it to be, and Norris leaves her trapped by that knowledge. But he gives her moments. Bees subsequent boyfriend is played by Juan Castano, and his brief half-naked saunter across the stage after showering lets us know that their sex together is great. They wont remain together for long, but while hes there, shes getting laid in a spectacular way. A Parallelogram is like that. In the end, its message is a downer, but the play is thrilling to watch while its there in front of us.

Read original story A Parallelogram Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name At TheWrap

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'A Parallelogram' Theater Review: Bruce Norris Gives Nihilism a Good Name - The Edwardsville Intelligencer

Ronnie Wood refused chemotherapy because he didn’t want to lose his hair – NME.com

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The Rolling Stonesguitarist Ronnie Wood has revealed that he refused to undergochemotherapy after a recent cancer scare because he did not want to lose his hair.

The musician recentlyunderwent a five hour operation to have a growth in part of his lung removed.

Speaking to theMail on Sundays Event magazine, Wood said that the possibility ofchemotherapy had been discussed but that he decided against it.

Its more I wasnt going to lose my hair, he said. This hair wasnt going anywhere. I said, No way. And I just kept the faith it would be all right.

Wood also revealed he prepared to say goodbye to his family after the diagnosis. There was a week when everything hung in the balance and it could have been curtains time to say goodbye, he told the mag. You never know what is going to happen.

He revealed that hed been surprised that he hadnt fallen ill sooner after his life of hedonism.

I had this thought at the back of my mind after I gave up smoking a year ago: How can I have got through 50 years of chain-smoking and all the rest of my bad habits without something going on in there?' the guitarist said.

So I went along to see our good old doctor, Richard Dawood, because we [Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts] all have to be checked before we go on tour, and he asked me if I wanted him to go deeper and check my heart, lungs and blood. I said, Go for it.'

Wood told the mag that hes fine now, and will be going for regular check-ups.

He quit smoking before his twins were born in 2016 and is now sober after being in rehab eight times, and having treatment for alcoholism.

On what bandmate Keith Richards thinks of his sobriety, Wood said: He was more bothered Id quit the fags I took Champix [a nicotine inhibitor] for three weeks. That stuff is heavy duty. Makes me sick even to think of it now. I just stopped wanting the ciggies.

Wood is expected to join the band on their No Filter European dates in September.

The Rolling Stones upcoming No Filter European tour dates are below.

9 September Hamburg, Germany: Stadtpark 12 September Munich, Germany: Olympic Stadium 16 September Spielberg, Austria: Spielberg at Red Bull Ring 20 September Zurich, Switzerland: Letzigrund Stadium 23 September Lucca, Italy: Lucca Summer Festival-City Walls 27 September Barcelona, Spain: Olympic Stadium 30 September Amsterdam, Holland: Amsterdam ArenA 3 October Copenhagen, Denmark: Parken Stadium 9 October Dusseldorf, Germany: Esprit arena 12 October Stockholm, Sweden: Friends Arena 15 October Arnhem, Holland: GelreDome 19 October Paris, France: U Arena 22 October Paris, France: U Arena

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Ronnie Wood refused chemotherapy because he didn't want to lose his hair - NME.com

Hearing the Gospel in Fleetwood Mac – Patheos (blog)

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By Bert Montgomery

Bert Montgomery

Fleetwood Macs Rumours is one of the best-selling albums of all time, though its a wonder it ever got recorded at all. The inner turmoil of the band at the time is now legendary breakups and divorce, the excesses of the mid-seventies hedonism and drug use, etc.

The first single from Rumours was Go Your Own Way, written by guitarist Lindsay Buckingham after his breakup with vocalist Stevie Nicks. The lyrics capture a recurring biblical image a person spurned by an uncommitted lover.

Buckingham sings: If I could, Baby, Id give you my world. How can I, when you wont take it from me? Tell me why everything turned around? Packing up, shacking ups all you wanna do. You can go your own way. Go your own way.

The prophet Jeremiah uses the lovers analogy to describe the relationship between God and humanity. God is the spurned lover watching, heartbroken, as we continuously sneak out at night chasing after other little-g gods under every rock and in every nook and cranny: the gods of money, power, fame, security, dominance, winning.

The lyrics reflect the story of God and humanity from the very beginning. God wants to give us Gods Kingdom, but we wont take it we stay closed to it, we run from it, and, yes, we go our own way.

And yet, God still waits and watches and searches

The Apostle Paul is convinced that there is nothing nothing! that can separate us from Gods love for us in Christ. We can all name things that others have done to us or that weve done ourselves that in our eyes goes beyond the line which Gods love cannot and will not cross. We can all name others, and sometimes even ourselves, as being far, far beyond the love of God.

And yet, Paul is convinced

Remember Psalm 139? Where can we go that is too far? Where can we go that God is not? Even if we jump headfirst into all the darkest darkness of the world seeking to escape from God, so dark there is no light even when we go our own way, and close ourselves off to the world God wants to give us even then, we cannot separate ourselves from Gods love for us.

Preachers preach and people hear the Christian message as one of sin and separation from God, which to a certain degree is true. The overarching biblical message, though, from the beginning to the end, and especially in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, is that even with all of our sins and all of our running away we can never cross a line beyond which God will not go for God is already there waiting to embrace us again.

Yes, our human patterns and our personal behaviors reflect that although God offers us the Kingdom, packing up, shacking up is all we want to do.

But, if we open our eyes and look at the day, we may see things in a different way

One of the most enduring hits from Rumours is the hopeful Dont Stop:

Why not think about times to come, And not about the things that youve done,

If your life was bad to you, Just think what tomorrow will do.

Dont stop, thinking about tomorrow, Dont stop, itll soon be here.

When you look at the world around you, are you filled with despair? Do you see a God-forsaken world? Or, can you see past the worst of the worst, through the darkness, and see the love of God at work in spite of it all? Can you look into the dark void of humanity and see the love of God in Christ moving and reconciling and redeeming? Can you see glimpses of Gods Kingdom breaking through?

In so many Fleetwood Mac songs, we hear our human stories with all their betrayal and pain, and love and heartbreak. But, if we listen closely, we may also hear the Gospel and the promise of the Gods will being done on earth as it is in Heaven: Dont stop thinking about tomorrow, itll soon be here. Yesterdays gone! Yesterdays gone!

Yes, I hear a lot of biblical stories in Fleetwood Macs catalog, but Ill leave it to your own imagination to make the connection between the Song of Solomon and You Make Loving Fun.

Rev. Bert Montgomery pastors University Baptist Church in Starkville, Miss., teaches sociology and religion courses at Mississippi State University and thinks angels probably sound a lot like Christine McVie. Contact him at bert@bertmontgomery.com.

Note: The views expressed here in columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.

Interested in writing for CBF at Patheos? Submit your column idea to CBF Communications Director Aaron Weaver ataweaver@cbf.net.

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Hearing the Gospel in Fleetwood Mac - Patheos (blog)

Thinking their way through new superstitions – Print – Times of India

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Bengaluru: Challenge accepted -- AS Nataraj has been waiting to hear these words for the past 16 years after framing a seemingly simple challenge of 10 questions. To make it easier, he insists on only eight correct answers for the challenger to be eligible for the Rs 1 crore reward. The catch? The answers would involve the challenger accurately predicting an individual's future using janam kundali or astrological chart. Now you didn't see that coming, did you?

"The reward was Rs 10 lakh when I first issued the challenge in 2001. I increased it to Rs 1 crore because no one came forward despite initial promises. I am now sure that even if I raise the prize to Rs 100 crore, nobody will volunteer," says Nataraj, the 77-year-old founder of Akhila Karnataka Vicharavadi Sangha. His aim is to debunk astrology's main claim to fame - the power to pinpoint the future. "I know it is not true because I was also an astrologer," laughs Nataraj, author of Jyothishyakke Savaalu (Challenge to Astrology) and a veteran TV talking head on the matter.

The other challenge doing the rounds is aimed at busting a scientifically untested brain training programme. Narendra Nayak, the rationalist crusader from Mangaluru, has been holding demonstrations and challenging proponents of mid-brain activation for the last two years. The groups behind this fad take money from parents to enhance brainpower of their children through the 'activation'. Those trained can apparently see after being blindfolded. "People fall for new tricks all the time. Mid-brain activation involves teaching children to lie (about peeking from behind the blindfold). The organisers use pseudo-science jargons and it becomes difficult for lay persons to understand," says Nayak, president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA).

LOGIC WINS

For every new trickster in town, there are a few rationalists like Nayak who demand that fantastic claims should be backed by evidence, scientific reasoning and stone-cold rationale. If not, people like him resort to dramatic one-upmanship and myth busting on public platforms to uphold what they see as truth and rationality.

"Earlier, we used to go after petty godmen who produced ash from thin air or put their hands in boiling water. Now, the picture has changed," says Nayak, a 67-year-old trained bio-chemist. The new age miracles involve coming up with sales pitches to sell anything from yoga, millets, salt room therapy and apple cider vinegar as cures for various ills, including cancer, he says. The marketers rely on scientific terms or the ancient Indian label to bamboozle people.

As a trained scientist, the pseudo science gets Nayak going. Recently, he wrote a detailed complaint to the Advertising Standards Council of India about tall claims made by a coconut oil manufacturer in an ad. The regulatory body found that many of the claims such as the oil being a 'natural antiseptic' , 'restores thyroid function and reduces obesity' were not substantiated and hence, misleading. They asked the adverstiser to withdraw the ad or modify it.

ATHEISTIC START

For most such activists, rationalism starts with a healthy dose of atheism. Nayak says he became an atheist at the age of 11 after coming to a conclusion ("maybe hasty") about there being no god despite his prayers. A national science talent scholarship cemented his rationalist leanings and later, after a meeting with the legendary rationalist Abraham Kovoor, he joined the movement.

It isn't easy to break down strong beliefs. Nataraj, who became a rationalist after practicing astrology for several years, says he can hold his own in heated TV debates because he has studied several works about astrology. "There are times when TV astrologers have asked me in private why I oppose astrology as I know so much about it. I tell them we have to have proof," says Nataraj.

UPHILL BATTLE

Public confrontations have a tendency to deteriorate quickly. Sanal Edamaruku, a Delhi-based rationalist, had to relocate to Finland to avoid arrest in a blasphemy case filed by a Mumbai church. Edamaruku, who exposed 'Pilot' Baba and other assorted godmen across India, says in the Mumbai case, he was held up at a TV studio for hours after a violent mob thronged outside, opposing him for saying that miracle tears of a statue came from a leaky drainpipe. "I am not a hatemonger but I gave my opinion after observation (he was invited to see the statue). Listeners can choose to disbelieve. But the situation turned violent and I escaped through the studio's back gate after three-four hours," says Edamaruku, who is bringing out his memoir detailing 25 of the most memorable investigations he has done so far.

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Thinking their way through new superstitions - Print - Times of India

The International Secular – Patheos (blog)

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by Marc Schaus

For anyone currently following the secular movements happening all over North America and the world at large we have some important new developments to talk about. There have now been many (read: many) secular milestones of 2017 thus far, all over the world, yet theres actually a chance that several of them could be news to you. And if youre surfing this side of Patheos, probably good news.

Depending on where you happen to get your daily dose of media, the world can seem to be drifting toward or away from secular values. One source can provide one running narrative for the changes we see, while multiple sources can offer us a bigger picture. At the far end of that spectrum would be the totality of news available to us and the biggest possible picture. Sounds good, right? The big, big picture? The trouble in getting that view is that with every passing week (every day, in fact), we have thousands of headlines from around the world and hundreds of research papers being published in academia from which to draw fresh information.

If you were to begin spending the time sifting through these various sources, you may be surprised at how much our incoming data can be directly relevant to the waxing or waning of secular values worldwide. Or, also related to secularism, which international social groups are potentially drifting from (or toward) traditional supernatural beliefs in general. Over time, the more international headlines and research one were to collect and analyze, the more a developing depiction of something roughly resembling the state of secularism would eventually emerge.

Admittedly, attempting to stay on top of developing stories worldwide regarding secularism and spiritual nonbelief can be a tough challenge. I mean, there are a lot of things happening out there every day, every hour, all across the world. From the rigorously fact-checked papers of scholarly work to the potentially sensationalist headlines of media outlets with an agenda to live up to to the scattered Tweets of experts and amateurs alike traveling as fast as wireless signals can carry them. Even full-time authors need to drop in from time to time simply with collections of stats to discuss between larger commercial books. Indeed, secular author Phil Zuckermans piece in The Huffington Post last year on the growth of atheism and nonreligion around the world was precisely that.[1]

In beginning to analyze these world headlines, the first thing one will typically notice is that we need to separate the dictionary definition of total secularism into the various transitory stages in which we find it surfacing (or diminishing) around the world. Some countries strongly separate church and state, while others take mere baby steps toward or away from this arrangement. As well, and also within all of those places; the degree to which individual states potentially mix in the related concept of spiritual nonbelief. Then, adding to that mix, the particular context for the significance each piece of news may carry for the social group in question.

How does this all look, then? Well, for one, we can always look at the tried-and-true church attendance numbers of various faiths, for all of their various sects, throughout the various parts of the world in which they still happen to exist (wherever such numbers are reliably recorded, that is). Significant drops in attendance can certainly fuel a specific narrative regarding each church and church services in general. In countries like the United States, we can also look at the survey rates of claimed irreligiosity or the polled attitudes of what those who still believe actually believe. With that data, we could then chart something of a rough spiritual cartography for differences between the content-changes of beliefs for actual believers both now and in yesteryears. Is God still considered male? Is Genesis still literal? Is Hell still a physical place? And so on. These changes matter for our developing narrative.

Right now, barely passing the halfway point of 2017, we are certainly due for another care package of stats regarding secularism and nonreligion. National polling organizations in the US like Gallup and the Pew Research Center have already revealed striking numbers this year in favor of increasing secularism (and for the slow erosion of traditional supernaturalism in general). For example, were one to survey only the most recent Gallup polls on religion just in 2017 alone, one would find that support for Biblical Creationism is reportedly now at an all-time low,[2] that support for a literal translation of the Bible as the Word of God is at an all-time low[3] and that while roughly half the American population still believes that religion can answer most of lifes problems,[4] this percentage has steadily declined from previous decades. Elsewhere, one would find that another recent national survey of college students found them less religiously-affiliated than ever.[5] Which makes sense, given that less than a year ago the Public Religion Research Institute had found that religious non-affiliation was actually the countrys largest religious group.[6] Or, even more incredibly and aside from mere non-affiliation, recent stats from secular research giant Will Gervais and co-author Maxine Najle estimated the outright atheist demographic at over 20% of the general US population.[7]

Keep in mind, however: a collection of polling stats from one country, from one set of organizations and in one calendar year should not be considered a statistical silver bullet. Refraining from undue sensationalism is rule number one in looking at such figures. Rather, we need to consider more stats, from more organizations in more and more countries. Each statistic merely reflects an individual data point to consider when making up the whole of our eventual narrative. So, yes, we ought to be careful about assuming too much influence in our developing state-of-the-union narrative from numbers in isolation.

As youll have guessed, secular trends are certainly not universal. After all, not every country is the United States. Weighing our data equally across the board (or at least attempting to) is crucial for getting an honest picture for our narrative. With that in mind, though, we also ought to be honest about the significance of the contrary data points that we may find. For example, finding data points of extremism in areas of the world already ripe with religiosity is easy. Examples of secularism and religious tolerance are far more significant in such areas. Likewise, in parts of the world historically dominated by religious indifference, cases of extreme values also ought to carry more significance. We can keep in mind that just as data points from one set of polls in one country in one year do not represent the entire secular story so too do contrary data points not constitute a full stop in the development of the secular narrative.

One such piece of contrary evidence may actually be ones own everyday experience, such as personally living in a region still fiercely religious. In that case, the data will not fit with your own empirical evidence of still being surrounded with highly supernatural beliefs, conservative believers, or both. You may happen to find yourself living in a pocket of the United States experiencing a kind of religious revival firsthand with a President determined to empower the countrys outspokenly religious attorney general to (and Ill quote him) issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in federal law.[8]

Evidence like this can be an example of limited lens, however. Incredibly religious, old-school conservative communities exist all over the US and, as I know, here in Canada. Tolerance for nonbelievers has not always been high in such places. And yet, Pew recently reported back in February that US feelings of warmness and acceptance toward atheists have risen on their thermometer ratings system from cool to neutral.[9] In Canada, acceptance has jumped even higher: the Angus Reid Institute recently reported that an estimated 80% of Canadians would now vote for an atheist Prime Minister.[10] Also in the West, outside the limited lens of terror attacks, Western Europe has also been known for secular trends. Yet another recent study from the UK indicated that the religiously-unaffiliated on their national survey analysis sometimes formed even the majority of individuals polled.[11]

Now, outside of the regions we typically associate with increased secularism, this transition may sound more removed from everyday life. For personal experience, you may also find yourself living in a part of the world still dominated by traditional religiosity, almost entirely devoid of nonbelievers. Possibly even a region routinely beset with violent acts of religious extremism. Direct experience with either can make the claim of secular trends or jumps in nonreligion sound like a tasteless joke.

For example, take the recent headline in Pakistan of student Mashal Khan who, despite being seemingly well-liked by his many classmates, was falsely accused of posting Facebook messages deemed disrespectful to Islam and was then surrounded by twenty other students who enacted the religious vigilantism of beating, stripping, taunting and eventually shooting him. Khans story was reported back in April of this year. Tragic headlines like these do little for a thesis of the world becoming more secular, or even more tolerant.

So we do have headlines of figures like Mashal Khan for a counter-narrative. But cases of more violent extremism are, as the name implies, extremes in the data. They also reflect a context relative to the environment in which they occurred. This is an environment where, even more recently in June, a Pakistani man was sentenced to death for a Facebook post deemed sufficiently blasphemous by police.[12] But historically, blasphemy laws and conservative courts have been typical here. We can contextualize that spin on the narrative by looking at (albeit smaller) historically rare instances of tolerance increasing. For example, an article published the very same month in Pakistan Today featured numerous rationales outlining how religious blasphemy laws are outdated, nonpeaceful and an affront to personal freedom.[13]

Lately, I see data points in religiously-inspired blasphemy laws being repealed in several other countries. Or, at the very least, laws bestowing specific benefits upon religious institutions being annulled or judicially defanged. Admittedly there are still plenty of developed countries which have blasphemy laws on the books, though most rarely, if ever, actively prosecute individuals who break those laws. For example, a country like Australia still has blasphemy laws in the criminal code which penalize any expression of self hostile to Christians but for the locals themselves, these archaic zombie laws are meaningless and are merely waiting for their inevitable expulsion from the countrys legal system.

Actively repealing blasphemy laws internationally constitutes baby steps away from theological jurisprudence for a greater proportion of world countries. Cases now abound in which blasphemy laws (and other religiously-inspired legal frameworks) are finally becoming contentious issues in Western/European countries where they still exist. For example, up until late 2016[14] there was far less protection in America for nontheists fighting state-level constitutional laws weighing in on religiosity as seven states do still bar nonbelievers from holding office (in some cases, from even being jurors). Here in Canada, legislation was recently introduced in June to eliminate blasphemy laws such as witchcraft and blasphemous libel.[15] Denmark also repealed its last 334-year-old blasphemy law earlier this year. Elsewhere, amendments have been proposed to end all of Irelands blasphemy laws after the tragicomedic arrest of British comedian Stephen Fry in which investigators were only able to find no joke one individual offended by Frys jokes in his blasphemy case.

Aside from the core legal code of any one country, we do have other, smaller secular legal developments which do not always splash in public debates. We have court battles raging throughout the US for the removal of religious symbolism from public spaces.[16] Or, here in Canada again, the newfound lack of scholastic enforcement for studying religious topics in Catholic schools in Ontario. Back in June of this year, students in Catholic schools were noted to soon become religious exempt in opting out of theological classes.[17] Points like these (there were many others to add) reflect yet more data points to make up the whole. None a silver-bullet but all contributing toward the big, big picture.

What do you think? Is a weekly headline-drop and routine care package of fresh stats regarding secularism and nonreligion around the world something youd like to see?

Marc Schaus is a Canadian author documenting the rise of secularism and nonreligion around the world. Before writing his first book, Marc conducted R&D research in neuroscience studying neural networks in the brain and has previously appeared in digital print discussing current events in the world of faith on The Huffington Post. His primary research focus now is how spiritual faith works in the human brain and why 21stcentury life is creating a cognitive advantage for secular, so-called superstitionless belief systems. Find Marcs new book on Amazon or via publisher Post Secular: Science, Humanism and the Future of Faith.

Featured image via Pixabay

NOTES

[1] Zuckerman, P. (2016). Religion Declining, Secularism Surging. The Huffington Post (Blog).

[2] (2017). In US, Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low. Gallup.

[3] (2017). Record Few Americans Believe Bible Is Literal Word of God. Gallup.

[4] (2017). Majority in US Still Say Religion Can Answer Most Problems. Gallup.

[5] See the latest CIRP Freshman Survey from the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) program here.

[6] Jones, R. Cox, D. Cooper, B. Lienesch, R. (2016). Exodus: Why Americans are Leaving Religionand Why Theyre Unlikely to Come Back. Public Religion Research Institute.

[7] Though they base this estimate on being roughly 99% certain the number is above 11%, with a slightly less accurate .8 probability of the number being above 20%. These numbers are still higher than previous estimates, however. Gervais, W.M. Najle, M.B. (2017). How Many Atheists Are There? Social Psychological and Personality Science.

[8] Referring to President Trumps recent executive order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty.

[9] (2017). Americans Express Increasingly Warm Feelings Toward Religious Groups. Pew Research Center.

[10] (2017). Could our national leader be: ______?. Angus Reid Institute.

[11] Clements, B. Gries, P. (2017). Religious Nones in the United Kingdom: How Atheists and Agnostics Think about Religion and Politics. APSA: Cambridge University Press. DOI:10.1017/S175504831600078X

[12] (2017). Pakistan: Death penalty for blasphemy on Facebook. Al Jazeera.

[13]Sardar, K. (2017). The blasphemy law is self-defeating. Pakistan Today. http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/06/14/the-blasphemy-law-is-self-defeating/

[14]Referring to then-President Obamas December signing of an amendment to the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act giving more protections to non-theistic beliefs.

[15]See Canadas own government website for a description of legislation concerning Cleaning up the Criminal Code: http://www.canada.ca/en/department-justice/news/2017/06/cleaning_up_the_criminalcodeclarifyingandstrengtheningsexualassa.html

[16]The latest of several, we have the June 2017 decision from a Florida judge to side with an atheist group to remove the Christian cross from a public park. For a copy of the story, see: Richardson, V. (2017). Atheist group scores win as judge reluctantly orders cross removed from Florida park. The Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/19/atheist-group-scores-win-as-judge-reluctantly-orde/

[17](2017). Students can opt out of religious classes at Catholic school after complaint settled. The Star. https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2017/06/13/students-can-opt-out-of-religious-classes-at-catholic-school-after-complaint-settled.html

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The International Secular - Patheos (blog)

Danzy Senna’s New Black Woman – The New Yorker

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In an essay published in 2006 , the novelist Paul Beatty recalled the first book hed ever read by a black author. When the Los Angeles Unified School Boardout of the graciousness of its repressive little heartsent him a copy of Maya Angelous I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, he made it through a few maudlin pages before he grew suspicious, he wrote. I knew why they put a mirror in the parakeets cage: so he could wallow in his own misery. Observing that the defining characteristic of the African-American writer is sobriety, Beatty described his own path toward a black literary insobriety, one that would lead to the satirical style of his novels White Boy Shuffle and The Sellout . Along the way, he discovered a select canon of literary black satire, including Zora Neale Hurstons freewheeling story The Book of Harlem and Cecil Browns The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger.

Danzy Senna, Beattys friend and fellow novelist, makes an appearance in that essay, smiling wistfully as she shows him the cover of Fran Rosss hilarious 1974 novel, Oreo. As Senna later wrote in the foreword to the novels reissue , Oreo, about a biracial girl searching for her itinerant white father, manages to probe the idea of falling from racial grace while avoiding mulatto sentimentalism. Since her 1998 dbut novel, Caucasia, a stark story about two biracial sisters, Senna, like Ross before her, has developed her own kind of insobriety, one focussed on comically eviscerating the archetype of the tragic mulattothat nineteenth-century invention who experiences an emotional anguish rooted in her warring, mixed bloods. Both beautiful and wretched, the mulatto was intended to arouse sympathy in white readers, who had magnificent difficulty relating to black people in literature (to say nothing of life). Senna, the daughter of the white Boston poet Fanny Howe and the black editor Carl Senna, grew up a member of the nineties Fort Greene dreadlocked lite; her light-skinned black characters, who dodge the constraints of post-segregation America, provide an excuse for incisive social satire. Thrillingly, blackness is not hallowed in Sennas work, nor is it impervious to pathologies of ego. Senna particularly enjoys lampooning the search for racial authenticity. Her characters, and the clannish worlds they are often trying to escape, teeter on the brink of ruin and absurdity.

Sennas latest novel, the slick and highly enjoyable New People , makes keen, icy farce of the affectations of the Brooklyn black faux-bohemia in which Maria, a distracted graduate student, lives with her fianc among the new Niggerati. Maria and Khalil Mirskythe latters name a droll amalgamation of his black and white Jewish parentageare the same shade of beige. At their weddingto be held on Marthas Vineyard, that summer bastion of interracial prosperitythey will break a glass (Jewish) and jump the broom (black). Khalil thinks he knows why the New York Times gave them a wedding announcement: Were mulatto, he says to Maria. Everybody loves mulatto. The novels title shares its name with a documentary about this new, post-Loving v. Virginia generationborn in the late sixties to early seventies, the progeny of the Renaissance of Interracial Unionsand the mawkish hope they inspire in the bourgeois class. Were like a Woody Allen movie, with melanin, Khalil jokes to the white documentarian.

There is a hyper-specificity to Sennas satire that occasionally recalls Dave Chappelles barbed Racial Draft sketch: the couples favorite song is Al Greens Simply Beautiful; their favorite novel is Giovannis Room ; they sing the futurist liberation song If I Ruled the World, by Nas and featuring Lauryn Hill, at Fort Greene house parties. Khalil, who works in tech, has grown dreads past Basquiat but not quite Marley. Maria perms her hair to make it look kinkier. In fact, most of the characters in the novel are trying to make their blackness more palpable. Gloria, a militant academic who dies before completing a thesis on the triple consciousness of black women, was disappointed to discover, months after adopting Maria, that her baby was light-skinned enough to pass as Jewish, Italian, or Jewlatto. In an extended flashback, we learn that Maria and Khalil met at Stanford shortly before Khalil underwent a born-again negritude, publishing a column in the school newspaper in which he denounces the color-blind humanism that had left him unprepared for the racism of the world. Later, when the couple are engaged, Marias obsession with the poet, a dark-skinned black man (not one of the new people) whom she first sees at a reading, forms the central plot of the book: a quest for an unattainable, an uncomplicated blackness.

Maria, Sennas anti-heroine, is puzzlingseductively so. There are moments when she resembles the classic mulattress. She is alienated from her mother, whom she doesnt resemble. She is a hysteric, experiencing panics and peculiar lapses in memory. By the time we meet her, in her late twenties, Maria lives in brownstone Brooklynbut really she exists in her own private swoon, easily caught in peripheral drifts, always running late. In an early episode, on her way to a wedding gown fitting, a college acquaintance intercepts her and invites her inside what turns out to be a Church of Scientology. (Naturally, her personality test reveals her perilous potential.) The scene is dreamlikemordant at first, and then increasingly chilling; Maria, it is clear, is too easily swayed. She finally makes it to the fitting, late. Five gowns displayed on mannequin bodies on the opposite side of the room. They stand in a row, headless, waiting for her to fill them.

Recently, a new character has emerged in popular culture. Like Issa Rae of Insecure , or the eponymous heroine of The Incredible Jessica James, this modern black woman flaunts her neuroses with style. The carefree black girl is an archetype spawned of the Interneta woman who quirkily breaks expectations of how black women ought to behave in society. As Bim Adewunmi recently wrote of Jessica, Her race is not at the center of this movie. But the story is structured around this tall and interesting black woman, and thats something that is rare and wonderful. Listless and dreamy, these women are perfectly imperfectand their imperfections are carefully tailored to evoke in their black viewers a sense of recognition.

There were moments when, reading New People, I wondered if Senna had crafted Maria as a rebuttal to the lure of relatability in black art, which is itself a new form of sobriety. Just when we think we understand Mariaas a wayward, Brooklyn twenty-something in search of stability just like everyone elseshe shocks us. Far from being a victim, she is slightly feral; her crush on the poet, which begins as distraction from academia-induced agita, slowly becomes a hunt. When, after sitting next to him at a birthday dinner, she notices that he has left behind his Pittsburgh Steelers hat, it is almost as if she had willed it. She sniffs the hat for days, soon concocting a plan to return it to him.

At other moments, she seems sociopathic. So much of New People is about the erosion of feeling. We learn that, as a child at an ice rink, Maria dropped a skate down a flight of stairs, hitting another skater on the head. It was an accident, but Marias disinterest in admitting any fault makes her seem vicious. Later, horrifyingly, she shakes a baby to surprise her out of her fury, the way men in old movies slap the hysterical woman across the face. An early turning point occurs in the flashback, during Khalils activist awakening. Maria, irritated by her boyfriends incipient righteousness, plays a prank by leaving a voice mail for him in a lowered voice. Were gonna string you up by a dreadlock, man, and light you on fire, she says.

The campus plotline in Sennas novel reminded me of a moment in Justin Simiens Dear White People , a somewhat platitudinal film that also takes on self-serious young people who are newly, and superficially, occupying their racial identities. In Simiens film, the biracial heroine, Sam White, initiates a campus-wide panic after posing as a member of a campus organization and sending out an e-mail invitation to a blackface party. The incident in New People similarly escalates: Jesse Jackson comes to their college, telling the young brother to keep hope alive. But unlike Sam Whites prank, which is at least intended to spur her peers to actionand which she later comes to regretMarias appears meaningless. Khalil never finds out that it was Maria who left the message, and she never tells him. Instead, we learn, he makes slow, solemn revolutionary love to her. For Senna, identity, far from being a point of solidarity, is a beckoning void, and adroit comedy quickly liquefies into absurd horror.

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Danzy Senna's New Black Woman - The New Yorker

US federal department is censoring use of term ‘climate change … – The Guardian

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Among the intense weather events qualifying as climate change under the advice in the email chain is drought. Photograph: David Mcnew/AFP/Getty Images

Staff at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been told to avoid using the term climate change in their work, with the officials instructed to reference weather extremes instead.

A series of emails obtained by the Guardian between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a USDA unit that oversees farmers land conservation, show that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.

A missive from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them. Climate change is in the avoid category, to be replaced by weather extremes. Instead of climate change adaption, staff are asked to use resilience to weather extremes.

The primary cause of human-driven climate change is also targeted, with the term reduce greenhouse gases blacklisted in favor of build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency. Meanwhile, sequester carbon is ruled out and replaced by build soil organic matter.

In her email to staff, dated 16 February this year, Moebius-Clune said the new language was given to her staff and suggests it be passed on. She writes that we wont change the modeling, just how we talk about it there are a lot of benefits to putting carbon back in the sail [sic], climate mitigation is just one of them, and that a colleague from USDAs public affairs team gave advice to tamp down on discretionary messaging right now.

In contrast to these newly contentious climate terms, Moebius-Clune wrote that references to economic growth, emerging business opportunities in the rural US, agro-tourism and improved aesthetics should be tolerated if not appreciated by all.

In a separate email to senior employees on 24 January, just days after Trumps inauguration, Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs at the NRCS, said: It has become clear one of the previous administrations priority is not consistent with that of the incoming administration. Namely, that priority is climate change. Please visit with your staff and make them aware of this shift in perspective within the executive branch.

Bramblett added that prudence should be used when discussing greenhouse gases and said the agencys work on air quality regarding these gases could be discontinued.

Other emails show the often agonized discussions between staff unsure of what is forbidden. On 16 February, a staffer named Tim Hafner write to Bramblett: I would like to know correct terms I should use instead of climate changes and anything to do with carbon ... I want to ensure to incorporate correct terminology that the agency has approved to use.

On 5 April, Suzanne Baker, a New York-based NRCS employee, emailed a query as to whether staff are allowed to publish work from outside the USDA that use climate change. A colleague advises that the issue be determined in a phone call.

Some staff werent enamored with the new regime, with one employee stating on an email on 5 July that we would prefer to keep the language as is and stressing the need to maintain the scientific integrity of the work.

In a statement, USDA said that on 23 January it had issued interim operating procedures outlining procedures to ensure the new policy team has an opportunity to review policy-related statements, legislation, budgets and regulations prior to issuance.

The statement added: This guidance, similar to procedures issued by previous administrations, was misinterpreted by some to cover data and scientific publications. This was never the case and USDA interim procedures will allow complete, objective information for the new policy staff reviewing policy decisions.

Kaveh Sadeghzadeh of the Natural Resources Conservation Service added that his organisation has not received direction from USDA or the administration to modify its communications on climate change or any other topic.

Trump has repeatedly questioned the veracity of climate change research, infamously suggesting that it is part of an elaborate Chinese hoax. The president has started the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement, has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to scrap or amend various regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gases, and has moved to open up more public land and waters to fossil fuel activity.

The nomenclature of the federal government has also shifted as these new priorities have taken hold. Mentions of the dangers of climate change have been removed from the websites of the White House and the Department of the Interior, while the EPA scrapped its entire online climate section in April pending a review that will be updating language to reflect the approach of new leadership.

These records reveal Trumps active censorship of science in the name of his political agenda, said Meg Townsend, open government attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

To think that federal agency staff who report about the air, water and soil that sustains the health of our nation must conform their reporting with the Trump administrations anti-science rhetoric is appalling and dangerous for America and the greater global community.

The Center for Biological Diversity is currently suing several government agencies, including the EPA and state department, to force them to release information on the censoring of climate change verbiage.

While some of the changes to government websites may have occurred anyway, the emails from within the USDA are the clearest indication yet that staff have been instructed to steer clear of acknowledging climate change or its myriad consequences.

US agriculture is a major source of heat-trapping gases, with 15% of the countrys emissions deriving from farming practices. A USDA plan to address the far reaching impacts of climate change is still online.

However, Sam Clovis, Trumps nomination to be the USDAs chief scientist, has labeled climate research junk science.

Last week it was revealed that Clovis, who is not a scientist, once ran a blog where he called progressives race traders and race traitors and likened Barack Obama to a communist.

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US federal department is censoring use of term 'climate change ... - The Guardian

No ‘Censorship’: Judd Apatow Defends HBO Drama ‘Confederate’ from SJWs – Breitbart News

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Censorship is never a good idea, Apatow wrote on Twitter of the forthcoming drama fromGame of Thronescreators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

They havent even written a word, he added. Seems a tad early to judge their work and intentions.

Despite the prospect of a diverse cast, including, presumably, several characters of color, social media users filled the Internet with outrage in protest of the premise of the show.

Some of the criticism on social media revolved around claims that Benioff and Weiss already under fire from social justice advocates for a lack of minority representation on Game of Thrones are white, and therefore are not qualified to make a television series about modern slavery.

Others wrote that the series was ill-timed for todays contentious political climate.

The outrage over Confederate hit its peak during the premiere of the third episode of Game of Thrones seventh season this month, with fans taking to Twitter to share the hashtag #NoConfederate. The hashtag campaign led in part by #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign briefly became one of the top trends on Twitter that night.

Benioff and Weiss responded to the PR nightmare around Confederate, explaining thatthe plot for the showis one they had been thinking about for a long time.

We have discussedConfederatefor years, originally as a concept for a feature film, Benioff and Weiss said in a statement. But our experience onThroneshas convinced us that no one provides a bigger, better storytelling canvas than HBO. There wont be dragons or White Walkers in this series, but we are creating a world, and we couldnt imagine better partners in world-building than [executive producers] Nichelle [Tramble Spellman] and Malcolm [Spellman], who have impressed us for a long time with their wit, their imagination and their Scrabble-playing skills.

Apatow, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, had previously spoken out to apparently defend far-left protesters who were demonstrating against free speech in February.TheTrainwreckdirectorwarnedin a since-deleted tweet that it was just the beginningafter so-called anti-fascist riotersassaultednumerousattendees,started fires,smashed up shops and ATMs, and attacked peoples carsat Milo Yiannopouloss UC Berkeley speaking engagement in February.

The director later said he deleted the tweet because it was vague.

I never support violence, he said. I do support peaceful protest against hateful people and awful ideas.

FollowJerome Hudsonon Twitter@jeromeehudson

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No 'Censorship': Judd Apatow Defends HBO Drama 'Confederate' from SJWs - Breitbart News

Censorship has become a promotional tool in the hands of filmmakers: Randeep Hooda – Hindustan Times

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Ever since the censorship debate caught fire, several names from Bollywood have voiced their views against how the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), informally called the Censor Board, stifles creativity. The latest to speak on this is actor Randeep Hooda, whose film Jism 2, completed five years of its release on August 3, 2017. Jism 2, which was the Bollywood debut vehicle of former adult film star Sunny Leone, was almost derailed by the Censor Board, which refused to certify it unless director Pooja Bhatt made the changes demanded by the Board.

Randeep says, Youngsters the people youre trying to prevent from watching [a films] content are the ones who are mostly on the Internet. And whatever youre censoring is actually generating more curiosity and, at the end of the day, everything is easily is available on the Internet, which remains uncensored.

Like many other actors and filmmakers, Randeep asserts that the CBFC should only certify what kind of content is appropriate for which age group, and not demand cuts. This is what has also been recommended by a committee led by filmmaker Shyam Benegal. The committee submitted its report in 2016, and Benegal met officials at the Information & Broadcasting Ministry in July 2017 to follow up on this. [The CBFC] asking for cuts or censoring scenes makes no sense to me, says Randeep.

The actor points out a rather interesting fact: how the whole censorship issue eventually benefits a film. Look how censorship is being used to create hype around a film, and it clearly has become a great promotional tool [in the hands of filmmakers], and I suspect if Mr Pahlaj Nihalani [CBFC Chairman] is getting paid, jokes the actor.

However, Randeep adds that its unwise for anyone to fall for the hype created through a censorship controversy. I recently watched a film that was very talked about [for] censorship; when I actually watched it, it was a bloody bore. A lot of people had gone to watch it only because it was hyped so much about scenes being censored, shares the actor, adding that it was much later that he found out it was all planned.

I had read this films script as well I figured out that the film reached multiplexes because it was sensationally promoted. It wasnt a very interesting movie to watch in the first place, and it used censorship as a promotional thing, adds Randeep, clarifying that he is not referring to Lipstick Under My Burkha, directed by Alankrita Srivastava, who fought for months to get her film certified and released.

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Censorship has become a promotional tool in the hands of filmmakers: Randeep Hooda - Hindustan Times

Censorship doesn’t help – The Sun Daily

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I REMEMBER having my mother once buying me books to cultivate my reading habit when I was a child. It started off with Enid Blyton, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle. This was the 1990s, when such hardcover books were priced at a mere RM9.90.

Looking at book prices now God, I feel old.

But one book I read during this period was apparently a controversial one for a standard three pupil. It was Enid Blyton's The Land of Far Beyond, which told of a bunch of children and adults suddenly having their burden of sin appearing on their backs, and having to find Jesus to remove it.

Now, I am sure we can all admit that standard three is a young age to suddenly be exposed to the concept of Christ being the son of God and the bearer of the entire world's sins through a fictitious book. But then again, Christianity was also the basis for the entire Narnia series as well.

Not that everyone gets it, or bothers reading books. I'd wager most people just fawn over the movie renditions of Prince Caspian and stop there.

Did any of these confuse me, convert me, perhaps nudge me into a church to attend a service? Nope.

Because books are only as influential as long as people who read them don't ask questions, or can't tell the difference between fiction and reality.

Thus, why should the government fear access to books and any media items that it deems unworthy?

If people are easily confused, is it not the role of the public, the government and academicians to publish their books to counter it, rather than stop people from reading a separate point of view? In other words, shouldn't more books be the answer to create a learned society, rather than a ban?

At the same time, I am curious about the speed at which censors read books. In 2014, an Ultraman comic book translated to Bahasa Malaysia was banned immediately upon publishing.

And yet, with the recent announcement of Farish A Noor's book published in 2008, it seems that censors struggled to finish his book by taking nearly a decade to ban it.

I'm guessing non-fiction reading, especially academic content, can be a struggle for some. Seems to be the same thought with the banning of the book on moderation by the G25 group of eminent citizens.

But it does raise this question as well why don't those who believe these books are against established thought, just publish a book decrying the misinformation and setting people to read their own written book?

Surely in this day and age of writers galore, every government official and right-wing group should be able to find ghost writers to do their work for them for a price?

It would be hard to imagine that we are reaching a point where there is not enough to pay people to write what they don't believe for a five-figure value.

Censorship of books and movies is an extension of laziness from the highest levels down to the basic family structure. It is the government taking over the role of parents to somehow limit access to adult content even when parents themselves are adults. But then again, we have adults who believe in beheadings as a suitable punishment for loudmouth lawyers. We have adults who believe fondling a cutout is acceptable. We have adults who cannot see beyond the need for a headscarf and dress codes when congratulating someone winning a scholarship or a gymnastic gold medal.

So when someone censors a media item saying that such things do not portray the Malaysian people, I beg to differ. We do have such Malaysians, which is shameful but should be embraced as what I would call "having a brain fart" moment. Happens to all of us, and we should embrace it.

But all in all, we need to be open about ourselves as Malaysians not all of us are living a perfect Malaysian life. We are diverse in so many ways and dysfunctional in so many ways as individuals. We have those living in poverty, adultery, entire secret families, child abuse, husband and wife abuse.

Let's open up the conversations, open up the talks, write the books, watch the movies, and not censor anyone's point of view.

If not, well, there will always be Piratebay.

Hafidz Baharom is a public relations practitioner. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

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Censorship doesn't help - The Sun Daily

Chelsea Handler calls for free speech curbs, laws against ‘people who think racism is funny’ – Washington Times

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Comedian and activist Chelsea Handler faced a wave of social media backlash over the weekend for her advocacy of European-inspired laws that restrict freedom of expression.

The star of Netflixs Chelsea told over 7.5 million Twitter followers Sunday that America should adopt laws that penalize individuals who laugh at racist jokes a comment that didnt sit well with her audience, which noted the irony of an American comedian pushing for added restrictions on the First Amendment.

2 Chinese guys were arrested in Berlin for making Nazi salutes. Wouldnt it be nice 2 have laws here for people who think racism is funny? Ms. Handler tweeted.

Comedians Against The First Amendment, deadpanned The Daily Beasts Lachlan Markay. Folks like @chelseahandler ride the legal coattails of freedoms won by folks like Lenny Bruce, then demand their contemporaries be arrested.

See, the thing is, youre as much of a fascist as the guys throwing up the Nazi salute, replied conservative author and pundit Ben Shapiro.

Dumbest tweet on Twitter today. Congratulations, added YouTube star and political commentator Mark Dice.

Others noted that Ms. Handlers past comments would possibly run afoul of such laws, including a September tweet joking that actor Brad Pitt wanted the China in divorce proceedings with Angelia Jolie and that she wanted [adopted Asian children] Pax and Maddox.

#sorrycouldnthelpmyself, she wrote at the time.

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Chelsea Handler calls for free speech curbs, laws against 'people who think racism is funny' - Washington Times

The biggest threat to free speech? The left – The Boston Globe

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In this Feb. 1, 2017 file photo, University of California at Berkeley police guard the building where Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak.

With every passing week, those who predicted the tyranny of President Trump look sillier. Blocked by the courts, frustrated by Congress, assailed by the press, under mounting pressure from a special counsel, and reduced to reenacting The Apprentice within the White House, the president has passed from tyranny to trumpery to tomfoolery with the speed of a fat man stepping on a banana skin.

So does that mean we can all stop worrying about tyranny in America? No. For the worst thing about the Trump presidency is that its failure risks opening the door for the equal and opposite but much more ruthless populism of the left. Call me an unreconstructed Cold Warrior, but I find their tyranny a far more alarming and more likely prospect.

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With few exceptions, American conservatives respect the Constitution. The modern American left, by contrast, thirsts to get rid of one of the most fundamental protections that the Constitution enshrines: free speech. If you want to see where that freedom is currently under attack in the United States, accompany me to some institutions where you might expect free expression to be revered.

Almost every month this year has seen at least one assault on free speech on an American college campus. In February the University of California, Berkeley, canceled a talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, the British alt-right journalist and provocateur, after a violent demonstration. In March students at Middlebury College in Vermont shouted down the sociologist Charles Murray and assaulted his faculty host. In April, it was the turn of conservative writer Heather MacDonald at Claremont McKenna and pro-Trump journalist Ann Coulter at Berkeley.

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Nor is it only right-wing speakers who have been targeted. Bret Weinstein, a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Washington state, always thought of himself as deeply progressive. In May, however, it was his turn to fall victim to the unfree speech vigilantes. Weinstein refused to acquiesce when white students, staff, and faculty were invited to leave campus for a day. In response, a group of about 50 students confronted him outside his classroom, shrilly accusing him of supporting white supremacy and refusing to listen to his counter-arguments.

Safe spaces for speech arent free. Free speech isnt safe.

No one could accuse the great Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins of being right-wing. Yet last month it was his turn to be silenced. A public radio station in you guessed it Berkeley canceled a discussion of his latest book because (in the words of a spokesman) he has said things that I know have hurt people, a misleading allusion to the atheist Dawkinss forthright criticism of Islam. The stations general manager declared: We believe that it is our free speech right not to participate with anyone who uses hateful or hurtful language against a community that is already under attack.

These are weasel words similar to those published in The New York Times back in April by Ulrich Baer, a professor of comparative literature at New York University who also glories in the title of vice provost for faculty, arts, humanities, and diversity. The idea of freedom of speech, wrote Baer, does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community.

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Freedom of expression is not an unchanging absolute, Baer went on. [I]t requires the vigilant and continuing examination of its parameters.

Sorry, mate. Freedom of expression is an unchanging absolute and, as a free speech absolutist, I am here (a) to defend to the death your right to publish such drivel and (b) to explain to as many people as possible why it is so dangerous.

Freedom is rarely killed off by people chanting Down with Freedom! It is killed off by people claiming that the greater good/the general will/the community/the proletariat requires examination of the parameters (or some such cant phrase) of individual liberty. If the criterion for censorship is that nobodys feelings can be hurt, we are finished as a free society.

Where such arguments lead is just a long-haul flight away.

The regime of Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, in Venezuela, used to be the toast of such darlings of the American Left as Naomi Klein, whose 2007 book The Shock Doctrine praised Venezuela as a zone of relative economic calm in a world dominated by marauding free market economists. Today (as was eminently foreseeable 10 years back), Venezuela is in a state of economic collapse, its opposition leaders are in jail, and its constitution is about to be rewritten yet again to keep the Chavista dictatorship in power. Another regime where those who speak freely land in jail is Saudi Arabia, a regime lauded by Womens March leader and sharia law enthusiast Linda Sarsour.

Mark my words, while I can still publish them with impunity: The real tyrants, when they come, will be for diversity (except of opinion) and against hate speech (except their own).

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The biggest threat to free speech? The left - The Boston Globe

Why Arab Rulers Detest Free Speech – HuffPost

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Arab rulers across the Middle East detest free speech. The demand that Al- Jazeera close its operations is no surprise. Al-Jazeera (which means the island) offers talk shows, documentaries, and news in Arabic, the language of the region that reaches more than 350 million Arabic-speaking people from Mauritania to Yemen. Headquartered in Doha, Qatar, a native Arab land, Al-Jazeera has adopted an iconoclastic motto opinion and the other opinion.

For most Arab rulers, there is always only one opinion, the opinion of the government, and for them all other opinions are false, alien, and subversive. This commentary analyzes why Arab rulers are hostile to free speech, particularly the home-grown free speech, emanating from within the region, in Arabic dialects and metaphors, by Arab intellectuals, analysts, and critics.

For centuries, the Arab rulers are used to reverence, hand-kissing, and bowing. The Arab rulers, be they military officers, kings, emirs, or presidents, share a similar concept of leadership. They truly believe in their hearts that they are the men-in-authority chosen with divine will. They cherish an automatically presumed self-concept of being noble, just, and sagacious. Witness how General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian martinet, who overthrew a democratically-elected government, smiles with condescending wisdom. Such men as sovereigns (and there are no women Arab rulers) are not open to free speech.

Also historically, the Arab rulers have been tolerant of foreign criticism but not of internal dissent. Even today, the Arab rulers tolerate the non-Arab opinions broadcasted by the BBC, Voice of America, Press TV (Iran), or any other foreign outfit because the Arab rulers rely on an overarching paradigm that the foreigners, including Europeans, Americans, and Iranians, brood ill-will against the glorious Arab civilization that once dominated the world for centuries and gifted the world with the religion of Islam. They dismiss the Europeans as colonists, they deride the Americans as Islamophobes, and they scorn the Iranians as Shias, who are corrupting the true message of Islam that only the Arab rulers understand and have been ordained by Allah to preserve.

Al-Jazeera offers internal dissent, which is interpreted as baghyan (rebellion). The real-time reporting that deviates from the official truth, the unfavorable documentaries, and intellectual ruminations, aired in various shows at Al-Jazeera, all are seen as internal threat to political order that the Arab governments have imposed without the will of the people. Unintendedly, for that is the fallout of free speech, Al-Jazeera challenges the historical narrative of infallible Muslim rulers who can do no wrong.

In Arab countries, banning Al-Jazeera is seen as the right thing to suppress fitna (mischief), another convenient concept that the Arab rulers frequently invoke to arrest journalists, lash critics in public, and execute intellectuals and scholars. In Egypt, for example, Hassan al-Banna was assassinated in 1949, Sayyid Qutub was hanged in 1966, as both scholars were seen as the purveyors of fitna. President Morsi, elected in 2012, is in prison accused of terrorism and faces capital punishment. Egypt, the most prominent Arabic speaking country, has blocked or banned Al-Jazeera in cahoots with U.A.E, and Saudi Arabia. All are determined to eliminate fitna (fake news, lies, and terrorism) that Al-Jazeera allegedly promotes.

The Arab rulers, the self-appointed defenders of true religion, defame Islam as the peoples of the world gather the impression that Islam is hostile to democracy and free speech. Even though the majority of Muslims, living in Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, India, Pakistan, and many other nations, are non-Arabs, the world continues to associate Islam with the Arabs, particularly with Saudi Arabia, where the prophet is buried and where the Quran was revealed in Arabic. Despite the expansion of Islam in all continents, what the Arab rulers do or say have significant bearing on the image of Islam for non-Muslims.

Even Islamophobia in the West is a distorted reaction to the Middle Eastern customs that have little to do with the teachings of Islam. Seeing that women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia, seeing that the leaders of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State hailed from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq, and seeing the failed efforts to bring democracy in Arab countries, non-Muslims of the world construct a view of Islam rooted in misogyny, terrorism, and tyranny. The opposition to Shariah in the United States has everything to do with what the Americans witness in the Middle East.

Outside the Middle East, Islam has a different ethos. Consider Pakistan, a country carved out of India in the name of Islam. Only a few days ago, the Supreme Court disqualified a democratically elected prime minister, the highest political office in the countryan unthinkable event in the Arab heartland. In Pakistan, hundreds of newspapers and TV channels are determined on a daily basis to find faults with every aspect of the government and opposition. Although Pakistan has suffered military interventions, free speech has remained vibrant for most of its history. In this country, no credible paradigm paints the ruler as noble, wise, or appointed by Allah. Rulers are seen fallible and replaceable. Sometimes, the military generals get away with murder but this impunity is never associated with the dictates of Islam. In fact, even supporters of military generals advocate equality under the norms of Islamic justice.

Arab rulers detest free speech because they obtain and retain political power without the will of the people. They see free speech as a threat to the unrepresentative form of government they institute. The convenient labels of baghyan and fitna, mentioned in the Quran, are arbitrarily invoked to suppress legitimate criticism and dissent. The label of terrorism is also convenient to eliminate opposing viewpoints. The proposal to shut down Al-Jazeera reflects how the Arab rulers build their castles in sand that cannot tolerate the winds of free speech.

(The author has no affiliation with Al-Jazeera.)

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Why Arab Rulers Detest Free Speech - HuffPost

Free Speech Platform Gab Wants To Hire Google’s Anti-PC Manifesto Author – Breitbart News

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Gab

by Allum Bokhari7 Aug 20170

The memo, entitled PC Considered Harmful,criticized Google for maintaining an atmosphere of political groupthink, in which employees with viewpoints that challenge leftist narratives are forced to keep their mouths shut for fear of losing their jobs. He also criticized Google for ignoring the latest research on gender differences and their interplay with the lack of women in STEM jobs.

With the employees career under attack by SJWs inside and outside Google, the CEO of Gab.ai has now offered the still-unnamed staffer a job in the event that he is forced out of Google.

In a comment to Breitbart News, Gab CEO Andrew Torba said:

Gab supports the free and open expression of all ideas. What this document and the reaction to it prove is that Silicon Valley exists in a bubble world where Wrong Think is not permitted.

They preach tolerance and yet are intolerant of any conservatives ideas. They praise diversity and yet shun conservatives out of their workplace. They applaud the bravery of folks who speak out when it aligns with their own far-left agenda, but scorn a conservative who dares to stand up for what they believe in.

The Ideological Echo Chamber has now been exposed for the world to see. We plan to continue to magnify this message and the voices of others who are brave enough to risk their job to take a stand against the cultural Marxism and far-left status quo hypocrisy of Silicon Valley.

Tech, Andrew Torba, Gab, Gab.ai, Google

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Free Speech Platform Gab Wants To Hire Google's Anti-PC Manifesto Author - Breitbart News

Free speech and Hogan’s Facebook page – Baltimore Sun

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Shortly before the ACLU of Maryland filed suit against Gov. Larry Hogan for erasing comments and banning some users from his Facebook page, a federal judge in Virginia found that a Loudoun County supervisor had violated the First Amendment by blocking one constituent from her page for all of 12 hours. The ruling is instructive not because it necessarily means the ACLU will win its suit against Mr. Hogan this was, after all, the opinion of one federal district judge, and the circumstances were somewhat different. But it does illustrate just how thorny the issues of free speech are in the digital age.

Governor Hogan has reportedly banned a few hundred people from commenting on his page at one time or another, most during the Baltimore riots, when officials in his office claim it came under a coordinated attack, and during the uproar over President Donald Trumps Muslim ban when many users sought to goad him into condemning the president. His social media policy, promulgated this year, outlines a number of reasons a comment may be deleted or a user banned, including profanity, threatening language, an attempt to engage in commerce or the repeated posting of identical comments as part of what the office deems a coordinated effort or in a manner that is off-topic.

The Virginia case suggests thats not inherently a problem. The ruling places public officials social media pages firmly in the realm of the public forum, which means they are subject to First Amendment protections. But it also recognizes the right for a public official to moderate his or her social media pages to maintain a constructive space for constituent dialogue. Policing off-topic comments or attempts to drown out other voices can fall into that rubric. The key question is whether the public official is moderating the page in a content-neutral way that is, without favor to one point of view or another. In the Loudoun case, the supervisor openly admitted blocking the poster because she didnt like what he said.

Governor Hogan purports to follow a policy that doesnt treat commenters differently based on whether they agree with him, but the ACLU, in its lawsuit, contends otherwise. The organization spent months monitoring what comments were deleted and which ones were allowed to stay, and it found that Governor Hogan and [his staff] did not, in policy or practice, uniformly bar Marylanders from posting off-topic comments that lauded the governors various initiatives, supported his policy in initiatives (whether the subject of a post or not), or repeated similar positive commentary. Similarly, the governor and and his staff do not, in practice, delete offensive or insulting comments particularly when made by posters supportive of the governor. Instead, the social media policy was drafted to allow [them] to exercise arbitrary and unfettered discretion to delete comments, or block commenters of which they did not approve, under the guise of deeming them off-topic, repetitive or unacceptable.

Mr. Hogan is by no means the only politician facing criticism for deleting comments or blocking posters. President Donald Trump is being sued by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University for blocking followers on Twitter, and the ACLU of Kentucky is suing that states governor, Matt Bevin, for blocking people on Twitter and Facebook. To one degree or another, they have voiced the idea that their social media accounts are a means to communicate directly to supporters without the filter of the media. But if thats what they want, they should issue press releases. Social medias basic characteristic is that it is interactive, and thus when a politician uses an account for official business, it becomes, to a degree courts are just trying to figure out, a public forum where First Amendment rules apply.

Whichever side of that evolving legal line Mr. Hogans practices lie on, its clear that they do him more harm than good. Even if the ACLU is wrong and Mr. Hogan and his staff are being scrupulously fair to commenters regardless of their political views, a policy of deleting comments and blocking posters opens him up to constant scrutiny. Thats a headache he doesnt need. He would do better to consider the wisdom of state social media guidelines that preceded his policy and cautioned against deleting comments: If a negative comment is posted, it opens the conversation and more times than not, your followers will respond in a defensive manner or address your concerns for you. Taking down antagonistic comments may open your program up to backlash from your followers and you may lose credibility.

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‘A declaration of war on freedom of speech’ – Arutz Sheva

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While the Communications Ministrys announcement Sunday of its plans to ban the Al Jazeera network from Israel won the backing of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the decision to shutter the Jerusalem offices of the Qatari-based media outlet accused of promoting Islamist extremism has at least one Israeli organization up in arms.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, a far-left organization which has often challenged Israeli security measures to defend citizens from Palestinian Authority terrorists, took aim Monday at Communications Minister Ayoub Karas announcement.

On Sunday, Kara said that his ministry would work to protect freedom of the press, but would not permit media outlets to threaten Israels security, noting Al Jazeeras role in promoting incitement against Israel following the July 14th terror attack which left two Israeli officers dead.

Freedom of expression is a basic value, and I will do everything I can to protect objective journalism and freedom of expression, which is very important to me, said Kara. But, continued Kara, the events on the Temple Mount have put me in a position where I need to think about how I can secure the safety of Israels citizens, and that is the most important.

Recently, weve noticed that some outlets are not being used for free expression, but for incitement against Israeli citizens. One of these outlets, the Al Jazeera network, is responsible for the loss of some of our finest sons.

Kara pledged to shut down Al Jazeeras Jerusalem offices, as well as revoke the press credentials of its journalists and even bar broadcasting of the Qatari network on Israeli satellite and cable services.

Not surprisingly, the move drew criticism from Al Jazeera, which took the opportunity to launch a scathing attack on Israeli democracy, referring to the Jewish state as a country that claims to be the only democracy in the Middle East.

On Monday, the ACRI joined the fray, accusing Israel of declaring war against freedom of expression.

Banning Al Jazeera over its anti-Israel incitement, the ACRI claimed, was tantamount to a declaration of war.

This joins a series of steps taken by the government against freedom of expression and against anybody that criticizes government policy.

Yet even many in the Arab world have pointed out Al Jazeeras promotion of anti-Jewish incitement and anti-Semitic canards.

While Al Jazeeras coverage of events in Israel has drawn accusations of anti-Semitism and pro-Islamist incitement, even Arab states hostile to Israel have slammed the Qatari-controlled network and its reporting.

Founded in 1996, the Arabic network and its English affiliate have acted as the de facto state mouthpiece of the Qatari government, promoting radical Islamist groups supported by Qatar, like the Muslim Brotherhood.

In June, four Arab states severed relations with Qatar, demanding the government end its support for radical Islamist groups and shut down the Al Jazeera network they claim has been used to promote extremist ideologies.

Last month, the United Arab Emirates went even further, accusing Al Jazeera of anti-Semitism and incitement.

In a letter to United Nations Human Rights chief Zeid Raad Al Hussein, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote that Al Jazeera had "promoted anti-Semitic violence by broadcasting sermons by the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi".

Gargash also noted that Al Jazeera programing had "praised Hitler, described the Holocaust as 'divine punishment', and called on Allah to 'take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people... and kill them, down to the very last one'".

In the past, other Arab states, and even Al Jazeera employees, have accused the network of promoting the agendas of radical organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his successor, Nouri Al-Maliki, both ripped Al Jazeera for its incitement of violence in Iraq, leading to temporary bans of the network.

In 2013, dozens of members of Al Jazeeras Cairo bureau quit, accusing the network of working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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'A declaration of war on freedom of speech' - Arutz Sheva

Yassmin Abdel-Magied: where were my free-speech defenders? – The Age

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Andrew Bolt, are you up to the challenge?

Mechanical engineer, author and social justice activistYassmin Abdel-Magied has provoked the right-wing columnist:"If Andrew Bolt cares so much about freedom of speech as much as he reckons, he should have defended me.

"Where were all the defenders of freedom of speech in my case?"

Ms Abdel-Magied whodescribes herself the most "publicly hated Muslim in Australia" -made the comments after months of intense criticism following a Facebook post on Anzac Day, in which she suggested Australiansshould also rememberthe suffering on Manus Island, Nauru, and in Syria and Palestine.

Her post was criticised by Bolt, aconservative commentator.

Ms Abdel-Magied said the experience taught her that freedom of speech was not shared equally by all Australians.

"The conversation is not on my terms, it's not on the terms of any marginalised group," Ms Abdel-Magied said.

Since her Anzac Day Facebook post, which she deleted, the woman who was named the 2015 Queensland Young Australian of the Year, became the victim of daily death threats, intense criticism from conservative Australian politicians, and her ABC show Australia Wide was axed.

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Last month, the severed head of a pig encased in a bag with a swastika was dumped at the gate of her old school in Brisbane.

Speakingon Monday evening at an Age subscriber event at Deakin Edge, hosted in partnership with the MelbourneWriters Festival, Ms Abdel-Magiedsaid the campaign waged against her has left her with a bitter view of Australia: "I don't think I can hand on heart say that we are a country that isn't racist. People themselves may not be racist, but structurally, I don't think I can say that anymore."

Ms Abdel-Magied made the commentson a panel convened by Age news director Michelle Griffin, which included Pakistani/Australian writer and comedian Sami Shah, libertarian author and commentator Chris Berg, and author and documentary maker John Safran.

The panel discussed free speech,equality and extremism in Australia.

Chris Bergsaid he was concerned thatAustralianswereshutting down views that did not reflect their own, and warned this behaviour could lead to extremism.

"I'm concerned about a segment of the population that is embracing and seeking the bubble ... I've seen some data on this, that people who are using the technological capacity they have now, to grow into a narrower ideological frame.

"They identify a smaller community on the internet, and they choose to exclude information that violates the beliefs of that [community].

"You might be a far-right radical in country Victoria, now you are a far-right radical who can communicate with far-right radicals in Melbourne or Germany or wherever they may be."

White nationalists, Aussie ISIS supporters and some "inflammatory Jewish people" have become friends of Mr Safran, who said he spent 18 months "hanging out with people on the fringe of the fringes" to research his new book, Depends What You Mean By Extremist.

Mr Safran said Islamophobia was beingco-opted by radical far-right and white nationalists who were looking for an "acceptable" platform to peddle fringe views, which included a desire to"upend the entire system of Western liberalism".

"They saw this opening, they saw there was this anti-Islamic sentiment that was acceptable ... they saw that you can get away with talking about that stuff without being taken off to the loony bin."

In response, Ms Griffin suggested: "Isn't that even more morally appalling than actually believing it?"

Mr Safran: "Oh yeah it was pretty annoying, but it was good for the book."

Sami Shah, said he too found asurprising opportunity to boost sales of hisnew book, The Islamic Republic of Australia.It wasPauline Hanson.

The One Nation leaderposting a photo of the book cover on her Facebook page andasked: "How do you feel about Dymocks book range?"

Mr Shah said: "She's very charitable ... when she insults your book, the book sales go up."

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Yassmin Abdel-Magied: where were my free-speech defenders? - The Age

Beyond new atheism: Where do people alienated by the … – Salon – Salon

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I recently published an articleon Salon in which I criticize the new atheist movement. By this term, I mean the community that has accumulated around figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne and Peter Boghossian. My criticism focused on two general issues: First, new atheisms increasing willingness to ignore empirical facts and scientific evidence; and second, a long series of avoidable gaffes by prominent figures (followed by appalling defenses rather than apologies) that have alienated women and people of color while simultaneously attracting alt-right folks with morally noxious anti-feminist, anti-social justice views.

I awaited an onslaught of internet trolling but instead received, to my surprise, literally thousands of messages saying that the article articulated many of the epistemic and ethical concerns people who once identified as new atheist have about their former community.

One of the most common questions that people asked is what atheists who value science, facts, and moral thoughtfulness should do. Are there communities that rational folks could migrate to? One I would recommend is the effective altruist (EA) community. Although not focused on religion, it is founded upon a deep commitment to rationality e.g., it places huge emphasis on things like Bayesian inference and decision theory and doing as much moral good in the world as humanly possible. The EA community, so far as I can tell, not only talks about being rational but actually puts it into practice, which distinguishes it, I would argue, from the contemporary new atheist movement.

Others suggested that rather than retreating from the new atheist label, one should say: Im not going anywhere Im here to reform the movement. Theres something to this idea. After all, I decided not to move to Amsterdam after Donald Trumps election but to stay in the United States and fight the Zeitgeist of anti-intellectualism and bigotry that Trump represents.

So in that spirit, I thought it might be helpful to outline some values that I think our society desperately needs to reaffirm values that led me away from new atheism in its current manifestation.

Avoid overconfidence. The overconfidence effect is well-known in psychology. It refers to situations in which ones subjective confidence in a belief exceeds the beliefs objective accuracy. As Wesleyan psychologist Scott Plous notes, it is one of the most pervasive and potentially catastrophic cognitive biases to which the human mind is susceptible.

I believe the United States in general is suffering from a devastating, society-wide epidemic of overconfidence. One result is the idea that the opinions of non-experts are just as valid as those of experts. Thus, people who know nothing about climate science feel perfectly comfortable dismissing the assertions of climatologists who warn that ongoing carbon dioxide emissions will have catastrophic consequences. Similarly, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay have argued that they dont need to understand the field of gender studies to level substantive criticisms of it an anti-intellectual view endorsed my other new atheists as well as, apparently, Skeptic magazine itself.

A particularly egregious form of overconfidence is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which describes how individuals of lower mental abilities are even more prone to overconfidence. As some political commentators have pointed out, Donald Trump and his team of anti-science extremists appear to exemplify this cognitive bias. The result is an especially dangerous situation in which they are not only unjustifiably sure about their views, but their views have a higher probability of being wrong.

Embrace nuance. The lack of nuance in conversations about the left or the regressive left is one of the most annoying things about the current new atheist narrative. (While the new atheist movement used to focus on religion, it is today largely focused on undercutting feminism and social justice movements.) There are far too many examples to list in this article, so just consider one: the bugaboo of many new atheist figures, identity politics. On my reading of criticisms directed toward identity politics, theres a marked failed to distinguish between identity politics as a reaction and it as a prescription.

For many left-leaning folks including the so-called regressive leftists embracing identity politics is seen as the most appropriate response to identity-based discrimination and inequality in society. If society didnt unevenly distribute harms according to gender, race and other social categories, there would be no need for identity politics! In contrast, someone like the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer believes that different races should be treated differently, separated, or whatever. Identity politics lies at the heart of a perfect world for Spencer, whereas it constitutes a mere tool for social justice leftists to fight injustice in our highly imperfect world configuration.

Be curious. This ties into the issue of overconfidence. Indeed, it is the antidote to (falsely) believing that one knows everything one needs to know about a topic. I myself make a habit of reading articles each week on Breitbart and Fox News a habit consistent with surveys showing that liberals tend to get their news from a wide variety of sources, whereas conservatives get their news from only a few media outlets. Although Im typically appalled by the sexism, racism and anti-intellectualism of these websites, I do occasionally stumble upon an article that makes me think or even leads me to change a belief I previously held. The point is that beliefs should never be the points of departure but the destinations of an intellectual journey guided by the evidence, and the vehicle that moves one forward on this journey is none other than curiosity.

One of my biggest complaints about the new atheist community concerns its lack, generally speaking, of curiosity. For example, whereas people associated with Skeptic magazine have given Milo Yiannopoulosperhaps the most gleefully immoral public figure today a fair hearing, my sense, which could be wrong, is that few have actually taken the time to study gender studies or intersectional feminism, or to read the feminist glaciology paper that resulted in one author receiving some of the most vile personal threats imaginable.

Sure, there is a lot of bad feminist scholarship but so too is there a lot of absurd scientific research, which is why Marc Abrahams invented the Ig Noble prize! Just a modicum of curiosity can lead one to discover an oceanic literature of brilliant, insightful feminist scholarship. When I read the feminist glaciology paper, I decided to embrace the principle of charity and open my mind to what it had to say. To my surprise, I came away with a much more thoughtful and subtle understanding of the topics it discusses.

Another failure of curiosity (and nuance) can be seen in the constant mocking of the concept of micro-aggressions not coincidentally, almost entirely by white men. While there are indeed ridiculous instances of unjustified micro-aggressions, anyone who takes the time to understand this phenomenon will see, I believe, that it is not only real but can be pernicious. Indeed, the result of such acts is what some scholars have called racial exhaustion or racial battle fatigue.

This arises from minor but repeated derogatory statements or actions that accumulate over time. As one study puts it, the result is that students of African descent constantly worry, have trouble concentrating, become fatigued, and develop headaches when navigating personal and professional spaces that have historically favored white people. As with stereotype threat, it further marginalizes already marginalized people.

As a white man, I have never experienced a micro-aggression. Nor have I experienced racism, so I dont know what its like. I am extremely privileged: I dont have to worry about being late for a meeting and having it blamed on my race. I dont have to worry about saying something dumb and havingf it being blamed on the color of my skin. No one would ever say to me, Wow, really? You got into Harvard? with just a tinge of racial surprise. No one would ever doubt my abilities because they believe, secretly and perhaps only tacitly, that white people are smarter than black people, as leading new atheist Sam Harris recently suggested.

In the spirit of curiosity and nuance, one can both accept that micro-aggressions are a real and harmful phenomenon while also pushing back against the concepts more haphazard uses on college campuses. The world isnt black and white; its mostly gray.

Put epistemology before ideology. This means caring more about the truth, as best we know it, than ones prejudices and preferred beliefs. It means changing ones beliefs as new evidence is introduced, even when doing so is psychologically uncomfortable. Good thinkers arent those who never make mistakes; rather, we should say that bad thinkers are those who make mistakes and then refuse to change their minds when those mistakes are pointed out to them.

Religious people often offer a paradigm case of putting what they want to believe before what is actually warranted by the best available evidence. This is one reason I jettisoned religion in my late teens, subsequently adopting a form of atheism that assigns a high-percent probability to Gods nonexistence. And its why I find myself no longer aligned with the new atheist movement, with its increasingly alt-rightish political leanings that have led it, for example, to promote factually flawed hoaxes because they confirm an ideological anti-feminist narrative. As one person commented on Twitter, its oh so easy to be skeptical of other peoples beliefs, but hard to be skeptical of ones own. It was only once I became more skeptical of my own preferred views such as that the new atheist movement constitutes, on the whole, a force for good in the world that I recognized how inimical it has become.

It is because science as an enterprise puts epistemology before ideology that it is such an immensely powerful engine of knowledge about the nature and workings of reality. In science, the one and only thing that matters when it comes to deciding what to believe is the extent to which the known evidence, as a whole, supports a given hypothesis. The result is a self-correcting enterprise that homes in on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth like a heat-seeking missile blazing toward its target.

Prioritize causes. I mentioned this in my previous article. Examples include, first of all, spending a larger amount of time on unprecedented global challenges like climate change, the sixth mass extinction, nuclear proliferation, the rise of Christian dominionism, the rise of Islamic extremism and so on. Even the most cursory glance of the social media feeds of many new atheists reveals a fixation on the regressive left, a community that poses a far smaller danger to civilization than the alt-right and its political leaders.

Beyond this, one should be more worried about the damage that President Trump could do to free speech than the damage small groups of politically powerless college kids might do yet the new atheist movement, generally speaking, is obsessed with the latter. Furthermore, I would urge people to worry more about rape culture and racial/transgender discrimination than trigger warnings and safe spaces, since rape culture and discrimination are the reasons why trigger warnings and safe spaces exixt. Surely its smarter to focus on the root causes than the symptomatic effects!

And finally

Be morally thoughtful. The moral philosophers Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu identity empathy, sympathetic concern and the sense of justice (or fairness) as our core moral dispositions. Whereas being smart can help you get what you want, being wise which involves putting ones moral beliefs into action is crucial for determining what you should want in the first place. The point is that humanity cant simply wield science like a machete. We need the moral wisdom and foresight to figure out which goals we should pursue through collective action.

This gets at one of two criticisms I had of Sam Harris giving Charles Murray and his unfounded, inflammatory claims about race and intelligence a national platform. If we think about what sort of society we want, and if we agree that a good society is one without racism, then voluntarily platforming Murray isnt a thoughtful or effective way to achieve that end. Does Harris have a right to do it? Yes, of course. But its counterproductive to the goal of creating a society marked by social harmony and human flourishing. Similarly, if we think that sexual assault is morally abhorrent, then we should make extra sure it doesnt happen, ever, at atheist conferences. And if we care about not alienating women a huge demographic of potential intellectual allies then we should do better than booking nearly all men on ones podcast.

A community that embraces science, facts and evidence must also embrace a moral framework to guide it forward. We must not forget that true progress requires both movement (provided by science) and a direction (provided by morality). While moral beliefs cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed the way scientific beliefs can, one can still rely upon rational argumentation to determine a set of ethical norms and commitments. I would argue that the incursion of alt-right-leaning folks people who statistically value empathy, sympathetic concern, and fairness less than do people on the left suggests an unfortunate deterioration of moral standards within the new atheist community.

Society needs rational, evidence-minded, thoughtful people more than ever. As Stephen Hawking recently affirmed, our species has never before lived in more dangerous times. I once thought that the new atheist movement, insofar as it is a movement, offered a compelling path through the obstacle course of human ignorance and religious fanaticism. Now, I am optimistic only to the extent that people accept the above ideas. Perhaps the formation of a newer atheist movement that both talks the talk and walks the walk will turn me, once more, in to the optimist that I want to be.

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Beyond new atheism: Where do people alienated by the ... - Salon - Salon

Religion vs. state: Atheism and Al-Azhar – Egypt Independent – Egypt Independent

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Typically, atheists in Muslim countries prefer to keep their beliefs secret, fearing their lack of faith will lead to their death.

In Egypt, the situation is different; young Egyptians have been touting atheist and agnostic ideologieson social media, which raisesquestions regarding thereal number of atheists in Egypt, and how the government and religious institutions are dealing with them.

Recently, massive controversy surfaced on social media outlets when Al-Azhar Egypts largest Muslim beacon released a statement that the countryhas the highest numberof atheists in the Arab world. The statement was issued bya member of Al-Azhars technical office Ahmed al-Malkai in aninterview onprivately-run news channel Al-Nahar.

It is not only the role of Al-Azhar and the government to combat atheism, but families are also responsible for thephenomenon, Malkai said during the interview.All questions that have been raised by atheists were met with proper answers from Al-Azhar.

Egypt Independent investigated the relations between the institution of Al-Azhar and atheists in Egypt, and how they are responding to clerics repeated calls for dialogue.

According to a report issued in 2014 by the state-run Dar al-Ifta, the number of Egyptian atheists reached 866.

Many Egyptians opposing the lack of religious faith are promoting a dialogue-based persuasion strategy to deal with the phenomenon, instead of marginalization.

There are, however, those whoconsider it a personal freedom that no one has the right tointerfere with, and argue that Egypt will only achieve progress if people focus theirattention on the workforce and production instead of citizens personal matters.

There is no clear acknowledgement of atheism in the Egyptian constitution, as only Islam, Christianity and Judaism are officially listed.

The undersecretary of the parliaments religious committee Amr Hamrowsh considers the recent declaration that Egypt is the Arab country with the highest rate of atheism to be incorrect information.

Atheism in Egypt is only present in individual cases, not a phenomenon as promoted through some media outlets, says Hamrowsh. The Egyptian constitution does not mention atheism as an official belief system, so it is hard for the parliament to issue legislation that will grant atheists freedom of belief, he explained.

In 2014, Endowments Minister Mohamed Mokhtar launched a national campaign in co-operation with the Youth Ministry to combat the spread of atheism, claiming it represents a danger to national security.

Similarly, Malkai believes that atheism is a phenomenon that should be combated, and said that Al-Azhar is holding seminars to discuss ways to eradicate it.

In any developed country, there is a principle that is followed citizenship; no one can ask you about your religion or beliefs, and all laws are applied without religious discrimination, Mohamed Ismail, an Egyptian atheist, told Egypt Independent on Thursday.

Ismailstated that the citizenship principle is not likely to be applied in Egypt, stressingthat Egyptians are obsessed with religion and refuse to acknowledge any faith that is not Abrahamic.

Ismail has adopted atheism as his personal ideology since 2012. He noted that it is not easy for an Egyptian to declare themselves atheist in front of others, as it could put them at fatal risk.

An Egyptian agnostic, who spoke to Egypt Independent on condition of anonymity, agreed that being open about dissident beliefs can incite danger.

I started to be agnostic after intensively studying science, which made me realize religion is a man-made concept, she said.

She rejects the call for dialogue with Al-Azhar and anystatesponsored religious institution, claimingthat engaging in dialogue with clerics would not be fruitful, as their ideology is different; she believes that Islam promotes terrorism.

However,Ismail says that the recent representation of Islam on the part of the clerics is a good step, as in the past there were only people from Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood political currents that acted as spokespersons of Islam, and they contributed to the religions distortion.

Nevertheless, Ismail also does not thinkthatengaging in discussion with them would be beneficial, saying, I can read what they have to say in books.

According to former undersecretary of Al-Azhar Mahmoud Ashour, there is no justification for reluctant refusal from atheists to engage in open dialogue with Al-Azhar, as it is not like IS or any extremist groups that kill atheists.

Ashournoted that it is important for all state institutions to encourage atheists in Egypt to engage in dialogue with Al-Azhar or churches, as he considers atheism a psychological disease that should be addressed.

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Religion vs. state: Atheism and Al-Azhar - Egypt Independent - Egypt Independent