A labyrinth is coming to Washington – Observer-Reporter

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Washington Health Systems Wilfred R. Cameron Wellness Center is about to open a new labyrinth, thanks to Scott Township resident Dorit Brauer, labyrinth creator and owner of The Brauer Institute for Holistic Medicine.

Designing this particular labyrinth was remarkably special for Brauer, as it is the first hospital-affiliated labyrinth in Western Pennsylvania, though she also has designed labyrinths in several other locations, too, including Ohio, California and even Germany and Israel.

I love every labyrinth Ive created because the experiences it generated and the connections to the people who walked it are always profound, Brauer says of her work. It is an enriching experience, and every single labyrinth walk has the potential to change how you see the world. It is a spiritual transformation power tool and therefore, every experience contains its own special gift.

Labyrinths are considered sacred circles found in every culture around the globe and date back thousands of years the circle has no beginning and no end. It is a doorway to another dimension, and it allows us to become whole and experience oneness, fulfilling the deepest yearning of the human soul, says Brauer, who also authored the book Girls Dont Ride Motorbikes A Spiritual Adventure Into Lifes Labyrinth. The sacred circle represents our origin and final destination, our divine essence that exists beyond time and space.

Though labyrinths may appear similar to mazes, which became popular during the period of rationalism in the 15th century while emphasizing reasoning and thinking, Brauer says there are distinct differences.

A maze forces you to make choices and reach dead ends, she says, but a labyrinth allows you to reach states of clarity, particularly during troubled times and turmoil, and its single-winding path invites you to give up control and relax.

As you walk through a labyrinth, Brauer suggests considering the three Rs:

Release: Release everything that does not serve your highest good. Exhale all concerns, worries, painful memories, aches from your body and beliefs and perceptions that do not resonate with the light.

Receive: As for guidance to lifes challenges. Be assured that the answers to your questions will emerge in the days following your labyrinth walk. Visualize breathing in and breathing out the light. Let your light shine bright and radiant.

Reflect: Trace your steps back out of the labyrinth. Count your blessings and all the good that you have received throughout your life. Focus on happy memories, moments of joy and love. Reflect and embrace everything that is good and nourishes your soul.

Walking through a labyrinth offers many benefits, Brauer notes. Individuals have noticed stress reduction, clarity, inner peace, self-discovery and much more. Since it is essentially a walking meditation, the positive benefits associated to meditation also apply to labyrinth walking. Labyrinths are even becoming increasingly popular in hospital settings, such as the new one at the Cameron Wellness Center.

Brauer says she first learned about labyrinths when she was growing up in Europe, but became more involved with them when she was planning a cross-country road trip for her 40th birthday in 2006.

I knew that I was embarking on a spiritual journey and that I wanted to write a book to share what I had learned, she says. Then I discovered the Labyrinth Locator and found very interesting labyrinths along my itinerary. I wanted to learn more and participated in a labyrinth facilitator training with Dr. Lauren Artress, who was then the Canon of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco and author of Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Practice.

Since then, Brauer has created more than 100 labyrinths, many of them temporary that could be found in nature, at churches, or for childrens birthday parties and other events such as Farm to Table Pittsburgh, the Healthy Womens Expo at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and in corporate settings for team building workshops.

She advises that the best way to find local labyrinths is to visit the World Wide Labyrinth Locator at labyrinthlocator.com and enter your zip code.

To see the new labyrinth that she designed on the walking trail behind the Cameron Wellness Center, stop by the opening ceremony scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on June 10.

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A labyrinth is coming to Washington - Observer-Reporter

Someone Posted My Phone Number On Craigslist and Said I Wanted Strange Men to Rape Me – Narratively

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Its the waning moments of my fourth session with a new therapist. Im holding back and she knows it. My entire body feels tense, not ideal for the setting. I try to relax, but the plush leather couch crumples under me when I shift, making the movements extraordinary. Ive barely looked into my therapists blue eyes at all, and yet I think the hour has gone very well. Of course it has. On the surface, when the patient has been highly selective of the discussion topics, therapy always resembles a friendly get-together.

Well, my therapist, Lori, says, the millisecond after I become certain our time is up and I might be in the clear. I dont think I should let you go until weve at least touched on what was put out there at the end of last weeks session.

I so supremely wanted this not to come up. My eyelids tighten, my mouth puckers to the left, and my head tilts, as though Im asking her to clarify.

When you said youre attracted to me, she continues.

Oh, yeah, I say. That.

Back in session three Lori was trying to build my self-esteem, the lack of which is one of the reasons Im in treatment. Within the confines of my family, Ive always been the biggest target of ridicule. We all throw verbal darts around as though were engaged in a massive, drunken tournament at a bar, but the most poisonous ones seem to hit me the most often, admittedly somewhat a consequence of my own sensitivity. Ive been told it was historically all part of an effort to toughen me up, but instead I was filled with towering doubts about my own worth. And since 2012, when I gave up a stable, tenured teaching career for the wildly inconsistent life of a freelance writer, Ive had great difficulty trusting my own instincts and capabilities. I told Lori that I wish I was better at dealing with lifes daily struggles instead of constantly wondering if Ill be able to wade through the thick.

She quickly and convincingly pointed out that I work rather hard and am, ultimately, paying my bills on time, that I have friends, an appreciation for arts and culture, and so on. In short, I am, in fact, strong, responsible and pretty good at life.

Then Lori heightened the discussion a bit. I also feel that it is your sensitivity that makes you a great catch out there in the dating world, she said, to which I involuntarily smiled, blushed and quickly buried my chin in my chest. I was too insecure and too single to handle such a compliment from a beautiful woman.

Why are you reacting that way? Lori asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, only half looking up.

Is it because youre attracted to me?

I laughed a little, uncomfortably. How did you know?

She gently explained she could tell the day I walked into her office for the first time, after I flashed a bright smile and casually asked where she was from.

Now, a week after dropping that bomb, Lori asks, So, why havent we talked about it?

I was hoping to avoid it, I suppose. I tell her the whole notion of having the hots for a therapist is such a sizable clich that I was embarrassed to admit it. For Christs sake, I say, throwing my hands up, Tony Soprano even fell in love with his therapist.

Lori snorts, rolls her eyes. I knew you were going to say that.

I smile, shake my head and look around the room, denying acceptance of my own ridiculous reality.

Its OK, Lori says, grinning. We can talk about this in here.

I look again at her stark blue eyes, prevalent under dark brown bangs, the rest of her hair reaching the top of her chest, which is hugged nicely by a fitted white tee under an open button-down. She jogs often, Id come to find out, which explains her petite figure and ability to probably pull off just about any outfit of her choosing.

I still cant speak, so she takes over.

Do you think youre the first client thats been attracted to their therapist? she asks rhetorically. Ive had other clients openly discuss their feelings, even their sexual fantasies involving me.

What? I cackle, beginning to feel as though Ive moseyed onto the set of a porno.

Its true, she says, acknowledging her desk. Whats yours? Do you bend me over and take me from behind?

Nailed it.

If thats what youre thinking, its OK, she goes on, earnestly, explaining that shes discussed sexual scenarios with her clients before so as to normalize the behavior and not have them feel their own thoughts are unnatural. By showing the patient a level of acceptance, she hopes to facilitate a more comfortable atmosphere for the work her painfully accurate pseudonym for psychotherapy.

I take a second to let the red flow out of my face, and ponder what she said. Im a little unsure about this whole technique, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. So I go home, incredibly turned on and completely unashamed.

* * *

One of the great breakthroughs Ive had in the thirteen months since I began seeing Lori (who agreed to participate in this article, but requested that her full name not be published) is a new ability to accept the existence of dualities in life. For instance, Ive always had a tremendous sense of pride that, if it doesnt straddle the line of arrogance, certainly dives into that hemisphere from time to time. Im great at seeing flaws in others and propping myself up above them by smugly observing my character strengths. Ive never liked that about myself, but the harder concept to grasp is the fact that I can be so egotistical while also stricken with such vast quantities of insecurity.

In treatment I came to realize that all people have contradictions to their personalities. Theres the insanely smart guy who cant remotely begin to navigate a common social situation, the charitable girl who devotes all her time to helping strangers, but wont confront issues in her own personal relationships. In my case, my extreme sensitivity can make me feel fabulous about the aspects of myself that I somehow know are good (my artistic tastes) and cause deep hatred of those traits I happen to loathe (the thirty pounds I could stand to lose).

My next session with Lori is productive. We speak about relationships Ive formed with friends and lovers, and how my family may have informed those interactions. One constant is that I put crudely high expectations on others, mirroring those thrown upon me as a kid. Im angered when people dont meet those expectations, and absolutely devastated when I dont reach them. Lori points out that it must be exhausting trying to be so perfect all the time. I am much more comfortable than I was the week prior, and can feel myself being more candid. Im relieved that the whole being-attracted-to-my-therapist thing doesnt come up.

Then, a week later, Lori mentions it, and I become tense again.

I thought Id be able to move past it, I say, adding, We aired it out, and its fine.

As definitive as Im trying to sound, Lori is just as defiant.

Im glad you feel that way, she begins, but I think you owe yourself some kudos. This kind of therapy, she shares, isnt something just anyone can take on. Such honest discussion doesnt simply happen, it takes tremendous guts, and Lori can see that I am dealing with it relatively well, so I should praise my own efforts.

Shit, we both should be proud of ourselves, she says. Its not easy on the therapist either, you know.

Why not?

Because talking openly about sex is risky at any time, much less with a client. She explains that therapists are warned any semblance of intimacy can be easily misconstrued. We learn in our training to not personally disclose, for example, she says, but adds that, occasionally, transparency can be helpful.

Still, with you, she continues, until I raised the question, I didnt know for sure that you would go with it; for all I knew youd run out of here and never come back to risk being so uncomfortable again.

Shes building my confidence more, and Im learning that I play a much bigger role in how my life is conducted than I often realize. My treatment wouldnt be happening if I werent enabling it.

Then she says, And dont think its not nice for me to hear that a guy like you thinks Im beautiful.

Crippled by the eroticism of the moment, and combined with the prevailing notion that no woman this stunning could ever be romantically interested in me, I flounder through words that resemble, Waitwhat?

If we were somehow at a bar together, and you came over and talked to me, she says, then flips her palms up innocently, who knows?

I laugh again and tell her thered be almost no chance of me approaching her because Id never feel like I had a shot in hell.

Well, thats not the circumstances were in, she says. But you might. Who knows?

Im confused Is she really attracted to me or is this some psychotherapeutic ruse? Im frustrated I told her I didnt really want to talk about it. Shouldnt she be more sensitive to my wants here? Im angry Is she getting an ego boost out of this? Most of all, I dont know what the next step is Am I about to experience the hottest thing thats ever happened to a straight male since the vagina was invented?

There were two ways to find out:

1) Discontinue the therapy, wait for her outside her office every day, follow her to a hypothetical happy hour and ask her out, or

2) Keep going to therapy.

* * *

A week later, Im physically in the meeting room with Lori, but mentally I havent left the recesses of my mind.

Where are you today? she asks, probably noticing my eyes roving around the room.

I dont know.

Are you still grappling with the sexual tension between us?

Here we go again.

Yes, I say, with a bit of an edge in my voice, and I dont know what to do about it.

Lori, ever intently, peers into my eyes, wrinkles her mouth and slightly shakes her head.

Do you want to have sex with me? she asks.

We both know the answer to that question. All I can do is stare back.

Lets have sex, she announces. Right here, right now.

What? I respond, flustered.

Lets go! she says a little louder, opening up her arms and looking around as if to say the office is now our playground, and, oh, the rollicking fun wed have mixing bodily fluids.

No, I tell her, You dont mean that.

What if I do? she shoots back. Would you have sex with me, now, in this office?

Of course not.

Why of course not? How do I know for sure that you wont take me if I offer myself to you?

I wouldnt do that.

Thats what I thought, she says, and tension in the room decomposes. Mike, I dont feel that you would do something that you think is truly not in our best interest, which is exactly why I just gave you the choice.

Her offer was a lesson in empowerment, helping me prove that I have an innate ability to make the right choices, even if Id so desperately prefer to make the wrong one.

I see what she means. Im awfully proud of myself, and its OK to be in this instance. Im gaining trust in myself, and confidence to boot. But, as the dualities of life dictate, Im successfully doing the work with a daring therapist, while at the same time not entirely convinced she isnt in need of an ethical scrubbing.

* * *

I dont have another session with Lori for nearly three months, because she tooka personal leave from her place of employment. When our sessions finally resumed, I could not wait to tell her about my budding relationship with Shauna.

Ten minutes into my first date with Shauna right about the time she got up from her bar stool and said she was going to the can I knew she would, at the very least, be someone I was going to invest significant time in. She was as easy to talk to as any girl Id ever been with, and I found myself at ease. Plans happened magically without anxiety-inducing, twenty-four-hour waits between texts. Her quick wit kept me entertained, and I could tell by the way she so seriously spoke about dancing, her chosen profession, that she is passionate about the art form and mighty talented too. Shauna is beautiful, with flawless hazel eyes and straight dark hair, spunky bangs and a bob that matches her always-upbeat character. She is a snazzy dresser and enjoys a glass of whiskey with a side of fried pickles and good conversation as much as I do.

Things escalated quickly, but very comfortably, and since wed both been in our fair share of relationships, we knew the true power of honesty and openness. So upon the precipice of my return to therapy I told Shauna about Lori, and admitted to having mixed feelings about what I was getting back into. I told her I was at least moderately uncertain if my mental health was Loris number-one concern since she always seemed to find the time to mention my attraction to her.

The first two sessions of my therapeutic reboot had gone great. Lori appeared genuinely thrilled that I was dating Shauna and could see how happy I was. I wasnt overwhelmed with sexual tension in the new meeting room, though it wasnt actually spoken about, and in the back of my mind I knew it was just a matter of time before it would start to affect my ability to disclose my thoughts to Lori again.

Then, while attempting to ingratiate myself with my new girlfriends cat by spooning food onto his tiny dish on the kitchen floor, I hear my phone ding from inside the living room.

You got a text, babe, Shauna says. Its from Lori.

Im so impressed with you and the work youre doing Shauna reads off my phone from inside the living room, inquisitively, and not happily. I stuff the cat food back into the Tupperware and toss it into the refrigerator. I make my way into the living room, angry at myself for not changing the settings on my new iPhone to disallow text previews on the locked screen. Shaunas walking too, and we meet near the kitchen door. Whats this? she says, holding up the phone. Your therapist texts you?

I take the phone from Shauna and say the most obvious, clich-sounding thing: Its not what it seems.

As I text back a curt thanks, Shauna tells me shes going to ask her sister, a therapist herself, if its OK to text patients.

Dont do that. I say, a little more emphatically. I promise, this is nothing to be worried about. Were not doing anything wrong. I explain that Loris just trying to build my self-esteem.

The only reason Im even bringing this up is because you said you werent sure about her in the first place, Shauna reminds me. I can tell she regrets looking at my phone without my permission, but I completely understand her feelings.

At my next session I tell Lori that Shauna saw her text and wasnt thrilled about it.

She probably feels cheated on to some degree, Lori says. A relationship between a therapist and a patient can oftentimes seem much more intimate than the one between a romantic couple.

Lori goes on to point out that the reason she feels we can exchange texts, blurring the lines between patient/doctor boundaries a hot topic in the psychotherapy world these days is because she trusts that Ill respect her space and privacy. Youve proven that much to me, she says.

On my walk home, instead of being angry at Lori, I understand her thinking behind the text. But Im also nervous about how Lori and Shauna can ever coexist in my life.

Isnt therapy supposed to ameliorate my anxiety?

* * *

A week later, Lori begins our session by handing me a printout explaining the psychotherapeutic term erotic transference written by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, PhD. It says that erotic transference is the patients sense that love is being exchanged between him or herself and the therapist the exact sensation I was experiencing with Lori, of which she was astutely aware.

According to Richmond, one of the primary reasons people seek therapy is because something was lacking in their childhood family life, perhaps unconditional nurturing guidance and protection. Upon feeling noticed and understood by a qualified therapist, sometimes a patient can be intoxicated by their therapists approval of them. A patient may in turn contemplate that a love is blossoming between them, and, in fact, it sort of is.

From an ethical standpoint, Richmond argues all therapists are bound to love their patients, for therapists are committed to willing the good of all clients by ensuring that all actions within psychotherapy serve the clients need to overcome the symptoms which brought them into treatment. This takes genuine care and acceptance on their part. However, a patient can easily confuse the love they feel with simple desire. Theyre not quite in love with their therapist, so much as they yearn for acceptance from someone, and in those sessions they just happen to be receiving it from their doctor.

Lori tells me that, all along, she has been working with what I gave her and that because I flirted with her a bit, she used that to her advantage in the treatment. In employing countertransference indicating that she had feelings for me she was keeping me from feeling rejected and despising my own thoughts and urges.

Theres two people alone in a room together, and if theyre two attractive people, why wouldnt they be attracted to each other? says Dr. Galit Atlas. A psychoanalyst whos had her own private practice for fifteen years, Dr. Atlas has an upcoming book titled The Enigma of Desire: Sex, Longing and Belonging in Psychoanalysis, and I sought her as an independent source for this essay to help me understand Loris therapeutic strategies.

Dr. Atlas explains that there are certain boundaries that cannot be crossed between therapist and patient under any circumstances like having sex with them, obviously. But many other relationship borders can be mapped out depending on the comfort level of the therapist, as long as they stay within the scope of the professions ethics, which complicates the discussion surrounding erotic transference.

As a therapist, I have a role, Dr. Atlas says. My role is to protect you. She says it is incumbent on the therapist to not exploit the patient for the therapists own good, but admits that the presence of erotic transference in therapy brings about many challenges. [Attraction] is part of the human condition, she observes. In therapy, the question then is: What do you do with that? Do you deny it? Do you talk about it? How do you talk about it without seducing the patient and with keeping your professional ability to think and to reflect?

I ask her about the benefits of exploring intimacy in therapy, and Dr. Atlas quickly points out that emotional intimacy though not necessarily that of the sexual brand is almost inevitable and required. An intimate relationship with a therapist can [be] a reparative experience repairing childhood wounds but mostly its about helping the patient to experience and tolerate emotional intimacy, analyzing the clients anxieties about being vulnerable and every mechanism one uses in order to avoid being exposed.

Dr. Atlas says this topic speaks to every facet of the therapeutic relationship, regardless of gender or even sexual orientation, because intimacy reveals emotional baggage that both the patient and therapist carry with them into the session. But this isnt a symmetrical relationship, and the therapist is the one who holds the responsibility.

Freud said that a healthy person should be able to work and to love, she says. In some ways therapy practices both, and in order to change the patient will have to be known by the therapist. That is intimacy. In order to be able to be vulnerable, both parties have to feel safe.

After I briefly explain all that has gone on between me and Lori, Dr. Atlas steadfastly says she does not want to judge too harshly why and how everything came to pass in my therapy. I dont know your therapist, and I dont know your history, she says. But she offers that I should explore the possibility that I might have created and admitted my sexual adoration of Lori because one of my fears is to be ignored, not noticed.

Then I offer: Maybe this essay is being written for the same reason.

Exactly.

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Someone Posted My Phone Number On Craigslist and Said I Wanted Strange Men to Rape Me - Narratively

A teachable moment, but not censorship, at Harvard – The Boston Globe

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CRAIG F. WALKER / GLOBE STAFF

The Johnston Gate at Harvard Yard.

An Ivy League course on the consequences of dumb and offensive behavior on the Internet just played out at Harvard. And for at least 10 kids who had already been admitted to the university, the fallout of sharing offensive images among themselves were profound and potentially life-changing.

By now, the story is well known: The teens were part of a larger Facebook group chat where they posted the vile images as Internet memes. When the university discovered the content, it rescinded their admission.

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A debate about free speech has ensued, pitting Harvard as the ruthless censor clamping down on kids goofing off. But thats the wrong way to look at the controversy. Like all universities, Harvard has wide discretion in its admissions process. Had the school discovered the memes before the students were accepted at the school, its safe to guess that Harvard would have denied them admission, period, without triggering a free-speech brouhaha. The college admissions process is inherently subjective. There are many considerations, including that of judgment, character, and ethics, and sharing puerile and offensive posts is generally not the path to the Ivy League.

Needless to say, Harvard reserves the right to rescind admission at any time before enrollment, for many reasons, including whether the prospective student engages in behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity, or moral character. Its tough luck for the admitted applicants, perhaps, that they werent yet officially Harvard students when the images were discovered. If they were, the universitys response might have been different; student-athletes who were recently caught writing offensive, sexually charged lists about classmates were not expelled from the school.

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Its likely the meme-sharing students, who had been admitted to the class of 2021, were trying to impress each other, engaging in the type of silly, provocative one-upmanship that teens gravitate toward. Its not likely that the students, who included the daughter of a major Harvard donor, were going to start committing hate crimes when they arrived in Cambridge. But they did show a marked lack of judgment. Among the posts: a suggestion that child abuse was sexually arousing; sexual jokes about the Holocaust; and an image that poked fun at suicide and Mexicans with a piata.

Did the school miss an opportunity to educate those students about their foolish actions? Perhaps, although the incident remains a teachable moment for the kids nonetheless. And Harvards swift response sends a reassuring message of the importance of principles, civility, and standards for the rest of the university community.

For many young people, memes the wild variety of funny captions over memorable images are a second language.

Censorship, this is not. The students remain free to express themselves with any offensive or provocative memes they choose. And should the students choose to reapply to the college someday, they should be able to write quite an essay about learning lessons the hard way.

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A teachable moment, but not censorship, at Harvard - The Boston Globe

Online database gives uncensored look into Lebanon’s censorship – Al-Monitor

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A screenshot of a page from the Virtual Museum of Censorship featuring banned books.(photo bycensorshiplebanon.org)

Author:Florence Massena Posted June 6, 2017

What is censored more often in Lebanon: sex or politics? It depends on the timing, according to the Virtual Museum of Censorship, an online database tracking banned and censored material since Lebanese independence in 1943.

Having become familiar with some of the material, Gino Raidy, the vice president of MARCH, the nongovernmental organization (NGO) behind the museum, told Al-Monitor, Different trends could be observed according to the decades. In the 1940s, it mostly involved mentioning Israel.

Raidy said, In the 1950s-1960s, sexual explicitness was tolerated, but not political discussions. In the early 2000s, there was strong opposition to heavy metal. People would be arrested in the streets for wearing a heavy metal band T-shirt as many thought it was satanic. What stood to be censored became clearer after the Syrian army left in 2005, mostly focusing on sectarian and politics-related material. Nowadays, we note that LGBT art and events are getting targeted more and more.

The virtual museum aims to identify not only what has been banned and censored, but also the reasons behind it, in an effort to present the big picture when it comes to limits on freedom of expression in Lebanon. The database launched on May 24, with an event at Phoenicia University, in Mazraat al-Daoudiyeh, in the south. An exhibition of panels and blackboards with words and names of individuals redacted to symbolize information omitted through censorship was followed by a discussion among free speech experts and activists. Participants included lawyer Hussein el-Achi, photojournalist Hussein Baydoun, author and activist Joumana Haddad, journalist and activist Luna Safwan and graffiti artist Omar Kabbani.

In 2013 in Beirut, MARCH had organized Censorship in Lebanon, An Uncensored Look, a panel discussion on freedom of expression. Looking ahead, the team hopes to organize others in Tripoli after the end of Ramadan and maybe in the Bekaa Valley.

We believe that getting out of Beirut is important not only to inform people about censorship but also to have more discussions, address a different crowd living in rural areas and see what they think about the issue, said Raidy, who is also a blogger. Virtually, anyone can see what cultural material has been banned and censored, as well as what journalists and activists have been through when it comes to the expression of certain issues. We also invite people to submit entries if they hear about something new.

Control over every cultural product in Lebanon is based on a law or decree, as detailed in Censorship in Lebanon: Law and Practice, a 2010 study by Nizar Saghieh, Rana Saghieh and Nayla Geagea, who are lawyers and members of The Legal Agenda, an NGO that follows socio-legal developments in Lebanon and the broader Middle East.

Censorship of films in Lebanon is based on four very vague principles: respect for public morals, respect for the reputation or status of state authorities, respect for the sensitivities of the public and avoiding sectarian or religious incitement, and resisting calls that are unfavorable to the interests of Lebanon, Ghida Frangieh, a lawyer with The Legal Agenda, told Al-Monitor. If the General Security, which is a security agency, wants to ban a film, it must refer it to an administrative committee, which reviews the film and gives its recommendation to the Ministry of Interior, which will make the final decision. The procedure is not transparent, and most of the time, the reason why a film is censored or banned is not given.

To this, Raidy added, From the data we collected, the two main organizations asking General Security for censorship are first the Catholic Information Center and then Dar al-Fatwa, the leading Sunni religious institution in the country.

For example, in Nadine Labakis filmWhere Do We Go Now (2012), a scene with a priest and a sheikh speaking to the public through the local mosques loudspeaker was cut. More recently, a Druze cleric's apparition was masked by a black dot in Philippe Aractingis 2017 filmListen /Ismaii. Both decisions were supposedly based on concerns of sectarian incitement.

The Boycott Bureau for Israel also made sure that the name of Steven Spielberg, who has donated money in Israel, would be removed from posters and films, although we can watch them. This was silly, Raidy said. They also asked that Wonder Woman be banned because the lead actress is Israeli.

Two filmmakers recently challenged censorship decisions before the State Council: Danielle Arbid, for her filmBeirut Hotel (2011), and Reine Mitri, for the banning of her documentary In This Land Lay Graves of Mine (2015), about people displaced during the Lebanese civil war. Arbid lost her challenge, with the State Council deciding that censorship was justified because the filmattacked the reputation of the authorities in regard to the investigation of Prime Minister Rafik Hariris assassination in 2005. The censors had disapproved of a scene that referenced a USB memory stick with documents on it about Hariri's death.

The State Council even ruled that General Security can exercise prior censorship of film plots itself, which is a very broad interpretation of the law and an infringement on freedom of expression, Frangieh said. But it hasnt yet ruled on Mitris film, and we hope that the ban will be overturned in the end. Giving a voice to the victims of displacement during the civil war cannot be viewed as inciting sectarian tensions. It is very important for a Lebanese artist to have access to her or his main audience in Lebanon.

According to Raidy, the social impact of censorship in Lebanon is clear. People arent allowed to speak about very important and unsolved things, he said.

About the taboo on discussing the war and displaced people, he said, This is reality. It is silly to forbid people to talk about it. Plus, the country is very proud of its freedom of speech, and maybe it is not as bad as in the other countries, but not as good as it could be.

Raidy also warned against the dangers of self-censorship, stating, Journalists just dont investigate anymore for fear of getting in trouble. Even local filmdistributors dont procure a filmthat could be a problem for the General Security.

Indeed, many things must remain unsaid in a country that is proud of its liberty.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/06/lebanon-censorship-museum-freedom-of-expression.html

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Online database gives uncensored look into Lebanon's censorship - Al-Monitor

Twitter users, blocked by Trump, cry censorship – CBS46 News – CBS46 News Atlanta

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NEW YORK (AP) President Donald Trump may be the nation's tweeter-in-chief, but some Twitter users say he's violating the First Amendment by blocking people from his feed after they posted scornful comments.

Lawyers for two Twitter users sent the White House a letter Tuesday demanding they be un-blocked from the Republican president's @realDonaldTrump account.

"The viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional," wrote attorneys at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York.

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The tweeters one a liberal activist, the other a cyclist who says he's a registered Republican have posted and retweeted plenty of complaints and jokes about Trump.

They say they found themselves blocked after replying to a couple of his recent tweets. The activist, Holly O'Reilly, posted a video of Pope Francis casting a sidelong look at Trump and suggested this was "how the whole world sees you." The cyclist, Joe Papp, responded to the president's weekly address by asking why he hadn't attended a rally by supporters and adding, with a hashtag, "fakeleader."

Blocking people on Twitter means they can't easily see or reply to the blocker's tweets.

Although Trump started @realDonaldTrump as a private citizen and Twitter isn't government-run, the Knight institute lawyers argue that he's made it a government-designated public forum by using it to discuss policies and engage with citizens. Indeed, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trump's tweets are "considered official statements by the president."

The institute's executive director, Jameel Jaffer, compares Trump's Twitter account to a politician renting a privately-owned hall and inviting the public to a meeting.

"The crucial question is whether a government official has opened up some space, whether public or private, for expressive activity, and there's no question that Trump has done that here," Jaffer said. "The consequence of that is that he can't exclude people based solely on his disagreement with them."

The users weren't told why they were blocked. Their lawyers maintain that the connection between their criticisms and the cutoff was plain.

Still, there's scant law on free speech and social media blocking, legal scholars note.

"This is an emerging issue," says Helen Norton, a University of Colorado Law School professor who specializes in First Amendment law.

Morgan Weiland, an affiliate scholar with Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, says the blocked tweeters' complaint could air key questions if it ends up in court. Does the public forum concept apply in privately run social media? Does it matter if an account is a politician's personal account, not an official one?

San Francisco-based Twitter Inc. declined to comment. The tweeters aren't raising complaints about the company.

___

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed from Washington.

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Twitter users, blocked by Trump, cry censorship - CBS46 News - CBS46 News Atlanta

Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and …

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EXECUTIVE ORDER

- - - - - - -

PROMOTING FREE SPEECH AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to guide the executive branch in formulating and implementing policies with implications for the religious liberty of persons and organizations in America, and to further compliance with the Constitution and with applicable statutes and Presidential Directives, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. It shall be the policy of the executive branch to vigorously enforce Federal law's robust protections for religious freedom. The Founders envisioned a Nation in which religious voices and views were integral to a vibrant public square, and in which religious people and institutions were free to practice their faith without fear of discrimination or retaliation by the Federal Government. For that reason, the United States Constitution enshrines and protects the fundamental right to religious liberty as Americans' first freedom. Federal law protects the freedom of Americans and their organizations to exercise religion and participate fully in civic life without undue interference by the Federal Government. The executive branch will honor and enforce those protections.

Sec. 2. Respecting Religious and Political Speech. All executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall, to the greatest extent practicable and to the extent permitted by law, respect and protect the freedom of persons and organizations to engage in religious and political speech. In particular, the Secretary of the Treasury shall ensure, to the extent permitted by law, that the Department of the Treasury does not take any adverse action against any individual, house of worship, or other religious organization on the basis that such individual or organization speaks or has spoken about moral or political issues from a religious perspective, where speech of similar character has, consistent with law, not ordinarily been treated as participation or intervention in a political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) a candidate for public office by the Department of the Treasury. As used in this section, the term "adverse action" means the imposition of any tax or tax penalty; the delay or denial of tax-exempt status; the disallowance of tax deductions for contributions made to entities exempted from taxation under section 501(c)(3) of title 26, United States Code; or any other action that makes unavailable or denies any tax deduction, exemption, credit, or benefit.

Sec. 3. Conscience Protections with Respect to Preventive-Care Mandate. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall consider issuing amended regulations, consistent with applicable law, to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate promulgated under section 300gg-13(a)(4) of title 42, United States Code.

Sec. 4. Religious Liberty Guidance. In order to guide all agencies in complying with relevant Federal law, the Attorney General shall, as appropriate, issue guidance interpreting religious liberty protections in Federal law.

Sec. 5. Severability. If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any individual or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its other provisions to any other individuals or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE, May 4, 2017.

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Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and ...

The Lefts War on Free Speech – Imprimis

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Kimberley Strassel Author, The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech

Kimberley Strassel writes the weekly Potomac Watch column for The Wall Street Journal, where she is also a member of the editorial board. A graduate of Princeton University, her previous positions at the Journal include news assistant in Brussels, internet reporter in London, commercial real estate reporter in New York, assistant editorial features editor, columnist for OpinionJournal.com, and senior editorial page writer. In 2013 she served as a Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hillsdale College, and in 2014 she was a recipient of the Bradley Prize. She is the author of The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech.

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 26, 2017, at Hillsdale Colleges Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

I like to introduce the topic of free speech with an anecdote about my children. I have three kids, ages twelve, nine, and five. They are your average, normal kidswhich means they live to annoy the heck out of each other.

Last fall, sitting around the dinner table, the twelve-year-old was doing a particularly good job at this with his youngest sister. She finally grew so frustrated that she said, Oliver, you need to stop talkingforever. This inspired a volley of protests about free speech rights, and ended with them yelling shut up at each other. Desperate to stop the fighting and restore order, I asked each of them in turn to tell me what they thought free speech meant.

The twelve-year-old went first. A serious and academic child, he gave a textbook definition that included Congress shall make no law, an evocation of James Madison, a tutorial on the Bill of Rights, and warnings about certain exceptions for public safety and libel. I was happy to know the private-school fees were yielding something.

The nine-year-old went next. A rebel convinced that everyone ignores her, she said that she had no idea what public safety or libel were, but that it doesnt matter, because free speech means there should never be any restrictions on anything that anybody says, anytime or anywhere. She added that we could all start by listening more to what she says.

Then it was the five-year-olds turn. You could tell shed been thinking hard about her answer. She fixed both her brother and sister with a ferocious stare and said: Free speech is that you can say what you wantas long as I like it.

It was at this moment that I had one of those sudden insights as a parent. I realized that my oldest was a constitutional conservative, my middle child a libertarian, and my youngest a socialist with totalitarian tendencies.

With that introduction, my main point today is that weve experienced over the past eight years a profound shift in our political culture, a shift that has resulted in a significant portion of our body politic holding a five-year-olds view of free speech. What makes this shift notable is that unlike most changes in politics, you can trace it back to one day: January 21, 2010, the day the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling and restored free speech rights to millions of Americans.

For nearly 100 years up to that point, both sides of the political aisle had used campaign finance lawsI call them speech lawsto muzzle their political opponents. The Right used them to push unions out of elections. The Left used them to push corporations out of elections. These speech laws kept building and building until we got the mack daddy of them allMcCain-Feingold. It was at this point the Supreme Court said, Enough. A five-judge majority ruled that Congress had gone way too far in violating the Constitutions free speech protections.

The Citizens United ruling was viewed as a blow for freedom by most on the Right, which had in recent years gotten some free speech religion, but as an unmitigated disaster by the Left. Over the decades, the Left had found it harder and harder to win policy arguments, and had come to rely more and more on these laws to muzzle political opponents. And here was the Supreme Court knocking back those laws, reopening the floodgates for non-profits and corporations to speak freely again in the public arena.

In the Lefts view, the ruling couldnt have come at a worse time. Remember the political environment in 2010. Democrats were experiencing an enormous backlash against the policies and agenda of the Obama administration. There were revolts over auto bailouts, stimulus spending, and Obamacare. The Tea Party movement was in full swing and vowing to use the midterm elections to effect dramatic change. Democrats feared an electoral tidal wave would sweep them out of Congress.

In the weeks following the Citizens United ruling, the Left settled on a new strategy. If it could no longer use speech laws against its opponents, it would do the next best thingit would threaten, harass, and intimidate its opponents out of participation. It would send a message: conservatives choosing to exercise their constitutional rights will pay a political and personal price.

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The Lefts War on Free Speech - Imprimis

Harvard admission decision prompts debate over free speech – The Boston Globe

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Craig F. Walker/globe staff

The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library in Harvard Yard in Cambridge.

A nationwide debate has erupted over Harvard Universitys recent decision to rescind admission offers to at least 10 students because of extremely offensive memes they posted in a private Facebook chat.

Some higher education specialists call the punishment appropriate, but others say that Harvard ignored its own claim to embrace free speech and that it missed an opportunity to educate those students about their poor choices.

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I dont know what lesson these students have learned, other than to keep their mouth shut, said Will Creeley, a senior vice president at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, based in Philadelphia.

The incident comes at a time when free speech has become a flashpoint on college campuses across the country. Concern about acceptance and inclusivity has in some cases led administrators to curtail what might otherwise be seen as students freedom to act and speak how they choose.

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This is true at Harvard, where for the past year the school has been embroiled in a debate about whether the university can punish students for clubs they join off campus. Few on campus seem to support a group of off-campus, exclusive all-male social clubs, but many students, professors, and alumni nonetheless say the university went too far in trying to punish members by restricting their on-campus privileges.Administrators, meanwhile, say the clubs foster a judgmental and unsafe culture that Harvard does not condone.

For many young people, memes the wild variety of funny captions over memorable images are a second language.

The recent incident involving the Facebook memes took place in April, when administrators were sent copies of memes that students had posted in a private group chat on Facebook whose members had been admitted to the class of 2021.

The messages made sexual jokes about the Holocaust, implied that child abuse was sexually arousing, and poked fun at suicide and Mexicans.

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Harvard has declined to comment directly on the situation but did say the school reserves the right to withdraw admission for a variety of reasons, including if a student engages in behavior that brings into question their honesty, maturity, or moral character.

One of the students who lost her seat is the daughter of major donors to the university, according to correspondence reviewed by the Globe.

News of the rescinded applications comes less than two weeks after Harvard President Drew Faust used her commencement address to passionately defend free speech.

We must remember that limiting some speech opens the dangerous possibility that the speech that is ultimately censored may be our own, Faust said in the speech.

If some words are to be treated as equivalent to physical violence and silenced or even prosecuted, who is to decide which words? Freedom of expression, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said long ago, protects not only free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought we hate. We need to hear those hateful ideas so our society is fully equipped to oppose and defeat them, she said, according to an online copy of her remarks.

Creeley, of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the organization has seen a spike in the past decade of faculty and students disciplined for online speech that sometimes has nothing to do with their official capacities at the school. The Harvard case was unique because the students had not matriculated yet, he said.

In some instances, administrators overreact, Creeley said, citing a Yale lecturer who resigned in 2015 after she came under attack for challenging students to stand up for their right to wear Halloween costumes that could be construed as offensive.

I can help but think that no matter how offensive these jokes may be to most if not all, that theres been an opportunity missed in terms of the possibility of educating these students, Creeley said.

Wendy Kaminer, a lawyer, author, and former board member of the American Civil Liberties Union, said Harvard should not have rescinded admission since the students made no actual threats against people, she said.

I guess you could say there is no free speech at Harvard; there is only speech of which the administration does not disapprove, she said.

Others disagree. Jonathan P. Epstein, a senior vice president at the higher education consulting firm Whiteboard Higher Education in Waltham, works with college administrators daily and said he has heard little objection.

From what Ive heard, counselors have been telling students for years ... that anything that you do online is essentially part of your application, Epstein said.

Harvard did not tell students they cant make those jokes, he said, but simply that it does not want students who act that way to attend the school.

Howard Gardner, a professor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said this is not a question of free speech. Any community needs to observe certain standards, and admission to Harvard is a privilege, he said in an e-mail.

The students have learned a lesson that they will never forget, he said.

Continued here:

Harvard admission decision prompts debate over free speech - The Boston Globe

Free Speech Group Threatens to Sue Trump if he Doesn’t Unblock Blocked Twitter Users – Heat Street

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Afirst amendment institute sent a letter to President Trump demanding he unblock all people hes blocked on Twitter or face legal action.

The Knight First Amendment Institute, which sent the letter, argues that the President, by blocking his critics, has violated the First Amendment rights of those people.

In a letter sent [yesterday] to President Trump, the Knight First Amendment Institute asked the President to unblock the Twitter accounts of individuals denied access to his account after they criticized or disagreed with him, or face legal action to protect the First Amendment rights of the blocked individuals, the Institutes press release read.

According to the Institute, Trumps Twitter account is a designated public forum and therefore subjected to the constitutionalfree speech guarantees that prohibits the government from silencing people in public places due to their views.

The Knight Institute asked the President to unblock its clients, or to direct his subordinates to do so, the release added.

Multiple people have recently taken to Twitter toannounce that they were blocked by the President on Twitter. A Jimmy Kimmel Live! comedy writer, Bess Kalb, wasblocked by Trump because, according to him, she hurt his feelings. (Most likely its due to her lame jokes.)

Some users have suggested the comedy writer contact the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and sue Trump for violating The Presidential Records Act whichguarantees the public have access to Trumps public records, in this case they mean his Twitter feed.

The Institute documented another case where a person was blocked by Trump. A Twitter user named @@AynRandPaulRyan was blocked after tweeting at Trump a gifof the Pope lookinggloomy.

Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institutes executive director, claimed This is a context in which the Constitution precludes the President from making up his own rules.

Though the architects of the Constitution surely didnt contemplate presidential Twitter accounts, they understood that the President must not be allowed to banish views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable. Having opened this forum to all comers, the President cant exclude people from it merely because he dislikes what theyre saying.

Senior litigator at the Institute, Katie Fallow, meanwhile, said that When new communications platforms are developed, core First Amendment principles cannot be left behind.

The First Amendment disallows the President from blocking critics on Twitter just as it disallows mayors from ejecting critics from town halls.

Some First Amendmentexperts, however, werent sure theres a case to be made that the President must unblock the blocked users.Neil Richards, a professor at Washington Universitys law school, specializing in First Amendment theory, told WIREDthat The question of whether the Presidents Twitter feed is a public forum is a more complicated question.

The law here is famously muddled, because its trying to prevent the government from discriminating against people who speak on public streets and parks, but its trying to fight the urge to make everything a public forum.

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Free Speech Group Threatens to Sue Trump if he Doesn't Unblock Blocked Twitter Users - Heat Street

Republican Rep Floats Cutting Funding From Schools That Limit Free Speech – The Daily Caller

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Florida Republican Rep. Francis Rooney, a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, suggested Tuesday night that members may consider restricting funds from universities that limit free speech rights on campus.

I think there is a bill out there to not fund the University of California at Berkeley for what they did. And I think its certainly worth considering just like the idea of not funding sanctuary cities, Rooney said on Patriot Tonight on SiriusXMs Patriot channel.

Rooney went on to say, Its certainly worth considering cutting back funds federal funds to schools that dont believe enough in our Constitution and our free speech to defend it.

Following violence early in the yearthat broke out on the campus of UC Berkeley because of protests against libertarian provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, President Donald Trump tweeted, If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view NO FEDERAL FUNDS?

California Democrats lashed out at the president for his tweet. California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, whosedistrict includes Berkeleys campus, said in a statement:

Berkeley has a proud history of dissent and students were fully within their rights to protest peacefully. However, I am disappointed by the unacceptable acts of violence last night which were counterproductive and dangerous, she said. President Donald Trump cannot bully our university into silence. Simply put, President Trumps empty threat to cut funding from UC Berkeley is an abuse of power.

Rooney, however, believes such legislation would have support in the House.

I think there would be a lot of people that would want to do that and I think theres a couple of bills in place, he said.

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Republican Rep Floats Cutting Funding From Schools That Limit Free Speech - The Daily Caller

MAP: Growing number of states consider free-speech bills – Campus Reform

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At least 13 states have now proposed or implemented legislation designed to protect free speech on college campuses.

While Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia, and Arizona have already passed bills that would crack down on disruptive university demonstrators and so-called free speech zones, legislators from California, Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin are attempting to push similar bills through their own state chambers.

"There is good evidence for believing that respect for free-speech has declined in the last few years."

[RELATED: Prof: college campuses are not free-speech areas]

A Louisiana state senate panel on Thursday, for instance, cleared a free-speech measure, House Bill 269, advancing it to the next step of the legislative process.

According to a report by The Advocate, State Rep. Lance Harris, a Republican lawmaker behind the initiative, called the bill necessary to protect free expression on campuses.

"I bring this bill because of things happening across the country," Harris remarked, noting that "this is something other states have addressed or are addressing as we speak."

In New Hampshire, the introduced House Bill 477 would limit the ability of an academic institution to "to restrict a student's right to speak in a public forum."

Similar legislation in Michigan seeks to develop "a policy on free expression" by underscoring that "it is not the proper role of the community college to shield individuals from speech protected by the First Amendment."

While not precisely identical, most of the bills seek to address similar problems across college campuses, such as the increasingly common free speech zones and the rise in campus disruptions, as seen most recently at place like the University of California, Berkeley and Evergreen State College.

Accordingly, a legislative push out of California, a heavily Democratic state, is looking to penalize demonstrators who prevent controversial figures from expressing their views on campus after Berkeley experienced some of the most violent and destructive protests in recent memory.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Republican legislators in the state have responded to the incident by backing a measure that would restrict the university's ability to regulate student speech on campus.

[RELATED: Harvard students protest free-speech event as hate speech]

The recent spike in free-speech legislation comes after the Goldwater Institute and Stanley Kurtz produced model legislation to help state lawmakers craft their own bills around the country.

Weve had campus demonstrations since the 1960's that were not properly respectful of freedom of speech, so you could say that theres nothing new here, but I do think that there is good evidence for believing that respect for free-speech has declined in the last few years even beyond what it has been, Kurtz told Campus Reform when introducing the model legislation in February. We know this from various surveys and of course the rise of things like microaggressions, safe-spaces, and trigger-warnings. They all indicate to me a generation that has been educated by left-leaning professors who werent fans of free speech themselves.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @nikvofficial

Editor's note: This article has been amended since its initial publication to include legislation in Michigan and New Hampshire.

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MAP: Growing number of states consider free-speech bills - Campus Reform

Free Speech, Muhammad Cartoons, and Islamism in Europe: Dave Rubin’s Interview with Flemming Rose – Learn Liberty (blog)

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Dave Rubin: Were continuing our partnership with Learn Liberty this week, and joining me is an author, journalist, editor, and free-speech advocate, Flemming Rose. Welcome to The Rubin Report.

Flemming Rose: Nice to be here.

Rubin: Im glad to have you here, because you are sort of at the epicenter of everything that our current free speech battle is all about. I guess Im going to give you an open, easy question to start. How did you end up in the middle of this battle?

Rose: I didnt choose this fight. It was imposed upon me eleven years ago, when I was the editor responsible for publication of the so-called Danish Muhammad cartoons. They didnt come out of the blue, as some people sometimes think. They were published as a response to an ongoing conversation in Denmark and Western Europe about the problem of self-censorship when it comes to treating Islam.

Back then, I think I was pondering two questions. Is self-censorship taking place when it comes to dealing with Islam? Do we make a difference between Islam and other religions and ideologies, question number one? Question number two, if there is self-censorship, is that self-censorship based in reality, or is it just the consequence of a sick imagination not based in reality? Is the fear real, or is it fake? Eleven years later, I think we can say for sure the answer to both questions is yes. Yeah, there is self-censorship, and the self-censorship is based in reality because people were killed in Paris. I live with bodyguards 24/7 when Im back home in Denmark, so it is a real problem.

Rubin: Yeah, its so interesting to me that eleven years ago, 2005, you were addressing the idea of self-censorship, because thats obviously different than what we have here with the First Amendment, where the government cant censor us. My awakening over the last couple years about this has been about the self-censorship part, that we are doing it to ourselves. Just to back up to the specifics of what happened, you guys solicited cartoons from people, right?

Rose: Yes, we did, yes.

Rubin: Tell me about the process.

Rose: It started with a childrens book. A Danish writer was writing a book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. In Denmark, when you publish a childrens book, you need illustrations of the main character. I suppose it would be the same here.

Rubin: Same here; that goes across borders, yeah.

Rose: It turned out that the writer had difficulties finding an illustrator who wanted to take on the job. He went public saying, Ive written this book, but I had difficulties finding an illustrator because of fear. The guy who finally took on the job insisted on anonymity, which is a form of self-censorship. You do not want to appear under your real name, because you are afraid of what might happen to you.

In fact, this illustrator later acknowledged that he insisted on anonymity because he was afraid. He made a reference to the fate of Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was killed in 2004 because of a documentary he did that was critical of Islam.

Rubin: Who then many people know, the note to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Rose: Exactly, yes.

Rubin: Who I think is one of the greatest people on planet Earth

Rose: Yes, who is a good friend of mine.

Rubin: Saying that they were coming after her next, yeah.

Rose: Exactly, and the second individual was Salman Rushdie, who in 1989 was the object of a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, and had to live in hiding for many years. That was the context, and some people were saying, Oh, this was just a media stunt by this childrens writer to sell more books. Other people were saying, No, that is self-censorship.

Through the commissioning of those cartoons, I wanted to put focus on this issue: is self-censorship taking place, or is it not, and how do illustrators and cartoonists in Denmark face this issue? I received twelve cartoons that were published September 30, 2005, and I wrote a short text laying out the rationale behind this journalistic project.

I dont think that it in any way transgressed what we usually do. As an editor and journalist, if you hear about a problem, you want to find out if its true or not. In this case, we asked people not to talk but to show, not to tell but to show, how they look at this issue of self-censorship. In fact, I think only three out of twelve cartoons depicted the prophet Muhammad, so there was no stereotyping, no demonizing, even though a lot of focus has been put on one cartoon, of the prophet with a bomb in his turban. That, to me, is in fact a depiction of reality. There are Muslims who commit violence and murder in the name of the prophet.

Rubin: Yeah, and not only was that theory proven, but it was put into action because over 200 people were subsequently killed throughout the world after they found out about these cartoons. Before we get to the aftermath, when you decided to do this, and youd done some controversial stuff before thatand well talk about reporting in the Soviet Union and that kind of stuffbut when you decided to do this, did you have any inkling that anything like this could possibly happen?

Rose: No, and anyone who today says, You should have known, I think its a rationalization after the fact. There was a lot of coincidences, and in fact cartoons of the prophet Muhammad had been published before without this kind of reaction. It just happened so that a coincidence of different factors, and the domestic political situation in different Muslim countries, exploited those cartoons to promote their own interests and agenda, and it all exploded.

Rubin: Yeah, and it probably had a little to do with just that it was sort of the beginnings of social media, so things could travel around the world quicker.

Rose: Yeah, but you know Dave, if this had

Rubin: Once people saw

Rose: If this had been today, I cant imagine. We didnt have Facebook. We didnt have Twitter back in 2005. We were just at the beginning of it.

Rubin: Just the beginning, yeah.

Rose: Today, it would have been even worse.

Rubin: Yeah, so you publish it. Now theres the reaction, theres some violence. What was it like for you at that time, and did the magazine do anything to help you, protect? Were they taking your side? You were the editor, so you were pretty high up, a pretty big deal.

Rose: Yeah, the whole newspaper stood behind me, but it took a while. The cartoons were published in September, and the violence only erupted at the end of January, beginning of February the following year. You had to build up. This also tells you a little bit about the fact that this was no coincidence. People had to plan, to promote. It wasnt spontaneous, just happening right after the publication.

Rubin: Do you have any evidence of that, or who do you think was actually

Rose: Yes, there are researchers who have been travelling and talking to people in different parts of the world where demonstrations happened, and its very clear that the government of Egypt was in the drivers seat in the beginning. The Fatah movement on the West Bank in the Palestinian territories were also behind this, because they were in an election up against Hamas, with the Islamist movement there, and they wanted to be the real protector of Muslims interests. Same in Pakistan, same in Qatar and Saudi Arabia; yes, absolutely, this was not a spontaneous uprising.

Usually I say, never have so many people reacted so violently to something that so few people in fact have seen. Very few people had seen the cartoons, and the man behind the attack on the Danish embassy in Tehran, in Iran, a Danish journalist, found him several months later and talked to him. When he showed him the cartoon of the prophet with a bomb in his turban, his angry reaction was not against the bomb, but he said, Why does the prophet look like a Sikh and not like an Arab?

Rubin: Wow, that tells you a lot right there. You make two interesting location points, because saying that Fatah, which was really the secular counterpart to Hamas

Rose: Secular.

Rubin: They were using it as, as you said, were protecting Islam. You had the secularists actually fanning the flames

Rose: Yes, and it was the same region.

Rubin: It was the secular. The same thing in Egypt, where Mubarak was the secular leader

Rose: He was up against the Muslim Brotherhood, who had been allowed to run an election for the first time in many years in the fall of 2005.

Rubin: Ive never thought of it in such interesting terms like that, but in a weird way, then, the secularists sometimes are more dangerous than the actual Islamists, because theyre playing both sides, right? Were you shocked that thats how it turned out?

Rose: I didnt know at the time. It took me some studying to figure out what actually had happened. It was very surreal. Sitting in Copenhagen in the beginning of February of 2006, and looking, watching TV and Danish embassies in flames in Beirut and Damascus, I couldnt make the connection in my mind. How come that people can go crazy like this several thousand kilometers away to something that had been published in a Danish newspaper three or four months before? It seemed surreal.

I would say, back then I didnt understand the gravity of it all. It took me several years, and it was only I would say in January of 2015 when my friends and colleagues at Charlie Hebdo in Paris were killed that I finally understood that I will have probably to live with security probably for the rest of my life. I somehow illusioned myself created an illusion that somehow it may go away, but it wont, and these people, they do have a long memory. I dont find it very traumatic myself, but I just know that I somehow will have to manage this situation.

Rubin: Yeah, so what was the reaction like? Your newspaper defended you, but what about the other publications within the country? Were people saying, Man, he just created a huge problem for us? Were they actually defending free speech at the time?

Rose: Not everybody; the country was divided, and it was really something new for Denmark, a small, peaceful country. We had never experienced anything like that, and the prime minister said it was the worst foreign policy crisis in Denmark since World War II. No, back then I was the object of a lot of criticism and anger, and I was labeled a fascist, Nazi, Islamophobe, and so on and so forth. Today, its different, I would say. Im less of a controversial figure today in Denmark than I was in 2006, because people have finally understood that this was not an empty provocation, just to stir up things. Its very difficult when you look around the world and see what is happening, that this was just an invention of my sick imagination.

The problem is real, and we have somehow to face it. I also had the time to write three books in fact now about this issue, one of them published in English about the whole thing, and free speech. I think people understand that Im not a warmonger, and Im not out to get Muslims, but I think Islam and Muslims have to accept the same kind of treatment as everybody else in our society.

In that sense, usually I make a little bit of a joke, but still its serious when I say that the publication of those cartoons was in fact an integration project in the sense that we were integrating Muslims in Denmark into a tradition of religious satire. Thereby we were saying to Muslims, We do not expect more of you. We do not expect less of you, but we expect of you exactly the same as we do of every other group and individual in Denmark, and therein lies an act of recognition. We say that youre not foreigners, youre not outsiders, you are part of society.

Rubin: Right, weve welcomed you to our society, but you have to be part of our society, not a separate part. Do you think that

Rose: You have to play by the same rules; free speech, we do have free speech, and it applies, the right to criticize and ridicule religion.

Rubin: Yeah, just to probably get rid of some of your naysayers real quick, you clearly do. I know this is the truth, but I just want you to say it so that people wont selectively hear anything. You do make the distinction between the ideas of Islam and Muslim people, correct?

Rose: Yes.

Rubin: You fully understand that difference, and all that?

Rose: Yes, I think any idea needs to be criticized and open for debate and scrutiny, but you shouldnt attack or demonize individuals and people.

Rubin: I feel silly sort of having to ask you that, but I know just for the nature of the way these things work

Rose: I dont have Muslims for breakfast.

Rubin: Okay, good.

Rose: In fact, some of the people who supported me back in 2006 now criticize me because I have supported the right of radical imams in Denmark to speak out and defend Sharia law and discrimination of women, as long as they do not do it in practice. We have the separation of words and deeds. I think people should have a right to say whatever they want, as long as they do not insight criminal activity and violence. I have in fact defended the radical imams, who would have liked to see me I guess in a different place than I am right now.

Rubin: Right, and thats what having principles when its hard to is all about. You are the very person who published these cartoons, now defending these peoples abilities to do things that are very against the West, very against your own personal beliefs. Is there some line there, or is it only violence? Im with you on that, that to me its the call to violence that then changes what free speech is. In a case where there are imams that we know, that are in Denmark and Sweden and some of these other countries, that are literally throwing for the overthrow of the government, for Sharia law to be implemented, horrible things about women and gay people and all those things, now theyre playing that line very closely to

Rose: As long as they do not incite violence, I think they should have a right to say whatever they want. In fact, I believe this not only as a matter of principle, but also as a matter of practical reality. You and I fight these people and their ideas in the best way, not through bans and criminalization, but through an open and free debate where we challenge them in the public space. I have never seen people change their beliefs just because they were criminalized.

Rubin: Right, just because of a ban or a punch or a

Rose: It drives them into the underground, and it makes them sexy, in a way, when they are not allowed to air all their bullshit in public. I believe its the most effective way to fight them. I believe that you should never criminalize words just because of their content, only because of what they call for, that is, incitement to violence. Apart from that, Im in favor of a very narrowly defined libel law, and Im also in favor of the protection of a right to privacy. I believe that privacy and free speech, in some instances, are two sides of the same coin. If you know that the government is surveilling you at home, you will speak less freely, and that is an invasion of your privacy.

Rubin: What would you say to the people, because this is the argument that I heard just in the last couple weeks when I was defending the right of Richard Spencer to speak his stuff and not get punched; as I said on Twitter, I have family members on both sides of my family who died in the Holocaust. I grew up knowing Holocaust survivors. Its not something that I take lightly, but I have to defend free speech when its uncomfortable speech.

People, of course, were saying I was a Nazi and a white supremacist and all of this nonsense, but a few people said, This is different. If these people wont play by the rules of decency in society, then we cant treat them with the same thing. Now, I dont agree with that, but what do you think is a good argument against that?

Rose: Oh, I think we did very well during the Cold War in Denmark, not banning Communism. We didnt even ban Nazism, though we were occupied by the Nazis for five years during the Second World War. Richard Spencer enjoys the same civil liberties and rights as you and me. You cannot make a distinction. If you go down that road, it just takes a new political majority, with people like Richard Spencer in power, and he can use the same principles against you and me, and against Muslims or blacks or other minorities.

Its very important to defend these principles for your enemies, because it just takes. Youre just an election away from a possible other majority that can use exactly the same kind of violence against you, that you are defending when its used against your enemies. I think this is what democracy is about, what a free and liberal foundation of our society is about, that you. This is what tolerance in fact is about. Tolerance means that you do not ban, and you do not use violence, threats, and intimidation against the things that you hate.

A lot of people hate the ideology and the values of Richard Spencer, but we should not use violence and try to intimidate and threaten him, and ban what hes saying. That is the key notion of tolerance in a democracy. Unfortunately, we have forgotten about that. Today tolerance means yes, you may have a right to say what you want, what you say, but I think you should shut up. Its become a tool to silence your opponents, but in fact it means that you have a right to say whatever you want as long as you do not use violence and bans.

Rubin: Right, and of course then theres the slippery slope argument which is that if you say, All right, you can punch a Nazi or silence a Nazi, and then you come along and defend their free speech, why cant they punch you, and why cant they punch me for having you on my show?

Rose: Exactly.

Rubin: The list goes on and on.

Rose: Yeah, and when you open that door, you never know when it stops. Thats very precarious in a young democracy, because sometimes a democracy wants to defend itself. I spent time in Russia after the fall, during its time as the Soviet Union, after the fall of the Soviet Union, and that transition in Russia from Communism to democracy in fact got off track because they started bending the rules in order to defend democracy against the enemies of democracy. Here you are, twenty years later, with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, and a lot less space for the individual to say and do what they want.

Rubin: Ive talked to a bunch of people. Ive had, I dont know. Do you know Tino Sanandaji, from [crosstalk]?

Rose: Yeah, Sweden, of course.

Rubin: Ive had him on, and I get a lot of mail from people in Sweden particularly, but Denmark also, talking about the rise of Islamism, and talking about how this is happening in the mosques, and its happening in the public square now, and we know that theres a rape epidemic and a whole series of problems. If the best defense is to let these people say what they want, isnt the problem that were still seeing these bad ideas rise? Is the problem of Islamism worse now than it was, say, five years ago in Denmark?

Rose: It is, but

Rubin: So then, isnt that an inherent conflict then, with the idea of sort of full free speech, which again, Im for?

Rose: No, I think you have to go further back to identify the root causes. We had an understanding. I taught immigrants the Danish language twenty-five, thirty years ago in Denmark. My wife is an immigrant herself, by the way, from the former Soviet Union. We had this understanding, of people arrive and they just stay long enough in our country, they will become like us, without telling them what the rules of the game are, what our values are, and so on and so forth.

Today, we understand that this doesnt happen in and by itself. Even if you learn the language, it doesnt mean that you start to support the values and the foundation of society. We have been too weak on communicating the foundation of our society, and why free speech matters to us, and why you have to accept that your religion may be the object of satire and criticism and so on and so forth, that homosexuality is not a criminal offense, that equality between the sexes is crucial. Its one of the most important things we achieved in the second half of the 20th century.

Were not willing to give that up, and we have been very bad at communicating these ideas. It all exploded during the cartoon crisis. I think thats why we still talk about those cartoons, because that conflict made it very clear, this clash of values. No, I dont think that there is an inherent conflict. We had anti-democratic movements and forces also during the Cold War. We had a legal Communist Party in Denmark that wanted to overthrow the government. They sat in parliament. They had their own newspapers. They had their own unions. They had their own festivals. They had their own schools, but we did not criminalize them. We confronted them, and had this debate in public, and it turned out in the end that reason and the values of liberty prevailed.

Rubin: Yeah, so this is really, sunlight is the best disinfectant argument

Rose: I think so.

Rubin: Eventually, these things will crumble because they dont lead us to actual human liberty and the things that people want, really.

Rose: Yeah, and if we want to get more Muslims on our side, we have to be consistent and make it clear to them that if there are individuals, dissenters within Muslim communities, they have an opportunity to leave their religion, and we have an obligation to protect them.

Rubin: I suspect I know the answer to this, but when Ive had certain people including Ayaan and Maajid Nawaz and other Muslim reformers like Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar and Ali Rizvi and Sarah Haider and many of these people on the show, theres been a theme, which is that the left abandoned them. They started talking about these ideas, not being bigots in that they are brown themselves, and that their families often are still practicing Muslims. In the case of Maajid, he still is Muslim. Some of them are ex-Muslims, but that they felt abandoned by the side that they wanted as their ally, or that should have been their natural ally. I suspect you got plenty of that as well.

Rose: Yes, absolutely. I think thats true, because if you look at the Enlightenment and the West, the criticism of religion came from the left, but the left abandoned its insistence on criticizing religion when Islam arrived and became a hot issue. I think thats [inaudible] to the core values of the left. Religion is power, and its a way to establish social control, whether it is by Christianity, by Islam, or by other kinds of religion.

In Denmark, the socialist party in Denmark, for fifty years they were in favor of getting rid of the blasphemy law. Today, they defend the blasphemy law, because they now believe its important to have it to protect Muslims, and I think thats crazy.

Rubin: Are people right now being prosecuted under the blasphemy law?

Rose: No, its a sleeping law, I would say, but we see that hate speech law. We also have a law against racism. We see that people are in fact being prosecuted for racism, for saying things that actually is blasphemyfor instance, comparing Islam with Nazism. Its criticism of ideas, not of individuals, so there also is a slippery slope in that direction.

Rubin: What do you make of the far right parties that seem to be growing throughout Europe? Im not sure, is there a far right party thats now gaining momentum in Denmark? I dont know specifically.

Rose: It depends on how to define it. I

Rubin: I dont like the phrase far right anymore

Rose: Right, exactly.

Rubin: Because our whole thing is so crossed up now, that I think what used to be far right is thought now as more center, because theyre the only ones talking about certain issues. That then brings in a lot of centrist people who otherwise wouldnt vote for the right.

Rose: We have two parties of this kind, one an old party that in fact is the second biggest party in Denmark, the Danish Peoples Party, which I would say is the second social democratic party opposed to immigration. We have a rather new party that is more conservative for small government, but also anti-immigration. I would not call them far right. They are not outside. They dont want to undermine the political order through violence. For instance, in Greece you have Golden Dawn, which is more a fascist movement, and they have nothing in common with Golden Dawn, even not with Marine Le Pen in France.

Rubin: Do you think that this is the route that Europe is going to go? It seems like its just going to be the reaction to what has happened. Merkel opened the doors to what, 1.1 million people or so?

Rose: Yeah.

Rubin: Even if 95 percent of them integrate perfectly, it doesnt take a lot of people. First of all, 1.1 is a lot of people, but it doesnt take a lot of people to sow a lot of chaos.

Rose: Yeah, a couple of points; I think polarization will intensify. This year, we will have an election in the Netherlands where a populist party, where Geert Wilders probably will not get to run the government, but he may become the biggest party.

Rubin: What do you think of someone like Geert? Do you I know hes sort of A lot of people that I think I trust, basically, say he really straddles the line between bigotry and

Rose: I had a debate with him. Absolutely, and we disagree on the two most fundamental building blocks of a democracy, equality and freedom; equality before the law, and the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. He is in favor, if he gets the power, to abandon the right to freedom of religion for Muslims, building mosques, having faith-based schools, and so on and so forth, and also the freedom of speech. He wants to ban the Koran.

Hes not willing to provide the same fundamental freedoms to Muslims as to Christians, atheists, and all individuals. We disagree on the building blocks, and the funny thing is that if he gets into power, he will use exactly the same hate speech law against Muslims that the current government has used against him, for demonizing Muslims as a

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‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ Turns 50: The Newsweek Review of The Beatles’ Masterpiece – Newsweek

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The Beatles' landmark 1967 album,Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was released 50 years ago. A few weeks later, longtime Newsweek critic Jack Kroll wrote this historic review that has never been available online before now. Here's the original piece.

The problem of choosing Britain's new Poet Laureate is easy. The obvious choice is the Beatles. They would be the first laureates to be really popular since Tennysontheir extraordinary new LP, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, has been out for two weeks and has already sold 1.5 million copies in the U.S. alone. And the Beatles' recent LPs, Rubber Soul, Revolver, and now Sgt. Pepper, are really volumes of aural poetry in the McLuhan age.

Indeed, Sgt. Pepper is such an organic work (it took four months to make) that it is like a pop Faade,the suite of poems by Edith Sitwell musicalized by William Walton. Like Faade,Sgt. Pepper is a rollicking, probing language-and-sound vaudeville, which grafts skin from all three browshigh, middle and lowinto a pulsating collage about mid-century manners and madness.

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The vaudeville starts immediately on the first track, in which the Beatles, adding several horn players, create the "persona" of the albumSgt. Pepper's band, oompahing madly away with elephant-footed rhythms, evoking the good old days when music spoke straight to the people with tongues of brass, while dubbed-in crowds cheer and applaud as the Beatles make raucous fun of their own colossal popularity.

After this euphoric, ironic, nostalgic fanfare, the Beatles leave Sgt. Pepper polishing his cornet in the wings and go on with the show, creating little lyrics, dramas and satires on homely virtues, homely disasters, homely people, and all the ambiguities of home. "She's leaving home," sing John and Paul, as a harp flutters, a string group makes genteel aspidistra sounds and a lugubrious cello wraps the soggy English weather around the listener's ears. The song is a flabby family fiasco in miniature, spiking the horrors of the British hearth like a stripped-down Osborne play. "Me used to be angry young man," sings Paul in "Getting Better," and adds "it's getting better all the time," as the group sarcastically repeats "get-ting bet-ter, get-ting bet-ter" in those Liverpudlian accents.

The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was officially released on June 1, 1967, in Britain and a day later in America. Capitol/Parlophone

Getting better? Well, there's John's vision of a vinyl Arcadia, with its Sitwellian images:"Cellophane flowers of yellow and green...plasticine porters with looking-glass ties," which turns Wordsworth's idealized Lucy into a mod goddess, "Lucy in the sky with diamonds." And there's Paul announcing "I'm painting my room in the colorful way/And when my mind is wandering/There I will go/And it doesn't really matter if I'm wrong I'm right/Where I belong I'm right." But even this manifesto of psychedelic individualism is undercut as George's sitar boings one note relentlessly, like a giant mocking frog.

"Within You Without You" is George Harrison's beautiful new cuddle-up with Mother India. Backed by three cellos, eight violins, three tambouras, a dilruba, a tabla and a table-harp, George plays the sitar as he chants Vedantic verities such as "The time will come when you see we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you." These Himalayan homilies are given powerful effect by the wailing, undulating cascade of sound which turns the curved, infinite universe of Indian music into a perfect tonal setting for the new pantheism of the young. But even here, the Beatles, like Chaplin, deflate their own seriousness as the song endsto be followed by the sound of a crowd laughing.

Related: Was 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' really the first concept album? Let's investigate

Some critics have already berated the Beatles for the supersophisticated electronic technology on this record. But it is useless to lament the simple old days of the Mersey sound. The Beatles have lost their innocence, certainly, but loss of innocence is, increasingly, their theme and the theme of more "serious" new art, from the stories of Donald Barthelme to the plays of Harold Pinter. As the Beatles' more pugnacious colleagues, the Rolling Stones, put it: "Who wants yesterday's papers/Who wants yesterday's girl/Yesterday's papers are such bad news/The same thing applies to me and you."

The new Beatles are justified by the marvelous last number alone, "A Day in the Life," which was foolishly banned by the BBC because of its refrain "I'd love to turn you on." But this line means many things, coming as it does after a series of beautifully sorrowful stanzas in which John confronts the world's incessant bad news, sighing "Oh boy" with a perfect blend of innocence and spiritual exhaustion. Evoking the catatonic metropolitan crown (like Eliot's living dead flowing across London Bridge), John's wish to "turn you on" is a desire to start the bogged-down juices of life itself. This point is underscored by an overwhelming musical effect, using a 41-piece orchestraagrowling, bone-grinding crescendo that drones up like a giant crippled turbine struggling to spin new power into a foundered civilization. This number is the Beatles' "Waste Land," a superb achievement of their brilliant and startlingly effective popular art.

This review originally appeared in the June 26, 1967, issue of Newsweek, under the headline "It's Getting Better..."

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The Trouble With Atheism – Top Documentary Films

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The Trouble with Atheism is an hour-long documentary on atheism, presented by Rod Liddle. It aired on Channel 4 in December 2006. The documentary focuses on criticizing atheism, as well as science, for its perceived similarities to religion, as well as arrogance and intolerance. The programme includes interviews with a number of prominent scientists, including atheists Richard Dawkins and Peter Atkins and Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. It also includes an interview with Ellen Johnson, the president of American Atheists.

Liddle begins the documentary by surveying common criticisms of religion, and particularly antireligious arguments based on the prevalence of religious violence. He argues that the "very stupid human craving for certainty and justification", not religion, is to blame for this violence, and that atheism is becoming just as dogmatic as religion.

In order to support his thesis, Liddle presents numerous examples of actions and words by atheists which he argues are direct parallels of religious attitudes. He characterizes Atkins and Dawkins as "fundamentalist atheists" and "evangelists".

In response to atheistic appeals to science as a superior method for understanding the world than religion, Liddle argues that science itself is akin to religion: "the problem for atheists is that science may not be as far away from religion as you might imagine".

He describes Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory focused on particle physics, as a "temple to science", and characterizes Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species as a "sacred text" for atheists.

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Trump Evangelicals Face Growing Number of ‘Hidden Atheists … – AlterNet

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Photo Credit: ep_jhu / Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

Religion was a major backdrop in the 2016 election. Donald Trump campaigned hard in white Christian America, promising voters that he would essentially turn back the clock to an America when religion and Christians overall were more influential in the country.

This strategy paid off, asthe Washington Postreported: Exit polls show white evangelical voters voted in high numbers for Donald Trump,80-16 percent. Thats the most they have voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004.

White evangelicals are the religious group that most identifies with the Republican Party, and 76 percent of them say they are or lean Republican, according to a 2014survey. As a group, white evangelicalsmake upone-fifth of all registered voters and about one-third of all voters who identify with or lean toward the GOP.

So it is no surprise that Trump has quickly moved with anexecutive orderto relax restrictions on thepolitical activitiesof tax-exempt churches in an effort to strengthen the role of religion, in essence working to strengthen the political hand of churches in political campaigns.

Trump playing the conservative religious card is in stark contrast to the role nonbelievers play in American society. Atheists, those who disbelieve in the existence of god, comprise a growing sector of American society. Their numbers are often hidden in polls and generally undercounted because some fear reporting their identity and facing social stigmatization.

There have been various reports showing a marked increase in nonbelievers, including atheists, agnostics and others who do not identify with a religion or say that religion is not important to them. Between 2007 and 2014, the portion of Americans who do not believe in a god grew by over 10 percent, according to astudydone by thePew Research Center. The growing numbers of nonreligious people in the United States are propelled by generational change, asyoung people, who are more likely to be unaffiliated with a religion, reach adulthood and slowly replace their older and more religious counterparts.

A recentstudyby psychologists Will Gervais and Maxine Najle at the University of Kentucky concluded that the number of atheists in the United States exceeds 20 percent with a roughly 0.8 probability. This estimate is more than double the conclusion of the study collected over the telephone by Pew Research Center, which found that approximately 10 percent of Americans dont believe in god and only 3 percent of Americans identify asatheists. This disparity toward what is essentially the same question suggests that people are hesitant to identify themselves as atheists.Furthermore, a study byPRRIin 2016 revealed that more than 30 percent of atheists hide their disbelief from friends and family for fear of disapproval, suggesting that many might find an admission over the telephone similarly difficult.

To obtain accurate results, Gervais and Najle constructed a very subtle test that would remove the stigma around atheism.Using a sample population of 2,000 Americans, they asked respondents to answer true or false to seemingly banal statements such as I am a vegetarian or I own a dog.The control group responded to nine statements while the test group responded to the same nine statements plus an additional oneI do not believe in God.

Participants only had to acknowledge the number of statements that applied to them. They never had to deny believing in god or identifying as an atheist, which omitted any social stigma from the test.

By comparing the responses of the two groups, Gervais and Najle came to their conclusionapproximately 26 percent of Americans are atheists. Assuming the number of vegetarians and dog owners is the same between the two groups, any increase in the test group compared to the control group indicates the number of atheists.

The two psychologists admit that their study is not free of error, but they have undoubtedly proven that previous polls conducted over the telephone or in person have yielded deceptively small numbers.

In fact, another study performed by the Pew Research Center found evidence supporting the existence of social stigma around being openly atheist. Pew found that only a third of Americans feelwarmly toward atheists. Daniel Cox of PRRI wrote in FiveThirtyEight that a third of Americans believe that atheists should be banned frombecoming president, and a similar percent thinks that they should be prohibited from teaching in public schools. With pressure to conform to the dominant religious beliefs, some American atheists choose to hide their beliefs.

In an interview withSlate, Renee Johnson, a single lesbian mother in Point, Texas, said that she would rather have a big L or lesbian written across [her] shirt than a big A or atheist, because people are going to handle it better. Johnson is just one of many who feel uncertain about revealing their nonbelief in a country where religion and spirituality seem like national imperatives.

As the discrepancy between the poll performed by Gervais and Najle compared with previous polls indicates, the role of religion in the daily lives of Americans is becoming increasingly complex. Many polls require respondents to select a single religious identification from a list, which does not allow people to choose multiple answers. By this method, someone cant be Jewish and an atheist or Catholic and atheist. Although its possible to follow a religion for cultural, heritage or spiritual reasonsseparate from a belief in godin previous polls, religion and atheism have been considered mutually exclusive. This method of polling fails to recognize the possibility that religion may be determined by heritage and cultural background, rather than belief; it also presumes one concept of god.

However, ideas of god or spiritual forces are entirely subjective, as indicated in a study byGallup, which found that 89 percent of Americans believe in god, but only about half believe in an anthropomorphic god. The various studies about religion, belief and god exemplify how the United States necessitates having a society that can accept a full range of religious belief and spiritual ambiguity.

While feelings toward atheism are certainly changing60 percent of Americans reportknowingan atheist, which is significantly more than 10 years agothe stigma surrounding people who do not believe in god is continuing to stifle freedom of belief in America. As with his other attempts to turn back the clock in America, President Trumps remark inhis inaugural address about joining all Americans together with thesamealmighty Creator, threatens the intricate and varying histories, beliefs and ways of being that are present in this country.

Anna Sanford is an editorial assistant at AlterNet's office in Berkeley, CA.

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Trump Evangelicals Face Growing Number of 'Hidden Atheists ... - AlterNet

How should an atheist behave at a religious funeral – Toronto Star

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Just because you do not follow a relgion doesn't mean you don't share common values with those who do, Ken Gallinger tells a reader. ( dreamstime )

How is one to conduct themselves at a funeral when one doesnt practice the religion? I am a 55-year-old atheist. I know many elderly people and, as a result, have attended more than the average number of funerals. In the past I went through the motions of standing and sitting when instructed but never sang or participated in any responses. I am at the point now where even that feels wrong; I am not being true to my atheistic beliefs. Is there a right way to handle this?

OK, so Im puzzled. What, exactly, are atheistic beliefs?

Please understand: I ask not as a critic, but as a fellow traveller. Many would describe my own faith as atheistic. I prefer the expression post-theistic but the distinction, as my dad used to say, is the difference between damn and swearing.

So I know first-hand what atheists dont believe. We dont believe that, somewhere in the faraway heavens, there is a being named God who spends his time meddling in human lives, punishing evildoers and getting those he likes off airplanes before they crash. We dont believe that the earth was handmade by a heavenly potter, or that a distant deity decides the winner of the World Series. We also, incidentally, dont believe in unicorns or the Loch Ness monster.

But what do atheists believe? Is there a creed that distinguishes legitimate atheism from, say, lapsed Catholicism, cultural Judaism or secular Islam? If so, Ive never found it.

I do, however, know a few atheists. We dont talk about religion much but, judging by their lives, my atheist friends seem to believe that love is better than hate, relationships are more important than possessions, building up is preferable to tearing down, peace is more noble than war. My atheist friends are, in general, driven by a conviction that the earth is sacred, life is precious, and beauty, joy and hope should be the goals of their lives.

Are those your beliefs? If not, well, youre correct; youll feel uncomfortable in most religious services. You probably should stay home.

But if you do believe these things, you should feel comfortable in almost any religious gathering, funeral or otherwise, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, traditional Spirituality, or whatever. Yes, yes in all of those communities there are a few fundamentalists who will judge your atheism harshly, but setting them aside (which, trust me, is the right response), worship in the worlds main religions celebrates and lifts up exactly the same values that you espouse.

Sure, you may hear some God-language. Big deal; it wont hurt you. You may also hear a poem in which the hills are said to be singing. Or a hymn in which the stars are alive with joy. Someone may read a sacred text that celebrates the wonders of heaven. So what? Thats all poetry, and, viewed as such, its quite lovely.

So go with the flow. Let the music wash over you. Enjoy the poetry. Weep with the passion of a good eulogy. Honest, you wont catch religion just by being in a church; I was in one every day for 45 years and escaped unscathed better for the experience, in fact. And so will you.

Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca

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Could Atheism Survive the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life? – Discovery Institute

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Recently, NASA granted amillion dollars to the Center of Theological Inquiry to study the theological, humanitarian, and social implications in the event that extraterrestrial life isever discovered. It was another reminder of related discussions, over the years, of whether religion could survive the discovery of life on other planets.

I think, though, that the concern is misdirected. The real question is whether atheism could survive.

There are at least two points to consider here. First, God is the Artist of Hidden Beauty. Second, getting mind-staggeringly lucky twice would strongly suggest that something is going on here.

The Artist of Hidden Beauty

In the early 1980s I spent many a fascinatinghour down on my hands and knees in the forest undergrowth, engaged in macrophotography of all sorts of wonderful, tiny things. It occurred to me, about 35 years ago as I was polishing my 65 Ford Custom that God wasnt like us when it came to making things look nice. Ford Motor Corp. only made the sheet metal look nice on the outside where people would see it, but nature was filled with beauty that no one would ever see.

At that moment, the question popped into my head, What about all those possible planets throughout the universe? Amazing plant and animal life on other planets would be exactly what I would expect to see from the One who creates beauty simply for the sake of beauty, even if no human will ever enjoy it. Consideration of alien beings with eternal souls does raise some deeper issues, however space here prevents me from an adequate discussion of this possibility. Suffice it to say that, from my own Christian perspective, plant and animal life on other planets would not be in the least surprising, God being the Artist that He is.

Mind-Staggeringly LuckyTwice?

A friend of mine worked for the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation and occasionally entertained me with stories of how they would identify and solve cases of lottery fraud. In each case, the tip-off would be something unusually improbable, such as an unusual number ofwins from the same store.

When it comes to the idea that life spontaneously self-assembled itself in the past, thousands of our brightest minds have worked on the problem for over half a century with no prospect of success in the foreseeable future. In fact, the more we learn, the more we realize how difficult the problem is.1 The challenge is three-fold. First, we have to figure out how intelligent scientists can create a simple life form from scratch in the lab. Second, having done it ourselves, we have to see if realistic natural processes can do the same thing. The third problem is vastly more difficult: figure out how the information to build life forms gets encoded in these self-replicating molecules without an intelligent programmer. We are still working on the first problem, with no hint of success on the horizon. That might be significant, right there.

A 2011 article in Scientific American, Pssst! Dont tell the creationists, but scientists dont have a clue how life began, summarized our lack of progress in the lab.2 Of course, there are plenty of scenarios, but creative story-telling should not be confused with doing science, or making scientific discoveries. With regard to thousands of papers published each year in the field of evolution, as Austin Hughes wrote, This vast outpouring of pseudo-Darwinian hype has been genuinely harmful to the credibility of evolutionary biology as a science.3

Evolutionary biologist Eugene Koonin, meanwhile, calculates the probability of a simple replication-translation system, just one key component, to beless than1 chance in 10^1,018 making it unlikely that life will ever spontaneously self-assemble anywhere in the universe.4 His proposed solution is a near-infinite number of universes, something we might call a multiverse of the gaps. My own work, using data from the Protein Family Database, produces results consistent with Koonins estimate.5 Indeed, we would need a vast number of universes all working on the problem to get lucky enough to see life spontaneously assemble itselfin just one of them.

Heres the Point:

The probability of life spontaneously self-assembling anywhere in this universe is mind-staggeringly unlikely; essentially zero. If you are so unquestioningly nave as to believe we just got incredibly lucky, then bless your soul.

If we were to discover extraterrestrial life, however, then we would have had to get mind-staggeringly lucky two times! Like the forensic detectives at the lotteries commission, a thinking person would have to start operating on the well-founded suspicion that something is going on.

On the other hand, the existence of life and beauty elsewhere in the universe is not at all surprising under the hypothesis of a Creator who is the Artist of Hidden Beauty. Indeed, logic dictates the existence of a supernatural creator, as I have shown here,6 and our observations of the universe indicate it was specifically designed to support life.

Conclusion:

The discovery of extraterrestrial life would be the death knell for atheism, at least for the thinking atheist. On the other hand, such a discovery should not be in the least surprising, if there is a supernatural Creator who has designed the universe to support life, and has brought about life and beauty throughout the universe, even if no human ever gets to see it.

References:

(1) The RNA world hypothesis: The worst theory of the early evolution of life (except for all the others),Biology Direct, 2012.

(2) Pssst! Dont tell the creationists, but scientists dont have a clue how life began,Scientific American, 2011.

(3) The origin of adaptive phenotypes,PNAS, 2008.

(4)The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution, Eugene V. Koonin, 2011.

(5) Computing the Best Case Probability of Proteins from actual data, and the falsification of an Essential Prediction of Darwinian Theory, Kirk Durston, Contemplations.

(6) A simple but elegant argument for the existence of God, Kirk Durston,Contemplations.

Photo credit: Kirk Durston.

Cross-posted at Contemplations.

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Could Atheism Survive the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life? - Discovery Institute

Dr. Leslie Wells Announces Upcoming Launch of the EVE Consciousness World Tour – PR Web (press release)

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Dr. Leslie Wells Announces Upcoming Launch of the EVE Consciousness World Tour
PR Web (press release)
The launch and tour will introduce E.V.E. Consciousness. E.V.E. Consciousness is a movement that bridges science, spirituality and the church together for the ultimate co-creating conscious evolution. Wells created E.V.E. Consciousness and wrote the ...

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Dr. Leslie Wells Announces Upcoming Launch of the EVE Consciousness World Tour - PR Web (press release)

Engineering Eden: The quest for eternal life – Baylor College of Medicine News (press release) (blog)

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Editors note: This post is related toThe Enhancing Life Project, funded by theJohn Templeton Foundation.The project is comprised of an interdisciplinary group of scholars who examine aspirations that move individuals and communities into the future, and the intersection between spirituality and technology.

If youre like most people, you may associate the phrase eternal life with religion: The promise that we can live forever if we just believe in God. You probably dont associate the phrase with an image of scientists working in a lab, peering at worms through microscopes or mice skittering through boxes. But you should.

The quest for eternal life has only recently begun to step out from behind the pews and into the petri dish.

I recently discussed the increasing feasibility of the transhumanist vision due to continuing advancements in biotech, gene- and cell-therapies. These emerging technologies, however, dont erase the fact that religion not science has always been our salve for confronting deaths inevitability. For believers, religion provides an enduring mechanism (belief and virtue) behind the perpetuity of existence, and shushes our otherwise frantic inability to grasp: How can I, as a person, just end?

The Mormon transhumanist Lincoln Cannon argues that science, rather than religion, offers a tangible solution to this most basic existential dilemma. He points out that it is no longer tenable to believe in eternal life as only available in heaven, requiring the death of our earthly bodies before becoming eternal, celestial beings.

Would a rational person choose to believe in an uncertain, spiritual afterlife over the tangible persistence of ones own familiar body and the comforting security of relationships weve fostered over a lifetime of meaningful interactions?

From a secular perspective, the choice seems obvious. But from a religious perspective, weighing faith and science is not as clear. Its not even clear whether a choice must be made.

If youre Mormon, for example, you believe that humans should and will become Gods themselves, a view consistent with transhumanist ambitions to take human capabilities and nature into their own hands.

From a Christian perspective, too, there is no inherent contradiction between religious principles and the use of science to extend our life spans or change who and what we fundamentally are. Francis Schaeffer, credited with launching evangelicals and fundamentalists into politics in the late 1970s, said that if he were offered a pill to stop aging, he would take it in a heartbeat. Because mankinds duty is as much as its within our power to undo the work of The Fall, he said.

Schaeffer was referring to Adam and Eves rebellion and subsequent fall from divine grace in the Garden of Eden, an event believed by evangelicals to be the cause of all death, disease and suffering in the world.

Enhancing human capability and putting a stop to aging buys us more time to reverse original sin and do Gods work more effectively. Spreading compassion and love to our fellow human beings and pursuing the moral virtues extolled in the scriptures may require better tools, greater reach, and radically longer timeframes.

Perhaps youll be surprised to hear that the Catholic Church strongly supports extending life and health, citing Jesuss commandment to disciples to go forth and heal the sick, even raise the dead, in his name. Some Lutherans, too, might see no essential contradiction between religious principles and the quest for earthly longevity.

Ted Anton, who wrote a book about the science and business behind longevity research, has long been head usher at his Christian Lutheran Church. He told us, Whatever created [our technological] capabilities is endlessly interesting, beautiful, complex, and probably holds a moral requirement that we are children of God. We owe it to each other to research to the very best of our ability, with a goal of helping those who need the help first.

The futurist, Ted Peters, a professor at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, said that his religiosity encourages rather than prohibits his support for even controversial technologies, like emotional bio-enhancements. A neuro-enhancement for compassion? A genetic fix for selfishness?

Peters said, Bioethicists want to defend human freedom, so they dont want us [bio-enhancing] against our will. He continued, But I myself would be happy to give up my freedom if my heart would be sanctified so that Im loving all day long. If you could do that with a hypodermic needle, give me a shot. Ill take it.

Loving all day long doesnt sound so bad. Still, the policy implications of an emotionally bio-enhanced populace spark fear somewhere deep in my gut. Does everyone get to sit and love all day? Or will we love in shifts, to make sure someone is running the nation, or constructing our roads? Is it possible to love while driving effectively in LA traffic? Youd never get anywhere, letting everyone pass in front.

Part of me feels lucky not having any religious beliefs to reconcile with the engine of science which, to me, just seems like it will keep running faster and faster until the wheels fly off and we begin to fly. But other times I think, what deep satisfaction people must have to understand the commotion of scientific progress within a framework that provides meaning and context for our goals and concepts of self. Without these, anticipating the future is like a vase giving shape to emptiness, to use Michael Wests poetic description.

While science may be heralded as a new religion, it is by definition devoid of values. Its a method more than a system of meaning. If we admit that meaning and discovery provide fundamentally different enhancements to the human (or post-human) experience, perhaps there is room for both in our increasingly long futures.

-ByKristin Kostick, Ph.D., research associate in theCenter for Medical Ethics and Health Policyat Baylor College of Medicine

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Engineering Eden: The quest for eternal life - Baylor College of Medicine News (press release) (blog)

Hubble telescope uses ‘cosmic magnifying-glass’ to capture stunning photos of Universe’s brightest galaxies – Mirror.co.uk

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NASA's Hubble space telescope has captured a series of stunning images of some of the universe's brightest galaxies.

Only a few dozen of these bright infrared galaxies - which are as much as 10,000 times more luminous than the Milky Way - exist in the universe.

They reside in unusually dense regions of space that somehow triggered rapid star formation in the early universe.

Hubble was able to capture the images thanks to a natural phenomenon called gravitational lensing, which occurs when the intense gravity of a massive galaxy magnifies the light of fainter, more distant background sources.

In this case, the distant galaxies have been magnified to reveal a tangled web of misshapen objects, punctuated by exotic patterns such as rings and arcs.

NASA scientists believe that the unusual forms may have been produced by spectacular collisions between distant, massive galaxies in a sort of "cosmic demolition derby".

"We have hit the jackpot of gravitational lenses," said lead researcher James Lowenthal of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

"These ultra-luminous, massive, starburst galaxies are very rare. Gravitational lensing magnifies them so that you can see small details that otherwise are unimaginable. We can see features as small as about 100 light-years or less across.

"We want to understand what's powering these monsters, and gravitational lensing allows us to study them in greater detail."

Part of the reason that the galaxies are so bright is that they are pumping out more than 10,000 new stars a year.

The star-birth frenzy creates lots of dust, which enshrouds the galaxies, making them too faint to detect in visible light. But they glow fiercely in infrared light, shining with the brilliance of 10 trillion to 100 trillion suns.

The distance of the galaxies from Earth means that the scenes captured by Hubble actually took place between 8 billion and 11.5 billion years ago, at the peak of the universe's star-making boom.

However, the galaxies' star-birth production is still 5,000 to 10,000 times higher than that of our Milky Way, raising the question of what powered the prodigious star birth.

One possible explanation is that their star-making output is stoked by the merger of two spiral galaxies.

However, Lowenthal said that computer simulations of the birth and growth of galaxies show that major mergers occur at a later epoch than the one in which these galaxies are seen.

Best photos taken by Hubble telescope

Another suggestion is that lots of gas - the material that makes stars - is flooding into the faraway galaxies.

"The early universe was denser, so maybe gas is raining down on the galaxies, or they are fed by some sort of channel or conduit, which we have not figured out yet," Lowenthal said.

The research team plans to use Hubble and the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii to analyse the details of the monster galaxies, in the hope of shedding more light on their formation.

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Hubble telescope uses 'cosmic magnifying-glass' to capture stunning photos of Universe's brightest galaxies - Mirror.co.uk