Category Archives: Rationalism

The father of Farook, the atheist who was murdered in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 10 days ago, allegedly by members of a Muslim radical group, has said that if his son was killed for his views, he too would become an atheist.

In an interview with The Indian Express, R Hameed said that the group killed his son using the wrong interpretation of the Quran. The Quran is one holy book that insists on and allows the right of dissent since the time of the Prophet. If they killed him for being an atheist, I have decided to join his organisation and do what he did.

Farook, a member of the Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam (DVK), was hacked to death, 15 days after he posted a photo of one of his children holding a placard with the handwritten slogan Kadavul illai, Kadavul illai, Kadavul illai (No God, No God, No God).

According to Coimbatore police, six people have been arrested in the case, all daily-wage labourers, including the main accused Saddam Hussein, Abdul Munaf and Jaffer Ali, who were known to Farook. Police said all of them have confessed to their role in the murder.

According to police, clues from Farooks mobile phone, which was found at the murder spot, led to the arrests. Munaf called Farook out from home, at around 11.20 pm, on the night of the murder, they said. Before the murder, there were three outgoing calls from Farooks phone to the same number, an officer said.

Rationalists, off late, have been targetted by several radical groups. In Maharashtra, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare, two rationalists, were killed on separate occasions for their role in propagating rationalism, and telling people to not believe in superstitions and black magic. In Karnataka, MM Kalburgi was killed in 2015 because of his strong views on idol worship.

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Coimbatore athiest's death: M Farook's father says he will continue his cause - Daily News & Analysis

New York Times

Our Delight in Destruction New York Times In reality, the hyper-rationalism we inhabit and embrace relies on an extreme simplification of what we really are. It is more a caricature than an actual description. And philosophy should have known better: From Diogenes of Sinope and Augustine to ...

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Our Delight in Destruction - New York Times

A businessman, H Farooq, was killed in Coimbatore on March 16 because he was a vocal atheist. A Facebook photo of his seven-year-old daughter holding a placard denying the existence of god is suspected to be the reason behind his murder. Truth is, I consider myself to be a vocal atheist too and have a daughter, just like him.

While I know that we are ultimately made up of just atoms, and emotions are nothing but electro-chemical reactions, I am yet conditioned to avoid risky situations. I am scared of hurting religious sentiments. My five-year-old daughter understands that a man like her father was killed for doing something like what her father does on Facebook.

We have learnt about his nature of atheism from the reports. Actively involved in promoting the ideals of humanism and atheism among Muslims, he also spoke against blind beliefs and casteism. He used to fearlessly propagate these on social media too. Last year, he was wrongly arrested on charges of attacking a mosque along with a mob that was protesting the murder of a Hindu activist, C Sasikumar. We also know that more than half a dozen Muslims have been arrested for having killed him for religious reasons. All India Students' Association posted on their Facebook page, "Hindu nationalists won't speak up because H Farooq was a left-wing Muslim. Muslims won't speak up because H Farooq was an atheist. And secular democrats, who should speak, won't speak up because they don't want to offend Muslims."

Despite being disadvantaged on multiple grounds, he had commendable courage. He hailed from the Muslim community, which on one hand strongly supports the death penalty for apostasy and blasphemy, and on the other hand faces socio-political persecution from the majority population of India.

But I wonder what kind of a person he was. Wasn't he concerned about his family's welfare? Wasn't he aware that atheists are one of the most hated groups all over the world, sometimes even more than Muslims? Didn't he know that Article 25 of our Constitution says "all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion", but doesn't specify a similar freedom for professing, practising and propagating rationalism or atheism? Didn't he know that it is illegal to hurt religious sentiments under Indian Penal Code Sections 153A, 295A, and 298, and that anyone can raise such a complaint by claiming that their religious sentiments were hurt by even harmless actions such as drawing a cartoon? Didn't he know that the 'new normal' defined by the intolerant laws such as standing when the national anthem plays, or, the beef ban, gives primacy to emotions and faith instead of reason and indirectly give sanction to lynch mobs? Didn't he know that scientific temperament and rationalism are fighting a losing battle?

I would have been relieved had Farooq been killed over a personal dispute instead of his ideology. It would have been nice to believe that India isn't aping Bangladesh in getting atheists murdered. But this seems to be just one of the symptoms of a larger global disease. The underlying issue is that irrational and divisive identities are gaining prominence and encroaching on personal liberties. People are willingly sacrificing material interests for the sake of owning some real or imaginary group identity. Hindus who voted for Trump are being persecuted by the American 'sons of soil'. After some decades of inclusive liberalism, the world is currently regressing. When the Islamic rulers tried to further their political objectives by seeking global support in the name of religion, the US has responded by persecuting innocent Muslim immigrants. Even France, the fountainhead of democracy and personal liberty, has exhibited Islamophobic intolerance by banning burqas and burkinis.

Back home, Periyar EV Ramasamy, the social reformist who is celebrated by Farooq's party Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam, rode on the wave of a sectarian, anti- brahmanical Dravidian pride. Although his Dravidar Kazhagam movement endorsed progressive thoughts such as eradication of superstitions and casteism, they also resorted to the sentimental ideals of ethnic and linguistic pride, instead of only recommending a rational, dispassionate way of thinking. Any religious or nationalistic hatred runs on emotions, and it is futile to oppose it with an equally emotional message of brotherhood or compassion.

At an intellectual level, even peaceful candle marches are qualitative equivalents of and hence easily convertible to lynch mobs. Due to their emphasis on emotions, we can see how once 'progressive' DMK and AIADMK have now supported the casteist religious practice of Jalikattu, in the name of traditional ethnic pride. Emotions can be subverted to lead a mob to commit the most heinous crimes, such as the 2015 Dimapur case, where the state took no action when a mob of thousands lynched a Muslim suspected of being a Bangladeshi rapist.

The murders of Farooq, Dabholkar, Pansare, and Kalburgi highlight the fact that progressive ideas are increasingly under attack and intolerance is on the rise. Our only hope of preserving some sanity in society is to stand our ground, without succumbing to any counter-sectarian identity of pride, and without compromising our ideologies in the hope of public support or political advantage. We also need to introspect the reasons for this global 'great leap backward'. Maybe, only then might we be able to change the course of society towards a secular democracy conducive for freethinkers, where reason supersedes faiths. What remains to be seen is how many more Farooqs will get sacrificed before we achieve this goal.

(The author is an MBBS, M Tech and has done Biomedical Engineering from IIT-B. The views and opinions expressed in the article are those of the author)

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The great leap backward - Daily News & Analysis

Because of last weeks horror at Westminster, little attention was paid to an intervention by the retiring Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas. He attacked the Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss, for not defending the judges when they were criticised over their attitude to Article 50. She was completely and absolutely wrong, he said: It really is essential we have a Lord Chancellor who understands her constitutional duty.

It is true that Liz Truss is not a legal expert, but there is a reason for this. The Lord Chancellor is no longer the judges leader.

When New Labour came in, it was obsessively keen to impose a continental model upon the British legal system. This arid rationalism demanded the formal separation of politics from the law. It created a Supreme Court for the first time. It thought it wrong that the head of the judiciary should also be a Cabinet Minister.

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Activist judges are partly to blame for the havoc wreaked by Tony Blair on our constitution - Telegraph.co.uk

EUR, a business district in Rome developed in the 1930s under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini, is filled with the heroic modernism, otherwise known as Rationalism, of the Fascist era. Now the area will host a new building designed to echo the stark geometry of its context.The 239 million New Rome/EUR Convention Centre, which is designed by Studio Fuksas, is the largest building built in the Eternal City in over 50 years, and is expected to bring in 300-400 million per year to the city.

Within the main, large rectangular structure, The Cloud comprises an organic shape that will contain an auditorium. Adjacent to the main space is The Blade, a tall tower housing a new hotel.

From the architects:

Located south of the citys core, in the business district of EUR, the complex follows the simple orthogonal lines of the surrounding 1930s rationalist architecture.

The spaces surrounding the centre will serve as two public squares. Integral to the new complex and the neighbourhood, these new spaces will provide citizens with places for various leisure and outdoor activities, offering a new meeting area in this busy part of Rome.

The New Rome/EUR Convention Centre and Hotel the Cloud comprises three distinct architectural concepts: the basement, the Theca and Cloud, and the Blade.

The basement is accessed on Viale Cristoforo Colombo, via a staircase that leads into the buildings main foyer and information point. Past this area, a large concourse feeds into an expansive congress and exhibition hall that can host up to 6000 people.

The Theca is the stunning outershell and faade of the convention Hall and Hotel, which has been made from a combination of metal, glass and re-enforced concrete. Inside the building, 7,800 square metres of new public space will play host to public and private conferences, exhibitions and large-scale events. Suspended inside the Theca is the Cloud -the interplay between these two spaces is essential to the complex symbolising the connection between the city of Rome and the convention centre. The Cloud is an independent cocoon-like structure that is covered in 15,000 square metres of highly advanced membrane fiber glass and flame-retardant silicone and is supported laterally at points by the Theca. It lies at the heart of the complex and is accessed by the Forum an artery walkway that fuses the two structures together. Inside the Cloud, five levels (supported by escalators and walkways) lead to a 1,800 capacity auditorium. In order to ensure that the Cloud system does not interfere with the rest of the complex, the auditorium is clad in wooden cherry panels.

The final architectural concept is the Blade - an autonomous building split into 17 floors and containing a new 439-room hotel built to provide accommodation to visitors to the centre and the city of Rome. Spread over 18,000 square metres, the Blade will also include seven boutique suites, a spa and a restaurant.

The building has been constructed from 37,000 tons of steel- the equivalent weight of four and a half Eiffel Towers. Additionally, 58,000 metres of glass has been used for the centres exterior and interior design, which is enough to cover the surface of 10 football pitches.

The centre is fully earthquake-proofed - the stiffness of its vertical structure is able to withstand both small and large seismic waves.

In addition, the buildings insulators have a horizontal rigidity, which works against the movements of small earthquakes, whilst their low rigidity enables large oscillations with low accelerations during more violent tremors.

An eco-friendly approach underscores the design of the centre, with integrated air-conditioning that will be carried out by a reversible heat pump. This system is capable of achieving high energy performances whilst reducing electricity consumption. A natural ventilation system is also in place - with the cool water of the nearby EUR lake extracted and filtered into the system. The roof's photovoltaic panels(glass and silicon wafer)help to produce energy and protects the building from overheating through the mitigation of solar radiation.

When fully operational, the basic power load of the New Rome /EUR convention Hall and Hotel the Cloud will be supplied by the power station of cogeneration as well as any power generated by the buildings geothermal and photovoltaic network. The mutual interdependence of these systems ensures that the complex is able to function in any instances of a technical failure.

The centres eco features also comprise a rain water harvesting system, where exterior panels collect rainwater and filter it into a storage tank. The water can then be pumped, on demand, from the tank to the internal water system.

Fuksas design for the complex was created with flexibility in mind spaces are interchangeable and can be amended to accommodate large or small conferences, lectures and events with a maximum seating allowance of nearly 8,000 seats, divided between the auditorium inside the Cloud, (1,800 capacity), and large conference rooms in the basement (6,000 seats). The underground level of the building also has more than 600-place parking area.

Many of the complexs Interior details have also been realized by Studio Fuksas. In the Auditorium, the red armchairs have been made by Poltrona Frau and specially designed by Fuksas architects. The buildings bespoke Cloud lamp has been produced by iGuzzini and conceived by the studio.

An official inauguration ceremony will take place on 29 October, marking the New Rome/EUR convention Hall and Hotel the Cloud as a new integral landmark in Romes architectural fabric.

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Studio Fuksas designs the New Rome/EUR Convention Centre, the largest building built in Rome in over 50 years - Archinect

'The Death of Expertise' Explores How Ignorance Became a Virtue New York Times This is part of a larger wave of anti-rationalism that has been accelerating for years manifested in the growing ascendance of emotion over reason in public debates, the blurring of lines among fact and opinion and lies, and denialism in the face of ...

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'The Death of Expertise' Explores How Ignorance Became a Virtue - New York Times

Three days after H Farook, a rationalist was hacked to death in Coimbatore, the third accused in the case, identified as Shamshuddin, surrendered before a court on Monday. Two other suspects had surrendered earlier while another is still at large. Farook was hacked to death for his atheist ideologies and active social media engagement in propagating rationalism.

Investigating authorities claimed that the 31-year-old rationalist was killed after he refused to shut down a social media group that had close to 400 members, mostly Muslims, where he propagated the ideology of atheism. Officials also claimed that Farook's atheism was deemed 'anti-Islam' by his assailants who had warned him against the same. Farook's post showing one of his children holding posters with the words ' No god, no god, no god', in Tamil, is suspected to have irked the assailants. Farook's decision to raise his children as atheists led to the deadly attack, say investigating officers.

Farook, a follower of Periyar was active on social media posting against the ideas of religion, god, caste and blind beliefs. Officials also believe that the increasing number of people Farook had started influencing was perceived as a threat to their beliefs by the assailants who first threatened Farook for days and ultimately hacked him to death.

Investigating authorities have identified the assailants as Saddam Hussain, Shamsuddin, Akram and Munaf. They are in the process of verifying if the case has any connection with a prisoner lodged in Bengaluru central jail who was arrested in connection with a blast in Bengaluru. One of the accused, Saddam Hussain is said to be the brother-in-law of the blast accused, according to a report in the Indian Express. Hussain is also an accused in another murder case.

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Tamil Nadu rationslist murder: Third accused surrenders - Oneindia

"... endorses scientific rationalism ..."

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Under President Obama, the IRS granted tax-exempt status to theAfter School Satan Club just 10 days after it applied, according to records obtained byJudicial Watch.

The status is usually given to charitable, religiousand/or educational groups that operate as nonprofits.

The group applied for tax-exempt status on Oct. 21, 2014, and received it on Oct. 31, 2014.

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The Satanic Clubs fast-track approval came at a time when the IRS was being sued for delaying applicationsof a multitude of organizations with conservative association.

Under the Obama administration, IRS political appointees illegally targeted conservative groups, either making them wait up to seven years for tax-exempt status or denying their application altogether, Judicial Watch said.

The watchdog group said it uncovered that scandal and has obtained piles of government records showing how the IRS illegally colluded with another federal agency to single out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as patriot and tea party in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status.

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The entity behind the Satanic club is a nonprofit called Reason Alliance, which is based in Somerville, Mass., and operates in the state of Washington as the Satanic Temple of Seattle.

According to itswebsite, the after-school group says Satanism is a religion that endorses scientific rationalism as our best model for understanding the natural world.

The groups primary purpose is to counter the Evangelical Good News Club, saying itonly wants to establish after-school Satan clubs in school districts with the Christian programs.

While the twisted Evangelical teachings of The Good News Clubsrobs children of the innocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self image, preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and aversion to critical thinking,After School Satan Clubs incorporate games, projects, and thinking exercises that help children understand how we know what we know about our world and our universe, its website states.

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Last year,the Satanic Temple releaseda video on its YouTube page to celebrate the launch of its after-school clubs across the nation.

So while the Obama administrations IRS allegedly targeted conservative groups, it apparently saw no problem with allowing Satanic groups a fast pass to tax-exempt status.

Those concerned about the presence of the Satan clubs in the Seattle schoolcould take some comfort in knowing thattwo weeks after the club launched at a school in nearby Tacoma, no one had signed up for it.

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Obama IRS Granted Tax-Exempt Status To Satanic Cult In Just 10 ... - Western Journalism

by Richard Denniss

Are there any economic rationalists left in the Australian business community? Where are the fiscal conservatives when you need them?

Hard headed budget hawks are missing in action when it comes to our governments giving a $1 billion subsidy to help build the world's largest coal mine.

Just because something is a bad for the environment doesn't mean it is a good for the economy. Environmentalists wanting to stop the Adani Carmichael mine is not a reason for business to support it.

Yet in Canberra, the silence from Australian business leaders on Adani is taken as tacit support for the subsidies needed to build its mine. Let's take a look at the reasons put forward to justify this wasteful public intervention in the coal market, all of which used outrage economic rationalists.

First up: jobs. While it is hard to imagine spending $1 billion and not stimulating some economic activity, it is even harder to imagine a project that would create fewer jobs per public dollar spent than the Adani mine. Indeed, Adani's hand-picked economic expert told a court that the project would create only 1464 direct and indirect jobs, and that estimate was based on the average capital/labour ratio of existing coal mines. Since that court case, Adani have been keen to talk up how "high tech"their mine would be now promising shareholders automation "from pit to port".

But even if we take Adani's best-case scenario, and even if all of the 1464 new jobs were drawn from the ranks of the 161,200 people who were unemployed in Queensland in February 2017, then the unemployment rate would fall from 6.4 per cent to, wait for it, 6.4 per cent. The impact of the Adani project on the Queensland economy would be so small that it wouldn't shift the unemployment rate at the first decimal place.

Then there are "all the taxes' that the subsidised mine will provide. State government tax revenues from mining come in the form of royalties paid in exchange for the resources extracted. But after nearly sevenyears of talking about the benefits to the Queensland budget of the Adani mine no one has any idea what price Adani will pay Queenslanders for their coal. We do know that former Queensland Premier Campbell Newman had offered Adani a "royalty holiday"(free coal). But the current government has never clarified what price, if any, they intend to charge. As for the federal government revenue, the mining industry already pays the lowest proportion of their profits in company tax. Beyond that, the existence of Adani subsidiaries in Mauritius and the Cayman Islands have already been revealed before the first tonne of coal has even been mined.

Finally, and most bizarrely, at a time when world demand for coal is flat and the price of renewable energy and batteries is collapsing, some coal supporters say public subsidies are justified because, wait for it, the renewable energy industry gets subsidies. It is a strange form of economic rationalism or fiscal conservatism that argues that if you can't remove the subsidies from one product you should invent a new subsidy for its competitor.

Of course as Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel and Arnold Schwarzenegger have shown, there is no need for economic conservatives to be climate sceptics. Indeed, historically economic "hard heads"would have been more likely to trust scientific advice than the average environmentalist. Let's not even get into the fact that the mining industry couldn't exist without science but it has bankrolled science scepticism when it comes to climate. Internationally, conservatives that do take the advice of economists and scientists prefer the introduction of a carbon price to level the energy playing field than the creation of new subsidies for the coal industry.

But in Australia, despite the stated concern of business leaders about the state of the budget, taxpayer subsidies for the construction of an enormous new coal mine is not subject to the principles of fiscal conservatism, economic efficiency or even market risk. On the contrary, the fact that environmentalists want to stop the mine is enough for some to assume it must be a good idea. Not a very rational way to make decisions.

Richard Denniss is the chief economist for The Australia Institute

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Where did all the rationalists go? - The Australian Financial Review

The IRS granted tax-exempt status to theAfter School Satan Club 10 days after it applied, records obtained byJudicial Watch show. At the same time, tea party groups were forced to wait up to seven years or were denied altogether.

The tax-exempt status is meant for charitable, religious, and educational groups that operate as nonprofits. The After School Satan Club is operated by The Satanic Temple, which says Satanism is a religion that endorses scientific rationalism as our best model for understanding the natural world.

The club seeks to counter the Evangelical Good News Club, which the group claims robschildrenof theinnocence and enjoyment of childhood, replacing them with a negative self image,preoccupation with sin, fear of Hell, and aversion to critical thinking.

In 2016 the Satanic Temple released the following video on their YouTube page announcing the launch of its after school club in schools across the nation.

Warning: Its extremely creepy.

Judicial Watch has more on the clubs background:

The principle goal of establishing the Satan clubs in public schools throughout Washington State appears to be to counter existing enterprises operated by a Christian-based group.Documentsobtained by Judicial Watch include the process of establishing an after-school Satan club at Point Defiance Elementary in Tacoma. The entity behind the club is a nonprofit called Reason Alliance, which is based in Somerville, Massachusetts, and operates in Washington State as the Satanic Temple of Seattle. Its director, Lilith X. Starr, established the Point Defiance Elementary Satanic club, the records show. In its application the club states that its purpose is character development and that adult instructors are vetted by the Satanic Temples Executive Ministry. Children ages 5-12 will develop basic critical reasoning, character qualities, problem solving and creative expression, according to the Satanic Temple filings included in the documents. The club logo is a pencil with devils horns.Recordsobtained by Judicial Watch from the Treasury Department show that the Satanic cult applied for tax-exempt status on October 21, 2014 and received it on October 31, 2014.

So while the Obama administration's IRS illegally targeted conservative groups, it evidently saw no problem whatsoever with fast tracking the application of a leftist satanic group.

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IRS Granted Tax-Exempt Status to After School Satan Club in Only ... - Townhall