Charitable Atheist

Pakistan is going through some rough times, and if there is a time to donate money to Pakistan, then it's now.

"Every cent and penny of money donated via Non-Believers Giving Aid will be forwarded to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders"

IHEU: Petition for defence of individual rights at the UN Human Rights Council

"[…] The [Human Rights Council] has become an ideological war machine against its founding principles[The Universal Declaration of Human Rights]. Ignored by the mainstream media, day after day, session after session, resolution after resolution, a political rhetoric is forged to legitimize tomorrow’s violence. A "triple alliance" of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) represented so far by Pakistan, the Non-Aligned Movement where Cuba, Venezuela and Iran have a central role, and China -- with the cynical complacency of Russia – are working together to establish of a genuine revolution in the guise of "multiculturalism". Thus, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, Doudou Diène has said that criticism of the Burqa is a racist aggression, that secularism is rooted in a culture of slavery and colonialism and that the French law against the wearing of religious symbols in schools is part of anti-Muslim racism, renamed "Western Islamophobia ". The confusion of minds is at its peak when any criticism of religion is denounced as a racist attitude. This is a radical threat against freedom of thought which is being condoned by the United Nations. By equating with racism any criticism of the excesses of those who speak in the name of Islam, because supposedly such criticism belongs to neo-colonialist attitudes, the spokespersons of this new alliance tighten a little the noose they have put on the neck of their own peoples and undermine the foundations of a civility hard-won in Europe since the wars of religion."

[...]

If by misfortune, the United Nations should sanction the imposition of such criteria, if blasphemy should be equated with racism, the right to criticism of religion outlawed, religious law become the international norm, it would be a regression with disastrous consequences, and a radical perversion of our entire tradition of struggle against racism, which has developed and can only develop in the most absolute freedom of conscience.

[...]

To sign this petition, please send an email to licra@licra.org"

Please sign.
I've also made a new logo for the Human Rights Council:

Why religion is the cause of religious terrorism

"[According to former CIA officer Marc Sageman. ] the first wave of Al-Qaeda leaders, who joined Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, is now down to a few dozen people on the run in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. The second wave of terrorists, who trained in Al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan during the 1990s, has also been devastated, with about 100 hiding out on the Pakistani frontier. These people are genuinely dangerous, says Sageman, and they must be captured or killed. But they do not pose an existential threat to America, much less have the power to provoke a "clash of civilizations."

It's the third wave of terrorism that is growing, but what is it? By Sageman's account, it's a leaderless hodgepodge of thousands of what he calls "terrorist wannabes." Unlike the first two waves, who were well-educated and intensely religious, the new jihadists are a weird species of the Internet culture. Outraged by video images of Americans killing Muslims in Iraq, they gather in password-protected chat rooms and dare each other to take action. Like young people across time and religious boundaries, they are bored and looking for action.

"It's more about hero worship than about religion," Sageman said in a presentation of his research last week at the New America Foundation, a liberal think tank in Washington. Many of this third wave don't speak Arabic or read the Koran. Very few (13 percent of Sageman's samples) have attended radical religious schools. Nearly all join the movement because they know or are related to someone who's already in it. Those detained on terrorism charges are getting younger: In Sageman's 2003 sample, the average age was 26; among those arrested after 2006, it was down to about 20. They are disaffected, homicidal kids - closer to urban gang members than to motivated Muslim fanatics."

David Ignatius, Daily Star (Lebanon), February 28, 2008

Ever since 9. September 2001, there has been people from all sorts of backgrounds who have tried to state again and again and again that religion has nothing to do with terror. For a large part, this is pure revisionism based upon unwillingness to face the truth that religions carry a lot of unhealthy ideas.

With the same logic, WW2 didn't happen because of Nazi ideology, but because of the Versailles treaty. No-one would doubt that the Versailles treaty had an effect, but you would have to be retarded to say that National-Socialism had nothing to do with it. But let's move from WW2 to present day neo-nazism. It is of course a bleak shadow of the heyday of NS-DAP. Hitler is their hero, and that's about it. A lot of the racist attacks on immigrants etc. happen because the racist is an uneducated, unemployed drunkard. But he is also a fan of Hitler, and Nazi ideology offer the framework where attacking immigrants on the street is OK. The SA would have done it like they do, and the SS would have been more thorough.

That's what the afore mentioned revisionists don't see, that while the jihadi theology may be a poor excuse, it is still a theology. They have simply distilled certain values from traditional Islam. (And if Islam was a really peaceful religion, as is often claimed, then this would be impossible.) The fact that the majority of Muslims may have a different view doesn't matter, because the majority of Christians had a different view than Martin Luther when he begun his work too. All religious reformers start off at the fringes.

I think Marc Sageman is onto something when using three categories of terrorists, like above. The London bombings was a copycat crime by fans. No doubt about that. And they're probably not very well edumecated in Islam either. But their faith provided a framework for the act, and Islam provided a framework for jihadi interpretation.

Karen Armstron on secularism

"Q: Is the separation of religion from politics practicable in the context of Islam?
A: It has worked very well for us in the west, and one of the reasons for that is that when we did mix religion and politics during our modernisation period, it was a horror. There were terrible wars of religion in the 17th century that left 35 percent of the population dead. This was one of the great catastrophes of European history, and it was that experience which made the enlightenment - people said, ‘No, we’ll keep politics out of religion.’ Now, we had a long time to develop institutions - we didn’t have to do it overnight.
In the Muslim world, secularism has been introduced far too rapidly. When Kemal Ataturk secularised Turkey, he closed down all the madrassas and pushed the Sufis underground; the Shah of Iran used to make the soldiers go out with their bayonets, taking off the women’s veils and ripping them into pieces in front of them. In this context, secularism seems like an assault upon religion — it is too quick, and this has given it a bad name.

The News(Pakistan), February 03, 2008

She's right here. It is tragic that secularism has been given a bad name in the Middle East, simply because it was forced upon people. (Same thing with USSR for that matter.) However, if there's a time for secularism among Muslims, it's now. We can hardly let 35% of the population die so they will appreciate secularism they way we do. But no bayonets.

"My next book will be titled ‘The Case for God.’ It looks at some of the modern atheists; the movement of atheism; and how the present-day atheism is due to bad modern theology. The book will be with the publisher by September 2009."

Religion and Social Issues

"The survey finds a strong relationship between a country's religiosity and its economic status. In poorer nations, religion remains central to the lives of individuals, while secular perspectives are more common in richer nations.1 This relationship generally is consistent across regions and countries, although there are some exceptions, including most notably the United States, which is a much more religious country than its level of prosperity would indicate. Other nations deviate from the pattern as well, including the oil-rich, predominantly Muslim -- and very religious -- kingdom of Kuwait."

Pew Research Center, October 4, 2007

Lot's more numbers in the report.
See also this, which taken from the same survey:

"Pakistanis who believe that religion and government should remain separate were only 33 per cent of the population in 2002. Five years later their size grew to 48 per cent, a 15 per cent increase. In Turkey, support for secularism declined by 18 per cent over the same period. In 2002, 73 per cent Turks said they believed religion and politics did not mix. Although secularists are still a majority in Turkey, their size declined to 55 per cent in 2007."

Pakistan Dawn, October 08, 2007

Why are we Muslims so self-destructive?

At an ifthar (breaking of fast) gathering last week, Rahim, a handsome young Muslim doctor and I chatted about this and that, and the end of our world: "Do you think refined and educated Muslims will survive this century? Or will we become extinct? I feel I don't know who I am any more. My parents, too, say the same. Barbaric Muslims are stronger than us, more stupid and ignorant, but stronger, you know."

[...]

Look today at India and Pakistan, neighbours, twin nations with identical histories and values. While the former is poised to challenge the economic and cultural power of the West, the latter is imploding and joins the ever-growing club of failed Muslim states. India has shameful problems – extreme poverty, corruption, greed, the caste system, Islamophobia and misogynist cultural practices – but, unlike Pakistan, it also has a free press and democracy, and its population understands the importance of education and enlightenment.
Come to our isles and the same stark contrast emerges. British Asians of Indian background (including Muslims from India) are top of the league tables in schools, universities, business and the professions. They are mentally agile, inquisitive, and encouraged to strive by their families. With some individual exceptions, British Muslims of Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds languish at the bottom of all indicator tables. It is heartbreaking."

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent, 24 September 2007

Islam vs. Science

"Hoodbhoy marshals an array of data to demonstrate that the commitment to real scientific study and research in Muslim nations still lags far behind international averages.

[...]

"If the scientific method is trashed, no amount of resources or loud declarations of intent to develop science can compensate. In those circumstances, scientific research becomes, at best, a kind of cataloging or 'butterfly-collecting' activity. It cannot be a creative process of genuine inquiry in which bold hypotheses are made and checked.""

USNews.com 9/2/07

Profits in the name of religion

"Islamic banking is another phenomenon which I have personally found quite puzzling because by replacing “interest” with “profit” and engaging a religious scholar to put his seal on a transaction does not make that particular transaction “halal” in my opinion. Living in the interconnected global economy as we do how does an Islamic bank ensure that not a rupee/dirham/dollar is coming from a source that generates interest? With the consumer banking industry experiencing tremendous growth in the past nine years with the advent of Mr Shaukat Aziz in Pakistan, Islamic banks have proliferated by the dozen. Hoardings scream out to us to bank the “halal” way implying that the other banks are offering “haram” services. Advertisements call out to the faithful to use “halal” debit cards and enter to win a free umra, and now the faithful can even accumulate points which will ultimately lead to Paradise once they’ve got enough points to perform a free Haj. Is this what it has all come down to? Islamic banks are like any other banks and the investors who set them up have done so not to ensure the spiritual well-being of their customers but to make huge profits — nothing more and nothing less.

[...]

By using the emotional pull of religion to increase deposits somehow just doesn’t strike me as a particularly clean way of making money."

Shakir Husain, The News, Pakistan, 30 July 2007

Western subversions of Muslim progress

"I shall address the internal structure of Islamic totalism as a major hurdle to democratisation, economic growth and progress in some future essay, but here I want to shed light on the way the west has consistently promoted reactionary Islamism, subverted progressive nationalist regimes, and thus controlled the destinies of the Muslim world by tying them down to a medieval mindset.

[...]

The second Western attack on Muslim modernisation was when King Amanullah of Afghanistan initiated an impressive programme to modernise his country. Industrialisation, modern education, liberation of women and many other such ideas were in the pipeline but the British in India recruited the most reactionary Mullah of Afghanistan, Mullah Shore Bazar, and a notorious bandit, Baccha Sakka, to launch a counter-revolution. They succeeded in overthrowing King Amanullah who was sent into exile in 1929.

The third assault on Muslim modernity was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran in 1953 because he had nationalised the Anglo-Iran Oil Company. The British and American intelligence services joined ranks and with the help of reactionary sections of the Iranian clergy masterminded the agitation that brought to an end the Mossadeq era.

[...]

Chronologically speaking it was not Wahabism that set in motion forces that undermined modernising processes in the Muslim world; it was Khomeini's reactionary revolution that initiated it. The Saudis reacted violently to Khomeini's bid to capture the leadership of the Muslim world. Their rivalry drove Muslim societies more and more towards extremism."

Ishtiaq Ahmed, The News, 28.07.2007

Faith-based initatives in foreign policy.

A Catastrophe for Human Rights

"The root cause of the problem in the Council is the geographical distribution of its membership. The African and Asian states have an in-built majority. While this can be justified by the number of states and the populations involved, it enables a group of states, euphemistically called the "like-minded" group, to control the Council. Sadly, these states, as diverse as China, India, Pakistan and Cuba, are like-minded only in their determination to shield one another from accusations of human rights abuse.

[...]

I have been involved in the human rights bodies in Geneva for the past four years as the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) representative. It is difficult for me to describe my feelings of dismay at what has happened. It is also rare indeed for me to find myself in complete agreement with the U.S. administration. The United States, which is not a member, issued a communiqué following the last session of the Council that said in part:

"The Council focused almost exclusively during the year on a single country -- Israel -- and failed to address serious human rights violations in other countries such as Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Belarus, and Cuba."

[...]

Only Israel can be certain of condemnation. I also predict that no resolution will ever be passed condemning those who kill, or call on others to kill, in the name of religion. But I am equally certain that the Council will continue to pass resolutions "combating defamation of religion" (read "Islam")."

Roy W. Brown, HumanistNetworkNews.org July 3, 2007

See also: Islamic countries criticize UN secretary general

Polygamy fueling Arizonas rate of genetic disorder

“Arizona has about half the world’s population of known fumarase deficiency patients,” said Dr. Theodore Tarby, a pediatric neurologist who has treated many of the children at Arizona clinics under contracts with the state.

[...]

“It exists in a certain percentage of the broader population but once you get a tendency to inbreed you’re inbreeding people who have the gene there, so you markedly increase the risk of developing the condition,” he said.
The community of about 10,000 people, who shun outsiders and are taught to avoid newspapers, television and the Internet, is home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a sect that broke from the mainstream Mormon church 72 years ago over polygamy.

[...]

Local historian Benjamin Bistline said 75 to 80 percent of people in the area are blood relatives of two men — John Y. Barlow and Joseph Smith Jessop — who founded the sect on the remote desert plateau in the early 1930s.
“There aren’t any new people coming in. It’s a closed door and that gene just keeps getting passed around,” said Bruce Wisan, a court-appointed accountant overseeing a trust of the sect’s assets.

Msnbc.msn.com, June 14, 2007

We actually see the same thing with Pakistani immigrants in Norway. A lot of them come from the same rural area in Pakistan, and they have been inbreeding between cousins for quite a while. Traditions are to blame.

Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are

"Members of Parliament, as well as the Pakistani government, amplified the condemnation of Britain, feeding cries of offense to Muslim sensibilities from Europe to Asia.

[...]

As a Muslim, you better believe I am offended – by these absurd reactions.
I am offended that it is not the first time honours from the West have met with vitriol and violence. In 1979, Pakistani physicist Abdus Salam became the first Muslim to win the Nobel Prize in science. He began his acceptance speech with a verse from the Quran.
Salam’s country ought to have celebrated him. Instead, rioters tried to prevent him from re-entering the country. Parliament even declared him a “non-Muslim” because he belonged to a religious minority. His name continues to be controversial, invoked by state authorities in hushed tones."

Irshad Manji, Times Online, June 21, 2007

[Islam] "Misguided women"

"The ninjas. The burqa brigade. The women in black. For some years now I've been hearing such terms thrown around with disdain by "burqa-unfriendly" sections of Pakistani society to describe the women who swathe themselves entirely in black.

[...]

Then, in March, dozens of girls from Jamia Hafsa kidnapped three women and a baby from a house they claimed was a brothel. Next they kidnapped two policemen. Newspaper front pages were splashed with pictures of the ninjas chasing away plain-clothes policemen while wielding long sticks. They have also taken to patrolling the bazaars, threatening the owners of DVD and CD stores, which they claim spread pornography and vice."

New Statesman 30 April 2007

In short: Islamic Hitler Jugend for girls