Education Kills God!

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From the Department Of Bloody Obvious comes another confirmation of what even Martin Luther knew in 1520: the more you know, the less silly superstitions you have. This was also indicated by a study a few months ago which concluded that better internet access leads to less religiosity (the headlines then screamed ‘The Internet Kills God!!!!!’), and is now (unsurprisingly) confirmed by a study conducted by the Louisiana State University:

The study finds that more education, in the form of more years of formal schooling, has “consistently large negative effects” on an individual’s likelihood of attending religious services, as well as their likelihood of praying frequently. More schooling also makes people less likely to harbor superstitious beliefs, like belief in the protective power of lucky charms (rabbit’s feet, four leaf clovers), or a tendency to take horoscopes seriously.

Strange phrasing (really? not attending a superstitious gathering is a large negative effect?) and questionable differentiation (luck charms are superstitious, but belief in gods isn’t?) aside, we see once again what motivates Boko Haram, IS and Taliban, and what Luther wrote about in the middle ages:

Reason is […] the greatest enemy that faith has

It’s only a matter of time until we can openly say what is blatantly obvious: smart, educated people don’t believe in gods, fairies or magic. Stupid people serve their priesthood.

Mini morals

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A wave of sexual assaults has hit Kenyan women: they are severely beaten and have their clothes torn off by a mob of men. Why? Because, according to the male mob, their victims are

tempting them by being indecently dressed

Even more alarming, in an interview a 26-years old student commented to the press that

An African woman should be decent. They are provoking us. And I think we should put in place laws to curb that.

Let’s face the truth. These ‘men’ are looking for excuses to humiliate women and will take anything as a pretext to sexually assault them. A miniskirt that was proffered as evidence for indecency is a cynical joke. No mater what a woman wears, no man must ever take that as a pretext to assault her – no excuse will ever do. Moreover, in Kenya many women live in traditional communities that do not have Abrahamic nudity taboos – they don’t, for example, have acquired the compulsion to cover their breasts. So even if we did allow for some ‘cultural’ BS explanation, it would not hold water here. No, these men simply assault women – because they feel they can.

What we see here is unchecked male desire for dominance, coupled with a patriarchal ideology – most probably Christianity – trying to assert itself by openly assaulting women. Mind you – the fault does not lie directly with Christianity; it lies with the perpetrators. It’s just that Christianity provides such a convenient pretext when foaming-at-the-mouth priests tell their congregation that

wearing miniskirts is the devil’s work

Remember this the next time some religious nut tells you that religion helps you to be more moral. https://findphonebase.ca

Erdoğan’s America

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Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – not particularly known for his intelligence – wants to set the record straight. As the Guardian and other outlets report, Erdoğan maintains that muslim sailors reached the Americas more than 300 years before Christopher Columbus did:

Muslim sailors reached the American continent 314 years before Columbus, in 1178

More interesting than the question whether this is true, though, is the question why anyone would want to say something like this. So some people say that Columbus ‘discovered’ the Americas. But is this really something to be proud of considering the fact that

  • Columbus’ (re)discovery ultimately led to immense suffering and death – the indigenous population was almost wiped out both intentionally and accidentally. Why would you want to claim responsibility for that? Even US Americans are finally clueing in to the fact that celebrating Columbus Day is like celebrating the Huns’ arrival at the Gates of Rome.
  • Why is the religion of the discoverer relevant? If you do want to put your God in the spotlight this way, you’ll have to explain why so many more discoveries were made outside your religion. 
  • It’s common knowledge that the Vikings made multiple landfalls on the american continent before 1000 AD; the Polynesians very likely reached South America more than 1500 years before the first Northmen set foot on Newfoundland – yet you don’t see either of them running around trumpeting that fact. Why would they?
  • More to the point, the original discoverers of the Americas are the indigenous people that the Johnny Come-Latelys killed: the Americas were originally settled 16’000 – 20’000 years ago, most probably via a land bridge from Asia. They almost certainly were superstitious, but they definitely didn’t adhere to Islam, Christianity or any other religion we know today. 

If there is one thing I wouldn’t obsess about is the question who really discovered the Americas and what deities they believed in.

So what can we learn about this silly claim?

If you feel that your religion has some kind of penis envy versus some other religion and that you must stake a claim for your religion, make sure it’s about something worthwhile.

Selling Islam

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Expressing indignation over Sam Harris’ and Bill Maher’s ‘sweeping generalizations’ about Islam, Reza Aslan, in an interview with CNN went on record stating [at the 5:38 mark] that

In [muslim] Indonesia, women are absolutely 100 percent equal to men

Now, taking into account that Aslan is a professional apologist, that statement still is a jaw-droppingly brazen lie. It is impossible for someone like him to not know about the Sharia law-regulated Aceh province of Indonesia. Sharia law, especially in criminal cases, is synonymous with gender inequality, and violates fundamental human rights – especially women’s – something that Aslan, a scholar of religious studies, doubtlessly knows.

Today, Time and other news outlets report that women in Indonesia who want to become policewomen must demonstrate their virginity, and that married women are not eligible to join the police force (in case you wondered: men do not have to prove their virginity, and married men are accepted into the police).

Which makes you wonder what ‘absolutely 100 percent equal’ means in Aslan’s universe. It casts a dim light on his other arguments – especially the one where he calls FGM an ‘African problem’, when it is common knowledge that this vile practice is also prevalent in Indonesia (surprise!), Malaysia, Pakistan and India, none of which can in any way be called African countries. Aslan should know better, and I’m quite sure he does.

What is it that makes intelligent people like Aslan be untruthful on behalf of their God – when they know that sooner rather than later their religious brothers will do their worst to help us catch them in their lies?

When public dishonesty becomes the best approach to selling your religion, it says a lot about the product.

Hijab vs. Bible

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A couple of weeks ago, a colleague noticed my discomfort and point-blank asked what bothered me about her Hijab. Regrettably, I had no immediate response other than ‘it doesn’t feel right’. She was gracious enough to accepted this non-reason.

So what is it that I find so offensive about a Hijab, Niqab or Burka? At least the Hijab can be a fashion statement, can’t it?

Yes.

It’s the original purpose, the idea behind a head- or body veil that disturbs me: the sentiment that a woman’s beauty is just for her husband to enjoy. Only her husband (who does not reciprocate) can see her beauty, making it his exclusive property – and by extension, her as well. The hijab is nothing else but a reminder to society that every woman is some man’s property. That is making me uncomfortable: the idea that women wear the very symbol of their subjugation as fashion.

If you are a Christian nodding at these lines, don’t get too comfortable, though. The Ten Commandments list wives (yup, plural) as a man’s possessions. They are listed among other property such as slaves, house and cattle. And yet, Christian women happily recite the 10th Commandment, just like many muslim women willingly wear a Hijab. That’s why I also feel uncomfortable each time an otherwise intelligent Christian woman praises the Ten Commandments.

Also – have you never wondered about the eerie similarities between a Burka and a Christian nun’s Habit?

Do you really think that’s coincidence?

The Bible, I swear!

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It happens in every court-room drama. A person places their hand on a book and invokes an incantation like So I swear or So help me God. It also happens in reality in many countries during the swearing-in ceremonies of leaders.

People place their hand on a book, and with a straight face proclaim that they will do good. And they believe that placing their hand on a book documents their sincerity.

A book that condones slavery, misogyny, and genocide.

Am I the only one worried by this? I mean, I understand if followers of IS or Taliban do something like this. They mean business. But I feel that if you swear on the Bible or Quran, you might as well place your right hand on the hilt of the blood-dripping sword that just decapitated the last free woman. Actually, that would be a step up.

So it must be religious thing. Which has me a bit stumped – at least for Christians: swearing on the Bible is ostensibly one of the least Christian things you can do: Matthew 5:34-37 and James 5:12 pretty much say that you must not swear:

“Above all, my brothers, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else.”

Well I guess it’s another one of those Christian ticks: believing you are doing right by the book you didn’t read.

If you ask me, people shouldn’t be swearing on or by the bible.

They should swear at it.

The 90% Minority

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The BBC reports that yesterday, in the Punjab province in Pakistan, a couple was killed by an angry mob for blasphemy.

“Yesterday an incident of desecration of the holy Koran took place in the area and today the mob first beat the couple and later set their bodies on fire at a brick kiln,” local police station official Bin Yameen told the AFP news agency.

A security official told the BBC that local police had tried to save the couple, but they were outnumbered and attacked by the angry crowd.

The majority of these people believe that it perfectly all right to barbarically beat two people to death because they may have done something unsavory to a religious book.

I would love to hear Ben Affleck explain why that isn’t a bad idea – or how this local-police-overwhelming mob is a minority.

Cat-callers go apeshit

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It all started with a video: a woman walking down some New York streets, being the target of a lot of cat-calls. Even if parts of the video are fake (as was accused, but not proven), it definitely made an impression. To many men, the number of cat-calls was surprisingly high; most women say that it feels about right. Even if parts of the movie were staged, it points to an actual issue. So silly me thought that the issue was clear cut: the video shows that there are a lot of men who say things like ‘hey babe’ to a strange women, believing they are doing her a favor, while women think this behavior is bordering on harassment. Condensed into the short movie, the point, I thought, was crystal clear. I thought.

Enter Steven Santagati, who considers himself god’s gift to womankind. In a discussion on CNN, Steven went on to give new meaning to the term mansplainin’: not only did he explain to the two women on CNN what they really want, he also advised them that their best course of action to counter every-day harassment would be to carry a gun, and blow away the cat-callers.

Now, contrasting the original video to the sentiments of a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, who explains the world as perceived by a single-digit IQ brain, I thought this was a slam-dunk – one of those rare cases where everyone agrees.

Reading the comments on YouTube (a bad idea even on a good day), I found further proof against evolution: if you think humanity has evolved from monkeys, you are dead wrong. We are still apes.

Then again, using a gun to get rid of cat-callers is a surprisingly Darwinian approach to this problem.

Coo coo Cook comment

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Apple CEO Tim Cook officially affirmed that he is gay. Most people around the globe acknowledged his open statement as an act of bravery; it underscores the fact that gays are still discriminated; that people of power like Cook must take it upon themselves to make their private life public in order to shelter and encourage those who live in fear of discovery.

Except for a few idiots. Meet Hanna Henkel, editor of Switzerland’s conservative Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). From her perspective, ‘Cook abused his power as a manager when he made is own sexuality public’.

Really? Hanna, you do realize that most of your conservative friends who share your stone-age morals also think that a woman like you shouldn’t be an editor, right?

Well, for once, I agree with their sentiment. Your article is a disgrace to you, and your paper.

French Barbarism

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French culture Minister, Fleur Pellerin, admitted to the fact that her tight schedule does currently not allow her to read literature. This was seen as a scandal by some, especially in the light that this year’s Literature Nobel Prize went to Patrick Modiano, a french national.

Writing for the French version of the ‘Huffington Post’, Claude Askolovitch called Pellerin’s lack of reading ‘barbaric’ and called for her to resign. Which goes to show that you don’t need religion to be a pompous, self-important jerk. Of course reading is important to Askolovitch – he’s a writer. But Fleur Pellerin’s job is not to read, it’s her job to manage an entire nation’s culture policy. Calling her ‘barbaric’ because she hasn’t read a particular book lately and demanding she step down is like requesting the minister of Transportation to resign because she hasn’t driven a truck lately.

Plus, another trait in Pellerin struck me as noteworthy: there are lots of people who pretend they have read Modiano. Fleur Pellerin, when put on the spot, did not try to weasel out of an uncomfortable situation. She knew that her answer was going to be somewhat embarrassing (a staffer could have prepped her), yet she unflinchingly told the truth.

That’s called having a spine, and – in politics – is almost as rare as real unicorn tears. Not having read a particular author, no matter how important, is not something to be ashamed of. Especially if you are running the country.