Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Society

  • Different Ways of Thinking

    J. Carter Wood, over at Obscene Desserts, introduces us to a couple of examples from the scary wing of the Haunted House built by religion. Depressing stuff. As he says: my brain kind of seizes up, since I can’t see how that works, how people can actually think that way. Me neither.

  • Different Ways of Knowing

    Greta Christina has a good piece on the uses of irrationality and how it bears on the God question. Worth reading.

  • Global Peace Index

    I see that this year it’s Iceland that has come top in the Global Peace Index. Somewhat worryingly, the Netherlands has dropped two places since 2007, it’s now at number 22 in the rankings. However, it scores better than the UK (at 49).

  • A Time To Die

    Jon Ronson has a talent for poking about in the haunted wing of society and coming up with Tales of the Unexpected. In today’s Guardian he writes about the Reverend George Exoo, who has assisted the suicide of over 100 people. While I reserve the right to want to choose euthanasia should the circumstances arise, I don’t know that I would want the Reverend Exoo on hand. He strikes me as too much of a loose can(n)on.

  • Roadside Encounter

    We’ve been having glorious weather for over a week now – 10 degrees Celsius warmer than is normal for this time of year. I decided yesterday to go out exploring cycle routes on my bike. I struck off in the general direction of Winterswijk, a town near the Dutch/German border. When I reached Winterswijk, I celebrated with an ice cream at Talamini’s Gelateria – the best Ice Cream Parlour in the region.
     
    On my way back, I was pedalling gently through the outer part of Winterswijk, when a car pulled up alongside, and the passenger asked me a question in German. Looking over, I saw that the car was filled with German youth – boys in the front and girls in the back. I apologised, in English, that I couldn’t speak German. After a moment’s nonplussing, the boy then asked, in English, "can we buy things here in this town?". Odd question, thought I, and replied that they needed to turn around and head back to the centre, where the cafes, pubs and restaurants were open in and around the town square. More puzzlement from the boy, who then said, "er, thank you", accompanied by much giggling from the girls. They drove off.
     
    It was a second or two later that I realised what they were after: drugs. And then I thought, what a bunch of idiots. They hadn’t thought to Google for Winterswijk’s one and only coffeeshop before setting off. Mad, impetuous, empty-headed youth. When I was that age, I think I had more sense than these youngsters seemed to have.

  • Women In Black

    I watched Women in Black – Londoner Amaini Zain’s visit to her family home in Yemen. I never fail to be amazed at the degree of self-deception that people engage in.

  • Does The Button Do Anything?

    It’s a deep question. And I agree with Le Canard Noir – I miss paternosters.

  • The Causes of War: Women or Pigs

    Jared Diamond has a story about Daniel Wemp, an employee of ChevronTexaco and avenger of his Uncle Soll, who was killed in a battle with a rival clan. Extraordinary. Go and read it.

  • Conversations With Cabbies

    Nigel Warburton, who blogs as the Virtual Philosopher, had a rather eyebrow-raising conversation with his taxi-driver last week. Bob, in the comments, points us to this video of Stewart Lee talking about a similar experience with another taxi-driver.
     
     

  • Honour Killing

    The phrase Honour Killing seems to me to be a perfect example of the societal form of Unspeak, since what it usually means is the murder of women by their husbands or fathers. The Observer reports today that
    Last year 133 women were killed in Basra – 47 of them for so-called ‘honour killings’, according to the Basra Security Committee. Out of those 47 cases there have been only three convictions for murder. Since January this year, 36 women have been killed.
    The statistics are numbing, and mask the fact that each murder victim was an individual, with hopes and fears like all of us. The Observer’s report looks at one case, the story of 17 year old Rand Abdel-Qader. "She was stamped on, suffocated and stabbed by her father. Several brutal knife wounds punctured her slender, bruised body – from her face to her feet. He had done it, he proclaimed to the neighbours who soon gathered round, to ‘cleanse his honour’." He has not been prosecuted for her murder, because it was an "honour killing". Words fail me.   
     

  • Wash Those Brains

    Matt Taibbi has a riveting article about the techniques used by the pastors of the Cornerstone Church. It makes terrifying reading.
    By the end of the weekend I realized how quaint was the mere suggestion that Christians of this type should learn to “be rational” or “set aside your religion” about such things as the Iraq War or other policy matters. Once you’ve made a journey like this — once you’ve gone this far — you are beyond suggestible. It’s not merely the informational indoctrination, the constant belittling of homosexuals and atheists and Muslims and pacifists, etc., that’s the issue. It’s that once you’ve gotten to this place, you’ve left behind the mental process that a person would need to form an independent opinion about such things. You make this journey precisely to experience the ecstasy of beating to the same big gristly heart with a roomful of like-minded folks. Once you reach that place with them, you’re thinking with muscles, not neurons.
    Of course, the same techniques work for any flavour of religious or political dogma, this is not simply true for Christians alone. It is a great pity that we, as a species, are so susceptible to these techniques designed to extinguish critical thinking. As George Carlin has said: Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that””.
    (hat tip to Dangerous Intersections for the link)
    Addendum July 2017: …and, wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Taibbi turns out to be a despicable human being himself.

  • Fences

    J. Carter Wood, over at Obscene Desserts, has an excellent post on the mental fences that we, or more usually, persons with power (real or imagined), attempt to erect around our mental processes. Definitely worth reading. Some fences are not only false, but actively harmful.

  • Knowing What’s Nice

    Something to think about from Jesus, Mo and Kurt.

  • Boiling The Frogs

    Interesting piece by David Byrne. Perhaps the super-rich will indeed go on partying as they always have, but perhaps they are also frogs sitting in water that is slowly being heated to boiling point along with the rest of us.

  • Could Do Better

    I see that Daniel Dennett and Lord Winston fired the opening salvos of their debate yesterday (on the question of whether religion is a threat to rationality and science) in written form. I must admit that I was surprised at how weak the arguments of Lord Winston seem to be. But then, I don’t find the Book of Job to be "deeply mysterious and spiritual", but a rather unpleasant story of what happens when God has a bet with Satan.

  • Head, Meet Desk

    Perhaps the person responsible for this banner was in full irony mode; but somehow, I rather doubt it. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

  • Stuff of Life

    This is very strong stuff.
     
     
    Hat tip to Rachel.

  • Strawmens ‘R Us

    Dear lord, but this piece by Mark Ravenhill is pure shite. He clearly hasn’t read anything of TGD before putting up this strawman. What a wanker.

  • “I Have to do this thing for our future”

    The words of Mohammed Siddique Khan to his baby girl. Truly terrifying and sad beyond all my understanding. And here’s another example: the matyrdom video of Umar Islam. He’s clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box. Born Brian Young 30 years ago, how has he ended up as he has?

  • “God Said So”

    David Thompson ruminates on the phenomenon of believers being convinced that they are merely echoing what their particular deity meant, rather than using their deity as a label to justify their own prejudices. A common happenstance, I fear.
     
    For a measure of understanding of this whole phenomenon, I advise the reading of Martin Rowson’s The Dog Allusion. A witty, and I feel, true, explanation that "rationally, the whole enterprise of religion is a monumental and faintly ridiculous waste of time and money. But then again, so is pet-keeping".
     
    That’s as may be, but on the other hand, I don’t recall cat-owners embarking on an actual crusade against dog-owners, or the latter pronouncing death for apostates who renounce dogs in favour of goldfish. Apart from that, I think that Rowson hits the nail on the head.