The Mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, has an epiphany and realises that the right thing to do is to support gay marriage. Watch the video to see the depth of emotion that is here. He did the right thing. It’s a pity that in too many places in this sorry world his humanity isn’t followed as a shining example of what is right.
Category: Society
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Ernst Tungendhat
I’ve only just come across Ernst Tugendhat. He’s German, and a philosopher. There’s a rather good interview with him here, and via that, I came across this excellent piece that he wrote examining religion as a human need. It’s a very good exploration of an aspect of what Daniel Dennett calls the "belief in belief". -
Mary’s At It Again
Mary Midgely, that is. And by "it", I mean a total misrepresentation of the views of Richard Dawkins. There’s a piece in today’s Independent which seems to show that, almost thirty years on from her crass misunderstanding of Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, she still hasn’t learnt anything and continues to peddle falsehoods. I’m almost inclined to believe that the term "moral philosopher" is an oxymoron in her particular case. -
Quite
Jason Kottke Makes a good point. I’ve just been reading Rupert Everett’s Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins, and while I grant that he writes well, the milieu that he describes I find singularly repulsive. -
The Accident
There was a road accident involving a car and a bus in London’s Tower Hamlets last Saturday night. Here’s the view from 30,000 feet, as reported by the BBC News.And here’s the view reported at ground level by Tom Reynolds. Tom speaks directly to each of us, and makes us stop to pause and reflect. -
Life’s Rich Tapestry
As I’ve said before, families come in all shapes and sizes. Here’s Layla Kumari writing about her plans to marry Gian and raise a family. What makes their part of life’s tapestry a little more technicolour than most is that she is lesbian and Hindu, and he is a gay Sikh. Good luck to them both, I wish them well. -
Six Degrees…
And here’s another visit to the world of six degrees of separation again. Although this time it’s even more macabre than the last time. This time, I have to report than I am two degrees separated from the serial killer Dennis Neilsen. A good friend of mine knew Nielsen in, shall we say, the biblical sense. Thankfully, he survived to tell the tale. Others did not. -
Apostasy
Here’s an English-language article (from The Times) about today’s launch in The Netherlands of the committee of ex-Muslims. Good luck to them. The Volkskrant today carries a perhaps-less-than-helpful political cartoon showing Ehsan Jami, the leader of the committee, caught in the tentacles of an octopus. One tentacle, behind him, holds a cudgel spiked with nails, which it is raising to strike at Jami.One thing that irritates me about the Times article is that it repeats the canard that links the assasination of Pim Fortuyn with Muslim extremists. Can we please put this to rest? He was murdered by a white, Dutch, non-muslim, animal rights activist…Update: Ophelia also picks up on some of the odd language of the article that I had missed… I’m getting lax in my old age. -
One Drone Less
While one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I fear I come perilously close to that after reading this hilarious obituary of what seems to have been a rather unpleasant man. -
Articulation
There’s an interesting article published on the Radio Netherlands web site today. It’s an interview with Farish Noor. He’s clearly an example of a Muslim who embodies nuanced thinking about his religion, and rightly warns against an over-simplistic interpretation of the Koran as evidenced by much of the media, and the Dutch right-wing parties in particular.All the same, I couldn’t help but be slightly taken aback by one thing in the article:Labour party member Ehsan Jami established a committee of ex-Muslims in order to support the right of Muslims to leave Islam. What do you think of his initiative?"If someone decides to leave his religion, then this is his fundamental freedom of choice and the Labour party should support it of course. But the party has to be careful not to give the impression that it only supports apostates. I wanted to meet Ehsan Jami, but unfortunately he could not make it. If there is one thing I would like to tell him it is that he should be very careful not to be used by the right wing by implying that the only good Muslim is an ex-Muslim. He should not forget that progressive Muslims like myself and many others have been fighting since a long time for the freedom of Muslims to leave Islam. And we paid the price for it. A friend of mine had his house bombed. I have lived with death threats for 10 years. People have come to my house to kill me. When people like Jami start to distort the debate in this manner, it may put back our effort 30 years."Erm, who is distorting the debate here? -
Free The Buggers
As I’ve already mentioned, this week sees the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Wolfenden Report. Doug Ireland, over at his DIRELAND blog, has a good summary of how life was for British homosexuals 50 years ago. He mentions the BBC’s "Hidden Lives" themed programming which has been running this week on BBC Four. That has been extremely good. A whole series of dramas and documentaries, some new, but many old ones getting a well-deserved airing again (TV biographies of Joe Orton, Frankie Howard, Leigh Bowery and Joe Meek, for example – all first-class).I had never seen the Face-to-Face interview of Gilbert Harding conducted by John Freeman before (it was first aired in 1960), and I must say it was a revelation. Freeman was clearly trying to get Harding say that he was homosexual, and it made for riveting, but very uncomfortable television. More on Harding himself, and that interview can be found here. It’s well worth reading.The centrepiece of the week was Julian Mitchell’s dramatisation of the people involved with, or affected by, the Wolfenden Report itself. Consenting Adults, was an excellent piece of work, beautifully played (in particular by Charles Dance as Sir John Wolfenden, Sean Biggerstaff as his (gay) son Jeremy, and Mark Gatiss as a nasty policeman), and beautifully set-dressed. The period was caught exactly. I see that someone who knew both John Wolfenden and his son Jeremy has commented on how well the actors and the drama caught the essence of the real people.That comment was made on the BBC’s "Have Your Say" page devoted to the Hidden Lives week. The majority of the comments are deservedly complimentary, but I see that there’s the inevitable few denouncing the BBC for daring to devote air time to the subject. It’s very curious, and indeed very revealing in a Freudian sort of way, how every single one of these comments deplores the BBC for "shoving it down our throats". Oo-er, missus… -
Maddy’s Myopia
And talking about those who misrepresent Dawkins, Our Maddy of the Sorrows, Madeleine Bunting, demonstrates once again that she is ever-dependable in this department. She comments on that radio interview between Dawkins and Cornwell, and introduces her article with:Richard Dawkins, finally agreed to debate religion with one of his critics. He has repeatedly refused a head-to-head with protagonists such as his Oxford colleague, Professor Alister McGrath, but on the Today programme this morning, we got a snippet of a fascinating exchange between two very clever men.Clearly she’s living in another world. As Richard Dawkins himself felt obliged to point out in the comments on her piece:She only had go google "Alister McGrath" and "Richard Dawkins" to find several references to our debate at the Oxford Literary Festival, chaired by Joan Bakewell in March of this year. It is available for her to listen to at http://richarddawkins.net/article,802,Richard-Dawkins-at-The-Sunday-Times-Oxford-Literary-Festival,Richard-DawkinsI would more strongly recommend to her, however, the long conversation between Alister McGrath and me which she will find at http://richarddawkins.net/article,1212,Richard-Dawkins-and-Alister-McGrath,Root-of-All-Evil-Uncut-InterviewsMadeline Bunting will be disappointed to discover that, in both these debates, I am conciliatory, civilised, and not, I think it is fair to say, ‘shrill’ or ‘arrogant’. Perhaps, after this, and after examining the evidence of sharp practice by her hero John Cornwell at http://richarddawkins.net/article,1610,Honest-Mistakes-or-Willful-Mendacity,Richard-Dawkins Madeline Bunting might finally begin to get the message. Is it too much to hope that she’ll go the whole hog and actually read The God Delusion before the next time she sounds off about it?I fear that the good professor hopes too much. It seems pretty clear that she hasn’t actually read his book. After all, she writes:And this is why I think Dawkins is dangerous. He has spent enough time now thinking about religion and listening to thoughtful religious people such as the Harries, yet he persists with a parody, a childlike perception of God and religion. Of course there’s no man with a beard crashing about in the sky.As Chris White points out in the comments:Blimey Madeleine, you really haven’t read The God Delusion, have you? (Nor, in all probability, will you read this.)Page 31: "The God Hypothesis should not stand or fall with its most unlovely instantiation, Yahweh, nor his insipidly opposite Christian face, ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild’. […] Instead I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a super-human, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."And, crucially, page 36: "This is as good a moment as any to forestall an inevitable retort to the book, one that would otherwise — as sure as night follows day — turn up in a review: ‘The God that Dawkins doesn’t believe in is a God that I don’t believe in either. I don’t believe in an old man in the sky with a long white beard.’ That old man is an irrelevant distraction and his beard is as tedious as it is long. Indeed, the distraction is worse than irrelevant. Its very silliness is calculated to distract attention from the fact that what the speaker really believes is not a whole lot less silly. I know you don’t believe in an old man sitting on a cloud, so let’s not waste any more time on that. I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented."Please try reading the book before pronouncing upon it. You might actually learn something.Amen to that. -
Hearts and Minds
And talking of heartrending, here’s a moment between a loving father and his eldest daughter:A Muslim man and his two daughters are enjoying a coastal drive in South Africa. It’s a happy scene, yet the easy banter belies the hardship this family has endured. The man, Mushin Hendricks, is a former imam who was cast out by his community when he declared his homosexuality. The girls’ mother has since remarried, and when Hendricks asks them what they would do if he were arrested, the answer comes without hesitation. The elder child, combining filial love with the lessons of her Islamic education, says she would ask that officials spare him a protracted death by stoning, and kill him with the first rock.Words fail me. -
It’s Not Unusual…
…But of course, in some places, being a gay couple is not only unusual, but positively dangerous. Here’s Kamran and Kaveh in Iran:What is the problem of an Iranian homosexual?Kaveh: The first is that we cannot discuss any of our problems. We have a problem with the government due to our sexual orientation; the Islamic government does not accept us and we are condemned to hanging and stoning. In comparison the rest of the problems are minor.How do you describe life as a homosexual in Iran?Kamran: Very easy; one cannot work, cannot have fun, and cannot go out. You cannot go out with your partner because everybody will look at you as if you are abnormal. The way we are looked at is a source of torment for us. Even though physically we are not any different from them they discriminate against us. This makes our lives extremely difficult. I don’t think there is any problem greater than being labeled abnormal in society when you are certain nothing is wrong with you. If someone abuses you, you cannot issue a complaint to any organization or report to the police, because you’ll create more problems for yourself.It’s heartrending.Kaveh: We do not ask for much in life. I want to have a 40 meter apartment in Iran where I can live with my partner, the person I love. Get up in the morning and go to work, work, and feel at peace when I return home. That’s it. Just a quiet life with my boyfriend. I’d like to reach this dream and not be hanged or stoned for loving someone.Heartrending. -
Et Tu, Brute?
Recently I mentioned my exasperation at some of the nonsense being written about atheism and atheists by believers. Well, blow me down with a feather, now some atheists are doing the same when writing about their fellow atheists. Here’s a prime example by Magnus Linklater.I find it really annoying that he too stoops to ad hominem attacks on Dawkins, and misrepresenting Dakwins’ positions. A typical example in his article is where he states:I cannot, like* Professor Dawkins, think the less of anyone who takes pleasure from a familiar liturgy, nor deride those who fall back on a Church whose central tenets they reject.Even though he appears to have read The God Delusion, he still, unconsciously or disingenuously, misrepresents Dawkins. I have never found an instance where Dawkins derides "those who fall back". And as for liturgy, Linklater appears to have missed this closing passage in The God Delusion in the section on religious education as a part of literary culture:I have probably said enough to convince at least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.* Although Linklater uses "like" here, from the context, I take it to mean that he actually means "unlike". His whole thrust in the article is that he (Linklater) is actually a much more caring and reasonable person than those meanies Dawkins and Toynbee… -
From Pillar To Post
Karima Tieleman has not had an easy life. I’m not sure that it’s all going to be plain sailing from here on in, either. Still it’s her choice. I don’t know which depressed me more – reading about what she has to put up with or reading some of the comments on this story. -
What Do These Religionists Understand Of Atheism?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown has a regular column in the Independent newspaper. This week, it was titled: What Do These Atheists Understand Of Religion? I must say, after reading it, and counting to ten several times over, that I really think the title should have been reversed. Ms. Alibhai-Brown seems to have no understanding of what atheism is, and constructs a series of strawmen in an attempt to prove her case. And I do get tired of ad hominem attacks of Dawkins when it is seems clear that the attackers, such as Alibhai-Brown, appear either not to have read his books or continually mis-state his positions. I felt like banging my head on my keyboard when I read the climax of her piece with yet another appearance of the nonsense trope: "Fundamentalist atheists want to replace old religions with their own".Her nonsense has been thoroughly dissected by the comments here. I particularly like this one – a measured response to Alibhai-Brown’s fevered rhetoric. And of course, the ever-dependable Ophelia Benson has comments of her own on the piece. I do like her summary of one of Alibhai-Brown’s more stupid propositions as a piece of kack. A good old-fashioned slang word correctly used to describe the argument as the great big steaming pile of ordure that it is. -
Virtual Life
I’ve just come across a reference (on Virtual Philosopher) to a recent discussion on BBC Radio between Professor Susan Greenfield and Ren Reynolds about the rise of virtual social interaction sites such as Facebook and SecondLife. There’s also a link to the MP3 of the discussion. I must have a listen. Like Professor Greenfield, I worry whether people who lead virtual lives impact their capability for real-world interpersonal relationships. The other side of the coin, as Nigel of Virtual Philosopher says, is that people like me who don’t participate in these virtual worlds will increasingly be seen as the odd ones. Move over, dinosaurs, here I come.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 