Foxes in charge

The hunger for power is never satiated.  This unfortunate dark side of the human psyche has been illustrated in countless myths and folk legends; it was described succinctly in the episode of Doctor Who called "The Face of Evil," wherein the Fourth Doctor says, "You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.  They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views.  Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering."

It's the danger with voting in leaders who are motivated solely by power.  They may start out seeming to have your best interests in mind, but there's no guarantee that things will stay that way.  The fact is, they owe no allegiance to you at all.  As history has shown over and over again, their only allegiance is to their sole guiding star, which is the acquisition of more power.

The people in Afghanistan are finding that out about the Taliban.  And I'm not talking about women and non-Muslims and dissidents, who were already being persecuted; I'm talking about observant, law-abiding Muslim men, who are still running afoul of the Taliban leaders' desperate desire to control every last detail of everyone's lives:

[N]ewly empowered religious morality officers, known for their white robes, have been knocking over the past four weeks on the doors of men in some parts of Kabul who haven’t recently attended mosque, according to residents.  Government employees said they fear they’ll be let go for having failed to grow their beards, and some barbers now refuse to trim them.  Increasingly, male taxi drivers are being stopped for violating gender segregation rules, by having unaccompanied female riders in their cars, or for playing music.  The new laws give the morality police authority to detain suspects for up to three days.  In severe cases, such as repeated failure to pray in the mosque, suspects can be handed over to courts for trial and sentencing based on their interpretation of Islamic sharia law.  Violations of the new rules are expected to be punished by fines or prison terms.  But people found guilty of some infractions, for example adultery, could be sentenced to flogging or death by stoning.  Amir, a resident who lives in eastern Afghanistan, said he supported the Taliban up until the latest restrictions.  But he now feels bullied into submission by their morality police.  "We all are practicing Muslims and know what is mandatory or not.  But it’s unacceptable to use force on us," he said.  He added, "Even people who have supported the Taliban are now trying to leave the country."

Which immediately made me think of this:

The parallels with Donald Trump and the MAGA movement are obvious.  How anyone, at this point, can think that Donald Trump is interested in anything besides the continuing glorification of Donald Trump is beyond me.  He has made it clear that his agenda is to destroy anyone who won't buy into the DJT-worship cult, by whatever means necessary.

If you think this is all bluster, all you have to do is read the manifesto of Project 2025, which explicitly mandates a reformulation of America into a straight, white, Christian, conservative, male-dominated oligarchy.  (Or simply listen to one of J. D. Vance's speeches -- there's no soft-pedaling there.  He brings "saying the quiet part out loud" to new heights.)  They've even recommended "head-of-household voting" -- giving a single vote per household, where the husband casts the vote, effectively disenfranchising women completely.  (Although they graciously say they'll allow single women to vote.)  And yet there are still women who support this candidate and this party, which baffles the absolute hell out of me.

The problem is, once you give people like this power, they seldom stop where you think they will.  Okay, so maybe you're a devout Christian, and you think having a theocratic government based on Christian ideals is a nifty idea.  What happens when it turns out that the people you elected think you're not the right kind of Christian?  Or that you're not Christian enough?  The Puritans found that out the hard way.  They started out as a movement against corruption and laxity in the church at the time (which were not undeserved criticisms), but found themselves on the receiving end of the attentions of people who made it their life's work to punish everything and everyone that didn't fit their harsh, narrow views of morality and religion.  (Witness the law in colonial America requiring people to attend church twice a day.  The penalty for breaking that one was a public whipping.  Around the same time, one Captain Kemble was sentenced to the stocks for kissing his wife in public -- after being away at sea for three years.)

If you think the architects of Project 2025, and the MAGA movement in general, have the least concern for your own personal well-being, you're fooling yourself.  Maybe at the moment your beliefs and behaviors are in line with their vision for the country, but don't count on that lasting.  Give these people power, and that vision will constrict further and further.  Anyone left outside the circle will find themselves unexpectedly becoming targets -- as Amir and his friends in Afghanistan have discovered.

But by that time, there's nothing that can be done about it.  Through their own free choice, people put foxes in charge of the henhouse, then they wonder at the slaughter that follows.

This is the heart of the famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller.  Niemöller was a Lutheran minister, and initially supported Adolf Hitler and the rise of Nazism.  He only began to wise up when he saw that the Nazis, once in power, weren't content with what they had, but moved to take over every institution and every facet of public life, including the churches.  At that point, he began to object, but it was far too late.  During the war years he was imprisoned in various concentration camps (he was one of the lucky survivors), and afterward, spent the rest of his life working to atone for the mistakes he'd made.  After the war, he wrote the lines that have since become deservedly famous:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and by then, there was no one left to speak for me.

In our case, it's not too late.  Make no mistake; the people behind Project 2025 are deadly serious, and given the opportunity, they will no more put the brakes on their power grab than the Taliban have.  And once in charge, they will be equally hard to dislodge.  This goes way beyond liberal versus conservative, or even religious versus non-religious.

Just as the people in Germany found out eighty years ago, and the people in Afghanistan are finding out today, this is about the destruction of democracy and its replacement by an authoritarian dictatorship.

Make the right choice when you vote in November.  It's the only chance we have.

****************************************

Extremist think tank

Sometimes, and I say this with all due affection, my fellow humans scare the absolute shit out of me.

This comes up because of a story I ran into a couple of days ago over at Right Wing Watch, which is a place you definitely don't want to hang out if you want to maintain the opinion that the people around you are rational, or necessarily even sane.  This particular piece, by Peter Montgomery, is entitled, "Prophets Gather at Trump's Washington Hotel to Unleash Angel Armies on his Deep State Enemies," and is basically about how those of us who have criticized the president are about to get what we deserve, and boy are we really gonna be sorry.

The host of the event was Dutch Sheets, executive director of Christ for the Nations Institute, which is dedicated to remodeling society in government along biblical lines.  In other words, turning the United States into a Taliban-style theocracy, with all that implies for non-religious people like myself.    When asked about the conference, Sheets said, "There's never been anything on planet Earth like what's about to happen," which is true in that I can't imagine another scenario where self-professed Christians spent hours singing the praises of someone whose major claim to fame is a world speed record in commandment-breaking.

The battle, Sheets said, wasn't just about Trump, but about "whether the devastation caused by fifty years of anti-Christian activity will be reversed or, God forbid, continue...  The antichrist forces are almost rabid in their anger over the potential loss of progress."

By "anti-Christian activity," what he seems to mean is legislation requiring people to treat folks of other ethnic origins, religions, and sexual orientations with dignity.  If you can imagine.  Anyone who stands in their way, Sheets said, needs to be "removed" -- up to and including members of Congress and the Supreme Court (and since the only way Supreme Court members are "removed" is through resignation or death, that comment should definitely give you pause).

Sheets wasn't the only one who spoke at the conference, of course.  One speaker called Trump "the father of this nation" and that his decision to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was "history-making" and "prophecy-making."

What is most frightening about these people is their complete, unadulterated self-righteousness.  One speaker, evangelical activist Cindy Jacobs, said that god had told her personally that it was time to "convene the courts of heaven" and that the conference attendees "are God’s enforcers in the earth for His will to be done."  Another said that their duty was to "destroy all God’s enemies and all the enemies of America, in the name of Jesus Christ."

Sheets himself made a rather frightening prediction. Trump, he said, "would accomplish everything Almighty God sent you into that house to do, regardless of who likes it or who doesn’t... he will receive a visitation from heaven that will give him an intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ."  About anyone who tries to fight against Trump's agenda, he had the following to say:

You will fail!…  The Ekklesia [people who are Christian] will take you out.  The outpouring of Holy Spirit will take you out. Angels will take you out.  You are no match for any of the above.  You are no match for father, son, Holy Ghost, or his family or his angel armies.  You are no match for his word.  You are no match for his prophetic decrees….  So we push you back.  And we say your finest hour has come and gone, and the church now rises to the place that he has called us to walk in ….  We now rise up and I call that new order into the earth.

As long as Sheets and his pals are counting on the angels to come down and do all of this, I'm not particularly concerned, as there's no evidence that angels exist.  My fear is that we'll have a repeat of what always happens when extremists of all stripes don't get their way -- they stop waiting for God or Allah or what-have-you to take care of matters, and pick up a weapon to take care of it themselves.

I mean, really.  Will someone please explain to me how these people are different from ISIS in anything other than the details?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So that's our scary bit of news for the day.  I maintain that most of my fellow humans are really pretty nice people, trying to do what they can to keep themselves and their loved ones safe and happy.  The problem is, a small minority of wingnuts like these can do an incredible amount of damage in a very short period of time.  And given the rhetoric people like Sheets and Jacobs are spewing, it's only a matter of time -- especially given the collision course their Chosen One is currently on with the law.

Cat-and-mouse game

What is it with people and cartoons?

We've had people claiming that the Cat in the Hat is a coded symbol for the takeover of the world by the Illuminati.  A Saudi imam issued a fatwa against Mickey Mouse because "the mouse is one of Satan's soldiers."  The Vatican looked gave a serious look into whether or not the Simpsons are Catholic.  A French academic published a paper making the claim that The Smurfs is communist propaganda.  There was an outcry by the seal-the-borders cadre here in the United States when it was revealed that Dora the Explorer might be an illegal immigrant.

And because all of that wasn't ridiculous enough, Salah Abdel Sadek, head of Egypt's State Information Service, has made the claim that violent extremism in the Middle East is due to...

... Tom & Jerry.

Yes, Tom & Jerry, the iconic cat-and-mouse duo whose goofy hijinks have delighted Saturday morning cartoon watchers for decades.  But their shenanigans may not be so innocent, Sadek claims:

[Tom & Jerry] portrays the violence in a funny manner and sends the message that, yes, I can hit him … and I can blow him up with explosives.  It becomes set in [the viewer’s] mind that this is natural...   The cartoon conveys negative habits like smoking and drinking alcohol, teaches children that stealing is normal, distorts the concept of justice, and helps children invent sinister plans using sharp instruments such as chainsaws.

Okay, can we just get one thing straight right from the outset?

Cartoon characters are not real.  Because of this, I do not expect the world to be like an episode of Scooby Doo.  Although I have to admit that it would be easier in a lot of ways if it did.  Then all we'd have to do is to pull the masks off of the Koch brothers, and it'd turn out that they were actually the carnival owners, and they'd have gotten away with taking over the government if it hadn't been for You Crazy Kids and Your Flea-Bitten Mutt.

Also, most children are perfectly capable of telling cartoons from real life.  I grew up watching Looney Tunes, and I never once thought it'd be a clever idea to drop an actual anvil on anyone.  I was aware right from the outset that if you shoot a gun in someone's face, it doesn't simply blow their nose around to the other side of their head.  I knew that I couldn't paint a picture of a tunnel onto a wall, and then run down it like it was real.

Further, I understood that if you step off a cliff, you will fall right away, not wait until you notice that you're in mid-air.

In other words, I got that there's a difference between cartoons and real life, a distinction that seems to have escaped Salah Abdel Sadek.

Of course, there's another reason that he's making the claim.  Blaming the problems in the Middle East on a pair of (Western) cartoon characters makes it easy to ignore the more troubling reality -- that extremism isn't going to be as easy to fix as telling your children to turn off the television.  In order to do anything substantive about extremism, you have to acknowledge the role of poverty, sectarianism, and the preaching of religious intolerance, all three of which the Egyptian government is reluctant to address.  That would require doing something difficult, such as addressing wealth inequity, legislating equal treatment under the law for all races and religions, and squelching the Muslim clerics who shriek about jihad against those who are "insulting Islam" by virtue of holding other beliefs.

Easier to blame a fictional cat and mouse, isn't it?

So there you have it.  All this time and money and effort, and to end the violence all we had to do was cut subscriptions to The Cartoon Network.  It'd be nice, wouldn't it?  Just shutting something off makes it go away.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't work that way.  I know.  I've been trying that with Ann Coulter for years, to no avail.

The price of silence

I'm going to make a bold statement here: in any modern society, the single most critical thing for fostering intellectual advancement is freedom of speech.  Nothing else -- whether the country is run by liberals or conservatives, whether it is predominantly religious or secular, whether it's a democracy or monarchy or some other form of government -- really matters.

Freedom of speech also trumps considerations of politeness and offense.  I'm all for being compassionate and kind, and think that "don't be a dick" is a pretty good starting point for morality.  That said, it is more important that you be allowed to say what you think than it is for me to be happy about it.

It's like the Charlie Hebdo massacre.  My general opinion was that as satire goes, Charlie Hebdo was juvenile and not particularly funny.  Their crude lampooning of... well, everything... didn't even reach Mad magazine standards for humor.  But you know what?  That is entirely irrelevant.  The fact that I, or anyone else, might be offended by what they publish leaves us the easy option of not reading it.

[Nota bene:  I'm not considering true hate speech, here -- when someone makes credible material threats against someone else based on ethnic origin, nationality, sexual orientation, or religion.  But I think the distinction is clear enough that the point hardly needed to be made.]

The whole topic comes up because of the deaths in the past months of eight Bangladeshi bloggers, journalists, and writers, hacked to death with machetes because they had, in the minds of conservative Muslims, "insulted Islam."  The government has been reluctant to pursue the attackers, because this puts them in the awkward position of supporting people who are being critical of the state religion -- or who are simply outspoken atheists.

It would be unsurprising if this had the effect of silencing the remaining secular writers in the country.  Who could blame people for going into hiding if there's a very real danger that they'll be butchered if they keep speaking out?  Amazingly, there are three bloggers who have refused to be intimidated.  They were asked to make a statement to CNN, and offered the possibility of anonymity.

All three gave statements, and refused to do so anonymously.

Their statements are profiles in courage.  I want you to go back and read the original post (linked above), but the words they wrote are so inspiring, and so germane to what I discuss here on a daily basis, that I have to excerpt them.

From Imran H. Sarker, founder of the Bangladeshi Bloggers and Online Activist Network:

With the killing of one blogger after another, we seem to be heading towards total oblivion. As the world progresses under the banner of freedom of expression, we seem to be hurtling backwards. Our freedom is being silenced by the serial murder of bloggers and publishers.

From Maruf Rosul, writer for the Mukto-Mona human rights blog:

Freedom of expression in my country is dying...   Right now, our beloved Bangladesh is bleeding ceaselessly.  The land is torn asunder by the fanatics.  There is no way to disagree with the establishment or to ask questions about anything, even though freedom of speech is our constitutional right.

From Arif Jebtik, secular blogger and writer:

As they continue to tally their votes in order to hold power and influence, our mainstream politicians are the ones who are creating the debacles our country is currently facing right now. It is they who are silently broadening the path for radicalized murderers and extremists.

It's very easy, over here in the United States, to feel nothing but helpless rage at the murderers who are trying to squelch free speech.  What can we do, other than stand by and watch as secular writers are intimidated, injured, or killed?

First, visit their websites (linked above).  Show them support.  If it's possible, contribute financially.  The extremists' goal is not only directly to harm secular bloggers, but to fragment and intimidate their allies.  These people are continuing to speak out, at the risk of their lives, in order to maintain the standard of free speech that is the hallmark of civilized society.

On a personal note, as a blogger who often writes on controversial topics, I can't imagine being in that situation myself.  Would I have the courage to do what Sarker, Rosul, and Jebtik are doing, knowing that I could be ambushed and murdered in the street simply for voicing my opinion?  I don't know.  I'd like to think I would, but am profoundly grateful that I don't have to live with that threat.  However, one thing is certain: there is nothing to be gained by silence.  The price of silence is the loss of one of the most important freedoms we have.  If the extremists stop the dissenting voices, they will truly have won.

Outnumbered by the extremes

Some years ago, I remember being struck by a quote about democracy from C. S. Lewis when I read his book The Weight of Glory.  While I don't accept a lot of his premises, I think his argument has merit:

I believe in political equality.  But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice.  That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy.  On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.

When the democratic system works, it is because the votes of a few lunatics or extremists are outweighed by the votes of the (presumably more reasonable) average citizen, and good sense prevails.

The problem is, the whole thing falls apart when the extremists become so good not only at spreading their message but at demonizing the opposition that voters pledge themselves to people who are, to put not too fine a point on it, insane.  Then you find the system sowing the seeds of its own destruction, when by some unimaginable co-opting of the process, someone truly horrible ends up getting elected to office.

And no, I'm not talking about who you probably think I'm talking about.  The person I have in mind is Mary Lou Bruner, leading candidate for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education.

Bruner has established over and over again that she has a screw loose.  Below are a few of her more bizarre pronouncements.

On President Obama:

Obama has a soft spot for homosexuals because of the years he spent as a male prostitute in his twenties.  That is how he paid for his drugs.  He has admitted he was addicted to drugs when he was young, and he is sympathetic with homosexuals; but he hasn’t come out of the closet about his own homosexual/bisexual background.

 On the Kennedy assassination:

Many people believe the Democrat Party had JFK killed because the socialists and Communists in the party did not want a conservative president.  Remember who followed JFK as president — (LBJ).  The exact opposite of Kennedy — a socialist and an unethical politician.  It does seem like this might have been the master plan: They sneaked the bad guy (LBJ) into the administration on the coat-tail of a good guy (JFK).  Then they got rid of the good guy; in the end, they got a socialist president which is what they originally wanted.

On paleontology and the geological history of the Earth:

When the flood waters subsided and rushed to the oceans there was no vegetation on the earth because the earth had been covered with water…  The dinosaurs on [Noah’s ark] may have been babies and not able to reproduce…  After the flood, the few remaining Behemoths and Leviathans may have become extinct because there was not enough vegetation on earth for them to survive to reproductive age.

On climate change:

Climate change has nothing to do with weather or climate; it is all about system change from capitalism (free enterprise) to Socialism-Communism.  The Climate Change HOAX was Karl Marx’s idea.  It took some time to “condition” the people so they would believe such a ridiculous HOAX.

On the United Nations:

In regards to a statement I made about the United Nations wanting to reduce the population of the USA from 325 million to 125 million the question was asked to me: So how do you think the government and the UN plan to do away with 200,000,000 people from the United States under the agenda 21 plan? 

This was my answer: when the people die the government does not want them to be replaced.  That is how they propose to reduce the population from 325 million to 125 million.  They plan to use Obamacare to make sure people die a little sooner than they would have died.  When elderly people with heart problems or diabetes have to wait months to see a doctor, they die before their appointment comes around.  When the government says they cannot have the operation or the medicine they need they die sooner than they would have if they had gotten the operation or the medicine they needed.  The government may get to the point where it starts euthanizing people.  Part of Obamacare is to ask elderly people if they think their life is still worth living now that they can no longer get around well, or now that they are in a wheel chair, or now that they can no longer control their bladder or other functions, or now that their hands are not steady enough to feed themselves.  Some people become depressed and say that their life is not worth living under those conditions and that is just what the government wants to hear.  Those elderly people are not going to last long once the government gets their signature on that piece of paper.  There also will be more abortions paid for by the government.  Abortion is a method of reducing the population.

And last but not least, on school shootings:

School shootings started after the schools started teaching evolution.

This woman is now widely expected to win an election to the board that oversees public education in one of the most populous states in the United States.

The problem is, the Republican party has encouraged this sort of free-floating fear talk and religious mania for quite some time.  Witness the angry, America-is-being-destroyed-before-your-eyes railing of people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Fox News has for years been notorious for scary talk about Wars on Christmas and President Obama Coming To Steal Your Guns. Only now are there level-headed conservatives who are coming to the horrid realization that the message that they have been pushing has come back to bite the entire party in the ass, in the form of paranoid loons like Bruner standing a good chance at becoming a leading voice in driving educational policy in Texas -- and the Republican nomination for president being a contest between a loud-mouthed, fact-free neo-fascist and a religious nutjob who is so reviled by members of his own party that one of them said, "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."

The problem is, now that this snowball has been set in motion, I'm not sure what can be done about it.  The Republican old guard, apparently appalled that they might end up having to face either backing Donald Trump as presidential nominee, backing a Democrat, or not endorsing anyone, have tried to stage a last-ditch effort to block Trump from getting the nod, an effort which is almost certain to fail.  But the problem goes deeper than a man who is politics' answer to a carnival sideshow barker being a stone's throw from the presidency.  This embracing of extremist rhetoric has colored races all the way down to the local level.

How else could you explain that a certifiable whackjob like Mary Lou Bruner is predicted to garner the support of over 50% of Texas voters?

I don't know what could be done to return the United States to a position where rational dialogue was happening, or even possible.  The screeching of the extreme sides of both parties has done nothing but deepen distrust of our fellow citizens -- not to mention making it more likely that Lewis's view of democracy, that the votes of the reasonable majority would outweigh the votes of the unreasonable fringes, is unlikely to be realized any time soon.

Single causes and simplistic thinking

A friend and loyal reader of Skeptophilia called me out a couple of days ago for a statement I made in the post "Tribal mentality," regarding the tendency some people have to romanticize (or at least, to avoid criticizing) beliefs of other cultures.  Here's the passage he objected to:

At its extreme, this tendency to take a kid-gloves attitude toward culture is what results in charges of Islamophobia or (worse) racism any time someone criticizes the latest depravity perpetrated by Muslim extremists. Yes, it is their right to adhere to their religion. No, that does not make it right for them to behead non-Muslims, hang gays, subjugate women, and sell children into slavery. And the fact that most of their leaders have refused to take a stand against this horrifying inhumanity makes them, and the ideology they use to justify it, complicit in it.

He responded, in part, as follows:

ISIS is engaged in civil wars, and 99% of their victims are also Muslim.  Surely, Muslims on the whole are not in favor of slaughtering other Muslims...  (P)ointing at Islamic ideology as the culprit, rather than a complex set of political forces, just seems way too "Fox-Newsish" for a sophisticated blog like yours.  If Islam was inherently incompatible with pluralistic democratic values, then countries like Turkey couldn't exist.  The Islamic masses in Egypt rose up in a mass exercise of democratic revolution in 2012... only to be slapped down by a US-backed secular dictatorship.  There's just so much going on, with so many different factors...  I look at the 6 million Muslims living in the US and peacefully contributing... to blame it all on "their ideology," to say their beliefs are to blame for, among other things, the US-backed Saudi regime.... it just seems unfair.

Which certainly made me give some serious thought to what I'd written, and even more so, to what I think about ideology vis-à-vis responsibility for immoral actions.

Of course, in (at the very least) one sense, he is right; by attributing to "Islamic ideology" the atrocities of ISIS, and the lack of human rights in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and many other Muslim countries, I avoided one fallacy by leaping headlong into another.  To wit: the single-cause fallacy, which is considering complex events to have a simple cause.  (Commonly-cited examples are "The American Civil War was caused by slavery" and "World War I was caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.")

There's a lot more to the chaos in the Middle East than Islamic ideology; there's tribal factionalism, the history of exploitation and colonialism by western Europe and the United States, and the have/have not distribution of oil wealth, to name three.  It is facile to say, simply, "Those evil Muslims!" and be done with it.

The Islamic recitation of faith [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

But still, I have to ask the question: to what extent does ideology bear the blame for some of the evil done in its name?  And by extension, do the peaceful adherents of a religion -- for example, the six million Muslims in the United States that my friend referenced -- also share some of the responsibility?

And it's not Islam alone, of course.  Christianity has much to answer for, as well, and I'm not just talking about events in the distant past such as the Inquisition and the Crusades.  The current upsurge of anti-gay legislation in several countries in Africa, some of which calls for the death penalty, is largely the result of American fundamentalists encouraging and financing such measures.  Do the stay-at-home members of the Christian churches from which these "missionaries" come bear some of the blame, if for no other reason because of their silence?

Does Christian ideology as a whole?

Now, I know that because of the huge variety of beliefs within Christianity (and Islam as well), to talk about a "Christian ideology" is a little ridiculous.  You have to wonder whether, for example, a Pentecostal and a Unitarian Universalist would agree on anything beyond "God exists."  But as my friend also pointed out, there are passages in the Christian Bible that are as horrific as anything the Qu'ran has to offer; stoning to death for minor offenses, men being struck dead right and left for damn near every reason you can think of, not to mention a prophet who called in bears to tear apart 42 children who had teased him about being bald and a man who offered his daughters to be raped by a mob rather than inconvenience a couple of angels (who, presumably, could have taken care of themselves).  It's why I find it wryly amusing when I hear people say that they believe that every biblical passage is word-for-word true, and that they live their lives according to a literal interpretation of the biblical commands.  If they did so, they'd be in jail.

But to return to my original question; does an ideology, or its law-abiding followers, bear some of the blame for what the true believers do?  At the very least, for not speaking out more fervently against the deeds done in the name of their religion?

It's not a question that admits of easy answers.  I'm torn between feeling certain that the most basic truth is that you are only responsible for what you yourself do, and having the nagging thought that remaining silent in the face of depravity is itself an immoral act.  After all, one of the criticisms leveled against Americans by many Muslims in the Middle East is that we stand by silently and allow our leaders to continue pursuing exploitative and unjust actions.  How is their holding America, and all Americans, responsible for what some Americans have done in the Middle East any different from our holding Islam, and all Muslims, responsible for the actions of ISIS and the shari'a judges in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere?

I don't know.  But the moral ambiguity inherent in these sorts of situations should push us all to consider not only our acts, but our refusal to act, as carefully as we know how.  And we should all be less hesitant to repudiate the individuals who would use our religions, ethnicities, and nationalities to perpetrate evil in the world.

The enemy of my enemy is... wait.

I'm sure that most of you have heard of Boko Haram, the group of Nigerian extremist Muslim nutjobs who hate the secular west's culture so much that they have started preying on their own people.  These are the loons who have, according to Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, killed over 12,000 people, and who were responsible for the kidnapping earlier this year of 234 girls who were students at a government-run girls' school.  As of the writing of this post, the girls have not been returned to their families; Boko Haram leaders promised that they would be married off to devout Muslims.  The "Save Our Girls" campaign, which attracted international attention, accomplished (unfortunately) nothing but allowing Boko Haram to gain a spot on the world stage.

Even the name "Boko Haram" means "Western education is a sin."

So these people are, by any conventional definition of the word, evil.  And anyone who opposes them, by whatever means, is to be lauded.

Even if it's...

The Association of Nigerian Witches and Wizards.

According to an article on the site Bella Naija, the Association (called, from its name in Yoruba, "WITZAN") has issued an ultimatum to Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau; knock it off or face the magical consequences.

"Witches and wizards in Nigeria are deeply worried by what is going on in the country, especially Boko Haram insurgency," said WITZAN spokesperson Dr. Okhue Iboi.  "As stakeholders in the Nigerian project, we can no longer afford to fold our hands while the nation burns.  Enough is enough."  He added that "our fellow brothers and sisters from the three northeastern states pleaded for the emergency meeting, to help cage Shekau and his blood-thirsty lieutenants."

And now that the magicians have gotten involved, Shekau's days are numbered.  He will be captured before December, Iboi said, and will be "paraded on the streets of Abuja and Maiduguri for the world to see."  As for the missing girls, their parents should smile, because "those girls are coming back home.  They will be rescued."

So... yeah.  This puts me in the odd position of being in support of a wizard and his woo-woo pals.  I mean, the WITZAN folks clearly aren't in very solid touch with reality themselves, but for pete's sake, they're preferable to Boko Haram.

On the other hand, maybe this is the right way to go about it.  The Boko Haram folks are themselves deeply superstitious.  The Nigerian government has been fighting these lunatics since at least 2002, using conventional tactics, without much success.  If anything, the radicals have gained strength and confidence; there have been 43 deadly attacks in 2014 alone, and over 2,000 dead.  Maybe if WITZAN can convince the members of Boko Haram that they're being ritually cursed, enough of them will get spooked that they'll desert.

Fight fire with fire, you know?  Maybe they should give it a try.  Nothing else has seemed to work.

Reason vs. extremism

Let me say explicitly that I have no quarrel whatsoever with the majority of Christians.

Despite being an out, and rather outspoken, atheist, I am firmly of the opinion that everyone arrives at the truth in his/her own way and time.  My personal lack of belief should never be taken as some kind of tacit statement that I hold your philosophical or religious beliefs -- whatever they are -- in contempt.  Now, I may disagree with you, or think you are mistaken.  But whether we agree or not, you have every right to find your own path -- just as I do.

That said, I must ask a question of any Christian readers of this blog.  Why is it that so many of you refuse to stand up to the minority within your ranks who trumpet hate, intolerance, and fear-mongering?

It's a question I've asked before, and one that could equally well be applied in other realms.  In politics, individuals who break ranks with the party line (as Chris Christie did yesterday) are often briefly lauded as mavericks -- but the backlash they face from the establishment frequently makes their gains amongst free-thinkers a Pyrrhic victory.

Wouldn't it be nice, though, if that weren't true?  Wouldn't it be nice if rank-and-file Christians resoundingly repudiated Donald Wildmon, chairman of the American Family Association, for sending out emails like the one that went out to members yesterday, titled "What will religion look like in 2060?", and which contained the following passages:

What will religion look like in the year 2060?

Conservative Christians will be treated as second class citizens, much like African Americans were prior to civil rights legislation in the 1960s.

Family as we know it will be drastically changed with the state taking charge of the children beginning at birth...

Churchbuildings [sic] will be little used, with many sold to secular buyers and the money received going to the government...

Christian broadcasting will be declared illegal based on the separation of church and state. The airwaves belong to the government, therefore they cannot be used for any religious purpose.

We will have, or have had, a Muslim president.

Cities with a name from the Bible such as St. Petersburg, Bethlehem, etc. will be forced to change their name due to separation of church and state.

Or, how about the statement that Mathew Staver, dean of Liberty University's School of Law, made to Moody Radio's Janet Parshall about what would happen if gay marriage was legalized across the United States:

Basically marriage will be completely destroyed, families will be destroyed, children will be hurt by this and freedom of speech and freedom of religion, including in the pulpit itself, will absolutely be bulldozed over.  This would open a floodgate of unimaginable proportions…

This is the thing that revolutions literally are made of.  This would be more devastating to our freedom, to our religious freedom, to the rights of pastors and their duty to be able to speak and to Christians around the country, then anything that the revolutionaries during the American Revolution even dreamed of facing.  This would be the thing that revolutions are made of.  This could split the country right in two.  This could cause another civil war.  I’m not talking about just people protesting in the streets, this could be that level because what would ultimately happen is a direct collision would immediately happen with pastors, with churches, with Christians, with Christian ministries, with other businesses, it would be an avalanche that would go across the country.

Maybe I'm being a Pollyanna, here, but there's part of me that just can't accept that ordinary, regular Christians, the men and women who are the majority of Americans, actually believe that these men are speaking the truth.  Please reassure me; you don't really think that atheists like myself secretly want to tear churches down, that we would love to see the state taking charge of raising children, that we won't be satisfied until St. Paul, Minnesota is renamed "Nogodsville?"  That our disbelief implies that we will discriminate against you for your belief?  That if gays marry, it will have any other effect than... more gays being able to marry?

If I'm right -- that the majority of Christians recognize that what these men are saying is blatant foolishness -- why do so few stand up and say so?  Why does it take behavior as egregious as that of the members of the Westboro Baptist Church to make people willing to break ranks?  You are not betraying the cause by stopping the extremists, the hate-filled, the fear-mongers, from being your spokespeople.  By doing so you are opening a space for dialogue, fostering reconciliation, and recognizing what is nothing more than simple fact -- that despite our philosophical differences, we all have the same basic human needs and desires, and that given a chance, we can coexist happily.

So I will ask once again: have the courage to speak up against these men.  Say, simply, "You don't speak for me."  Be willing to be a voice of reason.  Heaven knows, we need them, on both sides.