Does Religion Make You Nice? Does Atheism Make You Mean?

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: “Where there is no God, all is permitted.” The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Mr. Hitchens puts it, “Religion poisons everything.”

Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.

In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one’s reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.

Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone. If so, you would expect to find the positive influence of religion outside the laboratory. And, indeed, there is evidence within the United States for a correlation between religion and what might broadly be called “niceness.” In Gross National Happiness, Arthur Brooks notes that atheists are less charitable than their God-fearing counterparts: They donate less blood, for example, and are less likely to offer change to homeless people on the street. Since giving to charity makes one happy, Arthur Brooks speculates that this could be one reason why atheists are so miserable. In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.

Since the United States is more religious than other Western countries, this research suggests that Fox talk-show host Sean Hannity was on to something when he asserted that the United States is “the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth.” In general, you might expect people in less God-fearing countries to be a lot less kind to one another than Americans are.

It is at this point that the “We need God to be good” case falls apart. Countries worthy of consideration aren’t those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. In his new book, Society Without God, Phil Zuckerman looks at the Danes and the Swedes—probably the most godless people on Earth. They don’t go to church or pray in the privacy of their own homes; they don’t believe in God or heaven or hell. But, by any reasonable standard, they’re nice to one another. They have a famously expansive welfare and health care service. They have a strong commitment to social equality. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

Denmark and Sweden aren’t exceptions. A 2005 study by Gregory Paul looking at 18 democracies found that the more atheist societies tended to have relatively low murder and suicide rates and relatively low incidence of abortion and teen pregnancy.

So, this is a puzzle. If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well—better, in many ways, than devout ones.

The first step to solving this conundrum is to unpack the different components of religion. In my own work, I have argued that all humans, even young children, tacitly hold some supernatural beliefs, most notably the dualistic view that bodies and minds are distinct. (Most Americans who describe themselves as atheists, for instance, nonetheless believe that their souls will survive the death of their bodies.) Other aspects of religion vary across cultures and across individuals within cultures. There are factual beliefs, such as the idea that there exists a single god that performs miracles, and moral beliefs, like the conviction that abortion is murder. There are religious practices, such as the sacrament or the lighting of Sabbath candles. And there is the community that a religion brings with it—the people who are part of your church, synagogue, or mosque.

The positive effect of religion in the real world, to my mind, is tied to this last, community component—rather than a belief in constant surveillance by a higher power. Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. This is the moral of sociologist Robert Putnam’s work on American life. In Bowling Alone, he argues that voluntary association with other people is integral to a fulfilled and productive existence—it makes us “smarter, healthier, safer, richer, and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.”

The Danes and the Swedes, despite being godless, have strong communities. In fact, Zuckerman points out that most Danes and Swedes identify themselves as Christian. They get married in church, have their babies baptized, give some of their income to the church, and feel attached to their religious community—they just don’t believe in God. Zuckerman suggests that Scandinavian Christians are a lot like American Jews, who are also highly secularized in belief and practice, have strong communal feelings, and tend to be well-behaved.

American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, “[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them.”

The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Ms. Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, F.Black after a November 7, 2008 article by Paul Bloom in Slate.Com

Islamic States ask UN to explore ‘Freedom of Expression’ & ‘Incitement to Religious Hatred’

On 2/3 October, over 200 national delegates and NGO representatives attended a unique two-day expert seminar at the UN Geneva to discuss limits to Freedom of Expression. Convened by The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the request of the Islamic States, a dozen experts and many other speakers took the floor to explore the links between Freedom of Expression and incitement to religious hatred.

Many of the experts urged caution in proposing new legislation that could have negative consequences for the very people whose rights we are striving to protect, and while implementation of the existing legislation permitted under Articles 19 and 20 of the ICCPR (The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) is still so patchy in its adoption.

Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia and the representative of the OIC were joined by former UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Doudou Diene, in calling for a review of Articles 19 and 20 of the ICCPR, and tighter restrictions on Freedom Expression in the aftermath of 9/11 which, they argued, has created an entirely new set of circumstances. This view was strongly opposed by several Western delegations (as well as IHEU) on the grounds that today’s tensions are nothing new, that the limits already offered by Articles 19 and 20 are entirely adequate – and in any case have still to be fully adopted by many states.

Said IHEU representative, Roy Brown, after the meeting: “It is outrageous that many of those States pushing for changes in international law are among the worst offenders themselves when it comes to protecting the rights of minorities”.

It now seems probable, however, that following this meeting The OIC will have achieved another of its objectives and The Human Rights Committee, the UN body of experts charged with monitoring the implementation of The ICCPR, will be asked to consider revisiting its recommendation of 1980 that restrictions on Freedom of Expression should not impair the enjoyment of that freedom itself.

In a warning for the future, it became clear that the Islamic States, having won the battle in both The Human Rights Council and The UN General Assembly over combating defamation of religion, are shifting their attack to a new battle front: what they call “the West’s double standards” over outlawing Holocaust denial while permitting insults to religion. Their demands for “a level playing field” will focus not on repealing laws against Holocaust denial, but on using these laws as models to prohibit any speech critical of Islam!

A detailed summary of the seminar can be found here.

Statement by Roy Brown, International Humanist and Ethical Union to Expert Seminar on Articles 19 and 20 of the ICCPR, Palais des Nations, Geneva, 2/3 October 2008

“…I must thank the organisers for giving NGOs the opportunity to participate in this important seminar. I have listened very carefully to the debate and I want to thank the experts for the clarity of their analyses, and several of the other contributors for the points they have raised.

The debate has looked at three main issues so far, but it is clear that cutting across these are two quite different schools of thought: those who believe that the existing restrictions on freedom of expression as set out in Articles 19 and 20 of the ICCPR are already adequate, and those who believe that freedom of expression is being misused to single out a particular group for attack.

It was suggested by some speakers that the ICCPR is a child of the Cold War, that 9/11 has created an entirely new set of circumstances and that a review of articles 19 and 20 may therefore be necessary. But the ICCPR is actually a child of the Universal Declaration, and even in 1966 memories of the Holocaust were still fresh. It was the intention of those who drafted the UDHR and the ICCPR that those events should never be repeated – against any group. Had they wished to go further in restricting freedom of expression in order ensure no repetition they would most certainly have done so.

The intention of those who drafted articles 19 and 20 was clearly to help prevent incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against any group, however they might be characterised. I would argue that Article 20 should be broadly construed. It does not go far enough if the explicit reference to nationalities, races and religions is taken as delimiting its scope. This paragraph should be widely interpreted. I do not think we can exclude incitement to hatred of other groups identified, for example, by gender, sexual orientation, class, caste, or even allegiance to a particular football club. Surely, it is incitement to hatred that is the problem, regardless of who may be the target.

My second point is this. There is an elephant in the room, but perhaps I see a different elephant from others. Articles 19 and 20 differ widely in their application both from country to country and from group to group within countries. In some States, as is well known, draconian penalties await critics of the government or of the state religion even when that criticism may be factual and justified. Yet in those same states it is open season on incitement to hatred of other religious groups, and of one group in particular.

We should be extremely cautious in tinkering with articles 19 and 20 when some States already disregard them within their own jurisdictions. I believe the greater problem is lack of uniformity in the application of articles 19 and 20, not the articles themselves. The essence of international law is surely that it be applied internationally and not selectively.

Doudou Diene has argued that we need to revisit the norms and their interpretation. Surely equally important is their adoption and implementation. As one speaker has pointed out, we have tools we have not used. Let us first explore their use.

We should also be cautious about changes that could lead to legitimising unreasonable restrictions on freedom of expression that exist in certain countries – and extending those restrictions to other states where freedom of expression has become one of the cornerstones, indeed one of the principle safeguards, of liberal democracy…”

~~~~End of Mr. Brown’s statement~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, JimmyMack, after an October 8, 2008, article carried by The International Humanist and Ethical Union blog

Faith-based AA Groups Cheaper & More Effective Than Conventional Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Problem drinkers attending the faith-based Alcoholics Anonymous groups are 30% more likely than others to remain sober for at least two years, according to research published this month.

The study, published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, found their treatment also costs 30% less than conventional cognitive behavioural therapy.

According to lead researcher Dr Keith Humphreys, based at Stanford University, this is because it requires fewer hospital visits and admissions.

Up to 80% of alcohol dependent patients start drinking again within six months of a hospital detox.

So why do AA members have a better chance than average?

Dr Humphreys told the BBC’s Health Check programme that many AA members point to the spiritual component of their 12-step programme as crucial in fighting the urge to drink.

Its non-doctrinal approach means people of all faiths – or no faith – can benefit.

Dr Humphreys said: “It used to be accepted dogma that there would never be a 12-step group in an Islamic country.

“But today I would bet that it is Brazil and Iran where 12-step groups are growing the fastest.”

Last year a group of Iraqi clerics visited Britain, where Professor Sadar Sadiq, the country’s National Advisor on Mental Health works as a practicing psychiatrist, to study approaches to alcohol treatment at first hand.

“They attended AA meetings and would like to implement it in Iraq,” said Professor Sadiq.

“But with the conflict and lack of security our progress is very slow.”

Professor Alan Marlatt of the University of Washington’s Addictive Behaviours Centre, in Seattle, said other spiritual approaches must be developed to help alcoholics.

“Many people can’t buy into AA’s basic assumption that you’re powerless and have to turn your individual decision making over to a ‘higher power’.”

An experiment in the benefits of Vipassana – or mindfulness – meditation at the nearby King County North Rehabilitation Facility offered the chance for Professor Marlatt to measure its effects among alcoholics and drug addicts.

The ten day programme required the prisoners to meditate silently for up to eleven hours a day.

He said: “We have a technique called urge surfing – you imagine that when the urge comes it is like an ocean wave.

“Starts small, gets bigger. You feel like you’re going to be wiped out. But you use your breath as a surf board to ride the wave without giving in to it.”

Not only did the meditating prisoners drink and take drugs less after their release, they were also less likely to be depressed or to re-offended than others.

Mindfulness meditation is a spiritual approach that requires no religious faith, said Professor Marlatt.

So is it just as effective a drug as conventional belief?

A painful experiment at Bowling Green State University in Ohio answered that question for psychology professor Kenneth Pargament.

He gave two groups of people two competing sets of mantras, one spiritual (ie: “God is love“) and one secular (“grass is green“) and timed how long each could keep their hands in a bowl of iced water.

His findings were published, in 2005, in The Journal of Behavioural Medicine.

“We found that spiritual meditators were able to tolerate the pain of the iced water for twice as long as the secular meditators. ” he told BBC’s Health Check.

“And we’ve replicated the study among people with migraine headaches, and people chanting the spiritual mantra experienced a much sharper decline in the number and severity of their headaches.”

Similarly, ongoing research at The Oxford Centre for the Science of the Mind suggests religious people suffer less physical pain when focussing on religious images vs non-religious pictures.

So what is stopping clinicians taking note? Partly the unscientific lack of definition of “spirituality“.

A recent of 265 books and papers on the subject showed researchers can mean at least 15 different things by it.

And even if researchers did agree on what spirituality is, they don’t yet know how it mediates its therapeutic effects in the brain.

In the past, the idea of a science of spirituality was a contradiction in terms and few would risk their reputations to study it.

But that is now changing – thanks in part to the example of recovering alcoholics of AA.

At a time of constrained health finances – especially in developing countries where alcoholism is rising fastest – an effective treatment programme that costs 30% less than usual is generating plenty of interest.

Professor Pargament said: “I think there are a number of scientists who have been sceptical but, like good scientists, have been persuaded by the data.

“And the data suggests that there are some really important links between spirituality and health and wellbeing.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Alexander Neil after an January 29, 2007 article by Tracey Logan over BBC News

Same-Gender Marriage Prompts St. Aidans on Wyandotte St. To Split From Anglican Diocese of Huron

The contentious issue of same-sex marriage is at the heart of a move by a Windsor Anglican church to break away from the local diocese and join a more conservative South American wing, the acting bishop of the diocese says.

On Sunday, 109 votes were unanimously cast at St. Aidan’s parish on Wyandotte Street East in favour of ceding from The Huron Diocese of The Anglican Church of Canada and joining the breakaway Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC), which is part of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone.

“They may not say it, but the issue of same-sex marriage is underlying the whole debate,” said the Right Rev. Robert Bennett, the Suffragan Bishop of Huron and Bishop of Norfolk.

He said is was disappointed his two representatives were refused admittance to the meeting. “I do not accept this decision as appropriate and the leadership of this diocese will be meeting to further address this situation,” he said in a news release.

The Anglican Church of Canada has been wrestling with the issue of same-sex marriage since 2002 when a church in New Westminster, B.C., agreed to perform same-sex marriages.

The U.S.-based Episcopalian wing of the church also became the focus of debate a year later with the ordination of an openly gay bishop in Vermont.

More conservative factions of the worldwide church have opposed the moves by the North American wings, and a schism has developed.

The  Anglican Province of the Southern Cone oversees churches in Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina.

St. Aidan’s, established in 1924, is the first church in the diocese of Huron to break away, but is the seventh in Ontario to join ANIC and the 11th nationally.

Charlie Masters, the executive archdeacon of ANIC, didn’t refer specifically to gay marriage as the motivation for the split.

“The big issue (is) around the Bible and the authority of scripture and the gospel,” said Mr. Masters.

In a news release, ANIC said: “Unfortunately, the Anglican Church of Canada continues to abandon mainstream Anglican teaching and doctrine, particularly in relation to the authority of the Bible, breaking with the vast majority of global Anglicans.”

Cathy Knight, a St. Aidan’s congregation member who attended the vote, said the issue is not tied to same-sex marriage or homosexuality, but rather the desire to go back to a “more orthodox’ version of Anglicanism.

“It has never been about lifestyle choices,” she said of the debate.

Rather, the congregation members who voted want to follow Anglican scripture, which among other things teaches that human sexuality is between a man and a woman within marriage.

For example, she said the scripture does not condone a man and woman living together outside of marriage.

“We became more involved with the more orthodox wing of the church about four years ago,” Ms. Knight said.

Robert Bennett said the diocese is investigating the Sunday meeting and the validity of the vote.

“We’re trying to clarify the details,” said Robert Bennett, who used to be the rector at All Saints Anglican Church in Windsor and frequently attended St. Aidan’s.

“There are also serious issues about who owns the building. We’re looking at our options.”

There are ongoing court cases involving other Canadian churches that have voted to split from the main church, over the ownership of their buildings.

Robert Bennett said he also has issues with the fact that only 109 of about 250 parishioners showed up for the vote.

“I know the parish fairly well and I was quite stunned that the most important congregational meeting in their history was so poorly attended,” said Robert Bennett.

“Was everybody contacted? It’s just a concern I have.”

Robert Bennett said he met with two deacons from St. Aidan’s Monday morning and it was very difficult.

“It was a very sad moment when we met this morning, that this is in all of our lives,” said Robert Bennett.

“This is not easy.”

Robert Bennett is one of seven candidates to replace the recently retired Anglican Bishop of Huron Bruce Howe and is functioning as acting bishop in the interim.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Alexander Neil, after a September 29, 2008 article by Chris Thompson in The Windsor Star

Barack Obama Steers Clear of Muslims across-the-river in Michigan

Experts say candidate attempting to sidestep controversy, but at his peril

The cover of this week’s New Yorker magazine may explain why Barack Obama isn’t reaching out to Michigan’s Muslims.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is shown in the Oval Office, wearing a turban and bumping fists with his wife, Michelle, who is in combat boots with a rifle slung over her shoulder. The cartoon, intended as satire, is a reminder of the dangers of any association with Muslims for Mr. Obama, who has fought false rumours that his middle name, Hussein, indicates he was born into the Islamic faith.

Muslim- and Arab-Americans represent four per cent of the vote in Michigan, a battleground in this year’s US election.

Yet Mr. Obama, who has held 13 events in the state during the presidential campaign, hasn’t visited a mosque or met with Muslim leaders.

Bill Ballenger, editor of the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, said Mr. Obama, 46, has to strike a delicate balance. The Illinois senator “doesn’t have to pander” to such voters, who are likely to back him anyway, though he can ill-afford to “dismiss them in an arrogant fashion.”

While Mr. Obama is leading in Michigan polls, some politicians said it would be a mistake for him not to actively court the state’s Muslim voters, who went for Democrat John Kerry four years ago and Republican George W. Bush in 2000.

The Democrats “do this at their own peril,” said David Bonior, a former Michigan congressman who is advising Mr. Obama.

Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News in Dearborn, complained that Mr. Obama’s arms-length approach demonstrates that he views Muslims as “a liability.” Many Muslims who once leaned Republican have been turned off by the Iraq war and the law enforcement scrutiny of their community put in place after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Third-party candidate Ralph Nader, who is of Lebanese descent, was on the ballot in Michigan in 2004, and is petitioning to do so again this year. He could hurt Mr. Obama by peeling off 25 per cent of the Arab community’s vote, said Morley Winograd, former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

“You have in Ralph Nader’s candidacy a genuine Arab-American who has a lot of notoriety and publicity,” he said. It “would be detrimental to Obama’s candidacy.”

Muslims in and around Detroit said they have been worried by several recent controversies, particularly a report last month that Obama campaign aides removed two young women wearing Muslim headscarves, called Hijabs, from his camera backdrop. The candidate later called the women to apologize.

Hassan Habhab, a 28-year-old Democrat who works at a Dearborn mall, said he supported Mr. Obama until the incident, though he hadn’t heard about the apology.

“I don’t know if I should vote for somebody like that,” he said.

Some of Mr. Obama’s foreign-policy stances also have raised concern. Last month, he was criticized by Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, after he told the Washington-based American Israel Public Affairs Council, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel.

“As long as he believes this way, I do not believe he is going to get the overwhelming support of our community,” said Osama Siblani, who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Matt Achine, after a July 16, 2008 article by Heidi Przybyla over The Bloomberg Service

Excluded from Anglican Church Conference, Gay US Bishop Gene Robinson goes anyway

The first openly gay U.S. Episcopal bishop was barred from a once-a-decade Anglican meeting so he wouldn’t become a focus of the global event.

Anglicans on all sides of the issue agree: the strategy has backfired.

New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson has been embraced by sympathetic Anglicans in England and Scotland who view his exclusion as an affront to their Christian beliefs.

The Bishop Robinson plans several appearances on the outskirts of The Lambeth Conference to be what he called a “constant and friendly” reminder of gays in the church.

“I’m just not willing to let the bishops meet and pretend that we don’t exist,” The Bishop Robinson said, in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press before preaching at St. Mary’s Church Putney. ``They’ve taken vows to serve all the people in dioceses, not just certain ones.”

The Anglican spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, did not include Bishop Robinson and a few other bishops in the conference as he tried to prevent a split in the world Anglican Communion. The 77 million-member fellowship – the third-largest in the world behind Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians – has been on the brink of schism since Bishop Robinson was consecrated in 2003. The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the United States.

Bishop Robinson and Episcopal leaders had tried for years to negotiate a role for the New Hampshire bishop at Lambeth, but were unsuccessful. He resolved to come to England anyway.

“I’m not storming the pulpit to wrestle the microphone from the archbishop,” Bishop Robinson said. “My agenda is this: What does the church’s treatment of gay and lesbian people say about God? You’ve got all these people talking about gays and lesbians being an abomination before God. Does that make you want to run out and go to an Anglican church and sing God’s praises?”

Bishop Robinson preached Sunday at the 16th-century parish on the Thames River, despite a request from Rowan Williams that he not do so. A protester briefly interrupted the sermon, waving a motorcycle helmet and yelling “Repent!” and “Heretic!” before he was escorted out.

An emotional Bishop Robinson resumed preaching, asking parishioners to “pray for that man” and urging them repeatedly not to fear change in the church.

On Monday night, Bishop Robinson will join Sir Ian McKellan at a London literary festival for the British premiere of “For the Bible Tells Me So,” a documentary about gay Christians that features Bishop Robinson.

Next Sunday, after the Lambeth Conference holds its opening worship in Canterbury Cathedral, Bishop Robinson will join Anglican gays and lesbians in a separate service nearby. He will then sit in the public exhibition hall near the assembly sessions to be available for conversation.

A group of Episcopal bishops have organized two private receptions where Anglicans from other parts of the world can meet him. When the conference ends Aug. 3, he heads to Scotland where he has been invited to preach at Anglican parishes.

Bishop Robinson was a target of death threats at his consecration and wore a bulletproof vest throughout the ceremony. He said the threats resumed a few months ago when he published a book about his religious views. He has arranged personal security in England, but said he could not disclose details. Donors are covering the cost for the extra protection, he said. His partner of two decades, Mark Andrew, is travelling with him but declined to be interviewed.

Bishop Martyn Minns, a former Episcopal priest who now leads a breakaway network of U.S. conservatives, said in a recent interview that although organizers of the Lambeth Conference intended to move the topic off Bishop Robinson, their plan was bound to fail.

“He will end up getting all the attention,” Bishop Minns said.

Bishop Minns was also barred from Lambeth. He was consecrated by the conservative Anglican Church of Nigeria, which created the U.S. parish network despite an Anglican tradition of respecting the boundaries of other provinces.

For many theological conservatives, Bishop Robinson’s consecration was the final straw in a long-running debate over how Anglicans should interpret Scripture. Last month in Jerusalem, traditionalists created a worldwide network of conservatives to separate from liberal Anglicans without fully breaking away from the communion. More than 200 conservative bishops are boycotting Lambeth because Episcopal leaders who consecrated Bishop Robinson will be there.

Bishop Robinson said he felt “pretty devastated” when he learned he would not be allowed to participate in the conference, a key meeting that affirms membership in the communion.

He said he was also worried that he would flub his appearances in England this month.

“I so want to be a good steward of this opportunity. I want to do God proud,” he said. “I have this wonderful opportunity to bring hope to people who find the church a hopeless place.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Joe Pkr, after a July 13, 2008 article in The Toronto Star

‘Honour Killings’ On Rise In Iraq – Used As Weapon To Subjugate Women in Iraq

At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene.

The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone. Her “honour killing” is just one in a grotesque series emerging from Iraq, where activists speak of a “genocide” against women in the name of religion.

In the latest such case, it was reported yesterday that a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for becoming infatuated with a British soldier serving in southern Iraq.

In Basra alone, police acknowledge that 15 women a month are murdered for breaching Islamic dress codes. Campaigners insist it is a conservative figure.

Violence against women is rampant, rising every day with the power of the militias. Beheadings, rapes, beatings, suicides through self-immolation, genital mutilation, trafficking and child abuse masquerading as marriage of girls as young as nine are all on the increase.

Du’a Khalil Aswad, 17, from Nineveh, was executed by stoning in front of mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a boy outside her Yazidi tribe. Mobile phone images of her broken body transmitted on the internet led to sectarian violence, international outrage and calls for reform. Her father, Khalil Aswad, speaking one year after her death in April last year, has revealed that none of those responsible had been prosecuted and his family remained “outcasts” in their own tribe.

“My daughter did nothing wrong,” he said. “She fell in love with a Muslim and there is nothing wrong with that. I couldn’t protect her because I got threats from my brother, the whole tribe. They insisted they were gong to kill us all, not only Du’a, if she was not killed. She was mutilated, her body dumped like rubbish.

“I want those who committed this act to be punished but so far they have not, they are free. Honour killing is murder. This is a barbaric act.”

Despite the outrage, recent calls by the Kurdish MP Narmin Osman to outlaw honour killings have been blocked by fundamentalists. “Honour killings are not actually a crime in the eyes of the government,” said Houzan Mahmoud, who has had a fatwa on her head since raising a petition against the introduction of sharia law in Kurdistan. “If before there was one dictator persecuting people, now almost everyone is persecuting women.

“In the past five years it is has got [much] worse. It is difficult to described how terrible it is, how badly we have been pushed back to the dark ages. Women are being beheaded for taking their veil off. Self immolation is rising – women are left with no choice. There is no government body or institution to provide any sort of support. Sharia law is being used to underpin government rule, denying women their most basic human rights.”

In August last year, the body of 11-year-old Sara Jaffar Nimat was found in Khanaqin, Kurdistan, after she had been stoned and burnt to death. Earlier this month, two brothers and a sister were kidnapped from their home near Kirkuk by gunmen in police uniforms. The brothers were beaten to death and the woman left in a critical condition after being informed that she must obey the rules of an “Islamic state”. One week ago, a journalist, Begard Huseein, was murdered in her home in Arbil, northern Iraq. Her husband, Mohammed Mustafa, stabbed her because she was in love with another man, according to local reports.

The stoning death of Ms Aswad led to the establishment of an Internal Ministry unit in Kurdistan to combat violence against women. It reported that last year in Sulaymaniyah, a city of 1 million people, there were 407 reported offences, beheadings, beatings, deaths through “family problems”, and threats of honour killings. Rape is not included as most women are too fearful to report it for fear of retribution. Nevertheless, police in Karbala recently revealed 25 reports of rape.

The new Iraqi constitution, according to Mrs Mahmoud, is a mass of confusing contradictions. While it states that men and women are equal under law it also decrees that sharia law – which considers one male witness worth two females – must be observed. The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone. The fundamentalists have sent out too many chilling messages. In Mosul two years ago, eight women were beheaded in a terror campaign.

“It was really, really horrifying,” said Mrs Mahmoud. “Honour killings and murder are widespread. Thousands [of people] … have become victims of murder, violence and rape – all backed by laws, tribal customs and religious rules. We urge the international community, the government to condemn this barbaric practice, and help the women of Iraq.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Jimmy Mac, after an April 28, 2008 article by Terri Judd in The Independent

Evangelical Pushing Bill To Deny Tax Credits To Films Deemed Offensive By The Gov’t

Canada Family Action Coalition president Charles McVety has no regrets about engaging in politics on behalf of evangelicals: ‘I don’t think it’s helpful to democracy to discourage people from getting involved.’

It’s difficult to pinpoint which version of Charles McVety is most accurate. A powerful religious lobbyist who has the ear of the Harper government, or a mere spokesman for a segment of Canada’s evangelical community concerned with promoting family values? Manipulator or messenger?

Lately, the image of Mr. McVety as a Parliament Hill string-puller prevails as he pushes for Bill C-10, an amendment to the federal tax-credit system that critics say is an affront to freedom of speech and a mortal threat to the Canadian film industry. (MODERATOR’s NOTE: See explanatory link via CBC News website here).

The controversial section of the bill, which would deny tax credits to films deemed offensive by government, has sparked a battle between Canada’s entertainment industry and the 40,000-member Canada Family Action Coalition, of which Mr. McVety is president.

On Thursday, the reigning queen of Canadian independent film and recent Oscar nominee Sarah Polley testified before the Senate banking committee, which is receiving a level of attention almost always reserved for non-tax-related issues.

Ms. Polley told the committee that public money is key to the production of daring, inspirational film and television. Bill C-10 smacks of government censorship, she says.

Next week, Mr. McVety will get his turn with the committee. And he has no doubt the panel of mostly Liberal-appointed senators will see the light.

“This change has to happen. As sure as I sit here, it’s going to happen,” he says.

Under the current regulations, he says it is conceivable that a film could violate the Criminal Code of Canada and still qualify for government funding through tax credits. Bill C-10 is simply good public policy, he says.

Mr. McVety bristles against reports that he boasted of having an instrumental role in getting key changes into the tax bill.

But he says he raised the issue of denying tax credits to offensive films with his old ally Stockwell Day, Minister of Public Safety. And his executive director at the coalition, Brian Rushfeldt, talked with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson about Bill C-10, he says.

Questions about the extent of Mr. McVety’s clout with the Harper Conservatives are not new. According to former Conservative MP and avid McVety critic Garth Turner, in 2006 during a commercial break on The Michael Coren Show, Mr. McVety claimed: “I can pick up the phone and call Harper and I can get him in two minutes.”

Words he never uttered, Mr. McVety insists, which Mr. Coren backed up. But Mr. McVety says he does have many friends in the current government and is unapologetic about getting involved in politics.

“The expectation that religious people should not have a voice in democracy is undemocratic in its very nature,” he says.

Mr. McVety, 48, was born in Winnipeg where his father, Elmer McVety, a “Billy Graham evangelist,” founded a Bible school called Richmond College, the predecessor to Canada Christian College.

In 1967, the family and the school relocated to Toronto. Mr. McVety took over as college president after his father’s death in 1993 in the midst of a battle with the provincial government over the school’s authority to grant degrees.

The college survived a bid by the education ministry to shut it down and now offers undergraduate, masters and doctoral programs mainly focusing on theology and divinity.

In his political youth, Mr. McVety became involved in the riding nomination of Ken Robinson, a Liberal MP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore and then-chairman of the board of the college.

In the runup to the 1984 federal election, Mr. Robinson was bumped from his own riding when several hundred supporters of a rookie candidate unexpectedly ousted the incumbent.

For Mr. McVety, it was a realization that a small number of people can make a big difference in the grassroots of Canadian politics.

“We realized not enough people get involved. Canadians are complacent, laid-back people,” he says.

In the 2006 federal election, Mr. McVety and his supporters sought to sway a few dozen ridings across the country in favour of Conservative candidates.

He was not very successful.

In his own riding of Ajax-Pickering, Mr. McVety helped nominate Conservative candidate Rondo Thomas, also an administrator at the college, to challenge Liberal MP Mark Holland, a proponent of same-sex marriage. Mr. Holland sailed to victory in the general election with almost half the total riding vote. Mr. Thomas placed a distant second.

Before the election, Mr. McVety also registered dozens of unclaimed Internet domains bearing the names of several Liberal candidates, like www.josephvolpe.com and www.donboudria.ca, to inform constituents of those MPs’ views on same-sex marriage.

Although the practice was widely criticized and branded a form of cybersquatting, Mr. McVety still stands by the approach.

“A lot of members of Parliament, they like to appease special interests and do things that are against the population, but they don’t like people knowing about it,” he says. “Why not educate people on what their representative is doing? Why should all the education be left to the CBC?”

Come next election, Mr. McVety plans to wage more nomination battles, particularly against Conservative candidates who support same-sex marriage.

Mr. McVety says his allegiance does not lie exclusively with the Conservative Party of Canada. The Liberals, in fact, supported many “pro-family positions” throughout the 1990s, Mr. McVety says. He aims to hold representatives of all parties to account.

Individual ridings are fertile ground to effect change on behalf of his evangelical supporters, he says. And since such a small fraction of Canadian voters get involved in nomination contests, he believes his participation should be welcome.

“In the general population, you make a choice between the two options the one per cent gives you. I don’t think it’s helpful to democracy to discourage any group of people from getting involved.”

It would be a mistake, however, to assume Mr. McVety represents the collective views of Canada’s evangelical community, says Don Hutchinson, a director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

The EFC represents more than three million Canadians, 40 denominations and more than 1,000 congregations. That does not include Mr. McVety, his denomination, or his church, Mr. Hutchinson says.

The EFC is also affiliated with 35 Christian colleges and 89 organizations, but not The Canada Christian College or The Canada Family Action Coalition.

“There’s a broad spectrum on the evangelical meter. Charles may be representative of one end, probably one extreme end, of that spectrum,” Mr. Hutchinson says.

Mr. McVety belongs to a brand of Pentecostalism that sees modern-day prophecies and speaking in tongues as gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Support of Zionism is also key to Mr. McVety’s belief, as a strong Israel is considered by some evangelicals to be the definitive sign of the return of the Messiah. Hence, he firmly rejects a two-state agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

This branch of evangelical Christianity, which Ottawa-based Lloyd Mackey, a veteran journalist for several Christian publications, calls “pretty close to fundamentalist,” is much more common in the United States, with adherents such as the firebrand San Antonio televangelist John Hagee and the late Jerry Fallwell.

In Canada, however, those beliefs simply fall well outside mainstream evangelism, Mr. Hutchinson says. “Public-policy development is not based on whether or not there’s a strong Biblical argument for it; it’s based on whether there’s a sound public-policy reason for the initiative.”

Still, Mr. McVety manages to project a public profile disproportionate to the segment of Christianity he champions, Mr. Mackey says.

“It’s easy to get a colourful quote from Charles. Some of the other major spokespersons for evangelical Christianity aren’t nearly as colourful.”

But it wasn’t always this easy for Mr. McVety and his ilk to get a hearing in Ottawa.

The enormous political influence wielded by American evangelicals, combined with what is considered in Canada to be a disastrous Bush administration, soured Canadians to political involvement of the religious right, Mr. McVety says.

“There was a great deal of hostility that developed, especially under Paul Martin’s government, toward family values,” he says.

So when Mr. Harper took the reins of power in February 2006, there was a giddy optimism that social conservatism would no longer be taboo in Canadian politics.

But the relationship between the Harper government and Ottawa’s burgeoning network of evangelical organizations, galvanized by the same-sex marriage debate, soon hit the rocks.

“That honeymoon ended quite quickly,” Mr. McVety says. After Mr. Harper lost a free vote in the House to restore the traditional definition of marriage, he declared the issue closed, much to the dismay of Mr. McVety and The Canada Family Action Coalition.

And not even a Conservative majority government will bring back the spark between Mr. Harper and Mr. McVety’s cast of social conservatives, Mr. Mackey says. “In effect, (Mr Harper is) functioning as if it’s a majority anyway.”

The government won some praise from Mr. McVety last year when it raised the age of sexual consent. And he says Bill C-10 closes a long-standing policy gap that funnels taxpayer money into obscene movies like Young People Fucking, last year’s Toronto International Film Festival hit that Mr. McVety equates to state-sponsored pornography.

“When it comes to the government allocating hard-earned taxpayer dollars, I believe there’s a national consensus on this issue that it should not go to dirty movies.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, J.Pkr, after an April 12, 2008 article by Tim Shufelt in The Ottawa Citizen

The Lord’s Prayer Crashes Ontario Gov’t Website

A proposal to scrap the reading of the Lord’s Prayer in the legislature has prompted 5,700 submissions from the public – temporarily crashing the legislature’s website – and hundreds of phone calls from many who want to preserve the Christian tradition.

While Premier Dalton McGuinty says it’s time to open the province’s legislative debate with a more inclusive prayer, politicians tasked with sifting through the varied opinions say the majority don’t want to see Ontario fall in line with other provinces by replacing the Lord’s Prayer.

Speaker Steve Peters, who is chairing the committee to examine replacing the prayer with another reading, said the response through the legislature’s website has been overwhelming.

The traffic was so great when the committee first set up the online form that it temporarily crashed the website, resulting in hundreds of calls to Mr. Peters’ office. More than half the Conservative caucus have presented petitions in the house on the topic and the committee has yet to hear from about 50 different faith groups.

Those handpicked organizations, from The Assembly of First Nations to atheists to Christian denominations, have until the end of the month to make their case.

“The committee is going to have a lot of information to review,” Mr. Peters said.

But other committee members say the message from the submissions so far is pretty clear – keep the Lord’s Prayer.

Conservative Garfield Dunlop said some don’t mind alternating the Lord’s Prayer with other readings but the vast majority don’t want to see it scrapped altogether.

“The Lord’s Prayer is inclusive enough that it covers a lot of different religions,” said Mr. Dunlop, adding the reading is part of Ontario’s history. “You have to take that into account. It’s not just about religion. It’s about tradition.”

The last time the legislature debated replacing the Lord’s Prayer, in 2001, Mr. Dunlop said there was a similar outcry. The debate sparked by the Conservative proposal to fund all religious schools in the last election is further proof, Mr. Dunlop said.

“You don’t tamper too much with what you’ve got,” he said. “This really irks a lot of people and gets under their skin.”

People weren’t clamouring to talk again about the Lord’s Prayer’s place in the legislature before Premier McGuinty raised the issue in February, but New Democrat Cheri DiNovo says they are now.

“About 80 per cent of them are in favour of keeping the Lord’s Prayer. Now he’s getting his groundswell,” said the United Church minister. “The background of all of this is a province with one-in-eight children living in poverty. We could be spending all this money and all this time addressing that.”

The last time the Ontario legislature updated its daily prayer was in 1969, when it changed the preamble to the Lord’s Prayer. It is one of the few remaining provinces – along with Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick – still reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

Both the House of Commons and the Senate recite non-denominational prayers.

(Moderator’s Note: You can make your opinion known to the Ontatio Legislative Assembly here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Matt Achine, after A May 5, 2008 article by Chinta Puxley over The Canadian Press

“Ban The Barbie Doll!” To Protect Iran’s Islamic Culture

Iran, the world’s third largest importer of toys, is calling for a ban on Barbie dolls.  
 
 Iran’s top prosecutor has called for restrictions in the import of Western toys, saying they have a destructive effect on the country’s youth.

The Prosecutor General, Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi, said that toys such as Barbie, Batman, and Harry Potter would have negative social consequences.

Mr Najafabadi wants measures taken to protect what he called Iran’s Islamic culture and revolutionary values.

Correspondents say Western culture is becoming increasingly popular in Iran.

Mr Najafabadi’s comments were made in a letter addressed to Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi, and quoted in several Iranian newspapers.

“The displays of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter… as well as the irregular importation of unsanctioned computer games and movies are all warning bells to officials in the cultural arena,” he wrote, according to a copy of the letter seen by Associated Press.

“The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger,” he said.

The BBC’s Pam O’Toole in Tehran says the increasing popularity of Western culture has been causing concern in Iran’s clerical establishment for years.

Mr Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world’s third biggest importer of toys, with many more being smuggled into the country.

In the past, Barbie dolls have been targeted by Iranian authorities bridling at their revealing dress.

In public Iranian women must cover their bodily contours – a rule, correspondents point out, that Barbie conspicuously fails to follow.

“We need to find substitutes to ward off this onslaught, which aims at children and young people whose personality is in the process of being formed,” Mr Najafabadi said.

Iran has made previous, unsuccessful, attempts to find substitutes for such toys.

A modestly-dressed version of Barbie and her partner Ken – named Sara and Dara – launched by Iran did not manage to counter the popularity of the Western version.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Alexander Neil, after an April 28, 2008 article over BBC News OnLine