Secular Café http://www.secularcafe.org/ This place is for mostly secular people to socialize, support, and discuss religion, science, politics, etc. en Fri, 18 May 2012 07:46:42 GMT vBulletin 60 http://secularcafe.org/images/oceanzero/misc/rss.jpg Secular Café http://www.secularcafe.org/ The difference between Muslim cultures and Arab cultures http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19745&goto=newpost Fri, 18 May 2012 02:05:30 GMT Quite a few non-Arab Muslims have expressed frustration to me about the dominance of modern Islam by Arabs and their culture. This is a thoughtful... Quite a few non-Arab Muslims have expressed frustration to me about the dominance of modern Islam by Arabs and their culture. This is a thoughtful article.

http://www.newageislam.com/islamic-c...ontents/d/7335

Quote:
In Oman, and across the Arabian Peninsula, people are expected to wear their “own clothes” in public. Except for Pakistanis and people from certain parts of Africa, that usually means Western wear. But the real concern isn’t what they wear; it’s what they must not wear: the traditional Arab dishdasha. That is reserved for people from within the peninsula, and even non-peninsular Arabs, such as Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians, are expected to avoid making public appearances in it.

I was reminded of the conversation in the editor-in-chief’s office while reading some comments on Aiman Reyaz’s article ‘Does Islam Allow Wife-Beating’, which highlight how Arab culture is being propagated worldwide in the name of Islam, how Muslims in non-Arab nations are being told to pray in Arab-style mosques and, indeed, wear Arab dresses.

The irony is profound. The confusion of the Muslim who must look and behave like an Arab in his own country, and then act like someone from his own country when he goes to the Arabian peninsula, is at the heart of the intellectual and spiritual dilemma facing Islam today. What does it mean to be a Muslim? Is it to assume a particular physical appearance (beards, Burqas) and particular social and moral values (eating beef, beating wives)? If yes, what is the source of this appearance and these values? Are they actually Islamic, or are they just Arab?

Some people would have us believe that there is no distinction between Arab and Islamic: that Arab culture is Islamic culture and vice versa. But Arabs themselves don’t think so. And while they may promote the Arabisation of Muslim societies around the world, they expect the distinction to be maintained on their own lands. Indeed, under the blanket of the Islamic Ummah, the distinction takes many forms: Arab/non-Arab, peninsular /non-peninsular, Shia/Sunni, Wahabi/non-Wahabi, brown/black/white, Asian/African/European, and so on...

...Clearly, Islam is too intricately interwoven with Arab history, language and culture for anyone to dissociate them completely. But as it has spread to other parts of the world, it has also entwined itself with a panoply of other cultures, languages and histories, influencing them and being influenced by them...

...just as Islam cannot be wrenched away from its Arab roots, so it cannot be disentangled from the diverse historical and cultural experiences it has gone through. Perhaps every society in the world has been influenced by Islam―and Islam has, in turn, been influenced by each of them.

What, then, does it mean to be a Muslim? The answer cannot be wearing beards or Burqas, eating beef or beating wives. It also cannot be praying in certain ways, or following particular interpretations of the Quran or the Sunnah. Perhaps, the answer is: to each his own. Every society, even every individual, should understand and interpret Islam in his own way and follow it as he deems fit. Indeed, the Quran itself anticipates this when it says: ‘lakum deenakum waleya deen’ (For me my religion, for you yours)...

...But in recent decades, as the world has shrunk and brought these multifarious branches crashing into each other, Muslims have been forced to look around and wonder what is “authentic” amid all this diversity within Islam. The search for authenticity has taken many of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, to the roots of Islam―to its beginnings in the arid interiors of the Arabian peninsula...

...those roots simply cannot be found: they aren’t there anymore. The Arab society as created by the Prophet, idealised by the proponents of Arabisation, exists on the other side of time. What exists now is an interpretation of it, an imitation of what some believe it may have been or claim it was. This interpretation is just as true―or as false―as any other, as authentic or inauthentic as any of the branches Muslims are trying to run away from.

The search for authenticity is thus a chimera. Looking for the “real Islam” as one, absolute set of dos and don’ts to guide all societies for all times means putting our faith in the chicanery of conmen who will sell us phony replicas and hollow imitations (and laugh behind our backs).

Islam is not, and has never been, a monolith; it is a vibrant faith that thrives on dynamism and must keep evolving to survive. Muslims must accept this essential facet of their faith if they have to overcome the existential confusion of what it means to be a Muslim.

Accepting this will also free Islam of the dilemma of traditionalisation versus modernisation. As there is nothing authentic, Islam cannot go back to any one tradition, and this shouldn’t be attempted. And as Islam must evolve, so today it must self-consciously adopt modern values of democracy, free speech, scientific thinking and equal rights for women and minorities―without worrying if these are actually “infidel” values, for they are not, and it doesn’t matter even if they were.
]]> Religion DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19745 Ron Paul sort-of drops out http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19740&goto=newpost Thu, 17 May 2012 18:38:11 GMT Ron Paul all but ends presidential campaign, continues delegate strategy - Yahoo! News... Ron Paul all but ends presidential campaign, continues delegate strategy - Yahoo! News
He stated:
Quote:
Our campaign will continue to work in the state convention process. We will continue to take leadership positions, win delegates, and carry a strong message to the Republican National Convention that Liberty is the way of the future. Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.
Ron Paul's true endgame - Yahoo! News
Quote:
It's not about convention antics or party platforms. It's about seizing the machinery of state GOPs nationwide.
Most of the remaining states will have true primaries rather than caucuses, meaning that it would be difficult to get the sort of backroom victories that he got in Maine and Nevada.

Ron Paul will be retiring from Congress this November, so will he be continuing in some behind-the-scenes way?

Paul says 'no plans' for third-party White House run - Yahoo! News
He would have become a Republican Ralph Nader if he did, I suspect. ]]> US Elections 2012 lpetrich http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19740 Fatto Protests Restaurant http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19737&goto=newpost Thu, 17 May 2012 15:27:01 GMT link (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8469060/man-protests-over-all-you-can-eat-ban) ---Quote--- After knocking back 12 pieces of fish at... link

Quote:
After knocking back 12 pieces of fish at Chuck's Place in Thiensville, Wisconsin, Bill Wisth was told he had reached his quota and was promptly cut off from continuing his binge, NBC affiliate TMJ4 reports.

Staff at the restaurant, who claim they were running out of fish after Wisth's visit, gave him a further eight pieces to go and ejected him from the restaurant.
...
Wisth, who stands over 2m tall and weighs almost 160kg, admits he can eat more than the average customer but will continue to protest outside the restaurant every Sunday until they change their ways.
Converting from the metric system to the "correct" or "right" system he's over 6'7" and weighs almost 352 lbs. Reminds me of that "you go now!" comedy routine from the late 80s or early 90s. Still, it is false advertising if they say "all you can eat." Of course it says he had an unpaid tab so they probably shouldn't have let him in until it was paid. ]]> Miscellaneous Discussions MattShizzle http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19737 Mladic trial looks at Srebrenica http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19732&goto=newpost Thu, 17 May 2012 10:44:10 GMT I expect most people know that the Serb General Rtako Mladic is now on trial at the Hague for war crimes and genocide. ... I expect most people know that the Serb General Rtako Mladic is now on trial at the Hague for war crimes and genocide.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18099008

Quote:
Gen Mladic is accused of orchestrating the killings of more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men in the town...

...Prosecuting counsel Peter McCloskey said that the crimes at Srebrenica had never been in dispute so the prosecution's focus would be on individual criminal responsibility.

He said that the Bosnian Serb Army was not an "army out of control" and that Gen Mladic had been on the ground and in command.

"We have radio intercepts of VRS (Bosnian Serb) soldiers and officers discussing murders. We have video of two of the actual executions themselves. So let me be perfectly clear, the crime will not be the main focus of this prosecution. This case will be primarily about one issue. The individual criminal responsibility of Ratko Mladic," he said...

...The Srebrenica massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.

Serb fighters overran the enclave in eastern Bosnia - supposedly under the protection of Dutch UN peacekeepers. Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were separated off, shot dead and bulldozed into mass graves - later to be dug up and reburied in more remote spots.

Gen Mladic is also charged in connection with the 44-month siege of Sarajevo during which more than 10,000 people died.

On the first day of the trial on Wednesday, the prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) argued that Gen Mladic had intended to "ethnically cleanse" Bosnia...

...Some former Bosnian Serb commanders have already been convicted by the international court in connection with the Srebrenica killings.

In 2010 Vujadin Popovic and Ljubisa Beara were sentenced to life in prison. Five other defendants were jailed for between five and 35 years.

The architect of the Balkan wars, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, died in detention in his cell in 2006, before receiving a verdict.
]]> DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19732 White births in US no longer a majority http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19738&goto=newpost Thu, 17 May 2012 10:31:13 GMT This has been coming for a long time. What will be the cultural and political impact? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18100457 ... This has been coming for a long time. What will be the cultural and political impact?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18100457

Quote:
Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other mixed races made up 50.4 percent of births counted in the 12 month period ending in July 2011.

It puts non-Hispanic white births in the minority for the first time.

Sociologists believe the economic slowdown has contributed to a greater decline in birth rates among whites.

The US Census Bureau recorded 2.02m babies born to minorities in the year to July 2011, making just over half of all births, compared with 37% in 1990.

US birth rates have been declining, but the drop has been larger for whites.

The number of white births has fallen by 11.4% since 2008, compared with 3.2% for minorities, according to Kenneth Johnson, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire.
]]> DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19738 Is the effect of the euromess the big unknown in the election? http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19730&goto=newpost Thu, 17 May 2012 10:27:59 GMT Nowadays even the biggest economies are not insulated from what is going on elsewhere. Whatever happens in the next couple of months in the eurozone,... Nowadays even the biggest economies are not insulated from what is going on elsewhere. Whatever happens in the next couple of months in the eurozone, there are going to be quite big effects on the US banking system. The most pessimistic commentators think it could be worse than the Lehman Bros collapse.

Common sense would say that that is simply ridiculous: this has been a very slow-motion car crash and surely measures will have been taken to protect against it. But plenty of people could see things wrong with the system before 2008, and nothing effective was done in time.

If there is another banking crisis, what would be the electoral effect? ]]> US Elections 2012 DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19730 <![CDATA[India thinks of raising the 'age of consent']]> http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19729&goto=newpost Thu, 17 May 2012 04:30:01 GMT "Lawmakers should "re-think" on the existing law regarding "age of consent" for sex keeping in mind the changing "social attitudes", a Delhi court has said."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-...e1-847934.aspx

The Indian government is considering to raise the age of consensual sex for women from 16 to 18 as a measure to protect women. This would mean sex for women below age of 18 to be classified as rape. ]]> Human Rights Aupmanyav http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19729 Northern Ireland losing its religious tribalism? http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19728&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 18:50:36 GMT Let's hope so. It looks encouraging.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/ne...-16159289.html

Quote:
Teenagers are forging friendships across the religious divide in Northern Ireland as never before, according to new research published today.

A survey of 16-year-olds reveals that just one in five (22%) has no friends from the other main tradition compared to one in three (33%) in 2003, when the annual study first got under way.

Young people are also socialising more with those of a different ethnic background. Almost half (48%) quizzed in 2006 said that all their friends were of the same race or ethnic group compared to just 26% today.

The results are in the latest Young Life and Times Survey, a joint initiative by Queen’s University and the University of Ulster.
]]> Religion DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19728 The joys of travel (Was: Brother ready to kill brother for Islam) http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19727&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 18:31:54 GMT http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis/Outside-View/2012/05/15/Outside-View-When-brother-kills-brother-for-the-love-of-fanatical-Islam/UPI-9208133707798... http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Analysis...2081337077980/

Quote:
It was a combination of U.S. and Saudi intelligence work that uncovered the latest terrorist plot seeking to target a U.S. commercial aircraft, this time with a more sophisticated and harder-to-detect underwear bomb.

Fortunately, we again were one move ahead in the chess match we are playing with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as that group mounted yet another failed effort to strike out at the United States.

AQAP was the same group responsible for the failed 2009 Christmas Day underwear bomber attack on a U.S. airliner and the failed 2010 effort to place printer cartridges laden with explosives onboard cargo planes.

The master bombmaker in all three cases was Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, 30, a Saudi, operating out of Yemen. He is a highly skilled and self-taught (via manuals and the Internet) explosives expert who is determined to pull off a successful attack against the United States.

Asiri proved his loyalty to AQAP by engaging his own brother, Abdullah, to be a suicide bomber. Donning an explosive device designed by Asiri, Abdullah was to assassinate a member of the Saudi royal family -- Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the deputy minister of the Interior.

In August 2009, to gain access to the prince, Abdullah claimed he was defecting but would surrender only to the prince. The body search given Abdullah before seeing the prince failed to discover the explosive device hidden in his underwear.

Gaining access, Abdullah told Prince Nayef other AQAP members were ready to defect; they simply awaited Nayef's call to a cell number to assure them safe passage. That call achieved the wireless connection by which the explosive device was detonated. Abdullah was killed instantly; the prince was slightly injured.
]]> Miscellaneous Discussions DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19727 Islamists block aid http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19726&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 18:28:21 GMT Surprise! They're misogynists!

http://www.scotsman.com/news/interna...omen-1-2296440

Quote:
MALI’S Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine – which has links to al-Qaeda – has blocked an aid convoy with tonnes of food and medical supplies for the northern city of Timbuktu, objecting to the presence of women in a reception committee set up for the aid.

The convoy yesterday marked the first aid deployed to Timbuktu since Mali’s government lost control of the vast northern region to separatist and Islamist rebels following a 22 March coup in the capital Bamako.

Tens of thousands have fled Mali’s north since the rebel advance, many of them for neighbouring Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. Those remaining face anarchy and worsening shortages of food and medicine in a zone that is also entering one of the Sahel region’s recurrent droughts.
]]> Human Rights DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19726 Old-style view of the RCC and sex http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19725&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 17:54:16 GMT Gosh! Why did it change so much? Or alternatively why didn't people see it for what it was?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...316125097.html

Quote:
If you had an impure thought (that’s a thought about sex, not about cheating your neighbour) and if you “took pleasure” in it, then you had better hope you could get to confession before you were knocked down by a bus, because if you didn’t, and you were, you would spend all of eternity in hell.

I mention this because, as church sex scandals rumble on, it’s increasingly difficult to appreciate just how totally, absolutely and utterly unthinkable it was to Catholics that clergy would engage in sexual misbehaviour or abuse.

Similarly it was utterly unthinkable that a cleric who engaged in such behaviour would be protected, moved around or facilitated in any way.

Our entire class once had to write an essay on purity because two guys were caught reading the News of the World in the toilets of our Christian Brothers school. That’s how concerned the church was about sexual misbehaviour of the sort that got reported in that paper...

...Films were banned, books were banned, dancing suspended at Lent, RTÉ regularly condemned – all because the Catholic Church was dead set against the idea of sex except inside marriage and then only for the procreation of children (that’s right, you had to be trying to get pregnant or else no sex, and that included hanky panky).

Of course it was all beginning to fall apart thanks to television, showbands, industrialisation, feminism and the church’s opposition to artificial contraception.

But it still never occurred to us that clerics might engage in sexual activity or that those austere church authorities might cover up for those who did.

When a girlfriend told me about clerical students trying to “get off” with her, I scoffed. What a ridiculous idea.

I’m not scoffing now.
I was propositioned by two Catholic seminarians in the 1960s, so I never had a rosy view of them. ]]> Religion DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19725 <![CDATA[Tony Blair had wanted to end a speech with "God bless Britain".]]> http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19722&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 16:27:46 GMT The civil servants stopped him. Perhaps if he had been allowed to do it he would have lost power sooner. ... The civil servants stopped him. Perhaps if he had been allowed to do it he would have lost power sooner.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...s-Britain.html

Quote:
Mr Blair said he had intended to echo the traditional closing remark of Presidents in the United States, who typically sign-off television broadcasts by saying, “God Bless America”...

...Speaking at a conference on leadership, organised by the Holy Trinity Brompton Church, in London, Mr Blair said it was “a shame” that British politicians could not express their faith more openly...

...“I remember we had this debate on and off but finally one of the civil servants said in a very po-faced way 'I just remind you Prime Minister, this is not America' in this very disapproving tone, so I gave up the idea. I think it is a shame that you can't since it is obviously part of what you are.”

Mr Blair has said in the past that he did not speak publicly about his belief while Prime Minister out of fear voters would think him a “nutter”.
]]> DMB http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19722 Senior US priest fathered child http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19720&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 14:15:05 GMT http://news.yahoo.com/senior-us-prie...132027582.html

At least there's no (overt) abuse in this case....

Quote:
An ultra-conservative Catholic group on Wednesday said one of its most senior priests who teaches doctrine at a Vatican university has a child and admitted it knew about the scandal for some time.

"The general director and his council are deeply sorry for not having acted earlier and more firmly," the Legion of Christ group said in a statement.

Father Thomas Williams has been removed from public priestly duties for a year but the movement said he could still be a priest as long as he repents and provides adequate support to the child and the mother.

It said he could also choose to leave the priesthood and form a family.

"A number of years ago I had a relationship with a woman and fathered her child. I am deeply sorry for this grave transgression and have tried to make amends," Williams was quoted as saying in the statement.

The movement said the woman was an adult at the time of the relationship and there was no abuse of authority as she was not one of his students.

"It is not a case of abuse or criminal action," it said.

Thomas is a professor of moral theology and social doctrine of the Catholic Church at the Vatican's Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University.

The movement's general director, Father Luis Garza, said: "It won't surprise me if you are disappointed, angry or feel your trust shaken once again."

The Legion of Christ, whose Mexican founder Father Marcial Maciel was a paedophile who is alleged to have fathered three children, earlier this month said it had uncovered seven suspected cases of child abuse by its priests.

The movement expanded hugely under late pope John Paul II and is now present in 22 countries, particularly in Latin America.

It has 800 priests, 2,500 seminarians and 70,000 lay people among its members and it also manages 12 universities.

Maciel died in the United States in 2008 at the age of 87 and Pope Benedict XVI authorised a full review of the congregation in 2010.
]]> Religion phands http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19720 U.S. Loses Over $71 Billion a YEAR in Religious Tax Exemptions http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19719&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 13:50:56 GMT http://www.atheistrev.com/2012/05/us-loses-over-71-billion-in-religious.html This *really* pisses me off.... ---Quote--- The following is... http://www.atheistrev.com/2012/05/us...religious.html

This *really* pisses me off....

Quote:
The following is from a press release distributed by the Center for Inquiry:

AMHERST, NY: In times of crippling cutbacks to badly needed government services, a new article published by Free Inquiry magazine details how the tax exemptions enjoyed by religious institutions cost the U.S. a staggering $71 billion per year, at the least. Meanwhile, this religious privilege helps to subsidize the lavish homes and lifestyles of numerous clergy on the taxpayers’ dime.

In their new report, “How Secular Humanists (and Everyone Else) Subsidize Religion in the U.S.,” researchers Ryan T. Cragun, Stephanie Yeager, and Desmond Vega reject the common assumption of churches as “charitable organizations” and instead classify them as primarily the purveyors of a kind of spiritual entertainment. “What we found,” they write, “suggests that religions, if they were required to pay taxes as for-profit corporations do, would not have nearly as much money or influence as they enjoy in America today.”

The authors calculate the loss of tax revenue to exceed $71 billion—with “parsonage” subsidies alone amounting to over $1.2 billion—and even these estimates, they say, are extremely conservative given the cloudiness and obfuscation that is endemic in religious finances. Write the authors, “We realized that religions would be the ideal way to launder money if you were engaged in an illegal enterprise.”
]]> Religion phands http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19719 PZ: His name was Carlos. What more do you need? http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19718&goto=newpost Wed, 16 May 2012 13:48:45 GMT http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngu...+Pharyngula%29

Another good post from Pharyngula.....Old event (1989), new report; and I never want to visit Texas again...

Quote:
Someone named Carlos murdered Wanda Lopez in Texas. Carlos Hernandez. Someone named Carlos was arrested near the scene of the crime. Carlos DeLuna. Good enough! So after a hasty trial with a cheap and incompetent defense lawyer, Texas executed Carlos DeLuna.

Hernandez had a mustache and was wearing a grey flannel shirt, DeLuna was clean-shaven and wearing a white dress shirt. Hernandez was later arrested for another murder, and confessed to killing Wanda Lopez.

Didn’t matter. Texas had a Carlos.

There can’t be that many Hispanic men named Carlos, right? Just round ‘em all up.

Once we’ve cleaned them out, we can start on the Juans.

Man, it’s like Texas took all the flaws of America and blew them up to ten times the size of anyplace else, and is proud of them.
]]> Human Rights phands http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=19718