#LondonBridge Hysteria

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jun 042017
 

Before we get onto the hysteria part of this semi-coherent rant, let me emphasise that last night’s attacks were terrible and that having religious nut-jobs (if that is confirmed; whilst it seems probable it could still be a false flag incident) running around attacking ordinary people on a night out is despicable.

But some of the reactions on #LondonBridge were pretty disgusting; whilst some were posting offers to house people stranded because of the attack, others were leaping to conclusions and demanding some actions :-

  • Many including the orange idiot were demanding the travel ban. Which would stop none of the terrorist incidents perpetrated by domestic muslims; and most of these incidents are by domestic muslims. The main outcome of a travel ban would be to alienate those targeted by the ban, and alienation is the first step on the road to radicalisation.
  • Blaming the whole of islam for the terrorism. With the muslim nurses, doctors treating the injured, the muslim taxi-drivers taking people home for free, the muslim shop-keepers opening up and offering food, drink, and a place to stay, there were more acts of kindness by muslims last night than there were acts of terror. Or are you going to blame all christians for christian terrorism?
  • Bizarrely bringing the Paris Accords into this incident.
  • Demanding action without specifying what action. Action is of course taking place each and every day, but terrorism is extremely difficult to stop.

The only mistake muslim made on the twitter last night was to claim that the terrorists were not muslims; that’s the No True Scotsman fallacy. It would be far more effective to claim that these terrorists are muslim heretics (or whatever equivalent term you would prefer).

Whilst the events last night were terrible, it is also important to take them in context – if you were to add up all the deaths and injuries from terrorist incidents they would amount to a small fraction of the deaths caused in London each year by air pollution (estimated at around 9,000 a year). Or to go the other way, one terrorist incident caused perhaps two day’s worth of traffic accidents.

That does not mean we should not take action against potential terrorists, but neither should we over-react and respond with actions that punish the innocent as well as the guilty.

#Manchester Muslims Were Queuing Up To Help The Victims

 General, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
May 232017
 

I woke up this morning to the news of the Manchester bombing this morning; learning about what was going on from a forum that had attracted some of the more rancid members of the far right. Who were busy blaming this atrocity on all muslims, but also on Syrian refugees; all this of course before anyone knew any facts because facts are irrelevant to the bigoted far right.

And a particularly nasty piece of work has labelled the victims “sluts” and “whores” (I’ve linked to a site that discusses his comments in order not to give him any extra ad revenue).

Now I am not in the habit of being sympathetic to any religious group – they all believe in imaginary friends. But they’re people and in many cases my fellow countrymen, so when a gang of pathetic little chickenshit cowards labels all muslims as terrorists, it is time to call them out on their bigoted bullshit.

Yes the evil scum who set off the bomb was a muslim; one born in Britain and not a Syrian refugee.

But :-

  1. It is almost certain that some of the 60 ambulances that attended were crewed by a muslim or two.
  2. It is almost certain that some of the police who were there helping people out were muslims.
  3. It is almost certain that some of those who opened their homes to accommodate stranded
  4. Some of the taxi drivers who turned off their meters and offered free lifts to those stranded were muslims.

Of course Mancunians of all faiths and none rallied around and helped out, but as muslims were being painted with the terrorism brush, it seems reasonable to highlight that many of those helping out were muslims.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design (Creationism)

 Religion, Science  No Responses »
Feb 132017
 

As an atheist, I find it difficult to be polite and not fall about laughing at things like “Intelligent Design”, but for the duration of this blog posting, I’ll try.

On one side are the scientists who spend their working lives investigating biological processes who have their theory of evolution. Now that word “theory” needs a bit of explanation; it does not mean that evolution hasn’t been accepted as fact by scientists. Evolution is one of those rare scientific theories that has never been disproved; merely refined. Essentially the word “theory” here is a challenge to disprove evolution and come up with a better theory – if you think you’re hard enough!

On the other side are a collection of religious leaders (admittedly Charles Thaxton trained as a chemist) who have spent their working lives telling people about god; and coming up with the theory of “Intelligent Design” in their spare time. The suspicion is that these people are letting their religious beliefs influence their “scientific” thinking.

When I want to know about plumbing, I ask a plumber. When I want to know about welding, I ask a boiler-maker. And when I want to know about biology, I ask a biologist.

There Are Transgender People In Public Toilets!

 General, Politics, Religion  1 Response »
Apr 242016
 

The interwebs are vibrating with apoplexy at the issue of transgender people in public toilets – those who insist they should tie a knot in it and not use a toilet (or use some other toilet), and those who oppose them. North Carolina has recently passed a law requiring transgender people to use the toilet suited to the gender of their birth, and other states are set to follow. To USians who are puzzled by my use of the word “toilet” – in the UK it refers to both the room itself and the appliance.

In some ways I would more naturally fit into the first camp – I don’t understand transgender issues, and I don’t understand why anyone would want to go down the route of gender re-assignment. To me the gender of the meatspace body my mind wears is immutable.

But here’s the thing: if someone decides to go down the route of gender re-assignment, it’s none of my business. And this law is just plain stupid not to mention malicious.

And so to toilets. In IT there is a principle called the Principle of Least Astonishment which in a sense is quite relevant here. If I go to a public toilet, I normally expect to find myself alongside (figuratively and literally in the case of the urinal) people who look like men; if there’s someone in there who looks like a woman (and it has happened – women sometimes use the men’s facilities) then for a moment I wonder if I’ve wandered through the wrong door.

So it stands to reason that people who look like men should use the men’s toilets and people who look like women should use the women’s toilets. Nothing to do with right and wrong, it’s just simple logic and that principle I mentioned in the last paragraph. Of course it is also the right thing to do.

Now we all know there are perverts out there – there are male perverts, and female perverts, and it stands to reason that there are a few transgender perverts too, and yes some of them are interested in children too (but not all; most perverts are probably as horrified by paedophilia as normal people are). So? What does this have to do with toilets?

Unless what goes on in public women’s toilets is a good deal more exciting than what goes on in the men’s facilities, there’s really nothing for someone to get excited about (and men do share a urinal!).

And frankly even if perverts are weird enough to get excited in public toilets, there’s better strategies than picking on a minority group. Such as concentrating on making those doors and walls for toilet stalls floor to ceiling.

Now I’m going to go for a pee in peace.

(Obviously stolen from Sarah)

Religion And Extremism

 General, Religion  No Responses »
Mar 152016
 

This post was inspired by a video of someone’s testament of why they are leaving islam, but yet it has nothing to do with islam.

There is a perfectly understandable misunderstanding within that video – the extremism commonly found in islam today has nothing to do with islam itself. The same extremism can be found in other religions too – christianity, hinduism, budhism, judaisn, etc. Yes the perception is that islam today is far more extreme than those other religions, but there are still extremism in other religions :-

It seems that irrespective of what religion someone believes in, they will take the message from their religious texts that they want to. A good person is going to take the good stuff from the good book; a bad person is going to take the bad stuff from the very same book. I would not go as far as Steven Weinburg :-

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

But it is certainly along the right sort of lines. Extremists use religion as an excuse to do evil things – killing homosexuals, abortionists, atheists, “immoral” women, etc. If we could somehow cause all the extremists of the world to drink the magical cool-aid that would turn off their extremism and turn them into the kind of religious believers who “love thy neighbour”, then there wouldn’t be a problem with religion.

But the sad fact is that extremists do so much harm with their religion that it outweighs any possible benefit we get from religion. We would be better off getting rid of religion just to stop the extremists from pretending to be good.

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