My Role in Weaponizing ‘Moral Equivalence’ and ‘Religious Freedom’

James George Jatras
Strategic Culture

It’s confession time …

Without getting overly autobiographical, it is worth noting that my perspectives (whatever their value) on American public policy and global affairs reflect decades of first-hand, professional experience in both the Executive and Legislative branches of the US government. The former was at the Department of State as a commissioned US Foreign Service Officer, the latter at the US Senate as a policy adviser to the Republican leadership.

I’d like to believe that at all times my intentions were to serve the best interests of my country as viewed in light of the most venerable principles of the American nation, as well as the Christian, European, and human values that once undergirded that nation.

However, the consequences of my efforts, together with those of others, sometimes went horribly wrong. On at least two occasions, there was, to say the least, a disconnect between good intention and sound judgment, between what I had hoped and expected could be achieved – and what turned out to be the results.

For example, as the (first) Cold War was entering its terminal phase, I was one of the primary planners and organizers of the May 1985 international conference in Washington, DC, “Moral Equivalence: False Images of U.S. and Soviet Values,” sponsored by the State Department and the Shavano Institute for National Leadership. As described byImprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College, which later incorporated Shavano and published the remarks of some of the speakers, the conference brought together “forty-five participants from the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, Italy, Latin America, and Central Europe accepted the invitation to examine the issue of an alleged ‘moral equivalence’ between the two ‘superpowers.’ The attention this conference has received has been substantial. Articles have appeared in dozens of national publications such as Time, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Policy Review, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the New York Post, and the New York Times, as well as in over 500 other newspapers throughout the nation.”

Among the headline participants were UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, Tom Wolfe, the late, great Joseph Sobran, Richard Pipes, Sidney Hook, and many others spanning the spectrum from paleoconservatism, to libertarianism, to social democracy. As conceived by myself and other planners, the conference had a single message: that the godless ideology of Marxism-Leninism with its record of mass murder, destruction, and degradation (exemplified then by the USSR and its satellites) was not morally comparable to normal, non-ideological societies and states (then represented – so I believed at the time – by the United States and our allies.)

The conference was a smashing success (definitely worth the $45,000 allocated by the Department, though in the end Shavano commendably declined to accept the public funds, as reported by Imprimis). The phrase “moral equivalence” – which had been launched by Kirkpatrick a year earlier – became a widespread meme, with the communist Evil Empire weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Unfortunately “moral equivalence” is a meme that now just won’t die, even though the context for it receded into history a few years following our conference. What has since become evident (and maybe already was to eyes more discerning than mine at the time) was that the US and our (let’s be honest) satellites are every bit as ideological as the old Soviet Union. In fact, in some ways ours is the same ruling ideology as communism but shifted from economic class conflict of 
Bourgeoisie/Proletariat to new Oppressor/Victim paradigms defined by sex, race, religion, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, migration status, and so forth.

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Satanic Temple Wins IRS Recognition as an Official House of Worship

bloomberg.com

 

Many Americans regard paying taxes as a necessary evil. If they want to worship Satan, now the IRS has officially given them a tax-exempt place to do so.

 The Internal Revenue Service has granted the same non-profit status given to churches, synagogues and mosques to The Satanic Temple, an organization in Salem, Massachusetts, that calls itself America’s first devil-worshiping church. It is now protected by federal laws governing churches that operate as charities. 

In a statement this week announcing the status, the group called itself “a non-theistic religious organization dedicated to Satanic practice and the promotion of Satanic rights.” Based in the town that hosted the Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century, the statement added that the group “understands the Satanic figure as a symbol of man’s inherent nature, representative of the eternal rebel, enlightened inquiry and personal freedom rather than a supernatural deity or being.” 

Before the ruling, the IRS regarded the group as a “religious organization,” not as a full-fledged church with a place of worship. Churches are generally exempt from filing federal returns under the tax code.

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The Foreskin: Why Is It Such A Secret In North America?

Spoony Quinn  

Mad Science Writer

The male prepuce, or foreskin, is a highly mobile and extraordinarily sensitive double fold of tissue that is the end of the penis.  Why do Americans go out of their way to remove this part of human anatomy, when the rest of the world does not?

Note: Never have I gotten so many comments and emails in response to a blog post, much less rumors that I'm a man. I'll keep that in mind. And for the record, it wasn't until 2014 that I had the opportunity to put a man's intact penis in my very much female vagina. This frictionless appendage made me realize that sex doesn't have to be painful or cause hazardous inflammation. And with that image in your mind...

I was nineteen or twenty years old when a male friend of mine, we'll call him Bill, let me in on a most shocking fact: He was missing part of his penis, and so were almost all boys and men that I had ever seen in my entire life, as well as all the anatomical diagrams that I had ever seen. Ever.

Sure, I had heard of circumcision as a Jewish religious practice, but thought myself unlikely to ever see its results. Little did I know, all the male genitalia I had seen both in real life and as depicted in American anatomy books, had been edited in exactly the same way.  The shock from this revelation overwhelmed me for weeks, especially since I considered myself to be fairly knowledgeable about anatomy. (My interests included biology and drawing biological structures).

Why would anyone selectively remove foreskins, not just from real people but from scientific anatomical texts, which I had thought were meant to represent the natural human form? And why did no one ever tell me about this? It was as though a basic feature that males (of all mammals) are normally born with was not to be understood or even acknowledged.

I spent the next few weeks at the local library, immersing myself in primary and secondary source materials on the relevant anatomy, medicine and history, before I was satisfied that I had an accurate understanding of what was going on. To summarize what I had found:

• The foreskin (or prepuce) is a man's most sensitive erogenous zone, more well-developed in humans than in other species of mammal. It has unique sexual functions (more on that later), which circumcision effectively destroys -- and this is intentional:
• Although foreskin-chopping was once a purely religious or cultural practice, it was introduced to American medicine in the late 1800s, as a 'cure-all', thanks to the trend of pathologizing (treating as illness) normal human sexuality and healthy genitalia.

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Scientists concede that religion is good for your health

Nicole Fisher
Forbes

“Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide. Several studies have shown that addressing the spiritual needs of the patient may enhance recovery from illness.”

Theologists, scientists and thought leaders have attempted for centuries to understand the impact that religion can have on human beings; both mentally and physically. And it is commonly accepted around that world that religion and spirituality are among the most important of cultural factors - giving structure and meaning to behaviors, value systems and experiences.

Thus, there is ample reason to believe that faith in a higher power is associated with health, and in a positive way. For example, researchers at the Mayo Clinic concluded, "Most studies have shown that religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health-related quality of life (even during terminal illness) and less anxiety, depression, and suicide. Several studies have shown that addressing the spiritual needs of the patient may enhance recovery from illness."

Which is why it is surprising in 2019 that there is still little quantitative research published in peer-reviewed journals exploring the relationship between spirituality, religiosity and health. A primary reason for the lack of institutional knowledge in this area of study is that as the centuries have progressed, scholars in fields of medicine, public health, psychology, sociology, spirituality, religion, economics and law, have all gone to distinct silos. Subsequently, there is a growing body of research, but it exists in disparate fields, with little overlap addressing the implications of health and health care. There is also much contention about working definitions of terms like "religious" and "spiritual," making research difficult to standardize and impossible to randomize.

That said, the lack of knowledge linking religious behaviors and health is fascinating given that health care is deeply rooted in religious institutions, and vice versa. In fact, it was religious organizations that built many of the first hospitals, and clergy (supplementing low church wages) were often practicing physicians and medical providers. This was true both in the Middle East and in the American colonies, and included much focus on mental health services - with both positive and negative recorded histories.

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Ridiculous! YouTube censors Christian videos because content describes and supports values of Russian Faith

David Curry
Russia Insider

 wo weeks ago, I was summarily informed in a brief email from YouTube that our Russian Faith channel-on which we had spent hundreds of hours of hard work and which complements the Russian Faith website, which I own, had been 'terminated.' No reason was given other than a very general one which could mean anything. Russian Faith is a new media project I started in September: a website, YouTube channel (now banned), Facebook, and Twitter - to cover Christian issues in general, and the huge story of the renaissance of Christianity in Russia.

This dramatic turn by both government and society in Russia is very important not just for Christians, but for the whole world, regardless of their religious views, because it has so many ramifications important to us Americans.

It should affect our foreign policy, and it contrasts with the hostility to Christian values in our own Western societies. It is a fact that Russia has emerged as the leading defender of world Christianity, and it is a disgrace that liberal forces in the US elites and the government are among Christianity's most hostile foes - both at home and abroad. 

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Exodus Debunked: Slave trade was not common in Ancient Egypt (Video)

 Ashraf Ezzat

https://ashraf62.wordpress.com/

U.S. Defense Secretary: We Might Bomb Iran Even If a Peace Agreement Is Signed

Washington's Blog

U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said that a deal with Iran wouldn’t necessarily prevent war.
Military.com reports:

The U.S. will reserve the right to use military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon even if a deal is reached Iran’s nuclear program, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Tuesday.

“The military option certainly will remain on the table,” Carter said as negotiators in Lausanne, Switzerland, struggled to reach an agreement ahead of a March 31 deadline.

“One of my jobs is to make sure all options are on the table,’ Carter said in remarks at Syracuse University and earlier on NBC’s “Today” program.

We thought that Iran getting nuclear weapons was the main reason we were thinking of bombing them.  So if a peace deal is signed with the U.S., why are we still talking about bombing them?

What's going on?

In reality, top American and Israeli military and intelligence officials say that Iran poses no danger.

But the hawks have desperately been trying to stir up war with Iran for decades, as part of a 65-year program of regime change all over the world carried out by the U.S.

And the U.S. has inserted itself smack dab in the middle of a religious war ... and is backing the most violent side. And see this.

The American people want peace, but the military-industrial complex wants war.

Wiping Out the Christians of Syria and Iraq to Remap the Mid-East: Prerequisite to a Clash of Civilizations? (I)

Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA

Strategic Culture

Historically, the Levant is the birthplace of Christianity and the oldest Christian communities have lived in it and the entire Fertile Crescent since the start of Christian history. Early Christian called themselves followers or people of «the Way» before they adopted the term Christian; in Arabic their antiquated name would be «Ahl Al-Deen». [1] Traces of this original name are also available in the New Testament of the Bible and can be read in John 14:5-7, Acts 9:1-2, Acts 24:4 and 14. From the Fertile Crescent these Christian communities spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. Since that time the ancient communities of Christians, many of which still use the Syriac dialects of Aramaic in their churches, have been an integral and important part of the social fabrics of the pluralistic societies of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Nevertheless, the Christians of the Levant and Iraq are now in the cross-hairs.

Deceit and mischief has been at play. It is no coincidence that Egyptian Christians were attacked at the same time as the South Sudan Referendum, which was supposed to signal a split between the Muslims in Khartoum and the Christians and animists in Juba. Nor is it an accident that Iraq’s Christian, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, began to face a modern exodus, leaving their homes and ancestral homeland in Iraq in 2003. Mysterious groups targeted both them and Palestinian refugees… Coinciding with the exodus of Iraqi Christians, which occurred under the watchful eyes of US and British military forces, the neighborhoods in Baghdad became sectarian as Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims were forced by violence and death squads to form sectarian enclaves. This is all tied to US and Israeli project of redrawing the map.

The Christian communities of the Levant and Iraq have long distrusted the US government for its support of Israel, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and fanatical militants with anti-Christian leanings. Lebanon’s Christians have also been weary of US support for Israeli expansion and ideas about resettling Palestinians into Lebanon. There is also a widely held belief that the US and Israel have been involved in a policy to remove or «purge» the Christians from Iraq and the Levant in some type of Zionist-linked resettlement plan. Since the US-supported anti-government fighters started targeting Christian Syrians, there has been renewed talk about a Christian exodus in the Middle East centering on Washington’s war on Syria.

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Censorship and What Freedom of Speech Really Means: Comedian Bill Hicks’s Brilliant Letter to a Priest

Brain Pickings

“‘Freedom of speech’ means you support the right of people to say exactly those ideas which you do not agree with.”

In early June of 1993, several months before cancer took his life at the age of thirty-two, beloved comedian Bill Hicks received a letter from a priest, bemoaning the “blasphemous” content in Hicks’s live television special Revelations and reprimanding British broadcaster Channel 4 for having put it on the air. Writing a mere eight days before his fatal pancreatic cancer diagnosis — a young man still oblivious to his imminent tragic fate — Hicks decided to respond to the missive personally, in what became one of the most lucid and beautiful defenses of the freedom of speech ever articulated, on par with Voltaire’s piercing admonition about censorship and Madeleine L’Engle’s timeless words on the subject.

From Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience (public library) — the same wonderful compendium by Shaun Usher that gave us young Hunter S. Thompson on how to live a meaningful life, E.B. White’s heartening response to a man who had lost faith in humanity, and Eudora Welty’s impossibly charming lesson in how to apply to your dream job — comes Hicks’s brilliant, thoughtful, and immeasurably important response.

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Christian Zionists Woo U.S. Lawmakers

Al Jazeera 

At a reception celebrating Jerusalem Day last month on Capitol Hill, Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, recounted a recent trip to the holy city. While there, he said, “I had the privilege” of visiting the Temple Mount, where “the real discrimination occurring right now is not, as some have suggested, on the part of Israel,” but rather “on the part of the group that held Jerusalem before 1967 — you all know who I mean.” 

Tensions at the site have been escalating as some Israeli lawmakers have stepped up provocations to reverse the long-standing ban on Jewish prayer there, once considered a fringe position but now a growing rallying cry on the Israeli right. No Israeli prime minister since the war of June 1967, when the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem began — including stalwarts Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — has supported changing Israeli law to allow Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount, based on security concerns.

As right-wing fervor in Israel for Jewish prayer intensifies, Christian Zionist advocacy groups are making efforts to shape U.S. lawmakers’ understanding of Jerusalem and its holy sites, particularly the Temple Mount, through visits aimed at convincing them that Jews (and Christians) face religious persecution there.

The site is the location of the destroyed Second Temple and sacred to Jews. To Muslims it is known as Al-Haram al-Sharif, and is the location of the Muslim holy sites Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

Since 1967, when Israel captured the Old City from Jordanian control, the Temple Mount has continued to be administered by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, and Israeli law has barred Jewish prayer there. It has long been a flashpoint; in 2000, Ariel Sharon, then campaigning for prime minister, visited the site, igniting the second intifada.

The guide for Harris’ tour of the site was Rabbi Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute, which aspires to rebuild a third Jewish temple there. Richman maintains it will be a precise replica of the ancient temple described in the Bible, with its priestly castes and religious rituals, including animal sacrifice. Richman believes the ashes of a perfect red heifer are “required by the Bible for purification” before the temple can be rebuilt, and he has been involved in efforts to breed one.

According to Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg’s 2000 book “The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount,” which recounts Richman’s quest for the red heifer, the Temple Institute envisions the elimination of the Muslim holy sites as “part of a self-imagined vanguard who will restore the Jews to their proper status in the world.”

In an interview, Harris said Richman is “one of the world’s experts on the Temple Mount and gave me a great tour.”

Richman was once considered an “eccentric” in Israel but is now considered mainstream, said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney and founder of the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem, which promotes agreement on the status of Jerusalem as part of a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians.

“If current trends continue, there will be a significant eruption of violence on the Temple Mount,” Seidemann said, “within a matter of weeks and months and not years.” 

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See also:  Religious Authoritarians VIII: Temple Mount …Temple Might

First Look at the New Satanic Monument Being Built for Oklahoma’s Statehouse

Vice Magazine

Here’s the First Look at the New Satanic Monument Being Built for Oklahoma’s Statehouse

In January the Satanic Temple announced plans to erect a monument glorifying the Dark Lord on the front lawn of the Oklahoma Statehouse. An Indiegogo campaign was launched with what seemed like a somewhat lofty goal of $20,000, but by the time donations ended almost $30,000 had been raised. Now an artist trained in classical sculpture is toiling away in New York, crafting a Baphomet figure sitting beneath a pentagram and flanked by two children gazing upward in loyalty. When it is finished, it will be cast in bronze and, the Satanists hope, eventually displayed in Oklahoma.

The statue is a direct response to the state’s installation of a Ten Commandments monument outside the Capitol in 2012. State Representative Mike Ritze paid for the controversial statue with his own money, and therefore it was considered a donation and OK to place on government property. Following that line of reasoning, the Satanic Temple submitted a formal application for their monument.

As Trait Thompson of the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission told CNN last December, “Individuals and groups are free to apply to place a monument or statue or artwork.” The applications are then approved or rejected by the Commission. Unfortunately, the state has placed a halt on issuing permits for any other monuments until a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against Ritze’s Commandments monument is settled.

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A Different Look at Jesus

21st Century Wire

Where there is a Jesus debate, controversy is never far behind. One reason for this is the seemingly endless filmed versions and revisions about the story of Jesus.

The films are always big news. Whether it’s Jesus of Nazareth (1977), or The Last Temptation of Christs (1988), or The Passion of the Christ (2004), the debate is normally split between two aspects of presentation – Jesus Christ as the son of god – an eternal being, and Jesus the living, breathing, walking and talking historical figure. Interpretations between sects of Christianity can be markedly different, especially when addressing Jesus the man.

In 2014, we saw the release of the Hollywood production entitled, Son of God, as the latest film depicting the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Not groundbreaking in itself, what the film did reinvigorate was the debate about how, and why, Jesus is being depicted in certain ways by a legacy of writers, historians and media producers.

Suprisingly and rather unexpectedly, from the media angle of things, by far the most interesting take on this film came via Christianity Today. It’s not the insight anyone was expecting, by very sharp and to the point:

“Watching Son of God is a bit like listening to a pretty good tribute band doing a set list of Top 40 hits you have heard most of your life. The delivery is not bad, and the individual songs carry enough significance for you (both emotional and biographical) that the performance really only needs to remind you of what you already love.

If that comparison feels glib, then watching Son of God could be compared to watching someone else’s professionally filmed wedding video. You understand why it is so precious to the person sharing it with you. But it is a summary of what happened, not a re-creation of the event. Plus you risk offending your hosts if you mention that one of the bridesmaids is wearing slightly different-colored shoes, or that the organist is playing a different song than what was listed in the program they showed you.”

Clearly, Jesus as the Christ represents somewhat different things to different people who consider themselves Christians. The same could be said for different Muslims sects, each of whom may interpret their revered Prophet Jesus differently. For Jews, it’s even more radically different, as they do not recognise Jesus as much more than ‘a son of a carpenter’.

There are plenty of academic and authors on the case as well. Reza Aslan is an Iranian-American writer and scholar and author of the recent book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, and his take on Jesus is based primarily on Jesus as a man and historical figure based in a specific time and place – Roman Occupied Palestine.

If you consider the parallels in that story and events of today, then even a different story of the present begins to emerge…

Brasscheck TV 

How much do we really know about the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth?

A lot more than you think, but because of “Religion Inc.” it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

Reza Aslan is a historian and professor of religion. Fox News has a lot of trouble grasping this. They and others also have a lot of trouble understanding Jesus the historical figure.

The Council of Nicea which set the course of Christianity was held after the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the Imperial Religion. After the Council anyone who didn’t agree with the strict party line was either burned at the stake and fled for the hills. Watch…

How About a Saturnalia Display?

 

Huffington Post
Chris Weigant
Dc. 18, 2013


'Tis the season.
What season? Well, that depends upon your belief system, doesn't it?
For Christians, it is the season of Advent, the season of Noël -- in short, the season of Christmas. For Jews, it is the season of Hanukkah. For Muslims, it is the season of Eid.
For others, joining in the mirth has now come to mean celebrating the season of Festivus, a made-up holiday from a made-up television show. And even the Flying Spaghetti Monster adherents are getting in on the fun this year.

Historically, America has treated Christmas as the sole holiday worthy of governmental approval. After all, in the federal schedule of holidays, there is one and only one religious holiday: Christmas Day. The mail doesn't move, the courts are closed, and all non-emergency government services are shuttered. Sooner or later, someone's going to get around to suing to change this, but nobody's been that bold in the courts yet. If America is a secular nation, after all (it says so right here on the label), then why -- in any god's name -- should it recognize one religion over another in such a fashion? But since this hasn't happened yet, we only mention it in passing as a thought exercise for civil rights lawyers to contemplate -- on their day off, perhaps.

No doubt if such a lawsuit ever advanced, it would provide proof positive, for some, that a "war on Christmas" does in fact exist. What is laughable about this is that the real war on Christmas celebrations was waged by some of the first colonists. Puritans in New England rejected virtually all of what we now know as Christmas celebrations, and at times they did so with the force of law behind them. Government offices and courts were open on Christmas Day, and all holiday revelry was either severely frowned upon or banned outright. This is the real history of some of the earliest Christmases in America, and nothing these days even comes close. Part of the fight was due to the Protestant/Catholic schism. 

Christmas was largely considered a Catholic holiday (after all, the name is a shortening of "Christ's Mass"), and the celebrations of the holiday were a bone of contention in England (where the Puritans came from). Even by the time of the American Revolution, Christmas wasn't largely celebrated here, especially in New England.

As time went by, however, the popularity of Christmas grew. After all, it is a fun holiday with plenty of fine traditions reaching back into the mists of Christianity. Well, um, no. In fact, this is part of what upset the Puritans: Most Christmas traditions were stolen directly from the pagans. The Christmas tree, the Yule log, wreaths, candles, the very date itself (which used to fall on the Winter Solstice, long before the Gregorian calendar was adopted), gift giving, holiday cards in verse, wassailing (or just plain getting drunk with holiday cheer), holly, mistletoe, kissing under the mistletoe, the "12 days" of Christmas, eating a feast, even hooking up at the office party -- pretty much none of these had anything to do with Christians. All were pagan winter holiday rituals without a shred of connection to the baby Jesus whatsoever, before the church decided to file off the serial numbers and declare such traditions their own. Ironically enough, the biggest Christmas tradition that today's traditionalist religious leaders tend to decry -- Santa Claus -- is one of the few that arose directly from Christianity itself (there really was a Saint Nicholas, although all the "magic elf who gives naughty and nice children presents" trappings were added later).

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The Cruel Cut - Female Genital Mutilation

Comment: From "designer vaginas" to female genital mutilation; those who willingly pay for mutilation to look more sexually pleasing and those who have it forced upon them by religious fruitcakes. A practice that is as utterly idiotic as it is cruel and vicious. It needs to be stamped out as quickly as possible.  If you can stomach it I urge you to watch the following documentary, or if you can't do that then share this post.

----------------------------

- Warning -  This article contains an image that some readers may find disturbing

Click to watch the "Cruel Cut" Documentary

Information Clearing House

Yesterday evening I finally found time to watch Leyla Hussein's C4 documentary on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the UK.  I feel guilty about that "finally" because I should have seen it sooner, but in my defense I simply didn't know until I watched just how important it was that I - and everybody else - should watch it.

I believe I'm better informed about FGM than many Brits, certainly more so than most Brits who do not belong to one of the communities in which the practice is common. 

I'd read the news articles (here and here too, and many more), and the websites campaigning against the practice.

If asked, I could have  told you what FGM is, including the three recognised sub-types, and even quoted facts and figures about its prevalence.  I could have told you that it causes scarring (both physical and emotional), infections, difficulties with sex and in childbirth, infertility and occasionally even death.  I knew FGM is often - even usually - carried out without anaesthesia and without basic hygienic procedures.  I knew I was against FGM, knew it was a barbaric and totally unnecessary form of torture inflicted upon small girls with the aim of suppressing their sexuality in later life.  In short, I thought I knew what I was talking about.

Not a bit of it.  It turns out there is a WORLD of difference between knowing, intellectually, that FGM involves removal of the clitoris and clitoral hood, sometimes removal of the inner and/or outer labia, and sometimes the sewing up of the wound to leave only a small hole for urination, menstruation, sex and childbirth.  Actually seeing it done (in oversized model form), and seeing - briefly - the results is totally different

Click here to view image showing the results of FGM -  warning - graphic/disturbing image)

I don't know about you, but I struggle to look at that - and that's been taken a long time after the woman pictured was mutilated, probably years. I can't even begin to imagine the agony.

In her documentary, Hussein investigated the attitudes of the British public by setting up a fake petition in defense of FGM as a cultural practice, and was understandably distraught when almost everybody she asked on a high street signed it.  I would have been devastated too.

But although it's certainly true that there is some cultural relativism at play here, along with that fear of being thought racist that actually causes well-meaning people to be racist, there is another reason, I think, that so many people happily signed up to defend people's right to inflict this torture and mutilation on their daughters.  We just don't understand it, don't know enough about it.  However well-informed we may be on the cold facts about FGM, most of us I think lack the imagination to really understand what it really is, and what it does to people.  In fact, that was made clear in the documentary by the seismic shift in the attitudes of some young men Hussein talked to about it; before her demonstration they were ambivalent about FGM or even in favour of it; understanding exactly what it meant horrified them, and to a man they turned against the practice.  I know I didn't appreciate the horror until I saw images like the above; I know I probably still don't, because I will never have to live with it.

Now, there is a fine line to be trodden here.  Do I think people who are not at risk of being mutilated need to have a better understanding of what it really involves, and what it means?  Absolutely.  Do I want to risk turning it into a freakshow, potentially stripping FGM victims of their dignity or causing them to feel ashamed of something that was done to them, before they were old enough to bear responsibility for it?  Absolutely, categorically not.  I don't know where that line lies, but I do think we all need to have a more empathetic grasp of what FGM is and what it means; all the statistics in the world, I think, can't bring it home to those of us who've never had to deal with it in our own lives.

Hussein has set up a petition to the UK government which needs 100,000 signatures to be considered for debate in the Commons.  Please, please sign it; thousands of girls are at risk in the UK, right now, and the UK has never had a single prosecution for FGM despite the fact that it has been a crime here since 1985.  If you've any doubts at all about the need to stop this practice, watch the documentary; this is abuse and torture that leads to lifelong suffering.  It can't be allowed to continue within reach of our arms. 

Note from Tom - Click here to watch the "Cruel Cut" Documentary

SoggyMog, Avid reader. Non-professional geek. Prone to road-rage. Talks too quickly. Sarcastic. Deeply British. Foul-mouthed. Antitheist. Loathes mushrooms. Blogs at http://musingsbysoggymog.blogspot.co.uk Follow me on Twitter: @Whoozley

See also -

UK: Two Held by Scotland Yard for Female Genital Mutilation on Baby: Two people have been arrested by Met detectives over the genital mutilation of a baby girl less than two months old, the Standard has learned. The alleged perpetrators and their victim, under- stood to have been five to six weeks old when the “cutting” was done, all live in Britain. Police hope the arrests could lead to a landmark first British prosecution for female genital mutilation.

A blow to the New Atheism? Britain is losing its religion - and becoming "spiritual" instead

 

By Nelson Jones
The New Statesman 

A study by Theos shows the apparently limited appeal of scientific materialism. But is it evidence that hardline atheism of the Richard Dawkins variety has little popular appeal?

Modern Britain is "spiritual" but not religious. That's the headline finding of an opinion poll, and accompanying report, released this week by the Christian think-tank Theos. The ComRes poll - which confirms a trend identified in several previous surveys - found that well over half those questioned (59%) said that they believed in some kind of spiritual being or essence. There were substantial, though minority, levels of belief in specific concepts such as spirts, angels and "a universal life force", whatever that is. One for the Jedis, perhaps.

Even a third of people who described themselves as non-religious were prepared to own up to having some such ideas, while a mere 13% - and only a quarter of the non-religious - agreed with the statement that "humans are purely material beings with no spiritual element". And more than three-quarters of the survey agreed that "there are things that we cannot simply explain through science or any other means".

Theos seems to be impressed by the apparently limited appeal of scientific materialism, seeing in it evidence that hardline atheism of the Richard Dawkins variety has little popular appeal, despite the high media profile it has garnered in recent years. Its director, Elizabeth Oldfield, writes that it is "notable is that those same voices have not managed to convince us that humans are purely material beings, with no spiritual element". The implication is that there's a huge untapped reservoir of spiritual longing and that it would be wrong to attribute the decline in religiosity in this country, stretching back decades, to a spread in actual unbelief.

Yet it's hard to see much comfort in these figures for the future of religion. To return to the headline figure, the 77% who believed that some things couldn't be explained "through science or any other means." Any other means, presumably, includes religion itself. And even many scientists doubt that science is close to explaining some natural phenomena. Consciousness, for example, is often called the "hard problem" because even in the age of MRI scanners it remains profoundly elusive. A sense that life has mysteries, that there are things - love, for example - that will always remain beyond a reductive scientific explanation, doesn't necessarily make someone religious. The poll found quite low levels of belief in more specifically religious concepts: a mere 13% believed in Hell (Heaven was twice as popular, implying a national spirituality skewed towards the feelgood), while a quarter believed in angels and around a third in life after death.

Take the findings about the power of prayer. An equally small proportion (17%) believed that prayer could "bring about change for the person or situation you are praying for" as believed that prayer had no effect whatsoever. By far the most popular view was that prayer "makes you feel more at peace". Such an idea of prayer as a kind of therapy is of course at least as compatible with atheism as it is with religious conviction.

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Searches of Belgian church property continue in abuse investigation

Independent

Belgian authorities searched the administrative offices of the bishops of Bruges and Ghent today, a day after raiding similar offices in three other cities as they investigated whether church officials protected child abusers instead of their victims.

Peter Rossel, a spokesman for Jozef de Kessel, the Bishop of Bruges, 60 miles northwest of Brussels, confirmed that a search had taken place there. He said the church was cooperating fully with the investigation. 

Koen Vlaeminck, a spokesman for the church in Ghent, told The Associated Press that authorities had arrived at church offices with a request for files relating to 13 specific individuals. He said the church had cooperated, and had been allowed to retain copies of the files. 

On Monday, authorities searched church offices in Hasselt, Mechelen and Antwerp. A judicial official close to the investigation told the AP on Monday the investigation, called "Operation Chalice," could result in charges against church officials. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. 

Sex, Oil, Chaos & Corruption at American U. of Iraq

Students at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimaniya - photo by Chris De Bruyn

Who What Why

Anyone who still wonders why the Bush administration invaded Iraq would do well to become familiar with an institution whose existence few Americans are aware of: the American University of Iraq-Sulaimaniya.

Located in Kurdistan, at the nexus of northern Iraq’s border with Iran and Turkey, AUI-S opened its doors in 2007. At the time, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times wrote about it with the sort of wide-eyed enthusiasm that had generally accompanied the invasion itself four years before. “Imagine for a moment if one outcome of the U.S. invasion of Iraq had been the creation of an American University of Iraq…Imagine if we had created an island of decency in Iraq…Well, stop imagining.”

You don’t have to imagine, though, when history provides enough clues. For more than one hundred years, American business leaders (usually with the cooperation of local potentates) have funded Christian missionaries to set up universities in foreign countries with valuable resources to exploit. This collaboration has served to create a more friendly environment for establishing a business foothold while simultaneously fulfilling the missionaries’ desire to spread the Word around the globe.

In the Middle East—where the business has primarily been oil—the Rockefellers and others generously funded such institutions as the American University of Beirut, which was established on the bedrock of conservative Christian values more than one hundred years ago. It began modestly, with one class of sixteen students in 1863. Over time, it became a venerable academic oasis, characterized by values that could be accurately described as cosmopolitan and liberal.

With AUI-S in contemporary Kurdistan, however, it was back to square one, ideologically speaking. Oil—or “The Prize” as it is often called—was once again the business at hand. This time, access to The Prize was given to George W. Bush’s good friend and contributor, the Texan Ray Hunt, whose Kurdish oil concession is potentially worth billions of dollars. And from the beginning, the academic component of this particular foreign foothold has been plagued by problems far worse than the usual disarray that attends any new university venture. That’s because the people setting it up were missionaries of a uniquely postmodern variety.

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