The future looks bright. Ted Haggard doesn't.
Contrast and compare time. Here, by way of Harper's, is disgraced Christianist scumbag Ted Haggard, attempting to justify his own personal sectarian hair-splitting and ill-concealed bigotry through an appeal to modernism and science:
"And the nations dominated by Catholicism look back. They don't tend to create our greatest entrepreneurs, inventors, research and development. Typically, Catholic nations aren't shooting people into space. Protestantism, though, always looks to the future. A typical kid raised in Protestantism dreams about the future. A typical kid raised in Catholicism values and relishes the past, the saints, the history. That is one of the changes that is happening in America. In America the descendants of the Protestants, the Puritan descendants, we want to create a better future, and our speakers say that sort of thing. But with the influx of people from Mexico, they don't tend to be the ones that go to universities and become our research-and-development people. And so in that way I see a little clash of civilizations."
Thanks, crosslicker. Now, what do the real scientists have to say about your faith after exposure to the fruits of all that research and development you value you so highly? Here's Richard Dawkins in "The god delusion" (published, incidentally, about the same time last year that bastion of morality Haggard was being exposed as a shameless liar with a meth habit and a penchant for male prostitutes):
"A study in the leading journal Nature by Larson and Witham in 1998 showed that of those American scientists considered eminent enough by their peers to have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences only about 7% believe in a personal God. This overwhelming preponderance of atheists is almost the exact opposite of of the profile of the American population at large, of whom more than 90% believe in some sort of supernatural being. The figure for less eminent scientists , not elected to the National Academy, is intermediate. As with the more distinguished sample, religious believers are in a minority, but a less dramatic minority of about 40%. It is completely as I would expect that American scientists are less religious than the American public generally, and that the most distinguished scientists are the least religious of all."
So yeah, maybe appeals to rationality and the advance of scientific knowledge aren't exactly the best way to ensure the continued strength of archaic theology after all, huh? Idiots.
Fight Terror, Not Immigrants.
"Islamophobia Watch – and the dense chunk of the hard left that adopts a similar approach – is trying to redefine consistent atheism as a form of racism. I believe that the idea of God has been a disaster for humanity, and any person who bases their morality on the writings of hallucinating pre-modern nomads is going to have pretty warped values. Islam is no worse than the absurdities of Christianity and Judaism, but it is no better. Yet Islamophobia Watch call the National Secular Society – which campaigns on this basis – 'bigots'. But how is criticising a set of ideas that people choose to adopt and can choose to abandon akin to attacking people on the basis of their skin colour?
The real racism comes from Islamophobia Watch itself, and the people who parrot their claims. Where Tatchell treats Muslims as the equal citizens of a democracy, people with open minds and a free intelligence, they treat Muslims as feeble children who cannot cope with the scorn we routinely (and rightly) pour on Catholics and Protestants. They argue that Muslims are so sensitive and uncurious that their ideas must be ring-fenced from criticism, with the police arresting anybody who vehemently criticises their beliefs. "
--Johann Hari
When I read Hari's piece, excerpted above, on the phenomena of ostensible progressives using charges of "Islamophobia" as a device to strike down any criticism of Islam as a faith (and of Islamism as a political ideology), and the obscenely illiberal and intolerant views and practices that are too often buttressed by the religion, I immediately wanted to write about it here. Twenty minutes later, it seemed that every other blog in the world had the same idea, so I just went and wrote about more records instead. Nonetheless, the events that transpired around Toronto this weekend served to suddenly and dramatically emphasize the need for two points to be fully understood-- points that are in no way contradictory and are, in fact, perfectly consistent ideas for any rational progressive to hold.
First off, the threat of domestic terrorism, in Canada and elsewhere in the secular, democratic West, remains real and present, and to pretend otherwise for partisan political reasons-- to decide that it's all just conservative fear-mongering a la the American Republicans and their colour-coded alerts and carefully managed public dread for political leverage, or that it's just a frame-up of innocent Muslims by an inherently racist Canadian society-- is wishful thinking of the worst sort. There are people in this country that wish it, and us, great harm, and a disproportionate number of them are under the influence of politicized Islam. To point this out is not "Islamophobia" or simple bigotry.
Secondly, the existence of these dangerous elements in our society is in no way an indictment of multiculturalism or the liberal immigration policies that have made Canada a prosperous, safe and pluralistic society for people of all creeds, colours and faiths, regardless of what America's ugly right and their domestic parrots have been insinuating with renewed vigor since the alleged plot was cracked. The conservative charge, expressed with varying degrees of openess and sophistication, that immigrant populations are teeming with terrorist sleeper cells-- countless potential British Columbia Taliban, jihadis waiting impatiently to conduct martyrdom operations in the West Edmonton Mall-- is poisonous and divisive rhetoric, equally as noxious and politically motivated as wilfull ignorance of real threats.
As we've read over and over these past few days, Muslims comprise about 2% of Canadians, which might seem insignificant at first blush but is still a considerable number when discussing a national population of around 33 million, and the number who are involved with or support terrorism here is miniscule. Once again, this certainly isn't to argue that we can safely ignore those who do harbour such views and the will to turn their beliefs into violent action, but simply to say that it's a matter for police and intelligence to deal with and, furthermore, that public security agencies can only be exponentially more effective when dealing with immigrant populations that feel integrated and accepted as citizens with an equal stake in their country.
I was reminded forcefully of this idea by an excellent and succint letter written in response to Globe and Mail journalist Christie Blatchford's dry dismissal of the Toronto police and their emphasis on protecting mosques in the aftermath of the arrests. At least one area mosque has been vandalized since the raids, no doubt the work of racist thugs looking for any excuse to intimidate and insult minority Canadians, and Blatchford feels that diverting police resources to protect these buildings is a mere politically correct sop that avoids the real issues here:
"It's those bastard vandals...who yesterday morning broke windows at a west-end mosque who stand before us as the greatest danger to Canadian society. As
Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who came to the building to offer his
assurances that Muslims and Muslim institutions will be protected, said at one
point: 'Hatred in any form and certainly its expression in violence and damage
to property will not be tolerated.' Thank God: Windows everywhere in
Canada's largest city, especially windows in mosques, are safe. The war on
windows will be won, whatever the cost".
However, no one writing on the front page of the nation's premier newspaper should be so ignorant as to mistake windows broken in this spirit for simple mischief. The point behind such actions is to intimidate and divide, and the tensions raised by events such as this weekend's are readily exploited by the worst among us on both sides of the fence, be they Islamists eager to convince Muslim Canadians that they are oppressed and unwelcome or right-wing extremists seeking to isolate minorities and foment racial discord. It's in everyone's best interests not to let this happen and to prevent any attempt at disrupting Canada's social fabric, and Chiu Lee summed this up elegantly with a mere two lines in today's Globe:
"Christie Blatchford mocks Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair for trying to win the
'war on windows'. She could recall one occasion when that was was lost:
Kristallnacht."
Let's not allow anyone to tell us that effectively fighting terrorism has to mean scapegoating or abandoning our own immigrant population any more than sensitivity and tolerance require us to turn a blind eye to the abuses of unreformed fanatics and zealots within those communities.
