Misogyny and racism - Richard Dawkins and the «new atheism»

  There is little doubt about it: one arm or rather a branch of atheism exemplified by Richard Dawkins is clearly steeped in racism and misogyny and clearly a tool for Western imperialism. Those swearing to that faction are used by the Christians and western governments in order to demonize Islam. There is a lot of talk about child Marriage in Muslim countries, but none about the numerous in the US, more than 200000 in the last fifteen years, or the fact that it is legal in forty-one states.

  When I tell people that, many of them have no idea what I’m talking about. They are totally uninformed, ignorant of the current world and how it works.

  They hide behind «Islam is not a race» in order to justify their racism, try out any attempt at justification, like racists always do.

  It’s also a matter of selection and proportions. Islam horrors are totally overrepresented in the media. Where are the mass rapes of Catholic choir boys and the child victims in numerous Christian groups? Where is the ongoing horror of «the American Taliban», the vastly powerful and destructive Christian right?

  I wouldn’t claim to practice the best kind of atheism, but mine is better by far than this… travesty of it.

  It’s a matter of context.

  I see little or no attacks on Christianity in your timeline, Richard, no mention of the Catholic mass rape of children, for instance. I see no mention of the ongoing Israeli massacres and abuse of children, done with active support of western countries, the United States in particular and the drone killings by the US army. No mention of the countless children living in poverty forced into prostitution in the west. The ongoing Christian crusade by US/NATO military forces and Christian missionaries.

  It’s a matter of context. You can’t, for instance ignore that children marriage/brides and abuse are common in United States and several western countries, including in the Catholic Church and in the upper classes in the UK. By singling out Islam, you show yourself to be horribly and dangerously biased, nothing but one more despicable racist, xenophobe.

Review: Forsaken by Amos Keppler

 

 Yes, the book opens in a great way with Janet making a great attempt at drinking herself to death. The ending of Falling, the previous book lingers in her mind like a wound.

  The story moves from there, describing her picking up the pieces of her life, with even rawer emotions ravaging her. She sets out on the journey through the connecting portals across the nine realms, not really caring what happens, if she dies or lives. She does connect with her fellow travelers eventually, drawn into what she can at least imagine to be a fellowship, something reminding her of everything she has lost.

  The first realm is a brutal, uncaring place. The next is worse. They eventually reach Earth, but she finds no more peace there. Her new friend and mentor, Dasek teaches her more about magick and about herself. It brings her no pleasure, nothing but more of the same, unending ravages tearing her apart.

  It’s brutal and riveting. We travel with Janet and her equally disturbed traveling companions. Everything is told straight up. Nothing is softened or concealed. It’s hard to put the book down. Even when I do, by necessity, I feel the urge to pick it up again. This is an urban fantasy, in a somewhat modern setting, but it doesn’t feel like it. It’s too different, too twisted for that. I have certainly never read anything similar.

  That is a great thing. I can already say for certain that The Nine beats all other fantasy series soundly.

  No matter how busy I am, I will find time to read the entire series. I have no idea what will happen, but I am looking so much forward to finding out. The tension and the stakes grow for each new chapter. But, as stated, it’s impossible to know what’s coming.

  And neither has Janet.

 

Review: Fury by John Coyne

   This novel starts off as one thing, and end as something completely different. I love those.

  It’s pretty much advertised as a horror story, but it isn’t, really. I would say it’s one more story not fitting into any genre, which is great. I prefer those.

  Jennifer Winters is a more or less average, no-nonsense modern businesswoman. She is frustrated beneath the polished surface, though, and doesn’t know why. When an old friend makes an attempt to pull her onto a new path, she rejects it out of hand as ridiculous.

  Later and shocking events she cannot ignore forces her out of her comfort zone, pulls her so far off the straight and narrow that she can hardly see the path ahead of her anymore, and there’s no way back to her dull, ordinary existence.

  The story begins right away. Very little of significance has happened before the first line, and there is no explanation, even though the Shirley MacLaine quote gives one possible clue for those of us knowing one crucial fact about her. We need to actually read the story for the explanation. Another good thing. We’re privy to Jennifer’s thoughts, and we experience the events through her, including her growing incredulity and fear as the story progresses. She has no idea what’s truly happening, and we don’t have either.

  The story does progress at an excellent pace. We’re slowly given more information, even though that doesn’t help much at first. The necessary confusion prevails, without the story becoming convoluted. There is a great balance to it. We’re torn between doubt and certainty in just the right way.

  The end is satisfying, and for most people it would feel a little strange, but also right, a natural progression of the story we’ve read. I liked it. I can’t claim to actually be enthusiastic, but the ending was still a great payoff. Everything makes sense to Jennifer, and to us at the end, even though it was far from the ending we expected. It made sense because it wasn’t the ending we expected.

  Recommended.

I would rather be dead than come out of the closet, some gays say, but I don’t

   I and my sister heard that a lot in the Christian group and the small community in western Norway we grew up. We also witnessed how several people acted on it. We suffered under the yoke, until we practically ran away to the nearest big city in our late teens, and could finally be ourselves.

  Bergen, the big city measured by Norwegian standards was, is more open, but we keep facing the same prejudice we did in the small community. It’s more concealed, but very much present.

  We were told by our father, the priest that there were two inferior people in the eyes of God. One was women. The other was people performing «beastly acts». We didn’t know what he meant during most of our childhood, but, as stated we found out. He was talking about homosexuals.

  We discovered that the prejudice wasn’t limited to Christians either. We encountered many other seemingly free-spirited people with the same hateful, practically pathological bias. When looking at the current western society, it’s not really strange, I guess, since we still live in a basically patriarchal society, where some both males and females insist that victims of rape share the blame. And don’t even mention transgenders that are really getting trashed lately, also by professed feminists. JK Rowling has led on in that crusade, and she is a hero to many, people not questioning her warped views at all.

  There is something profoundly sick about modern human society. Some of it is remains from less enlightened times and oppressive communities, but there is something more that isn’t necessarily a result of that, but of a general, ongoing, persistent intolerance. People insist, for instance that women and men are equal, now, that there is no more need of feminism, and they’re not kind about it.

  What they’re really saying when they say that is that there was never a need for feminism. Feminism is even blamed for many of the wrongs. We meet such people on the Web often. It’s hilarious every time the perpetrators of rape and prejudice and vicious misogynist acts play the victim, but also very sinister, since many people keep supporting that twisted opinion.

  And there’s something even deeper and twisted, a message repeating itself endlessly in almost all communities: Don’t stand out. If you do, prepare to be taken to the court of public opinion or worse.

  Every time you encounter a male supremacist, a lover of rape, you look incredulous at him, because such crappy human beings exist. But they do. There are loads of them.

 

Reading the Bible

  Many Christians haven’t really read the bible, only selected, edible parts. Quite a few actually become atheists after having read all of it.

  Hardcore Christians and Christian apologists don’t care one way or another, no matter what their holy book says, not deviating in any way from what they want it to say, but there are those reacting strongly to passages like these:

  Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. Ephesians 6:5

  You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. From Leviticus 25:44-46

  Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. Numbers 31:17-18

  This should give anyone ignorant a certain idea what the Bible is truly about.

Pieces of nothing

  Women today are a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth… and hardly anything else.

  At least if you look at the faces covered by makeup and retouched on magazine covers so common today and of everybody attempting to emulate that.

  We are supposed to be pleasing and willing and present a smiling surface. From birth through adolescence, school and advertising that’s the message we are told and sold.

  In a society where even some professed feminists refuse to acknowledge the damaging effect of wearing high heels, it’s easy to see we still have a long way to go until true equality is ours to enjoy.

  Oppression of women has never stopped. It has taken on a few new aspects and also kept the old. The rights to free abortion are constantly questioned and attacked. The rape culture is running rampant. The war on women is ongoing. Many women, unable to liberate themselves from their upbringing are even actively participating in the subjugation of both themselves and others.

  The last case going public was that of Jada, a sixteen year old girl being drugged and violated, and then «shamed» (the rapist and supporters shamed themselves) when the image of her drugged and still body was put on the Internet and went viral. Many people didn't support her, but sided with the violator and enjoyed a good laughter at Jada’s expense.

  In Steubenville a major part of the local community supported the football player rapists and not the rape victim.

  In Maryville, Missouri a rape victim and her family had to leave town due to harassment after the case was known. The rapist, yet another football player wasn't even charged with rape and got off with a misdemeanor plea.

  These are cases in the United States, classic, typical cases, excellent illustrations, but this is a world-wide «phenomenon».

  The sympathy is often given to the perpetrator, not the victim. People complain that a given football player’s career is ruined and so on. Their lack of true empathy is staggering.

  These are just a few cases illustrating what keeps happening, and it’s all due to lack of true respect for women. Part of that is we are seen as frail creatures, hardly deserving of proper treatment. My take on that is this:

  We are not made of china. We don’t need special protection, only equal to that of everybody else.

  Another is religion. Religion, among other things is also an attempt at control, also men’s control of women.

  In a culture, segmented over centuries, where males are seen as superior it is evidently easier to excuse brutality against women. That is just more twisted logic, of course, but that’s clearly how many people see it. Some men actually feel entitled to sex, both in a given situation and in general. To them and their apologists it matters little whether or not the girl consents. They have other concerns than the well being of a given girl or woman.

  If you begin researching this subject further, like I did, you will find lots of surprising and shocking facts. The end conclusion becomes inevitable.

Removing your body hair

  It’s a bad practice, the way I see it. It’s typical that most people embrace what is clearly an unnatural act and reject the natural body, pretty much like they have been brainwashed into thinking they prefer the artificial to the natural in most things.

  I see it pretty much as a cultural predilection, like both female and male circumcision, facelifts, cosmetic surgery, wearing high heels and a fairly long list of acts altering your appearance and complying with what is seen as the dominant viewpoint in order to make others see you more favorably.

  Most people today are scared to death to not fit in and to experience public condemnation, and even to not be popular. This certainly is comparable to that.

  I haven’t removed anything, not a single hair and am certainly comfortable with that. But I developed early on a fairly healthy self-confidence about my own looks and preferences. The image I have of myself is not dependent on what others may think of me. I honestly wish others were more like that.

  Insane practices are abundant today, and the reason is very often a low self-image. Current society does that to you, in order to control you better. They offer you fake happiness instead of the true and better version, and you buy that, don’t you, hook, line and sinker. Please get a life! Both you and humanity as a whole will be better off because of it.

Think again

  I used to be the typical bimbo when it came to women’s rights: I didn't give it much thought, taking for granted what I had and hadn't really considered the injustice still very much present in today’s local, domestic and global society.

  But as I was more or less shaken out of my daze I learned more, about both the present and the past, and a possibly terrifying future.

  In Margaret Atwood’s novel A Handmaid’s Tale we see what will happen if the religious right gain the upper hand.

  The rights women have today, still modest compared to men in general have been fought for for centuries, through often hard-won battles.

  Everybody doubting that should read the history of that struggle. It isn't exactly peanuts. A film about it I recommend wholeheartedly is Iron Jawed Angels, an American TV-movie from 2004. Though not completely historically accurate the events described is more than close enough. And what it lacks in accuracy, it gains in passion, in the cruel and intense description of what Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, among others had to endure in the United States in 1917 for women to win the right to vote. It didn't happen by itself. Like sisters in each and every country Paul and Burns and the rest won through great personal sacrifice and with their very lives and health at stake.

  The world is still far from true equality, but it would be far worse if not for those giants that fought for us and won for us.

  If you think, as I did that there is nothing more to fight for, think again.

  A married woman was hardly considered a legal person anywhere 150 years ago. Today, in many places, all over the world, also in western countries, they will force us or are forcing us to carry to term a rapist’s baby, for instance. Rape culture is still very much present many places and even gaining popularity among a particular brand of western males. There are many other similar horrors waiting for us, if we aren't vigilant.

  Many of the same arguments used then, in order to keep women from gaining the right to vote are used today, when keeping us from enjoying equal pay for equal work, abortion issues and more.

  If we don’t fight we will not win and as we've seen recently: we may lose many of those hard-won rights. If the world has improved on these issues, it isn't by much. It remains a long-term uphill struggle.

  The War on Women is intensifying, not waning.

The «quality» of a racist’s «arguments»

I wrote an article on racism a while ago. A certain «Tom» didn’t appreciate it much. He disliked it so much that he left this «comment»:

«I’m looking so much forward to the day when Islam becomes the dominant religion in the western world. Then men will once again be the boss and can pick and choose among all the longhaired objects, whether they like it or not. I will keep at least ten female slaves and am looking forward to uphold the Koran’s command to take as many women as I desire».

This as a small excerpt. It got worse.

He attempted to use sarcasm, I guess, at least on one level, but I don’t really believe it was sarcasm. I think he means it. I think this is typical for a racist. They’re often misogynists as well. He’s secretly envious of these Muslim men he’s attacking so viciously, since they, in his eyes, know how to treat women with such a firm hand. And I don’t have a say in the matter, since I’m just a silly girl.

With major parts of the population in the western world agreeing with those claiming that Islam is a threat, one shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore. How stupid is it possibly to become?

Men like Tom existed in the western world long before the Muslims arrived.