Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1817

A Groundhog Day Replay? Cartoon Protests Break Out In String of Muslim Countries; Some End In Violence

Looks like it’s 2006 all over again.

ViaFrance24 and confirmed through other online sources (1, 2, 3, 4), here’s a roundup.

Niger:

At least five people were killed on Saturday during a second day of unrest in Niger, as French citizens were warned to stay indoors amid anger in several Muslim countries over a Prophet Mohammed cartoon published by Charlie Hebdo this week.

Police fired teargas at crowds of stone-throwing youths, who set fire to churches and looted shops in Niger’s capital Niamey. …Pr...

Dan Fincke Unpacks 16 of the Worst Charlie Hebdo Memes

Over at Camels With Hammers, Dan Fincke is in no mood to let the anti-Hebdo brigade have its way with the facts. So ina Herculean mega-post, heapplies severe scrutiny to variousideas that he finds, in sum total, appalling.

He’s even done us the service of linking to each debatable statement, so you can peruse the list and jump right to Fincke’s counterargument.

1. “Why are people insisting we show the images? We can stand up for free speech without approving of or republishing images we disagre...

Colton Burpo: Even Though That Other Kid Lied About Going to Heaven, “I Stand By My Story”

Now that Alex Malarkey has admitted that his 2010 book The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven was fictional, another “Heaven-goer” is rushing to defend the genre.

In a statement posted to his website, Colton Burpo, the subject of Heaven is for Real, says that his story is totally true:

I know there has been a lot of talk about the truth of other Heaven stories in the past few days. I just wanted to take a second and let everyone know that I stand by my story found in my book Heaven is for Real. I st...

Middle Eastern Countries Are Among the World’s Top Consumers of Pornography

Religiously conservative Muslim countries are (in)famous for minimizing, shaming, and repressing human sexuality. Shockingly enough, this doesn’t actually seem to be a foolproof strategy for convincing people to refrain from expressing or enjoying their bodies.

On the contrary, many of these countries are home to some of the highest consumers of porn in the world. (The same effect can also be observed in the largely religious U.S. South, where some of the strongest areas of opposition to LGBT...

Survey: The Netherlands Now Has More Atheists Than Believers, But 60 Percent of Respondents Are Unsure

Nowhere in the Western world does secularization race ahead as quicklyas it does in the country where I was born and raised.

I hope it’scontagious.

For the first time the Netherlands has more atheists than believers, according to a recent survey conducted byIpsos. Slightly more than 25 percent of the people are atheists while 17 percent believes in the existence of God.

The majority, 60 percent, is between believing and disbelieving in God. … The majority categorize themselves aseither agnostics...

Army Recruiting Center Removes Sign Reading “On a Mission for Both God and Country”

If you walked past an Army recruiting station near Phoenix recently, you might have seen this sign outside the office:

There’s something scary about the U.S. military saying we’re on a mission for God… it’s the sort of rhetoric our enemies are using, offering religious justifications for war and violence.

On Thursday, Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation wrote up a very blunt (and admittedly hyperbolic) assessment of the sign for Daily Kos:

Yet here we find ourselves, ign...

Thanks to You, a Public Library Targeted by Conservative Christian Activists Just Received a Large Donation

Back in November, we heard about a Creationist mother who laughably “audited” an evolution exhibit at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and posted the video on YouTube.

It turns out that mother, Megan Fox, is the same person who (with a friend of hers) had been a pain in the side of my local library for the past year. The library doesn’t censor the Internet and Fox saw that as sanctioning “taxpayer funded access to child porn.” Her actions have already cost the library more than $125,0...

How North Korea Brainwashes Children To Conform to “Kimism”

When conservative believers jeer and jab at atheism, they frequentlypoint to North Korea as an example of what a perfect atheist state looks like.

Next time that happens, just send them a link to this article from yesterday’s Washington Post.

Author Anna Fifieldexplains howthe country’s schoolchildren are force-fed the idea thattheir leaders are divine beings. “Kimism” isa religion in all but name.

The personality cult that permeates every aspect of North Korean life has become an ideology in it...

Pope Francis Warns Against Those Attempting to “Redefine” Marriage

For some time, Pope Francis has been gathering accolades for his progressive views on a variety of issues.

I’m talking radical stances, like:

Evolution is real (which many don’t realize is actually accepted by the Church)It’s wrong to rape childrenBabies should be fed when they’re hungry, even if that’s in churchDon’t hate gay peopleThe science is clear on climate changeReducing our fellow man to poverty and starvation is wrong

Now, to be fair, some of these are actually pretty progressive — whe...

Muslim Author Maajid Nawaz’ Journey From Recruiter of Extremists to Impassioned Peacemaker

A year ago, ex-radical MuslimMaajid Nawazfound himselfin the crosshairs of some ofhis brethrenover what is possiblythemost innocuousMohammed cartoon panel ever drawn — seen inthis Tweet:

I wrote about the ridiculous affair here.

One reason why I bring Nawazupagain is that the anger and death threats over the cartoon and the tweet tell us something about the discussion that ensued aftertheCharlie Hebdomassacre. What happened to Nawaz should cause us to questionthe ideathat the French cartoons we...