A commenter on YouTube, dummychaos, puts it this way, “Bill O’Reilly brings out the worst from people. He’s pretty good at that.”

Here’s the original video from The O’Reilly Factor:

This historic case has inspired hundreds of other Israelis to get divorced from the Jewish religion. Israel is 15-37% atheist, so this comes as no surprise. The less religious people are in the middle east, the greater the chances are for an end the violence. If only more people of “Muslim” countries came out as atheists (or nonreligious), we could be closer that goal.

Kaniuk’s case has been celebrated as a victory for separation of state and religion in Israel. Actually, he may have fought the wrong battle. The court decision gives people more freedom to define themselves, but only according to predetermined categories. The division of Jewish ethnicity and religion is an embarrassingly simple bureaucratic distinction in place of the mixed up identities of real Jewish life—the kind of complications on which a novelist should thrive.

That said, the Kaniuk case has its benefits. It sheds light, for instance, on how Americans and Israelis misunderstand each other when they use the word Jew. And it helps show that the current Israeli government’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state is silly.

I’ve never liked the idea of a “Jewish state” because I don’t like the idea of any religion having it’s own state.

Israel doesn’t need a Palestinian stamp of approval to be a Jewish state. Nor does it need the registration system that Kaniuk used to voice his anger. It needs only a majority that considers itself Jewish in one not-quite-consistent way or another and that has the freedom to conduct a roiling, constant argument about Jewish culture. If Kaniuk’s suit reminds the rest of the tribe of how messy the issue of Jewish identity is, how unsuited it is for sharp delineations, he will have performed a service. [Read More.]

I wonder if this will, in fact, mix up any political happenings in regards to Judaism as an ethnicity rather than a religion.

For an atheist, Maxim Schrogin talks about God a lot.

Over lunch at a Jewish deli, he ponders the impulse to believe — does it come from within or without? Why does God permit suffering? Finally, he pulls out a flowchart he made showing degrees of belief, which ranges from unquestioning faith to absolute atheism. He stabs the paper with his pen.

“This is where I fall,” he said. “Zero.”

This is religion without god. It still unnecessarily labels children.

Still, Schrogin, 64, is a dues-paying member of Congregation Beth El, a Reform synagogue here in Berkeley. He is among its most active members, attending Torah study, and, for a time, heading its social action committee. He organizes its community service projects and works with leaders of other congregations to help the poor.

His two children were bar and bat mitzvahed. On Friday nights, he and his wife light Shabbat candles and recite Hebrew prayers. There is one song, sung by the congregation in Hebrew, that can bring him to tears.

Schrogin isn’t alone. [Read More.]

It’s becoming more common for Jews not to believe the stories of the old testament but still choose to be involved in their local Jewish community. I get why someone would go to a holiday family/friends gathering but I don’t personally understand that much devotion to a single place of worship (synagogue).

Harris sits down with Pinker for a discussion about the history of violence.

Sam Harris asks, “Need I remind you that the ‘atheist regimes’ of the 20th century killed tens of millions of people?”

Steven Pinker has a great response.

This is a popular argument among theoconservatives and critics of the new atheism, but for many reasons it is historically inaccurate.
First, the premise that Nazism and Communism were “atheist” ideologies makes sense only within a religiocentric worldview that divides political systems into those that are based on Judaeo-Christian ideology and those that are not. In fact, 20th-century totalitarian movements were no more defined by a rejection of Judaeo-Christianity than they were defined by a rejection of astrology, alchemy, Confucianism, Scientology, or any of hundreds of other belief systems. They were based on the ideas of Hitler and Marx, not David Hume and Bertrand Russell, and the horrors they inflicted are no more a vindication of Judeao-Christianity than they are of astrology or alchemy or Scientology.

Second, Nazism and Fascism were not atheistic in the first place. Hitler thought he was carrying out a divine plan. Nazism received extensive support from many German churches, and no opposition from the Vatican. Fascism happily coexisted with Catholicism in Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Croatia.

Third, according to the most recent compendium of history’s worst atrocities, Matthew White’s Great Big Book of Horrible Things (Norton, 2011), religions have been responsible for 13 of the 100 worst mass killings in history, resulting in 47 million deaths. Communism has been responsible for 6 mass killings and 67 million deaths. If defenders of religion want to crow, “We were only responsible for 47 million murders—Communism was worse!”, they are welcome to do so, but it is not an impressive argument.

Fourth, many religious massacres took place in centuries in which the world’s population was far smaller. Crusaders, for example, killed 1 million people in world of 400 million, for a genocide rate that exceeds that of the Nazi Holocaust. The death toll from the Thirty Years War was proportionally double that of World War I and in the range of World War II in Europe.

When it comes to the history of violence, the significant distinction is not one between theistic and atheistic regimes. It’s the one between regimes that were based on demonizing, utopian ideologies (including Marxism, Nazism, and militant religions) and secular liberal democracies that are based on the ideal of human rights. I present data from the political scientist Rudolph Rummel showing that democracies are vastly less murderous than alternatives forms of government. [Read More.]

While us atheists realize that Hitler’s world philosophy was shaped from Christianity and the bible, some people still like to say he was an atheist. He considered Jews to be atheists because they did not accept Jesus as the messiah. He hated Jews. He hated atheists. He hated a lot of people. As an atheist Jew, I take much offense to allegations that Hitler was an atheist. As far as the others go, I don’t have nearly as much personal angst. In any case, it wasn’t so-called atheist philosophies that shaped their policies.

The book: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

I know what it is!

It’s the “A”, a prominent symbol for atheism. I put it next to a white one to compare to the images from the ad.

It looks like it was just slapped on, especially in the third one. Was this just an accident? Is he being trolled by his graphics department? Or is he trying to say something to the libertarian atheists who are listening to him? Hmm.

This study does not assert that a majority of atheists are high function autistic, rather that high functioning autistic people are more likely to be atheist. It’s also important to note that this is a correlation which, as we all know, does not imply causation.

People with ‘mild’ forms of autism are more likely to be atheists, according to a controversial new study – and more likely to shun organised religion in general.

The study, which looked at posts on autism forums, focused on people with high-functioning autism such as Asperger’s.

The study, from University of Boston, speculates that common autistic spectrum behaviours such as ‘a preference for logical beliefs’ and a distrust of metaphor and figures of speech, could be responsible.

The study authors, Catherine Caldwell-Harris and Patrick MacNamara studied discussions by 192 different posters on an autism website. They also looked at a survey of 61 people with high-functioning autism, and graphed against results from the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test.

The results appeared to show that those with high AQ scores were ‘more likely’ to be atheists.

In the group of high-functionining autistic individuals, 26 per cent were atheists, compared to 16 per cent of ‘neurotypical’ individuals.

Read more.

Approximately 30,000 protesters marched in Tel Aviv last night, with social justice activists blocking central streets and chants of “Mubarak. Assad. Netanyahu” filling the air.

Tel Aviv police arrested 42 activists, which is an extremely rare number, “if not unprecedented,” according to +972 Magazine, which has been closely following the circumstances surrounding the sudden rise of Israel’s progressive left.

…

These protests, which began as explicit anger at the rising rental prices in cities across the country, have been fueled by the response of Netanyahu’s government, which initially, with hostile rhetoric, dismissed them as being part of a large, leftwing movement being funded by outfits such as the New Israel Fund. The initial rhetoric, which claimed that the protests were not about anything other than the “Zionist Left’s” political agenda, only served to increase protesters’ anger and resolve.

These reactions from Netanyahu and other government officials have served to broaden the protests, which have now moved from rent prices to a host of social justice issues: women’s rights, union rights and education reform, among other things, with general chants of “revolution” heard on the streets last night.

…

What has yet to be heard, in the protests, are calls for more democracy in the wake of the anti-democratic laws that have recently been passed. Also absent has been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Wow. Read the entire article.

Recently, Allen West said Debbie Wassermann Schultz is unladylike just prior to Michele Bachmann having her rarely debilitating migraines. Regarding the Wasserman-Schultz/West debacle, I do think that what West said to Wassermann Schultz was not only rude but completely out of place. Who is he to decree what is ladylike? That’s my first annoyance. Not to mention, he sent this email out to the entire House! Talk about ungentlemanly. I get the feeling he doesn’t think she’s ladylike because she’s speaking out as he, a man, does. If so, that is very sexist. Now, the fact that he demands an apology from her instead of the other way around is just maddening. Why would Wasserman Schultz have to apologize for his rude remarks? Sexist or not, it makes no sense.

Representative Allen West is a Lieutenant Colonel. In the military, if you said something like that, you’d be busted so fast. It’s very un-military-like to have such little respect for your peers and say anything close to what he said/wrote in the manner he did it. He should know better. West plays the military card whenever possible, but only to his convenience. Another thing to note is that he’s new in congress, Wassermann Schultz has been there for quite some time. He’s trying to fight up and make a name for himself. It’s fairly common these days. That alone is not sexist but throwing around terms like ‘ladylike’ as an offense is just too far.

Michele Bachmann’s instance is much different. She has migraines and I understand. I’m a bit jealous that her meds are affordable while mine aren’t but that’s another post. I do not fault her for having migraines; there are many other reasons I oppose her. The backlash against her has been called sexist, though I’m not so sure.

I have an inkling that her competitors, on all sides, want to bring her early numbers down. Most republicans know she’ll have a much harder time beating Obama in the general election than a moderate Republican. And many democrats just don’t like her. I think that’s a reason they are using everything they can to attempt to destroy her name. Though, some say it’s because she’s a woman. Women are more likely to get migraines, but those numbers are changing. Men have traditionally been known to get more cluster headaches, which can be confused with migraines. It’s really hard for a physician to figure out the type of headaches a patient gets, especially with varying symptoms. I’m not even sure what type of headaches I get. I’m starting to think they’re an undiscovered kind.

I have sympathy for Bachmann in this particular instance and will not use her migraines against her. Is it sexist to says she’s unfit due to them? I’ve heard many people saying she’s unfit as an excuse to get her out of the ring. I don’t think it relates much to her being a woman, though I could be wrong.