Putting Faith On Trial: Is Religion a Force For Good Or Evil? : interview with renowned atheist Richard Dawkins

Putting Faith On Trial: Is Religion a Force For Good Or Evil? : interview with renowned atheist Richard Dawkins

December 23, 2012 "Al Jazeera" --  Fanaticism, fundamentalism, superstition and ignorance. Religion is getting a bad press these days. Much of the conflict in the world, from the Middle East to Nigeria and Myanmar, is often blamed on religion.

But what are the alternatives? Adolf Hitler was an atheist. Communism under Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot or Mao Zedong banned religion, but also massacred millions. And science brought incredible and amazing advances, but also pollution and the atomic bomb.

A critic of religious dogmatism, Professor Richard Dawkins revolutionised genetics in 1976 with the publication of The Selfish Gene, which explained how evolution takes place at the genetic level. He has since written 12 more bestsellers, including The God Delusion which sold millions of copies, was translated into more than 30 languages, and catapulted him to the position of the world's foremost atheist.

Mehdi Hasan interviews evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins at the Oxford Union and asks: Is religion a force for good or evil? Can it co-exist with science? Is science the new religion? And why if god does not exist, is religion so persistent?

The Ultimate Logic of a Society Built on Mass Murder

The Ultimate Logic of a Society Built on Mass MurderThe Ultimate Logic of a Society Built on Mass Murder

It’s not a sudden madness, but a long history of mass murder come full circle.

By Glen Ford

December 21, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - As a native-born American, I grew up watching cowboy and Indian shoot-em-ups in which the highlight of the movie was when the white guys in the circled wagon train shot the Indians off their horses until all the red men were dead, and very silent. Indians didn’t do a lot of screaming in pain when they were shot; they just expired. Same thing with buck-toothed Japanese, line after line of them, charging into U.S. machine guns, falling instantly silent and dead. It was somehow quite clean, almost antiseptic, these cinematic rituals of death, all staged for the broadest popular consumption to demonstrate the inevitability – and cosmic justice – of ultimate white victory over the darker races.

This was mother’s milk to the white American nation – which is why Richard Pryor and kids like me rooted for the Indians. Mass murder is at the core of the American national religion, which is a celebration of a genocidal march across a continent filled with other, doomed human beings. America’s contribution to European culture was to invite “all the nations of Europe” to come to these shores and become fellow “white” citizens, whose status was defined by the enforced inferiority of Blacks and the remnants of the Indians. Ritual burnings of Blacks were organized as great public festivals, attended by thousands, staged in order to affirm whites’ collective right to commit murder. This monopoly on violence was what made them white Americans.

U.S. foreign policy reflects the nation’s origins and ghastly evolution into a globe-strutting mob, that empowers itself to kill at will. A million dead Filipinos at the turn of the 20th century; aerial bombing of Haitian villages less than a generation later; the totally unwarranted nuclear annihilation of two cities at the very end of World War Two; two million dead Koreans shortly thereafter; three million dead Vietnamese in the next decade,; and, since 1996, six million Congolese – all, and many, many more, slaughtered in the name of U.S. civilizational superiority – the ghastly opiate of the white American masses.

What kind of human beings does such a culture produce? To paraphrase the Bible, “By their massacres, ye shall know them.” The modern mass American murder is overwhelmingly a white phenomenon. Yet few whites ask the question, “What’s wrong with white America?” It is seems that white America lacks the capacity for self-examination. It cannot grasp the simple truth, that a culture that celebrates the annihilation of whole peoples, casually and without guilt or introspection, is devoid of human values at its very core. In the end, it turns against itself. That is the simple lesson of Newtown, and Columbine, and Aurora. The same cultural deformity creates a huge market for games like the very popular Assassin’s Creed, whose latest version integrates individual and group murder with events of the American Revolutionary War. American kids can simulate mass murder all day long, and feel patriotic and smart while doing it. Assassin’s Creed features an inter-racial cast of killers – possibly in deference to the brown guy in the White House who owns the ultimate Kill List. It’s the modern equivalent of the cowboys and Indians movies of my youth. The same sickness.

Resisting Genocide: Syria, North Korea, and Cuba

Resisting Genocide: Syria, North Korea, and Cuba

Resisting Genocide: Syria, North Korea, and Cuba

By Gearóid Ó Colmáin

December 21, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -  As NATO and Gulf Co-operation Council terrorists persist in their attempt to destroy the Syrian Arab Republic with car bombs, torture, beheadings and mayhem, the Syrian state has still shown no evidence of imminent collapse. Russia has sent 5 warships to the Mediterranean. China has continued to condemn, albeit with extreme diplomacy, NATO’s interference; Venezuela has offered oil to help cope with Western sanctions; the Syrian financial budget has been decided for 2013; restaurants and cafes continue to open for business in Damascus and normal bilateral diplomatic and trade relations continue to exist between Syria and most of the world’s peace-loving countries. In short, Syria still has many friends in the world and the people of Syria are determined to resist imperialist aggression to the end. One could argue that Syria has far more genuine friends in the world than the execrable coalition of countries attacking it.

Why the US media ignored Murdoch's brazen bid to hijack the presidency

So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence ofRupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt – thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance – to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press.

In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire – notably Fox News – to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012 election.

Muslim Brotherhood claims charter 'approved' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Muslim Brotherhood claims charter 'approved' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Syrian Rebels Set Up ‘Religious Police’ Around Aleppo -- News from Antiwar.com

Syrian Rebels Set Up ‘Religious Police’ Around Aleppo -- News from Antiwar.com

Saudi Arabia’s harsh Police of Vice and Virtue seem to be setting up shop in northern Syria, with locals reporting that rebel forces have establish Saudi-style religious police around the outskirts of Aleppo, and at least one high-ranking member of the Saudi version was seen in a video taking part.

Fifty-five drowned off Somali coast - Africa | IOL News | IOL.co.za

Fifty-five drowned off Somali coast - Africa | IOL News | IOL.co.za

Chuck Hagel’s Record on Terrorism, Israel, Iran -- News from Antiwar.com

Chuck Hagel’s Record on Terrorism, Israel, Iran -- News from Antiwar.com

Former GOP senator Chuck Hagel is rumored to be a leading candidate to be nominated as Secretary of Defense by the Obama administration, and his voting record is eliciting outrage on the right for being insufficiently hawkish on terrorism and insufficiently pro-Israel.

US: No signs Syria has moved on chemical w... JPost - Middle East

US: No signs Syria has moved on chemical w... JPost - Middle East

Bank Pays Bribe To Avoid Prosecution

Bank Pays Bribe To Avoid Prosecution

HSBC fine: what does it take for a bank to get prosecuted?

By Nils Pratley

December 11, 2012 "The Guardian" - -  Is HSBC's $1.9bn (£1.2bn) fine enormous or a drop in the ocean?

Well, it's a record for the offence of money laundering and breaking sanctions, which could be said to underline the gravity of the bank's actions. On the other hand, the sum represents about four weeks' earnings given the bank's pre-tax profits of $21.9bn last year.

The financial pain is easily bearable. Indeed, the steady upward progress of HSBC's share price since the scandal exploded in July was unaffected on Tuesday morning.

Shareholders like the idea the affair is settled and they trust that chief executive Stuart Gulliver's new-broom regime won't fall foul of the US department of justice's new independent monitor,k who will assess how the bank implements its pledges to do better.

Gulliver even has a glowing testimonial to wave as HSBC starts its probation period. "Management had made significant strides in improving 'tone from the top' and ensuring a culture of compliance permeates the institution," said the DoJ.

But HSBC investors may also like something else. The New York Times reports that some DoJ officials wanted to bring criminal charges against the bank but eventually decided not to for fear such a move would put the future of one of the world's largest banks at risk and thus threaten global financial stability.

We don't know the weight of that tale and maybe the fear of financial chaos was exaggerated. But the idea that a bank could be "too big to prosecute" is alarming. It sends a message that, whatever the scale of wrong-doing, the world's biggest banks can never lose their licence to operate overnight. Instead, a hefty fine can always make the problem go away.

Is that really a sensible message for regulators to send? Is their hand really so weak? On this occasion, HSBC's words of contrition and promises to behave properly sound sincere. But will that always be the case for all big banks everywhere and forever?

The DoJ should clear up this sub-plot speedily. If money laundering on the scale admitted by HSBC doesn't provoke a prosecution, what would?

Why the Bible doesn't give Israel a claim to the West Bank | The Electronic Intifada

Why the Bible doesn't give Israel a claim to the West Bank | The Electronic Intifada
Having a passport stamped with the names Judea and Samaria reminds me of a trip my family made to Disneyworld, where I got a passport stamped Neverland.  That day I met Peter Pan and Wendy. Getting my passport stamped for the West Bank these days, I can hope to stand before the graves of Biblical characters in Samaria and Judea.
What actually can we glean about the area of Samaria from the Hebrew Scriptures? Samaria was a region in the land of Israel with geographical limits that were never clearly defined in the Bible. Originally it was the territory of the tribe of Ephraim and half tribe of Manasseh: its eastern boundary was the Jordan River, the western boundary was the Mediterranean coast. Not surprising since natural boundaries, such as mountains, rivers, deserts, or lakes formed boundaries long before they were hand-drawn by the winners of wars.
After the campaign of Tiglath-Pileser III in 732 BC, Samaria became a province of the Assyrians. The Biblical authors understand this loss of the Northern Kingdom (Samaria) as God’s punishment of his people for worshipping other deities and breaking the Covenant that had bound them to God. “And the king of Assyria did carry away Israel [Samaria] unto Assyria and put them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes” (II Kings 18:11).
The triumphant Assyrians settled some of their subject populations there and in Syria to mingle with the Palestinian people. The Hill Country of Samaria remained a province during the Persian period. Then, Samaria, along with Judea, became the property of the Babylonians, from 539 until 333 BC, and subsequently was ruled by the Hellenistic Greeks, and then the formidable Roman Empire. The land was never owned by the Jewish people, except in minds that were nourished by the Biblical narratives.

Thanks for the Warnings, Israel by Johnny Barber -- Antiwar.com

Thanks for the Warnings, Israel by Johnny Barber -- Antiwar.com
I have been in Gaza for five days now, and I am having difficulty understanding the eight-day war and the subsequent ceasefire. Let me explain the difficulty I am having. The Israeli Offensive Forces insist they protect civilians in Gaza, only targeting terrorists. They have several methods to protect innocent civilians. One method is to call the civilians on the phone; another method is to drop leaflets telling them to flee for their lives, as an attack is imminent. During the latest offensive, Israeli dropped leaflets in the rural areas telling people to flee to the city. In Gaza City, leaflets were dropped warning people to flee to the rural areas. A new, ingenious method they use to protect civilians is to drop “loud, non-lethal bombs” on a home as a warning for the inhabitants as to what will come. They even have a name for this warning. They call it “roof tapping.” Then anywhere from three minutes to 20 minutes pass before they bomb the house from F-16s. These bombs are very large and very lethal. The homes I have seen today have been completely flattened, and the houses around the target are also rendered uninhabitable.