The UN, Israel, and Palestine

I must admit, I don’t know much about the Israel/Palestine conflict. From what I hear my leaders in Canada say, we want a peace deal and a two-state solution.

 

So why is the UN giving Palestine recognition as a state a bad thing?  Call this arm-chair foreign policy, but this is how it seems to me.

 

Israel has no intention of allowing Palestine to be a separate state, but since the majority of the world seems to be in favour of a Palestinian state, Israel must pay lip service to the rest of the world by saying that are working towards peace and a two-state solution.

 

However, during this time of negation between Israel and Palestine, the Israelis kept building settlements in land that was disputed.

 

This would be like if my neighbour and I  had an argument over who owned some shared land between our houses, and every day that we meet to talk about it, my neighbour would move his fence a little closer to my house. So after years of talking and negotiating, even if we can come to an agreement, all the land is already behind my neighbour fence and I have a feeling he won’t give it back easily.

 

Are the peace talks that Israel and Canada and the USA all want just nothing more than a stall tactic to give Israel enough time to build enough settlements that there is no land left for a two-state solution?

 

And all this talk from Canada and the USA at the UN about how bad giving Palestine statehood seems very hollow to me. Peace talks have been broke off for years now, so Palestine decided to force the issue with the UN and now Canada and the USA among a few others started to threaten the UN with loss of funding and other various threats if they voted for Palestine.

 

What is so bad about giving Palestine statehood at the UN? It seems like the only major change would be that Palestine can now access the International Criminal Court, but why would the USA and Canada and Israel want to block Palestine from the ICC?

 

If my neighbour is stealing my land, why is so bad for me to get a lawyer on my side?

 

Is the Israeli end game to back Palestine in a corner so they have no choice but to sign a peace agreement that favours Israel, and now that Palestine has the UN and ICC in there corner, Israel might have to actually capitulate and negotiate on a level playing field?

 

Maybe I am way off the mark here, but it seems like the US, Canada, and Israel would be very happy to have Palestine just go away  and under the cover of unending peace talks, Israel is taking away Palestine one settlement at a time.

 

 

The joys of writing a blog that no one reads

I don't kid myself. I know my blog has somewhere between 0 and 1 readers (including myself), and I don't have a problem with that.

Having a following on my blog would almost feel like I would be required to make regular content and something that I do for joy and mild distraction would become a chore.

I can blog as often or infrequent as I wish without any complaint of feeling of neglect.

Perhaps at some point in the future my blog will have a sudden surge of popularity and I will then need to decide how to go forward

But for right now, I don't mind just talking to a brick wall.



- Sent From My Blackberry

A Charitable Thought Experiment

What makes a good charity to contribute too?

Do you need to agree with everything a charity does to donate in good conscience, or is it ok as long as it's mostly good?

To help us with our thought experiment,  lets imagine there is a charity called The Lifeline Corps

The Lifeline Corps is passionately committed to eradicating poverty and caring for people who are struggling.  The Lifeline Corps is working to address the dehumanizing scourge of poverty and injustice and educate the public about what it means to live in poverty – and what they can do to help.

So far sounds like a good charity right? Let's keep reading

The Lifeline Corps is an international organization that began its work in 1882 and has grown to become the largest non-governmental direct provider of social services in the country. The Lifeline Corps gives hope and support to vulnerable people today and every day in 400 communities across this country and more than 120 countries around the world. The Lifeline Corps offers practical assistance for children and families, often tending to the basic necessities of life, providing shelter for homeless people and rehabilitation for people who have lost control of their lives to an addiction.

Still sounds mostly good right?

Maybe now you would like to know more about this charity before you donate, so you read some of there positions, and you come across a position about marriage.

The Lifeline Corps holds the position that marriage is the covenanting together of one white man and one white woman for life in a voluntary union characterized by faithfulness, mutual affection, respect and support. It makes this view known in its published Position Statements

The Lifeline Corps anticipates that some will assert that the arguments advanced in this submission in support of the institution of marriage apply equally to mixed-race couples.

 The Lifeline Corps maintains that for important theological, philosophical, historical, social, legal, cultural and anthropological reasons, the institution of marriage ought not to be redefined in this way 

 The Lifeline Corps’s position on marriage is based on its understanding of what the Bible and Christian tradition teach about human relationships and sexuality.

As the union of a white man and a white woman, marriage has been embedded in the culture and tradition of the western world since the beginning of its recorded history. Redefining it to include mixed-race couples may appear to be a simple solution to a perceived present-day inequality, but the notion of marriage as an whites-only relationship is so deeply rooted in our society that its redefinition may have far-reaching effects on the future development of our society that cannot be predicted, while to do so will offend the conscience-driven position of the vast majority of married persons.

Some of you reading this may be taken aback now. How could any charity that sounded so good to begin with turn out to be a racist charity?

Would you donate your money to this charity? If you saw a Lifeline Corps member ringing a bell near a mall, would you give him your pocket change, knowing that it goes to a charity that beliefs mixed-race couples are somehow less then white couples?

Let's take this though experiment 1 step farther. Instead The Lifeline Corps. lets call them the Salvation Army and instead of opposing mixed-race couples, how about opposing same sex couples.

Would that be ok for a charity? Would that make the difference, is it ok to deny gay couples, but you can't deny mixed-race couples?

And, in case you were wondering, all of the paragraphs above were taken from the Salvation Army Canadian website, all I changed was the name and changed references from gay marriage to mixed-race marriage

Do you still feel good about the Salvation Army?

My journey into skepticism - the night I saw a shadow person

I'm not sure how many of you what a Shadow Person is. A Shadow Person is believed to be a human-like spirits that take the form of shadows and are often seen only in peripheral vision.

My experience was a bit different. I was asleep[ in my bed when I felt that I woke up, but I could not move. the most I could do was just barely open my eyes so I could see my room.

What I saw was a shadowy figure walk into my room, turn towards me and lean down over me. I could sense this being just centimeters from my nose. I could feel the movement of the bed as they put there hands beside my shoulders as they leaned down towards my face.

It was a scary experience, and after only a moment I sat up in bed and this shadow was gone. If I was at a less skeptical point in my life, I may have called what I saw a ghost of some kind, but I was skeptical at the time, so I didn't jump to any conclusions.

Everything about the experience felt completely real and if I only trusted my senses, I would have no reason to doubt what happened, but something did happen that showed me this was only a dream or other hallucination

While I was paralysed in my bed and saw this figure enter my room, I could see a window on the far wall and in the window I saw the full moon. After the figure vanished and I was able to sit up I looked out the window and saw no moon, just stars.

This episode only lasted a few minutes so the moon would have no time to move in the sky so far, unless more time had passed then I believed, but if I cant trust my perception of time how can I trust any perception I had that night.

I decided that the moon was a giveaway that it was a dream. My brain knows the window was there and it was night, so it invented something to put in the window that would not look out of place. It decided a full moon would do nicely, but it had no way of knowing if the moon was really in my window.

So when I woke up and saw reality, I could see that it did not match watch I saw just a moment ago.

And as a skeptic, objective reality matters.

Atheism+, where the plural of anecdote is data

My understanding of the Atheism+ movement is that it was born out of incidents of sexual harassment at atheist conventions and in online forums.

I have heard about the elevator incident, the atheist girl on reddit getting rape jokes, the muslima, and many other such anecdotes.

And that is what they are, anecdotes.

I have heard time and time again that the plural of anecdote is NOT data, so why are charges of male privilege and rape culture supported by anecdotes?

It appears that even asking for statistics on sexual harassment is tantamount to "blaming the victim"

How can we as a skeptical community accept that?

If someone told me they were raped by a gray space alien, would it be wrong to ask for evidence?

Should we just accept that 100% of rape claims and sexual harassment are 100% true and accurate 100% of the time and not to be questioned?

It may be cold to say "show me the evidence" when we are confronted with a report of sexual harassment, but I didn't become an atheist to make friends.

Atheism is a response to those who deny reality and insist some kind of "God" created everything according to his plan.

I also notice that the request for evidence about "God" is treated like an insult and not something done in "polite" conversation, something very similar to sexual harassment claims

So which is it my fellow atheist and skeptics, do we demand evidence for all claims, or does rape and sexual harassment get a pass with only anecdotes and hurt feelings as the evidence?

It may be cold and indifferent, but objective reality matters whether you want to admit it or not.

Also, on the flip side, actual evidence of rape and sexual harassment cannot be ignored, or we are no better then the creationists that won't accept evidence for evolution.

As a skeptic, you must be prepared that everything you know could be wrong.

That goes for MRAs, feminists, A+ and any other group that hopes to have there "Tenets" based in reality.


- Sent From My Blackberry

Atheism+, revised

I have been looking into Atheism+ for a few weeks now, and I think I found my major stumbling block.

The 'tenets' of Atheism+ go as follows:

Atheists plus we care about social justice,
Atheists plus we support women's rights,
Atheists plus we protest racism,
Atheists plus we fight homophobia and transphobia,
Atheists plus we use critical thinking and skepticism

If I were to remake Atheism+, I would change these 'tenets' into rules and it would go as follows:

1) Use critical thinking and skepticism

2) Support equality of treatment for all human beings, unless this conflicts with rule 1

3) Support freedom of expression for all human beings, unless this conflicts with rule 1

4) Support freedom from religion for all human beings, unless this conflicts with rule 1

5) Don't be a (dick, cunt, asshole, your insult of choice), unless this conflicts with rule 1

I think you might see where I'm going with this.

Atheism+ seems to put critical thinking and skepticism at the bottom of the list. I would put it at the top of all the list and make all other rules or tenets subject to skepticism and critical thinking

Because without critical thinking and skepticism, how can you be sure your beliefs reflect reality?

And if objective reality is unimportant to your beliefs, how much of an atheist are you really?

- Sent From My Blackberry

RationalWiki disappoints me

I was doing some reading on the RationalWiki, when I came across the entry for Free Thought Blogs, and I found something that is not very rational at all.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Freethought_blogs

Under the section "Taking a feminist-skeptic stand", they mention the issues that arose with Thunderf00t, but I had to check I wasn't on Conservapedia by accident when I read the quality of the article.

Here is a direct quote:

"The vlogger Thunderf00t briefly joined Freethought Blogs in summer 2012, but was quickly fired after repeatedly and somewhat incoherently blogging that those pushing for protection for women at atheist/skeptic events were wrong, or overreacting, or whatever. As a result, a large sector of the angrier, less self-aware parts of the atheist community have decided that FtB isn't about free thought at all because something-something-something-evo-psych-something girls are stinky."

If this is what passes for "Constructive dialogue" at RationalWiki,
I'm afraid they don't know the meaning of the word Rational very well.