JB Globe

Of course they do. Collectively punishing (and therefor, killing) civilians with an occupation is in my books just as bad as killing them occasionally (in comparison to how often Palestinian civilians are killed) in planned attacks. Like most pro-Israeli fanatics, you're whitewashing the effects of the occupation because it would tarnish your angelic image of Israel. Pragmatism isn't your strong suit. Fact of the matter is, the occupation kills directly (through reckless shelling of civilian neighborhoods) and indirectly (medical shortages, food shortages, etc).

Thomas Friedman is intellectually lazy? Care to expand on this? Seems a pretty lazy statement to make. Cue your righteous pro-Palestinian equivalent to make the same kind of statement about the occupation. By the way - how many times do you have to say that in the mirror at night so you can sleep?

So what you're saying is that you're not a hypocrite, because you posted as much about this as you did this Right? Face it chief - the closer something is to our home, Canada, the more airplay it gets. You're just as guilty of it as we are.

I got the satire, most New Yorker readers will get the satire. That isn't the issue, the problem is that the majority of folks probably won't get the satire. What's worse - the idiots who really do think that Obama is Muslim (and that being Muslim is a bad thing) are going to be waving around the magazine saying "lookit people! A magazine from New York says it! It must be true!" and the thing is - they'll convince people with it. If the New Yorker was going to run this on the cover, they should've had an article that dealt with the myths about Obama in the mag, but they didn't. That's why I think it's irresponsible. This type of humour works great when you're Borat, not so much when you're a stuffy aristocratic mag like the New Yorker.

What's par for the course is the tribal warfare that goes on here regarding the I&P conflict. People downplay or dismiss any bad thing their side does, and any good thing the other side does. They exaggerate or fabricate bad things about the other side, and good things about their side. The other side is always lying, always deceitful, always evil, and irrational warmongers. Their side is righteous, moral, and peaceful. Myself? I'm with Thomas Friedman on this, you live in the Middle East, you play by Middle East rules, that means that no one side in this conflict has any more moral ground than the other. When one side targets civilians with suicide bombers, and the other targets them with an occupation, it takes an exceptional kind of prick to believe that either of them deserve to be put on a pedestal.

The Metro Toronto Police have allowed officers to wear turbans for over two decades now, and contrary to some of the absolutely ridiculous speculations here, it hasn't lead to things like officers refusing to wear blue. Do you know what it has lead to? Devout Sikhs becoming police officers. Stop with the sky is falling routine, no one is buying it. You're just going to have to get over the fact that institutions aren't set in stone - they adapt to changing times. Like it was said elsewhere - at one point the mounties changed and stopped wearing red jackets, at one point they stopped all riding horses, and at one point they decided that they'd be stronger as an institution if there were no religious barriers to becoming an RCMP officer to most religious people. Quite frankly, if you're worried about the RCMP falling apart, you should spend more of your time worrying about corruption and tasers than turbans, that seems to be a bigger issue.

If you notice, I said "self-righteous atheists" instead of atheists in general. I was hoping that people would be bright enough to realize I wasn't talking about ALL atheists. So, unless you're a self-righteous atheist, you shouldn't feel offended by what I'm saying. I'm going to skip the bits of your post where you assumed that I was speaking about all atheists, simply because that isn't what I was saying. Well, actually they're part of Drea's prejudiced worldview, so no - I'm not pulling assumptions out of my ass. And I disagree with the findings, just like I disagree with the findings of the author's other study that says men are smarter than women. As I explained earlier, he excluded some criteria that would have influenced the findings. I think you're greatly exaggerating the degree to which people who aren't atheists or agnostics adhere to a fundamentalist religious worldview. They aren't the majority - most Christians in Canada for example, don't believe the earth was created in seven days, or however long it was. Here's the thing though - if a person thoroughly examines communism as objectively as they can, they'll be a lot less likely to become a zealous communist with a dictator-streak. The same can be said for someone who objectively studies religion as well though. And what about people with transcendent worldviews that are formed by nationalism? Isn't someone who is a nationalist zealot handicapped as much as a religious zealot when it comes to digesting new kinds of knowledge? Again, my point isn't that political ideologues are worse/better than religious ones - just that people who love to critique religion often don't apply the same standards towards other things that shape our society, and that religion is a red herring - we should be focusing on the factor that causes people to gravitate towards extreme worldviews in the first place. I don't see what religion had to do with the Stanford prison experiment. I don't think the atheist guards in the lot were any more/less likely to torture the inmates than their religious counterparts. I'm sorry, but I disagree with you and Weinberg - religion is not the only ideology which potentially (although not systemically) causes good people to do bad things, it's one of many. Explain to me how this is any different than Nazi propaganda fed to Germans during the third Reich? - other than the fact one is political and one is religious. Because to me - the end result is the same. Subscribing extreme religious views such as these to the majority who don't believe in them is as lazy as saying all communists are in the same league as Stalin. I'm not sure what you mean by "revival" in the Muslim world either.

It would only be abusive in my book if the parent was teaching religious hatred along with religion. This isn't all or nothing: There's a difference between: "This is Christianity, and this is what Christians believe in" and "All non-Christians are vermin" At the same time, I don't know what's so different about religious ideological indoctrination and any other kind of indoctrination of an ideology? What if a parent is an ardent conservative or progressive and raises their kid to be like them? Isn't that the same thing? - indoctrinating a kid with ideology? What if they're extreme in their politics and teach them that the "others" are less than them?

The article doesn't refer to the woman as "devout," that's August's term - I'm wondering why he/she thinks this woman is devout. The article also doesn't really detail why the French court found her to be "radical" - I'm hoping it was a little more sophisticated than the fact that she wears a Niqab (which is not an obligatory article of faith, in any case) My view is that France has FAILED in integrating it's population and that we shouldn't be looking to them for anything other than what NOT to do. By comparison, we've been doing a pretty good job here, and we need to capitalize on our successes and learn from our failures.

Look, Canada has taken responsibility for it's wrong actions - the Bush Administration hasn't. Until then, please spare me these pot shots that "the findings aren't 100%" - 90% right is still better than not having an inquiry at all. Fact is all political parties accepted the findings - there were no claims of bias from anyone anywhere in the political spectrum, or the (respected) media which is rare. The only people who seem to have a problem with this are random people on the internet - which tells you something right there. And hell, if you can show me a justice system that produces verdicts/findings that are "100% right" (whatever that is) go ahead. The important thing is that the vast majority of the information and findings are solid - that there's enough evidence to suggest that Arar was tortured beyond a reasonable doubt. And your doubt is unreasonable because it resides on a demonstrated bias against Muslims, same with other egotistical folks who can never admit when they're wrong. There, I acknowledged the elephant in the room. 1 - You're admitting the US violated a signed agreement with Canada by sending him to Syria instead of Canada. The fact that he has Syrian citizenship is irrelevant - the agreement overrides that. So we both agree the US did wrong in this matter, yes? Unless of course you believe that the US can arbitrarily decide when to honour international agreements, obligations, or law? Let me guess - since you believe that Arar wasn't tortured, you believe he only experience in Syria was something like living in a crappy prison - you don't believe he suffered any actual legally-defined torture. Therefor, when you claim that you and I can be "tortured" - you mean we too can be held in crappy prisons here. That's cute - but the fact remains that we both will never face legally defined torture in either of our countries - and that's part of the reason why many people support extraordinary rendition - because they'll never have to experience it.

I'd like to bring up a point, if I may . . . This notion that people (whom I'll call self-righteous atheists) have that they are incapable of prejudice, because they're an atheist. That calling oneself an atheist, or not believing in god - means you're of a higher intelligence, because atheists are wholly rational beings and therefor are wholly objective in their conclusions about things (reminds me of objectivism). I reject this outright, 1 - because no one thinks completely rationally/objectively anyway. ie - we're all products of our environment, and even if we question some of the social norms we were brought up with, we can NEVER consider ourselves as some sort of island who's worldview isn't influenced by our social environment. We have to be constantly aware of where we're speaking from - being humble is the only way to avoid being self-righteous in our opinions. 2 - I reject this because clearly, as history has shown us, atheists are just as capable of subscribing to irrational worldviews and ideas as anyone else. I don't believe an atheist is any more or less likely to be racist, to be a zealous nationalist, or to have an extreme interpretation of a political ideology (ie - ridiculously hardcore socialist). And personally I don't find fanatical belief in a religious ideology to be any less "intelligent" than fanatical belief in say, a Laisse-Fair free-market economy. 3 - It's not about what you call yourself, it's not about the "rituals" you perform, it's what you do. A Christian can say as many hail mary's as they want - but if they sin on a regular basis, they're not being a good Christian. Similarly an atheist can make all sorts of claims about how open-minded they are, how objective they are, how rational they are - but if in their day-to-day actions they're doing the opposite, than they're not being a good atheist, are they?

Why not? If those profs are secular, but religious, there shouldn't be a conflict, right? To make my point another way - I think it has to do a lot with institutional culture. College/Uni I would say has not just a secular culture (which is fine) but an atheist culture. Just like it also has a left-leaning culture - if you're not down with that, you're a lot less likely to stick around. Doesn't mean you're less intelligent - on the flip side, the Corporate world is conservative - but does that mean that people who aren't conservative aren't smart enough to make it in the corporate world? I don't believe so, and I don't think the numbers support that either. It could just be that folks don't want to live within that culture their whole lives - it could have nothing to do with intelligence. And let's be honest here - college is definitely not the only place one can attain intelligence. I value knowledge learned through observing and participating in everyday life as much, perhaps more than knowledge learned through studying texts. Sometimes the best thing you can do to become more intelligent is to leave college - especially if your program is filled with stuffy profs who forget what actual reality is like for most people.

And then the RCMP was investigated and rightfully blamed for their role in the Arar affair. To date, this hasn't happened in the US, although it looks like it's finally going to happen in the near future. That's your choice. It doesn't mean it's true. According to protocol (and I believe this protocol is specific to US-Canada and was part of an agreement between us), Arar should have been deported to the country where he is a citizen, where he resided, worked and has family. He should not have been deported to a country he hasn't seen since he was a child. How could you be deported to a country that practices torture?

No one really knows, although I would wager that environmental factors have a lot to do with it. If you go to a university and you're somewhat religious, and you're surrounded by people who are ardent atheists, after 4 years or more you're probably going to come out less religious than you went in. But really, since I don't believe that intelligence and religious belief are mutually exclusive, it really doesn't concern me too much.

I know this post is ancient, but I don't think anyone's mentioned this global news investigation which turned up a lot of racial profiling at Calgary Clubs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plQpLPy1eao http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHelRCSxQw...feature=related

Congradulations, you've proven that Arabs and Muslims are human beings, and as such wealthy Muslim Arabs are just as capable of blowing their millions on ridiculous items as white American CEOs are. If you caught me 10 years ago, you might have surprised me. Of course - just like your momma told you, two wrongs don't make a right. Just because the CP of Dubai is blowing his money while people are starving, doesn't mean it's right for anyone else to do the same.

I am deeply offended by this post. You called this hack-job a movie. This offends me as a filmmaker. It's nothing more than an amateurish collage of youtube clips. Even the producer of the Van Gogh film "Submission" thinks it's trash, I believe he called it "more of an incoherent diatribe than a case against Islam" - if even other anti-Islamists are saying it's crap, you know it's crap. I also read that the MP is being sued - apparently he showed a picture of a Dutch rapper in place of what was supposed to be Van Gogh's killer, and that rapper is now suing for defamation of character.

After reading some of the commentary in this post, I think it's worth reminding some self-righteous people that just because one calls themself a liberal, progressive, or feminist, that they are incapable of being prejudiced - in this case against Islam. Clearly one can be a Muslim woman and not be oppressed, there is such a thing as being a Muslim feminist after -all. Just because there is a problem within Islam when it comes to women's rights does not mean the entire religion is wrong. If we threw out the baby with the bath water all the time we'd be living in anarchy because many of our institutions and governments have problems. I'm assuming we're all in this post because we care about the oppression of women, right? And we all would like to do something to stop it? Right? - So I'd assume we'd all be looking at the best ways to deal with this issue . . . We should be looking at solutions that will work in the real world, on the ground, and are most likely to be effective. The solutions should not be driven by someone's ideological world view. I'd like to think that people aren't using this issue to advance their own agenda - say, bashing Islam. Because abused women have been exploited enough without being exploited for someone else's political agenda, thank you very much.

Anyone who considers religion to be the source of most of the world's "evil" should be considered a fanatic - because such a belief ignores blatant evidence to the contrary that anyone with a basic understanding of world history should know. I don't know if Dawkins fits into this or not.

No, I disagree with any study trying to equate IQ with any sort of race, ethnicity, sex, political ideology, or religious non-religious world view. Even if a study shows that a group I belong to has a higher IQ - example - many studies have said "liberals" in the US are smarter than "conservatives" - I would have to belong to the liberal group, but I still reject outright the whole premise of those studies. They almost always do not take into account environmental and historical factors, or if they do, they're given almost no weight.

But how can you agree with the findings of this professor's study on religion, and not with his findings on gender? One matches up with your worldview and the other doesn't - that's your basis for accepting one and dismissing the other? Doesn't sound too logical to me. I on the other hand outright dismiss studies attempting to link intelligence to factors such as race, gender, political ideology, etc - simply because there's too many other variables in the equation that make any sort of solid conclusion impossible to come by without cutting corners. Actually, close-mindedness has nothing to do with intelligence. A person can have a very high IQ and still completely prejudiced in their worldview. ie - Bush's cabal of neocons. You refuted the professor's study on gender because you didn't like it's findings, didn't you? Why do you get to play by different rules? Because I disagree with your whole premise of a binary opposition between atheists and those who believe in religion. I don't think any one group is any more intelligent than the other. I think the whole premise is as ridiculous as trying to find a link between intelligence and race - and then trying to say one race is better than the other because of it. This is another similarity between you and Christian fanatics - it's always either/or. Either you're athiest such as yourself, or you're a fanatical religion follower who believes in their religious text literally, and has no independent thought. And therefor religious people are less than non-religious people, and therefor they can be treated as such, and therefor . . . Do you see where this type of bigoted thinking leads? Or do I need to connect all of the dots for you. Where did I state I believe anything? That's an assumption - something someone who claims they have superior intelligence shouldn't be doing. Another unfounded assumption. If I am religious, whose to say I haven't questioned my own religion? You know, it's quite easy for you to be knocked down when you put yourself up on a pedestal. Of course, it IS your fault that YOU are close-minded. And yes, I'm sorry, just because you're an atheist does not make you incapable of prejudice. Also - I've yet to see a study linking close-mindedness (which is different from IQ) to religion versus atheism. This is probably the most egotistical thing I've read on here in a while. Sorry to break it to you, but other than when I'm responding to your comments I don't really think about you. To all rational, non-prejudiced atheists in this thread - I'd like you to know I do not believe this woman speaks for you.

Sorry - you're asking me why non-Canadians should believe the findings of a Canadian inquiry versus the opinion of the Bush Administration? Well, I suppose your screen name is Bush-Cheney for a reason, isn't it? Of course it wasn't a mistake - it was deliberate, it was a deliberate violation of Arar's human rights to send him to another country to be tortured. Of course it's not about you or me. We're not Muslim, and/or we weren't born in a country that practices torture so we'll never be expedited for torture. That's exactly why people such as yourself could care less - because you know it will never happen to you, therefor you're fine with it. Thanks for telling me that, I've only known this for 7 years or so. Go ahead and put up a post on security certificates, I'll be there criticizing them, until then - let's stay on topic.

And what do you know, outside of what two-bit right-wing news sites and a minority of right-wing commentators want you to know, huh? You can whine all you want about how all the info making the case that Arar was tortured is "all lies" - but you look pretty pathetic if you have nothing to counter that information. In short, at least there are accepted facts on my side - you on the other hand have nothing.

It means being a work in progress. It means constantly re-evaluating oneself. It means balancing tradition and the ever-changing realities of the modern world. It means compromise (as someone said earlier). It means listening and empathizing. It means we believe civility and good government are a solution to many problems. It means saying sorry when someone else bumps into you. ^^^^ I know it's random, but it's all I got right now.

Drea, you're a fanatic: You believe that people who do not think what you think are less-than yourself. You also believe that a form of utopia will descend upon the world once people start to think what you think. If you were Christian, you'd be a Christian fanatic, but since you're an atheist, you're an atheist fanatic. It's unreal how much fanatics like yourself say they despise Christian fanatics, and how identical the two of you sound. Also, the same professor did studies that showed that men were smarter than women. If you accept the findings of this religion intelligence study, does that mean you accept his study on gender & intelligence?