The Antichristian Phenomenon

Another attention grabbing cheesy title.

Yeah, well. I was reading this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/atheists-launch-campaign-to-get-unbelievers-to-come-out/2011/11/22/gIQApf8glN_story.html, and I have to say the whole idea seems alien to me.  I find it mind-boggling that there are places in the so called western world where being an atheist is something you may feel obliged to hide.

I live in a rather religious country – yet it never crossed my mind that it may not be ok to speak out as a non-believer. In fact, other than a few surprised reactions from when I was in school and the whole thing probably seemed weird to other 14-15 year olds,  saying I am an atheist has often prompted a, rather silly and quite paradoxical, it’s true, sense to others that I must be really knowledgeable or something – certainly never any sort of hostility.

I can understand why it may not be in a politician’s best interest to “come out” as an atheist – or why someone may not feel like discussing it with religious family members, even keeping it a secret in the hillbilly fortresses of the deep south. But that there should need to be a nation-wide effort in the USA, or elsewhere, for people to dare and declare their lack of belief, or that there is an actual chance for the average atheist to have some kind of social problem because of it, is beyond me – is it really so bad in the US or is the whole thing a bit of an overreaction?

икониI found this blog the other day through reddit, which is basically daily stories from “escorts” to abortion clinics. That is : People who go to abortion clinics and escort clients towards the door, in order to support them from the onslaught of harassment from the anti-abortion protesting crowds which are forming a gauntlet around the pavement. And all these people are predominantly christians.

And then I read stories like this

But at one point she turned to face her tormenters -

who were mouthing their usual – “don’t let your baby die – if you need money, we’ll give you money – we love you, we’ll do anything, anything, let someone adopt your baby, please, please, please…”

and she told them her baby was already dead

She told them, through sobs, that she carried one baby til it was born dead and she couldn’t do that again.

Wouldn’t you think they’d have shut up and left her alone?  In the face of her pain at having to go through this, wouldn’t you think they’d have backed off?

No.

Instead, they continued to tell her not to kill her already dead baby.

Really.

Fuck. This. Shit!

Fuck it sideways with a jagged screwdriver.

Christians in the so called 1rst world, like to think that they are better than the religious nutters in places like backward Muslim countries. But the only difference is that they’ve replaced physical abuse with emotional abuse at every opportunity. Especially against vulnerable targets, such as women making some of the most difficult choices in their lives.

And to top it off, they are monumental hypocrites to boot.

It’s this kind of thing that reminds me just why exactly I became an Anti-Christian.

One of my favourite lunacies of christian beliefs is the saints and the various stories surrounding them. You’d expect that saints were highly righteous holy men / women whose kind nature, acts of charity and wisdom granted them this status. That they are the role models of a good christian. And if you ask, that’s what you’ll probably hear.

In reality, there are lots of reasons to laugh at the ridiculous stories concerning saints. Christians themselves would probably find the stories ridiculous if they weren’t part of their church tradition. What can you say about Saint Spyridon, much revered figure here in Greece, who, according to tradition, expelled the Plague from the island of Corfu, where his relics are kept? Ok, I suppose that if you believe in an almight meddling creator, him having some helping sorcerers who perform miracles isn’t a huge leap of faith. What if I told you that the plague, after being expelled from the island, angrily scratched a stone at the city citadel? Yes. That’s right. The Plague was a person. And the ghost of St Spyridon kicked her ass. He also scared the Turks away, and when his native Cyprus was in peril, he left Corfu to go help. These folk tales may not be particularly unusual, but people actually believe them.  They are the same kind of people who don’t believe scientific discoveries because the evidence doesn’t convince them.

St Augustine conveniently became a christian when christians made his former religion, manichaism, illegal under penalty of death (what does that remind me of). Saint Constantine was made a christian, or so they said, on his deathbed for political reasons. St Catherine of Alexandria is the entirely fictional counterpart of Hypatia (of, guess what, Alexandria), who was murdered by christians. They invented her so poorly that her manner of death (the breaking wheel) was invented centuries after her “martyrdom”.

Other saints were simply lunatics. St Catherine of Siena claimed to be wearing the Holy Prepuce (yes, Jesus’ foreskin) as a ring. His foreskin. Ew? How anyone can consider such a wacko a saint is beyond me. Fun idea: try telling a christian friend you’re wearing someone’s foreskin as a ring and observe their reaction. Then again, a basic part of christian belief was that the virgin Mary flew to the heavens after (or right before, I’m not sure) her death. Flew. Physically, not spiritually. To go where I’m not sure. Space maybe.

I’ve seen monks claim they talk to skulls – to skulls that produce a nice scent too, actually. I’ve seen articles about saintly monks who battled demon-posessed, saolin trained youngsters. That last one refers to a modern era guy (the infamous elder Paisios), whom many thousands of people consider a (very) holy man. If you read a few stories about him, you’ll see he was rather a holier-than-thou creepy bastard.

Now, I know, you don’t really need these stories to conclude christianity is non-sensical. But christians, who so hated idols, ask for miracles from magic drawings and wondrous corpses. They believe in flying people and personified plagues. It just seems too much. If you present them with those things, some of them will see it: “Yes, ok, some of these guys don’t really seem very good people; but hey, we all know the Church is corrupted; I believe in God, but not everything the Church tells me – it’s not like I can’t think for myself”. The problem is that some of these lunatics are even older than the official dogma so it’s not the modern, “corrupt” church that you can’t trust, but even the early one. Every christian’s beliefs rely on some form of dogma so they do, by definition, accept a big part of what the church tells them. It all as usual comes down, once again, to cherrypicking the parts you like.

Personally, I like to cherrypick-believe that Catherine of Siena was the victim of a clever  prank.

PS: I feel like apologising that my articles, seem, in my mind, to trail off towards random directions. I should probably write on a particular theme rather than say, “oh that’s a nice title; let me rumble endlessly”.

As a bit of a closet atheist when it comes to one segment of my family, religious discussions between my father and I can be…awkward, at best. After all, he’s a Catholic, raised me to be Catholic, and assumes that despite our differing political beliefs that I still am. Usually this isn’t a problem, but alas, the recent controversy around the National Day of Prayer, every May in America, inevitably brought it up. You’ve all heard the arguments, I needn’t re-hash them for you. What was disconcerting to me was to hear the statement that non-Christians, specifically atheists, should leave the country. I’ve heard the sentiment many a time online, on television, on the radio, etc…hearing it from a parent is another experience. As most atheists are aware, that sort of experience is quite unpleasant, and a little terrifying.

Because of it, I wanted to talk about the sort of mentality that lead to the statement and why it, and Christianity as a whole, should concern Americans more than Islam. While this website isn’t specific to America at all, the world is nevertheless affected by America’s policies—for better or for (in my opinion) much, much worse. Compared to other developed Christian countries, the United States is obsessed with it’s religion. We’re a diverse country, but the majority group—that is, those who practice Christianity—feel that the country “belongs to them”. And they are willing to enforce that belief. That, ladies and gentlemen, makes Christianity a greater threat to “our freedom” than Islam ever was.

Now, I won’t pretend America is the beautiful shining “land of the free” it’s made out to be. We all know better.

The mindset, it’s a rather common one in America and, I’m sure, in much of the Christian world. I imagine it’s a fascinating thing to feel that an entire country and it’s history, laws, and resources belong to you. While as a white, able-bodied person I am privileged, it is one thing to be in a privileged group and another to feel that said group is entitled to something as, for example, white supremacist groups feel. And Christian nationalism is the religious and cultural equivalent of white supremacy, and the two are intimately entwined.

Now: a quick bit of sidetracking. If you don’t care about semantics, just skip this paragraph. To build on ACP’s previous post—What is religion?—I will give my own definition of religion. A definition is possible, as most can agree on which things are religions and which are not, except for when an ulterior motive is involved. One of the problems with definition is that while a religion often acts as a social group, it is possible to adopt the rules and even partially the culture of a religion yet be disconnected from the group. Adding to the problem is that religions rarely follow their own rules, are too organic to be considered organizations (rather, organizations exist within a religion, and religions exist outside of organization). The cultural and often racial aspects of religion are too strong to deny—race and culture go hand in hand, and religions change entirely when adopted by new cultural groups. A religion is looser than an organization and tighter than simply being “like-minded”—it is a loose group of people who share specific beliefs concerning the supernatural, from which extends a shared culture and morality as well as different interpretations of the beliefs, which may be enforced by organizations representing the religion. Anyway, that’s  the definition I’ll be using—mostly I just discussed it because I’d like to encourage the definition to be talked about.

Onwards:

The danger of Christianity in America is twofold. First, it is a negative influence on decisions which affect the entire country and, two, Christian nationalism threatens to turn the country into more of a theocracy than it already is, at the cost of non-Christians in America and around the world. Islam only poses a true threat to freedom in the countries where it has legal clout—for the same reasons Christianity is dangerous in Christian countries. Outside of Islamic governments, Islam poses little threat to the rights of Americans and others. That sounds rather insane to say, but consider that Islam’s only threat to America lies in its few radical extremists’ ability to cause fear by taking lives. Yet the actual number of lives they take is small compared to even the seasonal flu.

To the average American, even the Christian ones who are only moderate or Christian in name, Christianity poses a greater threat. The reason is that as a Christian-controlled government with significant support from certain politically inclined sects, America’s policies are not being decided on facts and reason but on faith, which can fit any preconceived viewpoint. It’s not just an accident of human nature—it’s what Christian nationalists want.

Like extremist Muslims, the Christian establishment (as well as the other Judeo-Christian religions) uses terrorism to enforce it’s morality. Where radical Islamists use direct violence and threats of direct violence, Christian organizations use other methods to induce fear (the threat of Hell, for example). Not a big deal, right, after all, so does every political group. There are a few problems, however. Unlike white supremacy groups and specific political parties, Christianity is not a fringe political group, nor is it’s pull kept to one side of the political spectrum. Christianity exerts a pull over anyone who proclaims themselves to be a Christian, even if they disagree with the specific message. The fear of Hell can influence any Christian.

And Christians have long since declared war on secular America. As Atheist Revolution recently mentioned, America’s top Republican presidential candidates for 2012 have made it clear there is room only for the Christian god in the nation they plan to run. In the documentary Jesus Camp, Christian fanatics train children to be “soldiers of God” in order to “fix this country”. We’ve all heard the rhetoric—“take this nation back for Christ”. Christians have for years been attempting to force religion back into the classroom, and continue to expect shows of faith from citizens. The sense of Christian entitlement in this country is so strong that non-Christians are often told to simply leave the country if they don’t like it—the presumption being that Christians own the nation. All of this leaves an increasingly small amount of space for an increasingly larger group—that is, those in America who desire secular government. History has shown that formerly powerful groups who have lost their power and feel (justified or not) oppressed lash out legally and violently.

Radical Islamists can frighten Americans who fail to put death tolls into perspective. Their real power lies in their ability to frighten critics of Islam—and that is truly terrible—but the overall effect of censoring criticism of Islam does little to really harm this country and much of the world. If Islamists really wanted to destroy America and Western culture—as we are constantly told—they need only give Christian nationalists more power.

“The thing about religion is that it provides a powerful language through which you can justify any ideology.” —Reeza Aslan, author of God Or No God.

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 6, 2010, as a National Day of Prayer.  I call upon the citizens of our Nation to pray, or otherwise give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I invite all people of faith to join me in asking for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us.”

But Mr. President, my (lack of) faith does not have any equivalent to prayer, I don’t have any God to give thanks to, or ask for guidance or protection. You “call upon” me to do what, then?

Even if we put aside the fact that prayer has not been proven to provide a result more consistent than the randomness that would occur naturally, even if we grant that some people “enrich” their lives with it (without questioning exactly how talking to themselves enriches their lives, of course), and even if we acknowledge the role in the history of the United states played by Christianity… I’m sorry, I mean, “a generic concept of religion without referring to any specific denomination or faith but slightly alluding to Christianity, so as not to blatantly exclude or offend anyone except atheists and agnostics”, then it still begs the question, what about those of us who DON’T pray, for whatever personal reason? Effectively, you’ve just told us to participate in a religious exercise, and no matter how much of a “universal” spin you try to place on it, the fact remains that it is not universal. The fact that it is fundamentally unique to specific spiritual worldviews indicates that the government should keep its hands out, or violate the freedoms of those who do not hold the worldview that includes the exercise.

This fact makes these words incredibly hollow:


Let us rejoice for the blessing of freedom both to believe and to live our beliefs, and for the many other freedoms and opportunities that bring us together as one Nation.

Yes, the blessing of freedom to live our beliefs. That implies that no government official ever tells you what you should be doing in your personal, private, spiritual life. EVER. Well, Mr. President, by issuing your Proclaimation “calling the citizens… to pray”, you are doing just that.

This paper will be a copied version of my exam which deals with Hare Krishna. It should be noted it is lengthy, and can be considered an extension of my previous study visit about Hare Krishna.

Historical and ideological background
Hare Krishna, or also formerly known as ISKCON – International Society for Krishna Consciousness, was formed by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in New York, USA 1966. (Frisk, 2007) The religion’s focal point is the worship of Krishna, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. A follower of Hare Krishna is an adherent of the Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas discipline; and it has its roots in Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Vaishnavism refers to the worship of Vishnu, and the most important scripture is to be the Bhagavad Gita. (Frisk, 2007, Studiehäfte 2) What differentiates a member of Hare Krishna to other branches of Hinduism is that a member of Hare Krishna considers Krishna to be the supreme god, not Vishnu, and that it is Krishna who is the source of all the other avatars and incarnations, the creation of the world etc. (Study visit 1) Hare Krishna thus seems far more monotheistic its approach than the other polytheistic variants of Hinduism.
Although Hare Krishna appears in a new modern iteration in the West, Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas is far from a new discipline and has its roots all the way back to the 15th century with the Hindu saint Sri Krishna Chaitanya, who was considered a reincarnation of Krishna. (Frisk, 2007) What was new and modern with Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas was that it had been heavily influenced by Islam, and proposed the idea that anyone could become spiritually exalted regardless of caste and emphasized an individual relationship with god rather than the holistic view found in other branches of Hinduism. (Frisk, 2007) Such ideas were quite revolutionary for their time, as Chaitanya considered that the essence of Krishna was reached when singing and repeating the Hare Krishna mantra, not depending on which caste your parents belonged to. (Frisk 2007) The interest in this branch of Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas faded however, until it was born again in the 19th century thanks to Bhaktivinoda Thakur. Bhaktivinoda Thakur thought that spiritual leadership did not have to be passed onto the next generation within one’s own family, but anyone could become a spiritual leader since spiritual quality was not directly linked to physical body. (Frisk, 2007) This idea would become persistent throughout Hare Krishna philosophy, where the thought that we are spiritually equal would later be strongly emphasized. (Frisk, 2007)
Bhaktivinoda Thakur’s son, Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur, would take over his father’s work and create Gaudiya Math, a form of temple that quickly spread over India. Gaudiya Math accepted all kind of peoples who lived as monks and nuns, and some were initiated as Brahmin, the highest social class in India that mostly consists of priests, doctors, teachers, preachers and law makers. (Frisk, 2007) Since the idea that anyone could become a Brahmin, would one possess the proper spiritual abilities, was prevalent in the Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas philosophy, it instantly created a lot of controversy. Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur started to initiate people as Brahmins, among those by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, whom Bhaktisiddhanta Thakur also taught as a guru. (Frisk, 2007)
To spread the religion further, by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada travelled to USA. This was also controversial as it is believed that casteless peoples, such as Americans and Europeans, cannot be taught about Krishna. They are, according to social standards, tainted since they are casteless, and do not thus possess a soul or a spiritual entity. (Frisk, 2007) However, since the primary philosophical idea in this variant of Gaudiya Bhagavata Vaishnavas is that the physical body is merely a shell and that we are all spiritually equal, this posed not to be a problem to spread the words of Krishna to the Americans. Well in America, by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada encountered the back then, prevalent hippie culture, and eventually created International Society for Krishna Consciousness. It became highly popular and spread quickly. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada made sure to spread it to other parts of the world as well, and initiated what would be formerly called CGC – Governing Body Comission – which would function as the primary decision-making organ. (Frisk, 2007) Before his death, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada also initiated eleven different gurus that would control one part of the world each and aggressively recruit more members. This would turn out to be a fatal mistake as many of the members of ISKCON were all young and naïve, and instead of cooperating with each other, they fought over the leadership position. Eventually GBC had to ban many of the gurus whom would succeed A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and the movement shifted from being very controlled and conservative, to secularized and democratic. (Frisk, 2007)
During the most recent years, the tension between ISKCON and the rest of the society has more or less completely disappeared, and ideas stemming from India and Hinduism are now often daily practiced and/or accepted, such as the use of yoga and meditation.

The study of ISKCON from an anthropological gender-perspective
While ISKCON’s ideas may have appeared as very controversial and liberal in India, it does not mean all of its ideas were. In fact, a closer look at the religious group seems to tell the complete opposite. It is important to understand that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada came from a very conservative time, were the values and the view of women was different than today or even sixty years ago, and there’s no doubt that he carried these ideas with him when he would later form ISCKON. (Frisk, 2007) The early years of ISCKON consisted of a lot of dos and don’ts, such as the four principles:

• No eating of meat, fish, onion, garlic and eggs
• No illicit sex
• No gambling
• No intoxication (including alcohol, caffeine, tobacco and drugs) (Frisk, 2007, Studiehäfte 2)

The people who lived at the temples as monks and nuns had to follow other strict rules such as getting up early in the morning to chant the Hare Krishna mantra, and whom to socially interact with. (Studiehäfte 2) This is especially important when looking at the women’s situation in Hare Krishna. An important note is that India has been and still is a patriarchal society where men had and still have a greater social status than women. Women and men were for example supposed to perform different roles in society, where men typically were workers while the women took care of the family. While this idea is not particularly new in any way, it became controversial because women had fought against exactly those ideas not too long before A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada arrived in America. There was thus a stark difference between the liberal ideas found in the hippie culture to the more conservative ones found in Hare Krishna; and it’s speculated that it is exactly this difference that made it so popular during its time. Not only was it exotic because it represented a different culture, but it also gave a sense of worldly order because of the plenty dos and don’ts. (Studiehäfte 2) Unfortunately, it wouldn’t take long until problems would arise. From free-spirited to strictly controlled, many of the young people who became initiated into ISKCON had their lives turned upside down. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada made clear that women and men should be separated, and while women and men are not difference in spirit, they are different in flesh and should thus perform different roles in the society. (Frisk, 2007) It was also made clear that women were inferior to men in such a sense that not only were women less spiritually pure because of their sexuality and ability to reproduce, they were also right-out dangerous to the spirituality of men. (Frisk, 2007) Lotta, a former follower of Hare Krishna, tells us that she wasn’t for example allowed to look a man into his eyes, and she was forced to cover her hair. (Studiehäfte 2) Frisk also mentions how one of her interviewees told her that she (the interviewee) felt verbally abused during her membership, where one of the men once said that the only thing she thought of was of the men’s genital organs. (Frisk, 2007) Other less apparent but social rules particularly pertaining women and women’s sexuality revolve around that they were not allowed to visit others while having their periods, or for the matter cook or be in the kitchen because of the risk of spiritual contamination. At the same time, there is also the idea that women are physically and mentally fragile and must be protected by the men from other men who may potentially harm them. (Studiehäfte 2) A woman cannot for example make decisions of her own, only a man, preferably her husband, can do that for her. This is because a woman is also considered more emotionally driven than men, and she cannot be considered to make rational decisions. The view of women is thus highly paradoxical in that women are considered weak but dangerous at the same time. (Frisk, 2007)
These ideas are far from unique and are commonly found in other patriarchal societies. In Veiled Sentiments, Lila Abu-Lughod argues that female fertility is often considered dangerous and tainted because it poses a threat to men. (Abu-Lughod, 1999) Women are considered to be more sexually driven than men, and their presence among men may thus entice men to engage in sexual activity against their wills. Therefore the only way to prevent women from creating harm is to control them through various means, even if it just means superficially. (Abu-Lughod, 1999) This means that men must control the actions of women, including their emotional and rational decisions. Since it is believed that women are so sexually aggressive to the point where they cannot control it themselves, this explains why women are considered to be less rational than men. (Frisk, 2007) All a woman can and will think about is how to entice a man to engage in sexual activity with her. This also explains why Frisk’s interviewee reported the incident of what she experienced as a form of verbal abuse and why this man said this to her at all to begin with. (Frisk, 2007) Furthermore, since a woman cannot think in terms of rationality and all her actions stem out of her sexual needs and desires, this means she must also be protected from herself, so she will not rush into a sexual relationship with a man who may potentially physically and/or verbally hurt her, against her better knowing. (Frisk, 2007) It is to be understood that the complexity of this idea lies in that it is still the woman at fault for enticing a man, not the man being unable to control himself. This may appear as highly confusing to a Westerner, where the idea that it is the man who suffers the lack of sexual control, is deeply rooted in our minds. The female fertility is thus the exact opposite of the male spirituality, and it is considered a hindrance towards spiritual enlightenment. The female fertility bonds the woman and the man she is engaging in sexuality activity with to the physical realm, the very thing most religions work against. Since asceticism is the only real way to reach spiritual enlightenment and meet Vishnu in the afterlife in the Hare Krishna philosophy, it is also natural that the woman is dangerous and considered more of an obstacle than of a help towards that goal.(Frisk, 2007)
It thus becomes clear that the view of women generally found within the Hare Krishna movement is highly negative, conservative and with patriarchal roots that bear no relevance in a post-modern society that has been striving for equality between men and women for centuries. Not only is it conservative, it is an extreme form of backwards-thinking which could potentially endanger a society that requires men and women to work in order for the society itself to function. It is also damaging to the women who are active within the movement, as the example Frisk brought up. In Studiehäfte 2, Lotta also tells us about an incident she had when one of her friends who also were a Hare Krishna member tells us that it was not allowed to talk about one’s own unhappiness or emotional distress. In a conversation between the two, Lotta’s friend suddenly bursts out in anger when Lotta tries to comfort her by touching her hair, because she finds herself and her own body so disgusting. Because of the idea that women are more strongly connected to their physical bodies than men, it is also not unlikely that women like Lotta’s friend might have suffered more because of this.
With that said, it should be noted that Hare Krishna is also a movement that has spread very quickly throughout the Western world, and it is unavoidable it too will become affected by the locality in which it is to be founded in. The Swedish movement has for example been noted for the lack of child abuse found within the gurukulas, private schools made for the children of Hare Krishna members, as well as sexual and/or verbal harassment towards the women. An example is how the view of women within ISKCON seems to correlate with the family organizing and marriage. Frisk notes that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada seemed to encourage women to hold ceremonies, kirtan (the gathering of people who chant the Hare Krishna mantra at least 1728 times in a row) and a community for women living in celibate. It was also common of the young people who were members at the time to marry each other, and A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada also encouraged it to an extent. However, the situation became too uncontrolled and hard to manage, as the couples who married started to have children which cost the movement a lot of money, as well as ending in divorces. (Frisk, 2007) Here the problem, which I previously analyzed in how the women were considered more earthly, becomes apparent, as the dichotomy of the women as family supporters and the virtuous monks will separate the movement in two. The women became an obstacle for the movement once they were divorced from their husbands as they not only cost money since a woman who must support a child cannot work, but they had to demand additional money to feed their children as well. Furthermore, many of the male apprentices were very young, and understandably driven by their sexual desires. Since only men could become a sannyasa, a renouncer, they started to complain about the women enticing them sexually (a sannyasa must live a celibate life).
However, as the movement shifted from being very centralized to decentralized and the focus with a focus on part-time membership rather than full-time, the view of women also changed towards a more positive light. It was no longer possible for married couples with children to participate in ISKCON’s full-time activities, and the economical crisis ISKCON went through also forced many women and men to look for secular jobs outside the movement. This also put a focus on the importance of part-time membership, and the acceptance of having a secular life outside the religious practices. This in turn most likely improved the women’s status within the group as the group needed these part-time members in order to survive. (Frisk, 2007) Since the part-time members don’t live as virtuous lives as the monks and nuns, a greater acceptance thus developed towards women and women’s sexuality since sexual activity for pleasure rather than child-making is something that is kept private between wife and husband and is nothing the religious group should become involved with. Even though an ascetic lifestyle is to be preferred in order to meet Vishna in the afterlife, it is no longer as important as long you adhere to the basics such as repeating the Hare Krishna mantra and not breaking the four principles.

Swedish political right extremist party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) have managed to give rise to more controversy more than gaining power among the voters. Their leader, Jimmie Åkesson, published a very controversial debate article yesterday in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (The Evening Paper) where he makes various claims about Muslims being the new threat to the Swedish welfare system.

You can read the article on this site both as a Swedish extract and with a Google translation.

It is clear that Åkesson use sweeping statements and hyperboles, such as claiming that Europe will have the highest rape statistics in the world, and that Muslim men will be overrepresented. This is nothing new and basically just fear-mongering, the truth remains that most rapes today are done by white middle-class men no one would expect to be rapists, and neither do they, hence the as usual complete denial. A lot of men who are white and belong to the middle-class are never convicted simply because the judges believed them more, only for the pure reasons that they were white middle-class men. We do not perceive them of being capable of raping, even when there is overwhelming evidence presented. The reason why is simply of what Åkesson just expressed; we rather believe in the dark ambusher coming from an Arab country, spying on lone women at night hiding in a bush near a parkway, just ready to attack.

I live in a pretty Muslim-dense part of my town, and there is a local store that sell Halal meat. I can’t really say it bothered me more than I think it is unethical to drain an animal of blood while it is still alive, as I consider it a form of animal cruelty. Neither have I never felt unsafe when walking alone at night in my area. A lot of children’s families live here, the worst thing I usually experience are teenagers who drive around with their vespas in the middle of the night. I have also yet to meet a person who was clearly mean to me. All of the people I’ve spoken to are nice, such as the guy who sits at the counter in the previously mentioned store that sell Halal meat.

Instead of actually explaining how he would like to proceed to solve the issues with identitiy crisis among second- and third generation immigrants, Åkesson retorts to fear-mongering tactics. What’s worse is the huge support SD have started to gain among the general population, so obviously it is working. I wish people were less blind and could actually see that Åkesson offers NOTHING to solve the problem, he just makes statement after statement of what is wrong. That is not a solution, just empty promises. So what is Åkesson going to do once he get to power? Kick out all immigrants from Sweden? That is obviously not going to work, no matter how you look at it. One reason is that the Swedish birthrate is too low.

I should add that sually any identity to the grandparents’ country is lost at the third generation as they become completely immersed within their “host” country, so I am not sure what kind of statistics Åkesson took part of, but it’s very contradictory to what I’ve learnt as an anthropology student. So I don’t see why Åkesson is quite worried. Yes, angsty teenagers in the surburbs are a problem, but they aren’t angsty because they are Muslims, they are angsty because the politicians do nothing to improve their situation and ultimately the become marginalized from society! One would expect our politicians to learn that it doesn’t work to dump immigrants on one dense place. Philipe Burgois’ book In Search of Respect is a perfect example of what will happen in Sweden in the future if we don’t try to spend money to improve the situation.

Lastly, there are a lot of claims made about what is Swedish, but Åkesson nor anyone from SD never offer any form of explanation of what they mean what being Swedish is. Am I Swedish for having a Swedish name and a Swedish personal number and for considering myself part Swedish? Or am I too, an evil immigrant here to poison the country and the so called Swedish culture because of my Korean heritage? I do not deny my Korean heritage and I consider myself just as much Korean as I consider myself Swedish. I just so happened to have a Swedish name that people mention me as and to speak Swedish fluently. It should be said that my Korean name is actually a part of my whole name, only the surname is left out for reasons I don’t know, but I think it was inconvenient for my parents to name me Fridh Kim or any variant of it, since they were married and it would be troublesome legally I suppose.

If there is anything that worries me right now when it comes to Swedish politics it’s if SD would get into the parliament. I am very worried over what will happen with the current Swedish democracy and freedom of speech. I do not deny Åkesson’s right to voice his opinions, but I do deny him the right to get into the Swedish parliament and I will actively do so by refusing to vote for him and his party. Any person who only argues for the right for his own freedom of speech and his own social rights only fool himself if he claims to support a democratic society where everybody is equal.

I do agree with Åkesson that our current immigration is a huge issue and that we have yet to learn how to manage to deal with all the angsty teenagers living in the suburbs. Clearly what our politicans are currently doing isn’t working, but this also includes Åkesson and his SD! I admit that one of the reasons why I want to become a scientist within the anthropological field is so I can go out in the field and actually gather FACTS so maybe they’ll start doing something USEFUL and TANGIBLE. I do want to be able to influence our politicians on a greater scale than what I am currently able of just being a normal citizen with an opinion.

It should also be noted that SD got strong Christian roots (hahahahahahaha!), as if I’d ever cast my vote for such a retarded party that make claims of how dangerous Islam is and that the Koran is so dogmatic and then come running making such weak claims that “but at least we got the NT who make claims about turning the other cheek!”. Yeah, right, like that’s exactly what you are doing Åkesson? Like referring to the NT ever stopped Christianity from still oppressing our society and still does here in the West. Cherrypicking, cherrypicking. Of course, Åkesson wouldn’t define his homophobia as much as oppressing, just that the Bible says so and therefore it is right. Now, maybe Åkesson should start looking at himself first and the claims he and his party make regarding domatism, then maybe they got the right to critize Islam properly.

Such fucking idiocy. I wish people could actually see that Åkesson is just a big fucking hypocrite and if I could, I would smother him where he stands with my soceress’ fire ball. In fact, I wish we could tear down our whole current political system and abdicate all our active politicians. They are very good at talking and avoiding questions, very bad at actually making the changes they always claim they are aiming for.

An acquaintance of mine showed me this site, which I initially thought would be atheist propaganda, and I had no idea it was launched by the Humanist movement. When you enter the site, you are prompted to do a test to see how religious you are, so I did. Unfortunately the whole site is in Swedish, for those non-Swedes, but anyway. The test didn’t take long, somewhere between 5-10 minutes, depending on the effort and thinking you put into each answer. I suppose the test itself wasn’t all that bad, although some questions were extreme polarized, where even I, who don’t believe in god at all, found it hard to sometimes answer. For example, one question was formulated such as it asked whether you believed that free will exists, or whether your actions are controlled by something else, god or otherwise. While I do believe in free will as I believe that absolute determinism is flawed, what if you believe free will is an illusion but don’t believe in god? At the start of the test, you also get to fill out what rituals, holidays and other religious celebrations you celebrate with religious origin. Of course, I filled out that I celebrate Easter and Christmas, just like many other people do. But I don’t celebrate out of my belief in Jesus Christ, I celebrate it so I can gather with my family and have some good time together.

Anyway, at the end of the test I received the answer that I was not religious at all, and that religion did not control any part of my everyday life. How the test turned out if you say, believed in god and believed that homosexuals are not allowed to marry I don’t know, but the answer was obvious: either you were religious or you weren’t. And this is where I reacted as well. How can the humanists attack the religious people, and stereotype them to such a degree that they all sound like they were extreme fundamentalists? This was my very first contact with the humanist movement, and it certainly wasn’t all that pleasant, and I got sorely disappointed with their approach.

So, what about the humanist movement? The humanist movement is pro secularism, that is, seperation of church and state, and aggressively work for it to remain so. So far so good, I don’t really see this a bad thing in itself. Humanists also believe in the empowerment of the human being, and that is one of the reasons why I disagree with humanism. It focuses too much on human life, and it puts the human into the center of the universe. While I agree that human empowerment is much better than believing in a skydaddy to rely onto, I can’t quite agree with something that almost sounds derivated from Nietzsche’s idea of the übermensch either, I care too much about the other lifeforms we must co-exist with to say that my human life is more important any other lifeform. Being a humanist implies you believe in the strength of a human being, and while I am sure many people would hate me for using the word faith here, it is irrational faith that make people believe humans are more important than what they are. Nihilistic as I am, I cannot understand how a group of people can forget how little their lives matter to the vast universe, or the earth itself. Another problem I got with the humanist movement is that it’s an organizaton, it’s a group. And it’s becoming almost as bad as the religions they seem to love attacking. Why?

First of all, I will outline the basic definitions of what religion is in an anthropological definition, and even more so fundamentalism, which does not necessarily encompass the belief in a supreme being at all:

- Shared belief system (the belief that the human being is stronger without the belief in god)
- Strict rules or values/dogma (Seperation of church and state, adopted liberalistic ethics. Anyone deviating from these ideas would most likely become ostracized from the group)
- It is an organization with a leader to unite the group members

In addition, to officially be counted as a humanist, you need to pay a fee, just like Christians here in Sweden pay a fee to the Church of Sweden if they are members. Of course, one can be a member without paying a fee, but not officially. Thus far, including propaganda sites like the one I provided at the start of this post and very aggressive methods where they rather seem to be attacking the religious than the religious organizations, it’s as if the humanist movement is becoming a religion itself, and a fundamental one to add. I completely respect their wishes to seperate the church and state in countries where they are not, or to let the church and state remain seperated in countries where they already have been, but when they attack the religious people instead of the religious movements? That’s like shooting themselves in the foot and furthermore, they give atheists bad names! They reinforce the idea that atheists hate religion, and that’s the least rational atheists want.

No, there are many ways you can criticize religion and seperate it from church and state without attacking its believers. Such as stop addressing people personally and address the name of the religious organizations, like the Church of Sweden, or the Pentacostals. It’s really sad, all in all, that they are becoming the thing they so strongly oppose.

But mostly a fun critique against the militant activist.

[youtube]A3joOubvzzY[/youtube]

I did enjoy the debate, and just shows how insecure many Christians are in their beliefs when someone challenges them.

My anthropology teacher gave me a very interesting angle to look at Christianity today. First of all, let me outline what my new course is about, and I will roughly translate the title of the course into English: “Worldviews, power and support”. From the title alone, I think it is pretty evident what this course is about, it will mostly deal with political and economical anthropology and how one can study these two things in a society as an anthropologist.

Then, let me outline a quote from Max Weber, a famous German who formed one of the first and well-known definitions of power:

“[P]ower is the possibility for one or for many to realize their own will in communial action, even against the resistance of others.”

Christianity then, is a huge institution both politically, economically and socially, so it is very much possible to look into the system of Christianity and come up with a conclusion about what is power, how it is used and who is using it. My teacher further eplains that the use of power is often internalized by those who who do not actually benefit from the actual practices of the one in power and he gave an example when he was doing field research in an African country whose name is probably not Zimbabwe but very close to it. His field was mostly compromized by studying an African tribe called Alyamba, but for some reason he also visited other parts of the country and thus also a school where he witnessed quite a cruel treatment of the children, not too different to how we treated our own children in school just fifty or so years ago (and in Sweden the corporal punishment of children was not banned from the Swedish national law book until as late as the 1970s, where it says that corporal punishment was allowed during certain circumstances).

He went on to explain that upon his arrival, he saw all the children of that school kneeing with bare knees (in this country all children were wearing typical uniforms, so skirs for girls and shorts for boys) on the rough pebble that constituted a majority of the campus (I understood it as some sort of pebble, I may be wrong, but it doesn’t matter much here in the terms of serving as an analogy). He was lucky being able to ask one boy what was going on and the boy replied with something such as: “We are being punished for our own sake.”  This rings a bell in me, and I think many of you understand why. It sounded an awful lot like Christianity, being punished for your own sake.  This boy further explained that this punishment happened every day so all the students would shape up and not behave as badly as they would without it, and in a very twisted way, he somehow had managed to see it as positive thing, hence it has become internalized.

My teacher then went on explaining that this is common when power is used or abused; internalizing the structure helps to maintain the current system and is often justified in this sort of manner, it is actually for our own sake we are being punished, even though from the outsider’s point of view, it is quite rediculous. A poor boy being forced to knee on sharp pebbles for gods know how long under the steaking African sun is not a very nice treatment of kids no matter how you see it and certainly does not serve any actual meaning to the boy in question. We can factually prove that this sort of treatment will not improve this boy’s or any other boys’ or girls’ behavior, and there is most likely nothing wrong with it in the first place.

It is further explained that a truly good leader will be able to mask these sort of things justifying it with reasons given above; no matter how rediculous it may seem (the Genocide, the Dark Ages anyone?). Now, what really made me start to think is to whom and why are Christians maintaining this sort of power system? Why do Christians keep insisting that they are sinners and therefore must pray or do whatever pointless ritual to cleanse themselves when God obviously is not nearby and can keep an eye on them, enforcing their behavior is so need be?

I don’t quite feel expressing that Christianity is a meme, a scheme (not to be confused with meme) or even an expression of a bunch of symbols can properly explain this. This is obviously overcourse to me right now, I simply lack the current knowledge of this sort of field to properly even theorize of what could be a cause or a reason.

Max Weber also outlines a few defintions of different types of authority, I am sure they can be meaningful in this sort of discourse but my teacher has yet to explain to us what they all mean so I will leave it for now. Maybe someone else has any ideas?

Yes, I do understand that Christians may be considered disillusional and therefore no more explanation is needed, hence, their leader (God, any priest or other religious leader?) exists but only in their minds, their punishment is primarily delivered all by themselves, but this doesn’t hold up as an explanation from an anthropological point of view. So while I definitely consider it an unserious option as an answer it’s not really what I am looking for here.

It’s interesting and I wish I could dig in it further. Maybe I can do a more proper analysis after the end of this course.