Hitchens On The Intellectual Cowardice Of The Yale U. Press

Hitchens on "The Cartoon That Shook The University In Its Pants." On the caving of institutions to possible outrage:

"It was bad enough during the original controversy, when most of the news media—and in the age of "the image" at that—refused to show the cartoons out of simple fear. But now the rot has gone a serious degree further into the fabric. Now we have to say that the mayhem we fear is also our fault, if not indeed our direct responsibility. This is the worst sort of masochism, and it involves inverting the honest meaning of our language as well as what might hitherto have been thought of as our concept of moral responsibility."

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On The Eighth Day He Said “Let There Be Co-Pays And Forms but No Contraception”

In all the talk of health care reform many of the other concerns regarding health plans seem to get pushed to the back burner. Should religious employers be allowed to disallow specific health procedures and products from being purchased under the insurance plans they provide to their employees? I see the merits of the arguments of religious entities that do not want their plans to cross their boundaries of morality. Although I do understand the arguments it does not make their claim correct.

Patrick Reilly of the Cardinal Newman Society argued in the Wall Street Journal on Friday that federal authorities are encroaching on the “religious liberty of Catholic’s” by not allowing religious employers to remove access to contraception in employee health care compensation. Reilly writes:

“In 2007, eight faculty members filed a complaint against Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C., claiming that the school's decision to exclude prescription contraceptives from its health-care plan was discriminatory against women. ‘As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,’ said the college's president, William Thierfelder, at the time.”

I will not take issue with the idea that the college is unable to provide certain medical procedures. Except to say they can but refuse. The real issue is the idea that Abbey College is subsidizing medical services at all. The benefit of health insurance provided by an employer to an employee is characterized as non-wage compensation. It is well accepted theory in labor economics that without a health insurance benefit, direct pecuniary wages would rise an amount relative to the value of the health insurance benefit. For the college’s and Reilly’s argument to hold up against the least bit of scrutiny it would need to be acceptable that a religious employer can have the right to dictate to an employee what can be purchased with compensation, either direct wage or benefit compensation.

Much of the rhetoric in the health care reform debate includes images of government or insurance company bureaucrats looking over the shoulders of doctors and patients. Both sides argue that no one should get between you and your doctor and by extension the treatment that you both feel is necessary. Reilly’s argument puts religious authority in the exam room as well. It seems awfully unfair that Catholic morality would try to influence a patient’s access health care. Do employees need to discard their own conception of morals to work at religious institutions? That exam room is getting awfully crowded. Sphere: Related Content

The Cartoons That Shook The University In Its Pants

Yale University Press is publishing a book titled "The Cartoons That Shook the World." The book is about the reaction and international relations nightmare that twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005. The university press has decided not to reprint the cartoons in the book. From a story in the NY Times:

"John Donatich, the director of Yale University Press, said by telephone that the decision was difficult, but the recommendation to withdraw the images, including the historical ones of Muhammad, was “overwhelming and unanimous.” The cartoons are freely available on the Internet and can be accurately described in words, Mr. Donatich said, so reprinting them could be interpreted easily as gratuitous."

Mr. Donatich reasoning makes no sense. A discussion of the cartoon requires the context inherent in viewing the images. Will future art history books not feature pictures of the Mona Lisa simply because images of the painting are on the internet. I understand the fear of the potential reaction from reprinting the cartoons after the reaction in 2005, but if the university is to promote a search for meaning through research, how can you ignore the catalysts of this controversy. It is thought to be forbidden in Islam to depict the prophet Mohammed.


Reza Alsan, a religious scholar and writer, wrote about the cartoons in 2006 in an essay titled, "Why I'm offended by the Mohammed cartoons":

"The fact is that Muslim anger over the caricatures derives not merely from their depiction of Mohammed. That may have upset more conservative Muslims, but it alone would not have engendered such a violent and widespread response. Rather, most Muslims have objected so strongly because these cartoons promote stereotypes of Muslims that are prevalent throughout Europe: Mohammed dressed as a terrorist, his turban a bomb with a lit fuse; Mohammed standing menacingly in front of two cowering, veiled women, unsheathing a long, curved sword; Mohammed on a cloud in heaven complaining that Paradise has run out of virgins. It is difficult to see how these drawings could have any purpose other than to offend. One cartoon goes so far as to brazenly call the prophet 'daft and dumb.'

So, while in Europe and the United States the row over the cartoons has been painted as a conflict between secular democratic freedoms and arcane religious dogma, the controversy is really about neither. Instead, it's another manifestation of the ongoing ethnic and religious tensions that have been simmering beneath the surface of European society for decades, like last year's Paris riots and the murder two years ago of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Aslan Continues:

"No one doubts that the press should be free to satirize. But freedom of the press cannot excuse the promotion of noxious stereotypes. Jewish groups were furious when the Chicago Tribune published a cartoon in 2003 that portrayed a hunched and hooknosed Ariel Sharon salivating before a pile of money doled out to him by George W. Bush, ostensibly as an incentive to maintain the peace process. ('On second thought,' the avaricious Sharon is depicted as saying, 'the path to peace is looking brighter.') And rightly so."

The perceived offensiveness of the cartoons is not a reason for the academy to shirk the responsibility they has taken upon itself to build the marketplace of ideas, where all points of view are welcome. Even ideas known to be offensive need to looked at, analyzed and understood in order to educate.

I do not imagine that including the images would have hurt sales. This is a university press; sales are not an issue. But it does not help when one of America's most known religious scholar and particularly an Islamic Scholar calls your plan stupid. Aslan has pulled his cover blurb from the book saying:

"The book is a definitive account of the entire controversy, but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic.”

I think he is right. What do you think? Sphere: Related Content

You're A Bad Person And Cal Thomas Likes Jim Carrey Movies About God

I love when commentators try to use movies, mediocre movies even better, to prove a point. The wonderful Cal Thomas in his syndicated column today writes:

"In an age when we think we should be free of burdens -- a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse -- getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible. But by doing so, we assume an even greater burden: the role of God in deciding who gets to live and who must die. Anyone who has seen the film "Bruce Almighty" senses how difficult it is to play God."

The work of Jim Carrey can teach so much. For those who have not had the "pleasure" of Bruce Almighty here is the synopsis from IMBD:

"Bruce Nolan, a television reporter in Buffalo, N.Y., is discontented with almost everything in life despite his popularity and the love of his girlfriend Grace. At the end of the worst day of his life, Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against God and God responds. God appears in human form and, endowing Bruce with divine powers, challenges Bruce to take on the big job to see if he can do it any better."

Cal's point is that being god is tough. So don't try. I think that is good advice.

Enough of the jokes. Cal Thomas believes that people who don't believe in god want to kill people. Thomas writes:

"Few from the 'endowed rights' side are saying that a 100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor should be given extraordinary and expensive care to keep the heart pumping, even after brain waves have gone flat. But there is a big difference between 'letting go' and 'snuffing out.' The unnatural progression for many on the secular left is to see such a person as a 'burden.' In an age when we think we should be free of burdens -- a notion that contributes to our superficiality and makes us morally obtuse -- getting rid of granny might seem perfectly rational, even defensible."

Secularists, as Thomas calls them, would rather "snuff out" older sick people just to be rid of a burden while the "endowed rights" people value life let go of old people. I don’t understand his distinction between letting go and snuffing out. The result is the same only the demonization is different.

Earlier in his essay Thomas asks, “Are we now assigning worth to human life?” I think that is an interesting question. Don’t tell Cal that we have been doing that for years. Stanford economists say it is about $129,000. An interesting conversation of philosophy could be had if you were not talking to someone who believes in god. Thomas says that life has “its own predetermined value, irrespective of race, class, IQ or disability?” That is non-starter in the conversation but also not the point when it comes to health care, the issue that Thomas is trying to address.

The question that needs to be asked is not what is life worth instead what is the priority for scarce health resources worth? Should we distribute the resources to people with dim prognosis such as the “100-year-old with an inoperable brain tumor” or Terry Schiavo at the expense of a sick person with a positive prognosis? That is the question we need to answer. To confuse this important question with ideas about god and the false profundity of “god made us and also makes the rules about our existence” only delays the answers to these questions.

This is an economics issue not a god issue. Even though “it's on the money…In God We Trust” does not mean that god creates the money.

P.S. Cal, please reconcile the contradiction between all life is valuable and the death penalty.

P.S.S. Cal you still ignore suffering of ill people. Why do you do that you big pious lug?

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Are Gays Into God More Than Straights?

David Gibson writes about the level and reasons of gay participation in the church. Gibson writes:

"Moreover, the process of coming out as a homosexual is often seen as analogous to the Christian pilgrimage of self-discovery and acceptance. "I have a theory that once you discern one call -- that God has created you to be gay -- that you are more adept at understanding God's call in other ways, as into ministry," said Kansfield."

How will this idea be received by the church? Sphere: Related Content

If religion allows you to ignore suffering, thank god I don't have it

Cal Thomas writes in the Washington Times today, " there are always euphemisms to help us through the troubling practices we might not, under other circumstances, wish to pursue." He is not referring to the trite little things people say when someone dies. "It was his time." "She's in a better place." "Their with god now." My favorite, "at least they're not suffering." What bullshit. Of course, dead people don't suffer. The living can suffer and most don't want to. No, Thomas is not referring to these arrogant mostly religious niceties; he is referring to the phrases "right to die" and "compassionate assisted suicide." He does not believe that individuals have a choice in how they die.

If people could choose to alleviate their own suffering there would be "a significant loss for the human race." Thomas does not explain what the human race would lose. I imagine the loss that Thomas thinks will be significant to the human race is purely sacramental. The bible is the ultimate argument for Thomas' position. As he writes, "in a sense, we all have a 'right,' or more precisely, an obligation, to die." Presumably because we are owned by god. As the Catechism says, "we are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of." Bullshit. Even Thomas does not believe this entirely as he writes, is death even "ultimately our decision? We did not create life... The state is supposed to protect life, not take it except in cases of capital murder." Hypocrite.

As I expect of any religious hypocrite the right to life only extends to the point of when you begin to choose how you want to live. At that point Thomas wants to impose his religious will on your life choices. Thomas wrote during the end of Terri Schiavo's suffering, "there is little legal or (shudder) theological precedent for any such 'right.'" I am not a theologian nor do I care for Jesus but in John 10:18 of the bible it says, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord." Did Jesus choose?

Of course Thomas connects this argument to abortion. But he also decided to perpetuate the myth that President Obama want to euthanize senior citizens. He writes:

"The One who gave us life has, or ought to have, sole discretion as to when it ends. However, if increasing numbers of us think 'the One' refers to a character in 'The Matrix' and that we are just evolutionary accidents, the conclusion of it all is euthanasia for the elderly, the 'defective,' the inconvenient and the unwanted. It's coming sooner than you think to a senior center near you, especially if Obamacare becomes law."

I can't imagine how someone as self-righteous as Cal Thomas can continue to live with lies he tells everyday. Oh wait, he goes to confession and a man in a wood box tells him it OK, say a Hail Mary or two and all is forgiven. While the people not burdened with religion have to think about the actions they take, the words they use and the suffering people feel. If religion allows you to ignore the suffering of people I am glad I don't have it.

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