SLANDER AND DEFAMATION: AMERICA'S ANSWER TO SALVATION

Conformism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformism

Conformism is a term used to describe the suspension of an
individual's self-determined actions or opinions in favor of
obedience to the mandates or conventions of one's peer-group, or
deference to the imposed norms of a supervening authority.

One manifestation of conformism emerges in the practice of "going
along and getting along" with people who appear to be more powerful.
Conformism holds that individuals and small groups do best by
blending in with their surroundings and by doing nothing eccentric
or out-of-the-ordinary in any way.

By definition, conformism presents the antithesis both of creativity
and of innovative leadership, and hence opposes change and/or
progress itself. Authoritarian institutions (such as military
organizations and organized religions) tend to glorify and reinforce
conformism within their ranks, as do many large corporations.

One view of innovation stresses the importance of outward or grand-
scale conformism. Since open and extreme rebels get incarcerated or
killed, according to this theory, effective change may require
minor, incremental acts of a non-conforming nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformism
---------------

Self-deception
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help
improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (January 2007)

Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the
relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and
logical argument.

Contents [hide]
1 Theorization
2 See also
3 Notes
4 External links
5 Books
6 Journals



[edit] Theorization
It has been theorized that humans are susceptible to self-deception
because most people have emotional attachments to beliefs, which in
some cases may be irrational. Some evolutionary biologists, such as
Robert Trivers, have suggested[1] that deception plays a significant
part in human behaviour, and in animal behavior, more generally
speaking. It has been theorized that an instinct for self-deception
can give a person a selective advantage, based on the rationale that
if a person can believe their own "lie" (i.e., their presentation
that is biased toward their own self-interest), the theory goes,
they will consequently be better able to persuade others of
its "truth."

This notion is based on the following logic. In humans, awareness of
the fact that one is acting deceptively often leads to tell-tale
signs of deception. Therefore, if self-deception enables someone to
believe their distortions, they will not present such signs of
deception and will therefore appear to be telling the truth.

It may also be argued that the ability to deceive, or self-deceive,
is not the selected trait but a by-product of a more primary trait
that is selected. Abstract thinking allows many evolutionary
advantages such as more flexible, adaptive behaviors and innovation.
Since a lie is an abstraction, the mental process of creating a lie
can only occur in animals with enough brain complexity to permit
abstract thinking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception
-------------------

Cognitive dissonance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding
two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions"
in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the
awareness of one's behavior. The theory of cognitive dissonance
proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance
by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by
justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and
extensively studied theories in social psychology.

Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical
inconsistency among his or her cognitions. This happens when one
idea implies the opposite of another. For example, a belief in
animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat
or wearing fur. Noticing the contradiction would lead to dissonance,
which could be experienced as anxiety, guilt, shame, anger,
embarrassment, stress, and other negative emotional states. When
people's ideas are consistent with each other, they are in a state
of harmony or consonance. If cognitions are unrelated, they are
categorized as irrelevant to each other and do not lead to
dissonance.

A powerful cause of dissonance is when an idea conflicts with a
fundamental element of the self-concept, such as "I am a good
person" or "I made the right decision." The anxiety that comes with
the possibility of having made a bad decision can lead to
rationalization, the tendency to create additional reasons or
justifications to support one's choices. A person who just spent too
much money on a new car might decide that the new vehicle is much
less likely to break down than his or her old car. This belief may
or may not be true, but it would likely reduce dissonance and make
the person feel better. Dissonance can also lead to confirmation
bias, the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defense
mechanisms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
----------------

Fighting Cognitive Dissonance & The Lies We Tell Ourselves
By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
October 19, 2008
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/10/19/fighting-cognitive-
dissonance-the-lies-we-tell-ourselves

If you're interested in psychology and human behavior, you've
probably heard the phrase cognitive dissonance. It's the term coined
by psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954 to describe "the feeling of
psychological discomfort produced by the combined presence of two
thoughts that do not follow from one another. Festinger proposed
that the greater the discomfort, the greater the desire to reduce
the dissonance of the two cognitive elements" (Harmon-Jones & Mills,
1999). Dissonance theory suggests that if individuals act in ways
that contradict their beliefs, then they typically will change their
beliefs to align with their actions (or vice-a-versa).

The easiest way to describe the concept is by a quick example. Say
you're a student looking to choose between two different
universities you'd like to attend. After being accepted to each,
you're asked to freely rate the universities after considering each
college's pros and cons. You make your decision and are asked to
rate the two universities once again. People will usually rate the
chosen university as better and the rejected option as worse after
having made their decision.

So even if the university we didn't choose was rated higher
initially, our choice dictates that more often than not, we'll rate
it higher. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense why we would choose the
lower-rated school. This is cognitive dissonance at work.

Another example can be seen in many people's continuing to smoke two
or three packs of cigarettes a day, even though research shows they
are shortening their own lives. They answer this cognitive
dissonance with thoughts like, "Well, I've tried to quit and it's
just too hard," or "It's not as bad as they say and besides, I
really enjoy smoking." Daily smokers justify their behaviors through
rationalizations or denial, just as most people do when faced with
cognitive dissonance.

Not everyone feels cognitive dissonance to the same degree. People
with a higher need for consistency and certainty in their lives
usually feel the effects of cognitive dissonance more than those who
have a lesser need for such consistency.

Cognitive-dissonance is just one of many biases that work in our
everyday lives. We don't like to believe that we may be wrong, so we
may limit our intake of new information or thinking about things in
ways that don't fit within our pre-existing beliefs. Psychologists
call this "confirmation bias."

We also don't like to second-guess our choices, even if later they
are proven wrong or unwise. By second-guessing ourselves, we suggest
we may not be as wise or as right as we've led ourselves to believe.
This may lead us to commit to a particular course of action and
become insensitive to and reject alternative, perhaps better,
courses that come to light. That's why many people seek to avoid or
minimize regret in their lives, and seek "closure" — imposing a
definitive end to an event or relationship. It reduces the
possibility of future cognitive dissonance.

So What Do I Do About Cognitive Dissonance?
But for all of the writing about cognitive dissonance, little has
been written about what to do about it (or whether you should even
care). If our brains were made to think this way to help protect our
own view of the world or sense of self or follow through on a
commitment, is this a bad thing that we should try and undo?

People may run into problems with cognitive dissonance because it
can be, in its most basic form, a sort of lie to oneself. As with
all lies, it depends on the size of the lie and whether it's more
likely to hurt you in some way in the long run. We tell "little
white lies" everyday in our social lives ("Oh yes, that's a great
color on you!") that bring little harm to either side and help
smooth over otherwise awkward situations. So while cognitive
dissonance resolves the internal anxiety we face over two opposing
beliefs or behaviors, it may also inadvertently reinforce future bad
decisions.

Matz and his colleagues (2008) showed that our personality can help
mediate the effects of cognitive dissonance. They found that people
who were extraverted were less likely to feel the negative impact of
cognitive dissonance and were also less likely to change their mind.
Introverts, on the other hand, experienced increased dissonance
discomfort and were more likely to change their attitude to match
the majority of others in the experiment.

What if you can't change your personality?

Self-awareness seems to be a key to understanding how and when
cognitive dissonance may play a role in your life. If you find
yourself justifying or rationalizing decisions or behaviors that
you're not quite clear you firmly believe in, that might be a sign
that cognitive dissonance is at work. If your explanation for
something is, "Well, that's the way I've always done it or thought
about it," that may also be a sign. Socrates extolled that "An
unexamined life is not worth living." In other words, challenge and
be skeptical of such answers if you find yourself falling back on
them.

A part of that self awareness that may help in dealing with
cognitive dissonance is to examine the commitments and decisions we
make in our lives. If the resolution of cognitive dissonance means
that we move forward with a commitment and spring into action,
making us feel better, maybe the dissonance was trying to tell us
something. Maybe the decision or commitment wasn't as right for us
as we initially thought, even if it means overcoming our "no second-
guessing" bias and making a different decision. Sometimes we're just
plain wrong. Admitting it, apologizing if need be, and moving
forward can save us a lot of time, mental energy and hurt feelings.

Cognitive Dissonance as Therapy Technique
Cognitive dissonance isn't always something bad — it has been
successfully used to help people change their unhealthy attitudes
and behaviors. For instance, if a woman holds the belief that women
should be super-thin and not eat in a healthy manner, cognitive
dissonance can be used to successfully change those kinds of beliefs
and the resulting eating-disordered behavior (Becker et al., 2008).
It's also been successfully employed to change an over reliance on
online gaming, road rage, and many other negative behaviors.

In these kinds of interventions, the model most often used is to try
and get people to understand their current attitudes and behaviors,
the costs involved in holding these particular attitudes or engaging
in the negative behaviors, role playing, exercises and homework
design to help a person to become more aware and constantly
challenge the attitudes and behaviors, and self-affirmation
exercises. Most of these techniques share a common grounding and
background in traditional cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy
techniques.

In better understanding cognitive dissonance and the role it plays
in most of our lives, we can be on the lookout for it and its
sometimes-negative effects.

References:

Becker, C.B, Bull, S., Schaumberg, K., Cauble, A., & Franco, A.
(2008). Effectiveness of peer-led eating disorders prevention: A
replication trial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76
(2), 347-354.

Harmon-Jones, E. & Mills, J. (Eds.)(1999). Cognitive Dissonance:
Progress on a Pivotal Theory in Social Psychology. American
Psychological Association: Washington, DC.

Matz, D.C. Hofstedt, P.M. & Wood, W. (2008). Extraversion as a
moderator of the cognitive dissonance associated with disagreement.
Personality and Individual Differences, 45(5), 401-405.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central and has been
writing about mental health and psychology issues online since 1992.

A READER RESPONSE

My father a scientist taught me very young some basic rules which
keep this from happening.

1) Use what rules you hold to prove what you have reasoned or
observed.

2) If the rules allow a contradiction to be derived, then you must
reassess your rules and remove and/or revise those which allow this
contradiction. In any complex system this will be a constant effort.

3) It does not matter who you are, what degrees you have, or how
nice the ideas involved in the contradiction are. Reality wins in
the end.

4) This is why ideals never hold true, and always cause problems.
Even Newton could not hold reality to ideal laws. And he was the
smartest person so far.

We start training people to accept cognitive dissonance as a normal
functional thought process as children. We do this with Santa and
other imaginary beings which supposedly watch them 24/7 judging
them. They then have to reconcile this with the complete lack of
evidence, and others behaviour which is contrary to being watched
and judged. Like catholic clergy hiding paedophiles from people and
allowing them to move to greener pastures, but not worrying about
God knowing, if they believed in God would they do that?

We need to teach people that constant confirmation of evidence, IE
scientific method is a healthy and useful thought process. It works
and self corrects mistakes.

When I was 6 we had moved to the country and had a fireplace, my
father had cut wood for it, first in three foot lengths then after
bringing it closer to the house into usable lengths. He came out of
the house one day as I was dragging a narrow three foot section up
to the house. He naturally questioned me about it. I said I was
going to build a deadfall, I had been reading stories about boys in
the 1800's like Laura Ingles Wilder's husbands book. He was
obviously concerned and asked why. I reminded him it was Dec 24th, I
was setting it up in case of Santa. I had been told there was no
Santa which he reminded me of.
Yes I told him but I have no experimental evidence, just your word.
I remember how proud he looked, till he realised that I was prepared
to kill Santa. Santa was a spook, a spy who watched people so fair
game right?
So he asked ",if it works you will have a dead body in the living
room, what would you propose we do with it?" "Give it to the
Smithsonian, they can stuff him, and the sleigh and reindeer can go
to NASA," which my father was working for.

Lying to children does not help their thought process, telling them
the truth helps them build a logical thought process. Remember the
look on that kid in third grade who still believed in Santa?
Confused and ashamed, I think that explains the visceral reaction
the religious have toward Atheists.

I was sent home early in third grade for asking in home room who
still believed in Santa the Tooth Fairy or God. It was worth it
seeing the other kids look around the room and start thinking.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/10/19/fighting-cognitive-
dissonance-the-lies-we-tell-ourselves
---------------------

COGNITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF FORCED COMPLIANCE
Leon Festinger & James M. Carlsmith[1] (1959)
First published in Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58,
203-210.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Festinger/index.htm

What happens to a person's private opinion if he is forced to do or
say something contrary to that opinion? Only recently has there been
any experimental work related to this question. Two studies reported
by Janis and King (1954; 1956) clearly showed that, at least under
some conditions, the private opinion changes so as to bring it into
closer correspondence with the overt behavior the person was forced
to perform. Specifically, they showed that if a person is forced to
improvise a speech supporting a point of view with which he
disagrees, his private opinion moves toward the position advocated
in the speech. The observed opinion change is greater than for
persons who only hear the speech or for persons who read a prepared
speech with emphasis solely on execution and manner of delivery The
authors of these two studies explain their results mainly in terms
of mental rehearsal and thinking up new arguments. In this way, they
propose, the person who is forced to improvise a speech convinces
himself. They present some evidence, which is not altogether
conclusive, in support of this explanation. We will have more to say
concerning this explanation in discussing the results of our
experiment.

Kelman (1953) tried to pursue the matter further. He reasoned that
if the person is induced to make an overt statement contrary to his
private opinion by the offer of some reward, then the greater the
reward offered, the greater should be the subsequent opinion change.
His data, however did not support this idea. He found, rather, that
a large reward produced less subsequent opinion change than did a
smaller reward. Actually this finding by Kelman is consistent with
the theory we will outline below but, for a number of reasons is not
conclusive. One of the major weaknesses of the data is that not all
subjects in the experiment made an overt statement contrary to their
private opinion in order to obtain the offered reward. What is more,
as one might expect, the percentage of subjects who complied
increased as the size of the offered reward increased. Thus, with
self-selection of who did and who did not make the required overt
statement and with varying percentages of subjects in the different
conditions who did make the requsted statement, no interpretation of
the data can be unequivocal.

Recently Festinger (1957) proposed a theory concerning cognitive
dissonance from which come a number of derivations about opinion
change following forced compliance. Since these derivations are
stated in detail by Festinger (1957, Ch. 4), we will here give only
a brief outline of the reasoning.

Let us consider a person who privately holds opinion "X" but has, as
a result of pressure brought to bear on him publicly stated that he
believes "not X."

1. This person has two cognitions which, psychologically, do not fit
together: one of these is the knowledge that he believes "X," the
other the knowledge that he has publicly stated that he
believes "not X." If no factors other than his private opinion are
considered it would follow, at least in our culture, that if he
believes "X" he would publicly state "X." Hence, his cognition of
his private belief is dissonant with his cognition concerning his
actual public statement.

2. Similarly, the knowledge that he has said "not X" is consonant
with (does fit together with) those cognitive elements corresponding
to the reasons, pressures, promises of rewards and/or threats of
punishment which induced him to say "not X."

3. In evaluating the total magnitude of dissonance one must take
account of both dissonances and consonances. Let us think of the sum
of all the dissonances involving some particular cognition as "D"
and the sum of all the consonances as "C." Then we might [p. 204]
think of the total magnitude of dissonance as being a function
of "D" divided by "D" plus "C."

Let us then see what can be said about the total magnitude of
dissonance in a person created by the knowledge that he said "not X"
and really believes "X." With everything else held constant, this
total magnitude of dissonance would decrease as the number and
importance of the pressures which induced him to say "not X"
increased.

Thus, if the overt behavior was brought about by, say, offers of
reward or threats of punishment, the magnitude of dissonance is
maximal if these promised rewards or threatened punishments were
just barely sufficient to induce the person to say "not X." From
this point on, as the promised rewards or threatened punishment
become larger, the magnitude of dissonance becomes smaller.

4. One way in which the dissonance can be reduced is for the person
to change his private opinion so as to bring it into correspondence
with what he has said. One would consequently expect to observe such
opinion change after a person has been forced or induced to say
something contrary to his private opinion. Furthermore, since the
pressure to reduce dissonance will be a function of the magnitude of
the dissonance, the observed opinion change should be greatest when
the pressure used to elicit the overt behavior is just sufficient to
do it.

SUMMARY

Recently, Festinger (1957) bas proposed a theory concerning
cognitive dissonance. Two derivations from this theory are tested
here. These are:

1. If a person is induced to do or say something which is contrary
to his private opinion, there will be a tendency for him to change
his opinion so as to bring it into correspondence with what he has
done or said.

2. The larger the pressure used to elicit the [p. 210] overt
behavior (beyond the minimum needed to elicit it) the weaker will be
the above-mentioned tendency.

A laboratory experiment was designed to test these derivations.
Subjects were subjected to a boring experience and then paid to tell
someone that the experience had been interesting and enjoyable. The
amount of money paid the subject was varied. The private opinions of
the subjects concerning the experience were then determined.

The results strongly corroborate the theory that was tested.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Festinger/index.htm
---------------------

Indoctrination
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination

Religious indoctrination
Religious indoctrination refers to customary rites of passage for
the indoctrination of persons into a particular religion and its
extended community.

Most religious groups instruct new members in the principles of the
religion; this is usually not referred to as indoctrination, because
of the negative connotations the word has acquired. Mystery
religions require a period of indoctrination before granting access
to esoteric knowledge. (c.f. Information security).

Religious indoctrination is particularly effective on children and
on insecure individuals, as they can lack a set self-image and/or
have low self-esteem, as well as be more easily pressured by
authority figures. Many religions have commitment ceremonies aimed
at children 12 years and younger, such as Bar Mitzvah and
Confirmation; and others have rituals in the form of
emotional/social assessments like Scientology. The unusual situation
exists in secular societies where children who in no other
circumstances would be regarded as able to form a reasoned
commitment to an ideology (such as political etc.) or sign a
contract, are expected to commit to religious teachings with
affirmations in public.

Criticism
Noam Chomsky remarks, "For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there
can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms
and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the
totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing
under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we
serve as willing or unwitting instruments."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination
----------------------

Propaganda, American-style
by Noam Chomsky
http://www.zpub.com/un/chomsky.html

Pointing to the massive amounts of propaganda spewed by government
and institutions around the world, observers have called our era the
age of Orwell. But the fact is that Orwell was a latecomer on the
scene. As early as World War I, American historians offered
themselves to President Woodrow Wilson to carry out a task they
called "historical engineering," by which they meant designing the
facts of history so that they would serve state policy. In this
instance, the U.S. government wanted to silence opposition to the
war. This represents a version of Orwell's 1984, even before Orwell
was writing.

In 1921, the famous American journalist Walter Lippmann said that
the art of democracy requires what he called the "manufacture of
consent." This phrase is an Orwellian euphemism for thought control.
The idea is that in a state such as the U.S. where the government
can't control the people by force, it had better control what they
think.. The Soviet Union is at the opposite end of the spectrum from
us in its domestic freedoms. It's essentially a country run by the
bludgeon. It's very easy to determine what propaganda is in the
USSR: what the state produces is propaganda.

That's the kind of thing that Orwell described in 1984 (not a very
good book in my opinion). 1984 is so popular because it's trivial
and it attacks our enemies. If Orwell had dealt with a different
problem-- ourselves--his book wouldn't have been so popular. In
fact, it probably wouldn't have been published.

In totalitarian societies where there's a Ministry of Truth,
propaganda doesn't really try to control your thoughts. It just
gives you the party line. It says, "Here's the official doctrine;
don't disobey and you won't get in trouble. What you think is not of
great importance to anyone. If you get out of line we'll do
something to you because we have force." Democratic societies can't
work like that, because the state is much more limited in its
capacity to control behavior by force. Since the voice of the people
is allowed to speak out, those in power better control what that
voice says--in other words, control what people think. One of the
ways to do this is to create political debate that appears to
embrace many opinions, but actually stays within very narrow
margins. You have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept
certain assumptions--and that those assumptions are the basis of the
propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda
system, the debate is permissible.

The Vietnam War is a classic example of America's propaganda system.
In the mainstream media--the New York Times, CBS, and so on-- there
was a lively debate about the war. It was between people
called "doves" and people called "hawks." The hawks said, "If we
keep at it we can win." The doves said, "Even if we keep at it, it
would probably be too costly for use, and besides, maybe we're
killing too many people." Both sides agreed on one thing. We had a
right to carry out aggression against South Vietnam. Doves and hawks
alike refused to admit that aggression was taking place. They both
called our military presence in Southeast Asia the defense of South
Vietnam, substituting "defense" for "aggression" in the standard
Orwellian manner. In reality, we were attacking South Vietnam just
as surely as the Soviets later attacked Afghanistan.

Consider the following facts. In 1962 the U.S. Air Force began
direct attacks against the rural population of South Vietnam with
heavy bombing and defoliation . It was part of a program intended to
drive millions of people into detention camps where, surrounded by
barbed wire and armed guards, they would be "protected" from the
guerrillas they were supporting--the "Viet Cong," the southern
branch of the former anti-French resistance (the Vietminh). This is
what our government calls aggression or invasion when conducted by
some official enemy. The Saigon government had no legitimacy and
little popular support, and its leadership was regularly overthrown
in U.S.-backed coups when it was feared they might arrange a
settlement with the Viet Cong. Some 70,000 "Viet Cong" had already
been killed in the U.S.-directed terror campaign before the outright
U.S. invasion took place in 1972.

Like the Soviets in Afghanistan, we tried to establish a government
in Saigon to invite us in. We had to overthrow regime after regime
in that effort. Finally we simply invaded outright. That is plain,
simple aggression. But anyone in the U.S. who thought that our
policies in Vietnam were wrong in principle was not admitted to the
discussion about the war. The debate was essentially over tactics.

Even at the peak of opposition to the U.S. war, only a minuscule
portion of the intellectuals opposed the war out of principle--on
the grounds that aggression is wrong. Most intellectuals came to
oppose it well after leading business circles did--on
the "pragmatic" grounds that the costs were too high.

Strikingly omitted from the debate was the view that the U.S. could
have won, but that it would have been wrong to allow such military
aggression to succeed. This was the position of the authentic peace
movement but it was seldom heard in the mainstream media. If you
pick up a book on American history and look at the Vietnam War,
there is no such event as the American attack on South Vietnam. For
the past 22 years, I have searched in vain for even a single
reference in mainstream journalism or scholarship to an "American
invasion of South Vietnam" or American "aggression" in South
Vietnam. In America's doctrinal system, there is no such event. It's
out of history, down Orwell's memory hole.

If the U.S. were a totalitarian state, the Ministry of Truth would
simply have said, "It's right for us to go into Vietnam. Don't argue
with it." People would have recognized that as the propaganda
system, and they would have gone on thinking whatever they wanted.
They would have plainly seen that we were attacking Vietnam, just as
we can see the Soviets are attacking Afghanistan.

People are much freer in the U.S., they are allowed to express
themselves. That's why it's necessary for those in power to control
everyone's thought, to try and make it appear as if the only issues
in matters such as U.S. intervention in Vietnam are tactical: Can we
get away with it? There is no discussion of right or wrong.

During the Vietnam War, the U.S. propaganda system did its job
partially but not entirely. Among educated people it worked very
well. Studies show that among the more educated parts of the
population, the government's propaganda about the war is now
accepted unquestioningly. One reason that propaganda often works
better on the educated than on the uneducated is that educated
people read more, so they receive more propaganda. Another is that
they have jobs in management, media, and academia and therefore work
in some capacity as agents of the propaganda system--and they
believe what the system expects them to believe. By and large,
they're part of the privileged elite, and share the interests and
perceptions of those in power.

On the other hand, the government had problems in controlling the
opinions of the general population. According to some of the latest
polls, over 70 percent of Americans still thought the war was, to
quote the Gallup Poll, "fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a
mistake." Due to the widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, the
propaganda system lost its grip on the beliefs of many Americans.
They grew skeptical about what they were told. In this case there's
even a name for the erosion of belief. It's called the "Vietnam
Syndrome," a grave disease in the eyes of America's elites because
people understand too much.

Let me gives on more example of the powerful propaganda system at
work in the U.S.--the congressional vote on contra aid in March
1986. For three months prior to the vote, the administration was
heating up the political atmosphere, trying to reverse the
congressional restrictions on aid to the terrorist army that's
attacking Nicaragua. I was interested in how the media was going to
respond to the administration campaign for the contras. So I studied
two national newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times.
In January, February, and March, I went through every one of their
editorials, opinion pieces, and the columns written by their own
columnists. There were 85 pieces. Of these, all were anti-
Sandinista. On that issue, no discussion was tolerable.

There are two striking facts about the Sandinista government, as
compared with our allies in Central America--Honduras, Guatemala,
and El Salvador. One is that the Sandinista government doesn't
slaughter its population. That's a well-recognized fact. Second,
Nicaragua is the only one of those countries in which the government
has tried to direct social services to the poor. This too, is not a
matter of debate; it is conceded on all sides to be true.

On the other hand, our allies in Guatemala and El Salvador are among
the world's worst terrorist states. So far in the 1980s, they have
slaughtered over 150,000 of their own citizens, with U.S. support.
These nations do little for their populations except torture,
terrorize, and kill them. Honduras is a little different. In
Honduras, there's a government of the rich that robs the poor. It
doesn't kill on the scale of El Salvador or Guatemala, but a large
part of the population is starving to death.

So in examining the 85 editorials, I also looked for these two facts
about Nicaragua. The fact that the Sandinistas are radically
different from our Central American allies in that they don't
slaughter their population was not mentioned once. That they have
carried out social reforms for the poor was referred to in two
phrases, both buried. Two phrases in 85 columns on one crucial
issue, zero phrases in 85 columns on another.

That's really remarkable control over thought on a highly debated
issue. After that I went through the editorials on El Salvador and
Nicaragua from 1980 to the present; it's essentially the same story.
Nicaragua, a country under attack by the regional superpower, did on
October 15, 1985, what we did in Hawaii during World War II:
instituted a state of siege. There was a huge uproar in the
mainstream American press--editorials, denunciations, claims that
the Sandinistas are totalitarian Stalinist monsters, and so on.

Two days after that, on October 17, El Salvador renewed its state of
siege. Instituted in March 1980 and renewed monthly afterwards, El
Salvador's state of siege was far more harsh than Nicaragua's. It
blocked freedom of movement and virtually all civil rights. It was
the framework within which the U.S.-trained and -organized army has
carried out torture and slaughter.

The New York Times considered the Nicaraguan state of siege a great
atrocity. The Salvadoran state of siege, far harsher in its methods
and it application, was never mentioned in 160 New York Times
editorials on Nicaragua and El Salvador, up to now [mid-1986, the
time of this interview].

We are often told the country is a budding democracy, so it can't
possibly be having a state of siege. According to news reports on El
Salvador, Duarte is heading a moderate centrist government under
attack by terrorists of the left and of the right. This is complete
nonsense. Every human rights investigation, even the U.S. government
in private, concedes that terrorism is being carried out by the
Salvadoran government itself. The death squads are the security
forces. Duarte is simply a front for terrorists. But that is seldom
said publicly. All this falls under Walter Lippmann's notion of "the
manufacture of consent." Democracy permits the voice of the people
to be heard, and it is the task of the intellectual to ensure that
this voice endorses what leaders perceive to be the right course.
Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism. The
techniques have been honed to a high art in the U.S. and elsewhere,
far beyond anything that Orwell dreamed of. The device of feigned
dissent (as practiced by the Vietnam- era "doves," who criticized
the war on the grounds of effectiveness and not principle) is one of
the more subtle means, though simple lying and suppressing fact and
other crude techniques are also highly effective.

For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be
no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and
practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the
totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to
which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as
unwilling or unwitting instruments.
---
[This is an expanded version of an article excerpted from Propaganda
Review (Winter 1987-88). Subscriptions: $20/yr. (4 issues) from
Media Alliance, Fort Mason, Bldg. D, San Francisco, CA 94123. This
article was drawn from an interview conducted by David Barsamian of
KGNU-Radio in Boulder, Colorado (cassettes available for sale; write
David Barsamian, 1415 Dellwood, Boulder, CO 80302), and an essay
from Chomsky's book Radical Priorities, edited by C.P. Otero (1984).
Black Rose Books, 3981 Boulevard St. Laurent, Montral H2W 1Y5,
Quebec, Canada.] Source: Free Words

http://www.zpub.com/un/chomsky.html
-----------------------

Religious discrimination
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_discrimination
Religious discrimination is valuing or treating a person or group
differently because of what they do or do not believe.

A concept like that of 'religious discrimination' is necessary to
take into account ambiguities of the term religious persecution. The
infamous cases in which people have been executed for beliefs
perceived to be heretic are generally recognisable as persecution;
Other cases in which adherents of different religions (or
denominations) are treated unequally before the law are sometimes
difficult to assess. If behind laws, regulations or acts of
authority perceived to be discriminating against a certain religion
there is the intention 'encourage' people to abandon their beliefs,
they are religious persecution nonetheless; But if they don't threat
with the death penalty or severe imprisonment, they are in
comparison described as mild forms of religious persecution or as
religious discrimination.

Furthermore, even in societies where Freedom of Religion is a
constitutional right, sometimes adherents of religious minorities
voice concerns about religious discrimination against them. Insofar
legal policies are concerned, cases that are perceived as religious
discrimination might be the result of an interference of the
religious sphere with other spheres of the public that are regulated
by law (and not aimed specifically against a religious minority.)
Generally people are free to have these issues clarified through the
juridical system.

While some authorities nowadays tend to stress that religion is
something personal, others still practice religious discrimination.
Many countries have one formal state religion. Practitioners of
faiths other than the formal state religion sometimes face
discriminatory rules and practices. The US state department yearly
publishes an International Religious Freedom report. It includes
individual country chapters on the status of religious freedom and
incidents of religious discrimination worldwide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_discrimination
-----------------------

Religious intolerance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_intolerance

Religious intolerance is either intolerance motivated by one's own
religious beliefs or intolerance against another's religious beliefs
or practices. It manifests both at a cultural level, but may also be
a formal part of the dogma of particular religious groups.

The mere statement on the part of a religion that its own beliefs
and practices are correct and any contrary beliefs incorrect does
not in itself constitute intolerance (ie., ideological intolerance).
There are many cases throughout history of established religions
tolerating other practices. Religious intolerance, rather, is when a
group (a society, a religious group) specifically refuses to
tolerate practices, persons or beliefs on religious grounds (ie.,
intolerance in practice).


Religious intolerance may be purely religious, but can be a "cover
story" for an underlying political or cultural motive.

Contents [hide]
1 Contemporary attitude and practice
2 Notes and references
3 See also
4 External links
5 Further reading



[edit] Contemporary attitude and practice
A number of countries worldwide contain provisions within their
constitutions expressly forbidding the state from engaging in
certain acts of religious intolerance or preference within its own
borders. Examples include The First Amendment of the United States
Constitution, Article 4 of the Basic Law of Germany, Article 44.2.1
of the Constitution of The Republic of Ireland, Article 40 of the
Estonian Constitution[1], Article 24 of the Constitution of Turkey
and Article 36 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of
China. Many other states, whilst not containing constitutional
provisions directly related to religion, nonetheless contain
provisions forbidding discrimination on religious grounds (see, for
example, Article 1 of the French Constitution, article 15 of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and article 40 of the
Constitution of Egypt). It should be noted that these constitutional
provisions do not necessarily guarantee that all elements of the
state remain free from religious intolerance at all times, and
practice can vary widely from country to country.

Other countries, meanwhile, may allow for religious preference, for
instance through the establishment of one or more state religions,
but not for religious intolerance. Finland, for example, has the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and Finnish Orthodox Church
as its official state religions, yet upholds the right of free
expression of religion in article 11 of its constitution.

Some countries retain blasphemy laws, forbidding defamation of
religious belief, which are sometimes seen as a way of condoning
religious intolerance. Whilst some countries retain laws forbidding
all forms of blasphemy (such as Germany where in 2006 Manfred van H.
was convicted of blasphemy against Islam), the connection between
intolerance and blasphemy laws is most closely connected if the laws
apply to only one religion. In Pakistan blasphemy directed against
either the tenets of the Qur'an or the Prophet Mohammed is
punishable by either life imprisonment or death. Apostasy, the
rejection of one's old religion, is also criminalized in a number of
countries, notably Afghanistan with Abdul Rahman being the first to
face the death penalty for converting to Christianity.

The United Nations upholds the right to free expression of religious
belief in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
while article 2 forbids discrimination on the basis of religion.
Article 18 also allows for the freedom to change religion. The
Declaration is not legally binding, however the United States chose
in 1998 to pass the International Religious Freedom Act, creating
the Commission on International Religious Freedom, and mandating
that the United States government take action against any country
found to violate the religious freedoms outlined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.[2] The European Convention on Human
Rights, which is legally binding on all European Union states
(following the passage of the Human Rights Act 1998 in the United
Kingdom), makes restricting the rights of an individual to practice
or change their religion illegal in article 9, and discrimination on
the basis of religion illegal in article 14.

In its 2000 annual report on international religious freedom, the
U.S. State Department cited China, Myanmar, Iran, Iraq and Sudan for
persecuting people for their religious faith and practices. The
report, which covers July 1999 through June 2000, details U.S.
policy toward countries where religious freedom is violated in the
view of the U.S. State Department.[3] The advocacy group Freedom
House produced a report entitled "Religious Freedom in the World" in
2000 which ranked countries according to their religious freedom.
The countries receiving a score of 7, indicating those where
religious freedom was least respected, were Turkmenistan, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea. China was given a
score of 6 overall, however Tibet was listed separately in the 7
category. Those countries receiving a score of 1, indicating the
highest level of religious freedom, were Estonia, Finland, Ireland,
The Netherlands, Norway and the United States. Within those
countries that openly advocate religious tolerance there remain
debates as to the limits of tolerance. Some individuals and
religious groups, for example, retain beliefs or practices which
involve acts contrary to established law, such as the use of
cannabis by members of the Rastafari movement, the religious use of
eagle feathers by non-Native Americans (contrary to the eagle
feather law, 50 CFR 22), or the practice of polygamy amongst Mormons
in the 19th century.[4] The precise definition of "religion", and to
which groups it applies, can also cause controversy, for example the
case of Scientologists who have all rights of religious freedom but
complain that the highest court decided not to grant the status of a
Non-profit organization in several states. Attempts to legislate
against acts of religious intolerance amongst citizens frequently
come up against issues regarding the freedom of speech; whilst in
France being convicted of incitement to religious hatred can carry a
maximum of 18 months in prison. An attempt to pass a similar law by
Tony Blair's Labour government in the United Kingdom had to be
dropped in April, 2006 after criticism that it restricted free
speech. In Victoria, Australia the Racial and Religious Tolerance
Act 2001 makes illegal "conduct that incites hatred against, serious
contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other person
or class of persons" on the grounds of religious belief.

In 2008, Gallup polls reported that 34% of Americans said they had
no prejudice against Muslims, and 74% of Americans said they had no
prejudice against Jews.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_intolerance
-------------------------

Conversational intolerance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversational_intolerance

Harris acknowledges that he advocates a benign, corrective form of
intolerance, distinguishing it from historic religious persecution.
He promotes a conversational intolerance, in which personal
convictions are scaled against evidence, and where intellectual
honesty is demanded equally in religious views and non-religious
views. He also argues for the need to counter inhibitions that
prevent the open critique of religious ideas, beliefs, and practices
under the auspices of "tolerance."[12]

Harris argues that such conversation and investigation are essential
to progress in every other field of knowledge. As one example, he
suggests that few would require "respect" for radically differing
views on physics or history; instead, he notes, societies expect and
demand logical reasons and valid evidence for such claims, while
those who fail to provide valid support are quickly marginalized on
those topics. Thus, Harris suggests that the routine deference
accorded to religious ideologies constitutes a double standard,
which, following the events of September 11, 2001 attacks, has
become too great a risk.[12]

In the 2007 PBS interview, Harris said, "The usefulness of religion,
the fact that it gives life meaning, that it makes people feel good
is not an argument for the truth of any religious doctrine. It's not
an argument that it's reasonable to believe that Jesus really was
born of a virgin or that the Bible is the perfect word of the
creator of the universe. You can only believe those things or you
should be only able to believe those things if you think there are
good reasons to believe those things."


[edit] Religious America
Harris focuses much of his critique on the state of contemporary
religious affairs in the United States. Harris worries that many
areas of American culture are harmed by beliefs that are driven by
religious dogma. For instance, he cites polls showing that 44% of
Americans believe it is either "certain" or "probable" that Jesus
will return to Earth within the next fifty years. The same
percentage believe that creationism should be taught in public
schools and that God has literally promised the land of Israel to
the modern-day Jews.[13][14]

Such unfounded beliefs, often sheltered from objective criticism,
impede planning a sustainable future, argues Harris. He points out
that, by the light of biblical prophecy, general Armageddon is
regarded by many as a necessary precursor to the Second Coming, or
the Rapture. Harris suggests that a significant proportion of the
American population may see a nuclear conflagration in the Middle
East as a welcome portent of the End times.

Harris further notes that the same individuals who hold these views
both elect and are elected as presidents, senators, and
representatives, rendering it essentially impossible for someone who
does not express such faith to run for office. When former President
George W. Bush publicly invoked God in speeches regarding either
domestic or foreign affairs, Harris invited us to consider how we
might react if the President were to mention Zeus or Apollo in a
similar vein.[13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversational_intolerance
------------------------


Religious persecution
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_persecution

Religious persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an
individual or group of individuals as a response to their religious
beliefs of affiliations. The tendency of societies or groups within
society to alienate or repress different subcultures is a recurrent
theme in human history. Moreover, because a person's religion often
determines to a significant extent his or her morality and personal
identity, religious differences can be significant cultural factors.
Religious persecution may be triggered by religious bigotry (i.e.
the denigration of practitioners religions other than those of the
oppressors) or by the State when it views a particular religious
group as a threat to its interests or security. At a societal level,
this dehumanization of a particular religious group may readily turn
into violence or other forms of persecution. Even those who consider
religiosity in general to be declining (i.e. those believe
secularization is progressing) would agree that religious
persecution continues to be a serious issue worldwide. Global media
coverage of increasing numbers of participants in religious
fundamentalism and religiously related terrorism obviate the
prevalence of such persecutions worldwide. Indeed, in many countries
of the world today, religious persecution has resulted in so much
violence that it is considered a human rights problem.

Contents [hide]
1 Forms of religious persecution
1.1 Religious persecution and ethnicity
2 Reasons for religious persecution
2.1 Ecclesiastical dissent and civil tolerance
2.1.1 Religious uniformity in early modern Europe
2.2 Persecution for heresy and blasphemy
2.3 Persecution for political reasons
2.3.1 Contemporary
3 Historical persecution
4 Present Period
4.1 Practitioners of Dorje Shugden
4.2 Bahá'ís in Iran
5 State Atheism
5.1 People's Republic of China
5.2 Albania
6 See also
7 Literature
8 References
9 External links



[edit] Forms of religious persecution
A situation in which religious persecution occurs is the opposite of
freedom of religion. However, freedom of religion is not necessarily
identical with the separation of church and state and religious
pluralism. In a country that is not a secular state, freedom of
religion can exist if the state religion grants religious toleration
to all other religions and denominations.

Often it is the alleged persecution of individuals within a group in
the attempt to maintain their religion identity, or the exercise of
power by an individual or organization that causes members of a
religious group to suffer. Persecution in this case may refer to
confiscation or destruction of property, incitement to hate, arrest,
imprisonment, beatings, torture, and execution.

Denial of benefits and denial of certain civil rights and liberties
are less severe, and are either described as mild forms of religious
persecution or as religious discrimination. There clearly is a
difference between denying a religious group tax-exempt status and
threatening them with imprisonment.


[edit] Religious persecution and ethnicity
Other acts of violence, such as war, torture, and ethnic cleansing
might not necessarily be aimed at religion. Populations that belong
to different ethnic groups often also belong to different religions
or denominations. Although the difference between religious and
ethnical identity might sometimes be obscure (see: Ethnoreligious),
the infamous cases of Genocide of the 20th century could not be
explained by religious differences.[1]

The most infamous case of antisemitism in the 20th century, the
systematic mass murder of millions of European Jews by the Nazis,
was not religious persecution, since the Nazis persecuted the Jews
as a race, not as a religion. The Shoah made no distinction between
secular Jews, atheistic Jews, orthodox Jews and Jews that had
converted to Christianity. Only the persecution of Jehovah's
Witnesses in Nazi Germany can be seen as religious persecution;
About 12,000 of them were arrested. However, they were given the
opportunity to renounce their faith and pledge to support the war in
order to avoid being incarcerated.[2] (For more information see the
article Religion in Nazi Germany).


[edit] Reasons for religious persecution
The descriptive use of the term religious persecution is rather
difficult. Religious persecution has taken place a least since the
Persecution of early Christians in the Roman Empire, and has
happened in completely different historical, geographical and social
contexts, but nevertheless, some generalizations are necessary. In
the Western world our now common rejection of religious persecution
originated in 17th century England. The English 'Call for
Toleration' was the turning point in the Christian debate on
religious persecution. This time has been debated thoroughly by
historians, whereas, for the obvious reason of the over-abundance of
material, historians generally avoid writing books on the whole of
human history.

The most ambitious chronicle of that time is W.K.Jordans magnum opus
The Development of Religious Toleration in England, 1558-1660 (four
volumes, published 1932-1940). Jordan wrote as the thread of fascism
rose in Europe, and this work is seen as a defence of the fragile
values of humanism and tolerance.[3]


[edit] Ecclesiastical dissent and civil tolerance
No religion is free from internal dissent, although the degree of
dissent that is tolerated within a particular religious organisation
can vary strongly. This degree of diversity tolerated within a
particular church is described as ecclesiastical tolerance,[4] and
is one form of religious toleration. However, when people nowadays
speak of religious tolerance, they most often mean civil tolerance,
which refers to the degree of religious diversity that is tolerated
within the state. In the absence of civil toleration, someone who
finds himself in disagreement with his congregation doesn't have the
option to leave and chose a different faith - simply because there
is only one recognized faith in the country (at least officially).
In modern western civil law any citizen may join and leave a
religious organisation at will; In western societies, this is taken
for granted, but actually, this legal separation of Church and State
only started to emerge a few centuries ago.

In the Christian debate on persecution and toleration, the notion of
civil tolerance allowed Christian theologians to reconcile Jesus'
commandment to love one's enemies with other parts of the New
Testament that are rather strict regarding dissent within the
church. Before that, theologians like Joseph Hall had reasoned from
the ecclesiastical intolerance of the early Christian church in the
New Testament to the civil intolerance of the Christian state.[5]


[edit] Religious uniformity in early modern Europe
By contrast to the notion of civil tolerance, in early modern Europe
the subjects were required to attend the state church; This attitude
can be described as territoriality or religious uniformity, and its
underlying assumption is brought to a point by a statement of the
Anglican theologian Richard Hooker: "There is not any man of the
Church of England but the same man is also a member of the [English]
commonwealth; nor any man a member of the commonwealth, which is not
also of the Church of England."[6]

Before a vigorous debate about religious persecution took place in
England (starting in the 1640s), for centuries in Europe, religion
had been tied to territory. In England there had been several Acts
of Uniformity; in continental Europe the Latin phrase "cuius regio,
eius religio" had been used. Persecution meant that the state was
committed to secure religious uniformity by coercive measures, as
eminently obvious in a statement of Roger L'Estrange: "That which
you call persecution, I translate Uniformity".[7]

However, in the 17th century writers like John Locke, Richard
Overton and Roger William broke the link between territory and
faith, which eventually resulted in a shift from territoriality to
religious voluntarism.[8] It was Locke, who, in his Letter
Concerning Toleration defined the state in purely secular terms:
[9] "The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted
only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil
interests."[10] Concerning the church, he went on: "A church, then,
I take to be a voluntary society of men, joining themselves together
of their own accord."[10] With this treatise, John Locke laid one of
the most important intellectual foundations of the Separation of
Church and State, which ultimately led to the Secular state.


[edit] Persecution for heresy and blasphemy
Main article: Heresy
Main article: Blasphemy
See also: Christian heresy, Heresy in Orthodox Judaism

The persecution of beliefs that are deemed schismatic is one thing;
the persecution of beliefs that are deemed heretic or blasphemous is
another. Although a public disagreement on secondary matters might
be serious enough, it has often only led to religious
discrimination. A public renouncement of core elements of a
religious doctrine under the same circumstances, on the other hand,
would have put one far greater danger. While a Dissenter from its
official Church was only faced with fines and imprisonment in
Protestant England, six people were executed for heresy or blasphemy
during the reign of Elizabeth I of England, and two more in 1612
under James I of England.[11]

Similarly, heretical sects like Cathars, Waldensians and Lollards
were brutally suppressed in western Europa, while, at the same
time , Catholics Christians lived side-by-side with 'schismatic'
Orthodox Christians after the East-West Schism in the borderland of
eastern Europa.[12]


[edit] Persecution for political reasons
More than 300 Roman Catholics were put to death by English
governments between 1535 and 1681 for treason, thus for secular than
religious offences.[11] In 1570, Pope Pius V had issued the bull
Regnans in Excelsis, which absolved Catholics from their obligations
to the government.[13] This dramatically worsened the situation of
the Catholics in England. English governments continued to fear
Popish Plot. An English act of government from the year 1585
declared that the purpose of Jesuit missionaries who had come to
Britain was " to stir up and move sedition, rebellion and open
hostility".[14] Consequently Jesuit priests like Saint John Ogilvie
were hanged. This somehow contrasts with the image of the
Elizabethan era as the time of William Shakespeare, but compared to
the antecedent Marian Persecutions there is an important difference
to consider. Mary I of England had been motived by a religious zeal
to purge heresy from her land, and during her short reign from 1553
to 1558 about 290 Protestants[15] had been burned at the stake for
heresy, whereas Elizabeth I of England "acted out of fear for the
security of her realm."[16]


[edit] Contemporary
Although his book was written before the September 11 attacks, John
Coffey explicitly compares the English fear of a Popish Plot with
the contemporary Islamophobia in the Western world.[17] Among the
Muslims imprisoned in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp there also
were Mehdi Ghezali and Murat Kurnaz who could not have been found to
have any connections with terrorism, but had travelled to
Afghanistan and Pakistan because of their religious interests.


[edit] Historical persecution
Out of Egypt, according to Jewish tradition, came monotheistic
Judaism, under Moses, one of its prophets. Among the Ten
Commandments of that religion was one that forbade the worship of
any other god than Yahweh. When Imperial Rome extended its reach to
their area, various conflicts arose.

Out of Judaism came Christianity, which because it was monotheistic
and also encouraged conversion was a much more powerful threat to
the established pantheistic order than had been Judaism. The Jewish
exemption from the requirement to participate in public cults was
lifted and the anti-monotheistic religious persecution of the
Christians began under Nero.

By the eighth century Christianity had attained a clear ascendancy
in Europe and neighboring regions and a period of consolidation
began marked by the pursuit of heretics and various other forms of
monotheistic religious persecution. Christian monotheistic religious
persecution perhaps reached its apex with the Inquisition.

Meanwhile south and east of the Christian empires yet another
monotheist religion had arisen: Islam. Generally following the
Jewish tradition of tolerance towards non-believers provided they
maintained the outward habits of believers, Muslims spread across
northern Africa, the Middle East, northern India, and adjoining
regions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_persecution
-------------------

The Politics of Ignorance
Posted August 2, 2005 | 10:16 PM (EST)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-politics-of-
ignorance_b_5053.html

President Bush has now endorsed the pseudo-scientific notion
of "intelligent design" (ID) and declared it to be a legitimate
alternative to the theory of evolution. This is not surprising, as
he has always maintained that "the jury is still out" on the
question of evolution. But the jury is not out -- indeed it was well
in before President Bush was even born -- and anyone familiar with
modern biology knows that ID is nothing more than a program of
political and religious advocacy masquerading as science.

It is for this reason that the scientific community has been divided
on just how (or whether) to dignify the spurious claims of
ID "theorists" with a response. While understandable, I believe that
such scruples are now misplaced. The Trojan Horse has passed the
innermost gates of the city, and scary religious imbeciles are now
spilling out.

Email
Print
According to several recent polls, 22 percent of Americans are
certain that Jesus will return to earth sometime in the next fifty
years. Another 22 percent believe that he will probably do so. This
is likely the same 44 percent who go to church once a week or more,
who believe that God literally promised the land of Israel to the
Jews, and who want to stop teaching our children about the
biological fact of evolution. As the President is well aware,
believers of this sort constitute the most cohesive and motivated
segment of the American electorate. Consequently, their views and
prejudices now influence almost every decision of national
importance. Political liberals seem to have drawn the wrong lesson
from these developments and are now thumbing scripture, wondering
how best to ingratiate themselves to the legions of men and women in
our country who vote mainly on the basis of religious dogma. More
than 50 percent of Americans have a "negative" or "highly negative"
view of people who do not believe in God; 70 percent think it
important for presidential candidates to be "strongly religious."
Because it is taboo to criticize a person's religious beliefs,
political debate over questions of public policy (stem-cell
research, the ethics of assisted suicide and euthanasia, obscenity
and free speech, gay marriage, etc.) generally gets framed in terms
appropriate to a theocracy. Unreason is now ascendant in the United
States -- in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the
federal government. Only 28 percent of Americans believe in
evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan. Ignorance in this degree,
concentrated in both the head and belly of a lumbering superpower,
is now a problem for the entire world.

It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed
that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum. There is no
question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis
Collins and Kenneth R. Miller are doing lasting harm to our
discourse by the accommodations they have made to religious
irrationality. Likewise, Stephen Jay Gould's notion of "non-
overlapping magisteria" served only the religious dogmatists who
realize, quite rightly, that there is only one magisterium. Whether
a person is religious or secular, there is nothing more sacred than
the facts. Either Jesus was born of a virgin, or he wasn't; either
there is a God who despises homosexuals, or there isn't. It is time
that sane human beings agreed on the standards of evidence necessary
to substantiate truth-claims of this sort. The issue is not, as ID
advocates allege, whether science can "rule out" the existence of
the biblical God. There are an infinite number of ludicrous ideas
that science could not "rule out," but which no sensible person
would entertain. The issue is whether there is any good reason to
believe the sorts of things that religious dogmatists believe --
that God exists and takes an interest in the affairs of human
beings; that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception
(and, therefore, that blastocysts are the moral equivalents of
persons); etc. There simply is no good reason to believe such
things, and scientists should stop hiding their light under a bushel
and make this emphatically obvious to everyone.

Imagine President Bush addressing the National Prayer Breakfast in
these terms: "Behind all of life and all history there is a
dedication and a purpose, set by the hand of a just and faithful
Zeus." Imagine his speech to Congress containing the
sentence "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at
war, and we know that Apollo is not neutral between them." Clearly,
the commonplaces of language conceal the vacuity and strangeness of
many of our beliefs. Our president regularly speaks in phrases
appropriate to the fourteenth century, and no one seems inclined to
find out what words like "God" and "crusade" and "wonder-working
power" mean to him. Not only do we still eat the offal of the
ancient world; we are positively smug about it. Garry Wills has
noted that the Bush White House "is currently honeycombed with
prayer groups and Bible study cells, like a whited monastery." This
should trouble us as much as it troubles the fanatics of the Muslim
world.

The only thing that permits human beings to collaborate with one
another in a truly open-ended way is their willingness to have their
beliefs modified by new facts. Only openness to evidence and
argument will secure a common world for us. Nothing guarantees that
reasonable people will agree about everything, of course, but the
unreasonable are certain to be divided by their dogmas. It is time
we recognized that this spirit of mutual inquiry, which is the
foundation of all real science, is the very antithesis of religious
faith.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/the-politics-of-
ignorance_b_5053.html





SLANDER
http://en.thinkexist.com/search/searchquotation.asp?
search=slander&order=score&page=1

"It takes your enemy and your friend, working together to hurt
you to the heart; the one to slander you and the other to get the
news to you"
Mark Twain quotes (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-
1910)

Similar Quotes. About: Friends quotes, Enemies quotes.
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"Truth is generally the best vindication against slander"
Abraham Lincoln quotes (American 16th US President (1861-65), who
brought about the emancipation of the slaves. 1809-1865)

Similar Quotes. About: Truth quotes.
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"What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is
evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil: envy is evil, hatred is evil,
to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And
what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is
the root of evil."
Buddha quotes (Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of
Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

Similar Quotes.
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"As a rule, religion is a sanctified mistake, and heresy a
slandered fool"



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"The evils of the body are, murder, theft, and adultery; of
the tongue, lying, slander, abuse, and idle talk; of the mind,
covetousness, hatred, and error."
Buddha quotes (Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of
Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

Similar Quotes.
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"Society is a republic. When an individual tries to lift
themselves above others, they are dragged down by the mass, either
by ridicule or slander."
Victor Hugo quotes (French romantic Poet, Novelist and Dramatist,
1802-1885)

Similar Quotes.
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"Self-praise is half slander"
Proverb quotes

About: Praise quotes.
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"The hearts of base men burn before the fire of other's fame,
and they slander them being themselves unable to rise to such a high
position."
Chanakya quotes (Indian Politician, strategist and Writer, 350 BC-
275 BC)


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"The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind
of slander on the poor"
Henry Louis Mencken quotes (American humorous Journalist and Critic
of American life who influenced US fiction through the 1920s, 1880-
1956)


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"He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander."
Napoleon Bonaparte quotes (French General, Politician and Emperor
(1804-14). 1769-1821)

"Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation his
defense"


Similar Quotes. About: Slander quotes.
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"They have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken
untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they
have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and
to conclude, they are lying knaves"
William Shakespeare quotes (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet,
1564-1616)

Similar Quotes.
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"What vice could be worse than covetousness? What is more
sinful than slander? For one who is truthful, what need is there for
austerity? For one who has a clean heart, what is the need for
pilgrimage?"
Chanakya quotes (Indian Politician, strategist and Writer, 350 BC-
275 BC)

Similar Quotes.
Add to Chapter...


"Slander cannot destroy an honest man - when the flood recedes
the rock is there"
Chinese Proverbs quotes

Similar Quotes. About: Honesty quotes.
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"This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of
character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word.
No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a
kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what
you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but
I will sing."
Henry Miller quotes (American Author and Writer, 1891-1980)

Similar Quotes.
Add to Chapter...


"A slander is like a hornet; if you cannot kill it dead the
first blow, better not strike at it"
Josh Billings quotes (American Humorist, 1818-1885)


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"Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and
slander, along with every form of malice"
Bible quotes

Similar Quotes.
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"Slander is worse than cannibalism"
Saint John Chrysostom quotes (Church Father, biblical interpreter ,
and archbishop of Constantinople, 347-407)

Similar Quotes. About: Slander quotes, Cannibalism quotes.
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"With my mouth I speak slander, day and night. I spy on the
houses of others - I am such a wretched low-life! Unfulfilled sexual
desire and unresolved anger dwell in my body, like the outcasts who
cremate the dead. I live as a wild hunter, O Creator!"
Sri Guru Granth Sahib quotes


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"The worthiest people are the most injured by slander, as is
the best fruit which the birds have been pecking at"
Jonathan Swift quotes (Irish Author and Satirist of prose, 1667-
1745)

"The truth is no slander"
Proverb quotes

Similar Quotes. About: Truth quotes.
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"Slander is a poison which kills charity, both in the
slanderer and the one who listens."
Bernard, St. quotes


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"If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we
accept the responsibility

ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything . . .
that smacks of discrimination or slander."
Mary McLeod Bethune quotes (American Educator and adviser to US
president Franklin D. Roosevelt on the problems of minority groups.
1875-1955)


Add to Chapter...


"No, 'tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose
tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the
posting winds and doth belie All corners of the world; kings,
queens, and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the"
William Shakespeare quotes (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet,
1564-1616)

Similar Quotes.
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"Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times."
Gustave Flaubert quotes (French Novelist regarded as the prime
mover of the realist school of French literature and best known for
his masterpiece, Madame Bovary. 1821-1880)


Add to Chapter...


"Setting too good an example is a kind of slander seldom
forgiven"
Benjamin Franklin quotes (American Statesman, Scientist,
Philosopher, Printer, Writer and Inventor. 1706-1790)

About: Example quotes.
Add to Chapter...


"Slander slays three persons: the speaker, the spoken to, and
the spoken of"
Hebrew Proverb quotes

Similar Quotes.
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"Slanders are like flies, that pass all over a man's good
parts to light on his sores"


About: Slander quotes.
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"We are so presumptuous that we think we can separate our
personal interest from that of humanity, and slander mankind without
compromising ourselves"
Vauvenargues, Marquis de quotes (French moralist and essayist, 1715-
1747)

About: Compromise quotes.
Add to Chapter...


"He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a
slander, is a fool."
Bible quotes


"HOMILETICS, n. The science of adapting sermons to the
spiritual needs, capacities and conditions of the congregation.



So skilled the parson was in homiletics That all his normal purges
and emetics To medicine the spirit were compounded With a most just
discrimination founded Upon a rigorous examination Of tongue and
pulse and heart and respiration. Then, having diagnosed each one's
condition, His scriptural specifics this physician Administered --
his pills so efficacious And pukes of disposition so vivacious That
souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam Were convalescent ere they
knew they had 'em. But Slander's tongue --itself all coated --
uttered Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered That in the case
of patients having money The pills were sugar and the pukes were
honey. --_Biography of Bishop Potter_"
Ambrose Bierce quotes (American Writer, Journalist and Editor, 1842-
1914)
Book: Devil's Dictionary quotes


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"TECHNICALITY, n. In an English court a man named Home was
tried for slander in having accused his neighbor of murder. His
exact words were: "Sir Thomas Holt hath taken a cleaver and stricken
his cook upon the head, so that one side of the head fell upon one
shoulder and the other side upon the other shoulder." The defendant
was acquitted by instruction of the court, the learned judges
holding that the words did not charge murder, for they did not
affirm the death of the cook, that being only an inference."
Ambrose Bierce quotes (American Writer, Journalist and Editor, 1842-
1914)
Book: Devil's Dictionary quotes


Add to Chapter...


"They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they
are brass and iron; they are all corrupters."
Bible quotes
Book: Bible quotes


Add to Chapter...


"Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in
any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every
neighbour will walk with slanders."
Bible quotes
Book: Bible quotes


Add to Chapter...


"I'm tired of malicious articles slandering me."
Barbra Streisand quotes (American Producer, Singer and Actress,
b.1942)


Add to Chapter...


"I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another
Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted
down. If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me
the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomized our
follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has
escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate
hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears,
believe me."
Charles Dickens quotes (English novelist, generally considered the
greatest of the Victorian era, 1812-1870)


Add to Chapter...


"A generous confession disarms slander."
Thomas Fuller quotes (British Clergyman and Writer, one of the most
prolific authors of the 17th century. 1608-1661)


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"You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can
paint it."
Charles H. Spurgeon quotes (English preacher of 19th century 1834-
1892)

Similar Quotes.
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"Do not fight with anyone, nor retaliate, nor slander anyone."
Sri Sathya Sai Baba quotes (Indian Spiritual leader, b.1926)


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"Slander expires at a good woman's door."
Danish Proverb quotes

http://en.thinkexist.com/search/searchquotation.asp?
search=slander&order=score&page=1
------------------------

DEFAMATION
http://en.thinkexist.com/search/searchquotation.asp?
search=DEFAMATION&order=score

"This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of
character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word.
No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a
kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty... what
you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key perhaps, but
I will sing."
Henry Miller quotes (American Author and Writer, 1891-1980)

Similar Quotes.
Add to Chapter...


"Defamation is becoming a necessity of life; inasmuch as a
dish of tea in the morning or evening cannot be digested without
this stimulant"
Thomas Jefferson quotes (American 3rd US President (1801-09).
Author of the Declaration of Independence. 1762-1826)


Add to Chapter...


"My initial response was to sue her for defamation of
character, but then I realized that I had no character."
Charles Barkley quotes (American Basketball Player, b.1963)

Similar Quotes.
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"It doesn't limit itself to defamation. The principle is the
same, whether it's libel or discrimination."
Eugene Volokh quotes


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"Your nation's stated commitment to a free press and to
democracy is undermined by measures that provide special protection
to public officials. We believe criminal defamation laws are
unnecessary in a democracy and that prison penalties for such
charges undercut the fundamental democratic principle of free
expression."
Ann Cooper quotes


Add to Chapter...


"The Anti-Defamation League wants a bunch of Israel
cheerleaders and won't be happy with anything less. This is a fight
over a technicality and missing the broader point, and that is that
students were shown a broad range of views."
Kenneth Roth quotes


Add to Chapter...


"Areas of claimed autonomous exercise range from classic
church property disputes to more recently developing questions over
the extent to which various regulatory regimes, including labor law,
civil rights law, and even malpractice, defamation, and contract
law, should be permitted to intervene in the internal relations of
religious institutions and communities."
pr1ncess708 Perry Dane quotes


Add to Chapter...


"Criminal defamation is communicating to a person orally, in
writing, ... information, knowing the information to be false and
with actual malice ... tending to deprive such person of the
benefits of public confidence."
Kansas quotes (Rock group)


Add to Chapter...


"The Jewish Anti-Defamation League is unhappy with what's
contained in 'Memory and Reconciliation,' because they believe it
still fails to admit the church's corporate responsibility for any
complicity in the Holocaust. It lays the blame on flawed humans --
although the document uses the term 'generations' to imply this
wasn't simply a few bad apples -- rather than admitting any flaws on
the part of the church itself."
David Van Biema quotes


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"The debate is now whether we should try to figure out what
the framers meant, or interpret (the Bill of Rights) through
constantly evolving attitudes. The First Amendment says that
Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. But if that
is taken literally, then you could not bring cases for things like
defamation or espionage."
Douglas Linder quotes


"The debate is now whether we should try to figure out what
the framers meant, or interpret (the Bill of Rights) through
constantly evolving attitudes. The First Amendment says that
Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech. But if that
is taken literally, then you could not bring cases for things like
defamation or espionage."
Douglas Linder quotes


Add to Chapter...


"We have defamation laws. If somebody believes they are
defamed, they can sue under that law. We don't need a separate
broader law to protect candidates."
Doug Honig quotes


Add to Chapter...


"If it's proven in a court of law she was wronged, she can sue
for millions because this is defamation of character."
Bill Russell quotes


Add to Chapter...


"It's a clearinghouse for defamation and attacks against
Muslims."
Ahmed Bedier quotes


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"We have filed a defamation suit against Tun Mahathir today.
Anwar has a very good case and we remain confident."
Sankara Nair quotes


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"We understand that some groups can be shocked by the
publication of certain information, but there are legal means -- in
Denmark and elsewhere -- to resolve this problem. They can file
defamation charges in courts."
Annabelle Arki quotes


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"We have a two-fold mission: To stop the defamation of the
Jewish people and to secure just and equal treatment to all citizens
alike."
Karen Aroesty quotes


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"While this is a landmark crucial step in our campaign to
abolish criminal defamation in Indonesia, we still have more work to
do."
Warren Christopher quotes


Add to Chapter...


"While this decision sets an important precedent in the trying
of defamation cases, it is only the beginning. In order for
journalists to be protected from serving jail time, the decision to
use the Press Law and not the penal code when involving the media
must be used by all Indonesian courts."
Warren Christopher quotes


Add to Chapter...


"The new UN resolution should prohibit defamation of all
prophets and faiths."
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu quotes

"People are using (Islam) to carry out some of the
frustrations that they have. But this is not just about the
defamation of Muhammad. Each Muslim is feeling like it's
saying 'You're a terrorist. ...' So you're defaming my character as
well."
Safaa Ibrahim quotes


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"The appeal court did, it is true, reduce the amount of
damages awarded by the lower court but it is still exorbitant and
more than five times the maximum damages mentioned in the press code
for defamation cases."
Reporters Without Borders quotes


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"This (defamation) suit creates an opportunity to publicly
litigate the claims even though the Archdiocese of Miami already
settled the lawsuits."
Jeffrey Herman quotes


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"This is defamation ... and disinformation. The prophet of
Islam did not found a terrorist religion, quite to the contrary."
Dalil Boubakeur quotes


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"The law is about preventing unreasonable vilification that is
not in good faith, and we see that as no more controversial than any
defamation law."
Islamic Council quotes


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"Our view is that defamation should never be a criminal
offense. It's not a crime. If in the exercise of free speech you
offend someone or defame someone . . . it's a civil matter between
the journalist and the person who was allegedly defamed."
Joel Simon quotes


Add to Chapter...


"I lean toward it's not (defamation). Some of it is opinion.
(In) some parts of the state, voting with liberal Democrats is not a
bad thing at all."
Chip Babcock quotes


Add to Chapter...


"That greater visibility is what leads to less defamation, and
that's the bottom line for us."
Neil Giuliano quotes


Add to Chapter...


"The mock trial has confused the people about whether the
allegations are true. It's an act of defamation against the prime
minister - and he has no chance to defend himself."
Suranand Vejjajiva quotes


Add to Chapter...


"Any prison sentence for an offence of opinion is
unacceptable, even in cases of insult or defamation."
Reporters Without Borders quotes

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search=DEFAMATION&order=score