April 29, 2005

Academics Ask to Be Added to List of Those Boycotted by The British Lecturer’s Union

As I noted previously, the AUT, which is the leading British lecturer’s union, has approved a policy of boycotting Israeli universities. This blatant policy of intellectual repression has led to a revolt on the part of British academics. From Melanie Phillips:

The revolt against the Anglosphere’s jihad

Academics appalled at the AUT’s boycott of Israeli universities have hit upon an elegant and appropriate way to protest at this infamy. They are asking the AUT to add their names to those to be boycotted as a roll of honour. Thus Emanuele Ottolenghi of St Antony’s College, Oxford has sent a message to the AUT thus:

‘Regarding the AUT recent decision to boycott Haifa University and Bar Ilan University in Israel, I am shocked to learn that, in addition to a call for boycott, the AUT is ready to offer a waiver to scholars on condition that they publicly state their willingness to conform to the political orthodoxy espoused by the academics who sponsored your motion.

‘Oaths of political loyalty do not belong to academia. They belong to illiberal minds and repressive regimes. Based on this, the AUT’s definition of academic freedom is the freedom to agree with its views only. Given the circumstances, I wish to express in no uncertain terms my unconditional and undivided solidarity with both universities and their faculties. I know many people, both at Haifa University and at Bar Ilan University, of different political persuasion and from different walks of life. The diversity of those faculties reflects the authentic spirit of academia. The AUT invitation to boycott them betrays that spirit because it advocates a uniformity of views, under pain of boycott.

‘In solidarity with my colleagues and as a symbolic gesture to defend the spirit of a free academia, I wish to be added to the boycott blacklist. Please include me. I hope that other colleagues of all political persuasions will join me.’

This not only avoids the obvious ethical drawbacks of a counter-boycott, but if enough academics join in making such a request—particularly those with international reputations—this can seriously discommode the boycotters, along with exposing them to widening opprobrium and ridicule and creating a coalition of principled revulsion. Brilliant.

(Hat Tip to Georgette Gelbard.)

Reconciling Liberal and Conservative Views on God

INTRODUCTION
The debate about religion has come to the forefront of national attention.

BACKGROUND
Faith ‘War’ Rages in U.S., Judge Says:

...California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown told an audience Sunday that people of faith were embroiled in a “war” against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots, according to a newspaper account of the speech.

Brown’s remarks come as a partisan battle over judges has evolved into a national debate over the proper mix of God and government and as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) ponders changing the chamber’s rules to prevent Democrats from using procedural moves to block confirmation of conservative jurists such as Brown.

Her comments to a gathering of Roman Catholic legal professionals in Darien, Conn., came on the same day as “Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith,” a program produced by evangelical leaders and simulcast on the Internet and in homes and churches around the country. It was designed to paint opponents of Bush’s judicial nominees as intolerant of believers.

Though unrelated to that program, Brown’s remarks sounded similar themes.

“There seems to have been no time since the Civil War that this country was so bitterly divided. It’s not a shooting war, but it is a war,” she said, according to a report published Monday in the Stamford Advocate.

“These are perilous times for people of faith,” she said, “not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud.”

At the LA Press Club event earlier this week, I was talking to a good friend, who has Liberal views on most subjects. She said she can have no respect for the intelligence of anyone who believes in God. It appears to me that she’s summed up the Liberal view on this subject.

MAIN IDEA
God exists.

DISCUSSION
The Liberal viewpoint makes a lot of sense. Surely there’s no big guy in a gold chair sitting up in the clouds.

But that to which the word God refers does exist. It refers to our emotions of worship, and to that which rightfully deserves our worship, namely, ourselves.

The Bible is the summed experience of mankind, at the time at which it was written, about how to live. It’s not right about everything, but there’s a lot of very valuable and meaningful advice in it. The ten commandments are a good example.

Science is not capable of worship because science addresses information, rather than emotion. Therefore God—that is, the emotion of worship, and that which rightfully deserves it—has, so far, been invisible to science.

Because science has not yet found a scientific name for that to which the word God refers, many Liberals incorrectly state that God does not exist, and inadvertently turn their backs on emotions of devotion, reverence and worship.

CONCLUSION
Devotion, reverence and worship are powerful, beautiful emotions, with which people seek to do good and even loving things for others. That which rightfully deserves those emotions does exist; it is ourselves. It is therefore essential to us as a nation to recognize the existence of these emotions, and to appreciate the powerful contribution they make to all of us.

Great Comments from Reader Mavenette Provide Insight on Saudi-Funded Schools in America

In the comment section to a recent post here, Anti-American Violence Preached in a Mosque in a Small Town in America, reader Mavenette has been providing very insightful comments regarding her own personal experience at such a school.

Mavenette also has an excellent blog, Cynicistan, which I’ve been reading regularly.

Traffic here is unusually high today. Was this web site mentioned on the radio or in print somewhere? If so, please leave a comment.