Fogbuster

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Going far beyond the sphere of Unificationism and the unjust imprisonment of at least one of its adherents, there looms now a new test case for a new "hate crime": "atheofobia". Never heard of it?? You're surely not alone. It was new to me until a few days ago. It means: "fear of those who deny God", and that is supposed to be a new kind of "crime", as the proceedings in Kazakhstan recently portend. You may be accused of this "crime" by merely stating that religious people tend to be happier than those who deny God.

A Strange Case in Kazakhstan: Atheofobia, a New Hate Crime?
by James T. Richardson

"Note by Massimo Introvigne: The material concerning this case, including the whole legal file, has been deposited in the CESNUR archives. Dr. James T. Richardson, one of the world’s leading experts in religious liberty issues, has authorized CESNUR to publish his report. Dr. Richardson’s report deals with issues specifically concerning the Unification Church. The most alarming point in the material we have reviewed is, however, of general interest and goes beyond th Unification Church. In what was regarded as the crucial point of the case, the prosecution’s expert, Dr. Burova, accused Ms. Drenicheva of a new crime, which could be termed atheofobia. By claiming that religious persons in general are happier than atheists, Ms. Drenicheva according to Dr. Burova is guilty of a new hate crime and is discriminating against an “ethnic group”, i.e. atheists. Of course, scores of religious activists may be accused of a similar crime.


Statement of Specialist James T. Richardson, J.D., Ph.D.

Statement of James T. Richardson, J.D., Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies, University of Nevada, Reno, concerning case involving Elizabeth Drenicheva, a Russian citizen and member of the Unification Church, who has been charged with presenting material harmful to the State of Kazakhstan and its citizens.

Professor Richardson, a licensed attorney as well as a Ph.D. trained sociologist, has published eight books and over 200 articles and chapters in books dealing with various aspects of minority religions. His most recent book, Regulating Religion: Case Studies from around the Globe (2004, Kluwer) contains 33 chapters, including seven that address religious regulation in former Soviet Union nations. He has testified or consulted in legal matters involving minority and new religions in a number of countries, including Russia, England, France, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, as well as presented research results at conferences and universities in over 20 nations. Professor Richardson has visited nine different countries that were formerly a part of the Soviet Bloch, doing research and making presentations in them. His research has focused in recent years of functioning of constitutional courts in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as the European Court of Human Rights. Professor Richardson also directs and teaches in the Judicial Studies graduate degree program for trial judges, offered at his university in conjunction with the National Judicial College and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, both of which are headquartered on his campus. The course he teaches is called "Social and Behavioral Science and the Law," an area where Professor Richardson has done considerable research and publication in academic and legal journals. Professor Richardson has been a Fulbright Fellow to The Netherlands, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the Bellagio Center in Italy, An Official Visitor at the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics, and also spent a sabbatical year doing research in Australia where is was affiliated with the University of Sydney Law Faculty, as well as the University of Queensland Law School and the Department of Criminology at the University of Melbourne.

ANALYSIS

I will focus my attention on the report of the experts in the case (Expert Findings No. 6141), offering specific comments based on my own content analysis of the material in the report, in particular focusing from the report on the recordings of the session of the Unification Church (“UC”) meetings where Ms. Drenicheva spoke, as well as a content and linguistic analysis of one of the reports, that of political scientist Dr. E.E. Burova.

... continued: A Strange Case in Kazakhstan: Atheofobia, a New Hate Crime?, by James T. Richardson


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"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."

DarrylS

Is your need for attention and self engrandizement so great that you have to post the same thing over and over again.. we all know you are upset about this.. but reposting it over and over again will probably no solicit any support for your cause.. mods please merge.

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"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.

Fogbuster

This isn't about me; it's about a young innocent woman forced into a prison that provides no food or other necessities for the prisoners. This is about freeing Liza Drenicheva from prison she does not deserve.

Some people -- like YOU -- wanted "outside confirmation" about this travesty, and now, after I provide it, you don't even look at what it says. Speaks volumes about your lack of concern about the plight of those less fortunate than you.



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"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."

PatsFanInVa

I don't understand the problem. Obviously, if we coin athneophobia to mean hatred of atheists, it's as a quasi-religious grouping rather than an ethnic group. I say quasi-religious because the characteristics of Atheists can be best described using the same categories by which we would describe religions, not ethnic groups. Of course, I say "quasi" because in the case of Atheism, it is not objectively correct to refer to them as a religion.

This particular gentleman's work doesn't seem at all shocking, but I would be interested in seeing how this category applies to the law under which her case was brought.

There are many causes which deserve my attention and sympathy, foggy. Suffice it to say your penchant for bad analysis and false witness make me very unlikely to pick up this woman's cause as very high on my agenda. I remember vaguely the last time you ranted about her case that it seemed somewhat sympathetic, but quite frankly, nobody is motivated to support the causes of untrustworthy and often hostile sources.

But I will say the concept of hate-crime against atheists is the type of necessary category that by habit of thought we Americans tend not to come up with, being such a famously provincial and self-impressed milieu. Thank you for exposing us to this little sliver of the broader world's culture. It's something we need to think about.

PFnV

DarrylS

If you post the same exact thing twice it does become about you and your need for attention..

I do want confirmation of the details, that is all, to just blindly follow what the Washington Times says or FFWPU says is not a good way to proceed... some of us choose to be discerning readers and not just blindly follow what someone else says.. is there more to this story than what has been reported??..

It is interesting that this has only been reported in Moonie Sites..

If you are content with your method, so be it.. but do not try to enforce your values and belief systems on the rest of us... maybe you are intelliphobic..

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"Being the best doesn't mean you always win. It just means you win more than anyone else".. tweet from Kurt Warner to Tom Brady.

Fogbuster

One thread is about the petition; the other thread is about the specific folks -- other than Unificationists -- who see a disturbing trend at play here. The only other time in history when religious views were called "detrimental to the state" was during the Soviet time; of course, other communist regimes, from Cambodia to Cuba, Angola to Danny Ortega's Ni-ca-RA-wa, have followed that same game plan, since it worked so well in crushing religious beliefs of some 400 million souls in the old Soviet.

You may wash this away in your mind, and dump your bigotry onto the messenger, but the fact remains: without religious freedom there would be no "Modern world" of today; we'd all have lived our lives by the time we reached 30, then died in some miserable hell-hole state of existence.


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"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."

sdaniels7114

In a significantly more interesting story, the Red Sox have traded a player to be named later to the Cincinnati Reds for some guy you've never heard of.

wistahpatsfan

James T. Richardson, J.D., Ph.D., Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies, University of Nevada, Reno (a real hotbed of academic excellence!).

So here’s Fraudbuster’s source of documentation- the one “sociologist / lawyer” who hinges his career on the debunking of brainwashing techniques used by cults. Cults don’t brainwash but commies do. Where have we heard this theory before? Hmmmmmm.:

"...…The cultic brainwashing theory has generally been rejected by mainstream academia as a pseudoscientific myth that has been definitively repudiated on the basis of authoritative research on Communist coercive persuasion and also by generally accepted research demonstrating that people convert to off-beat religions through a voluntary process. According to such experts, the brainwashing term and concept are bandied about as if they have some clear meaning, though in fact they lack a precise denotation. There is, however, a definite connotation. The brainwashing explanation tends to be used when someone appears to have made a decision against their best interest, or to have altered their convictions in a seemingly disadvantageous and inappropriate manner. The person is seen as having been manipulated in such a way as to have lost personal autonomy and free will."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R...n_(sociologist)

Nice try, Fraud. Any other “highly qualified sources? What a clown! With supporters like you, this girl is DOOMED!

# 83. Seeing Through Tinted Lenses
Like someone who sees the world through rose-colored glasses, cult members see everything through the filter of the cult's viewpoint. Jesus freaks judge people on the basis of whether they are seekers, trying to get closer to the Lord. Communists see everything in terms of economics and class struggle. Recovery cults judge people on the basis of their drug and alcohol consumption or abstention. Most all cults judge people on how well they parrot the cult's favorite dogma and slogans.
After Patty Hearst, the daughter of the Hearst Publishing heir, William Randolph Hearst III, was kidnapped, tortured, and brain-washed by the terrorist Symbionese Liberation Army, she saw her own father as just another rich Capitalist creep who had never cared about the poor people. She saw everything in terms of a revolutionary class struggle, and then she acted on those beliefs, and went out and robbed banks to get the SLA more guns and money.

Similarly, the Moonies see everything in terms of Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church fighting against Satan, to reclaim the world for God.
Scientologists see everything in terms of mental malfunctions — they consider anyone who isn't performing up to their standards to be brain-damaged and insane (and in need of expensive Scientology therapy to restore their full potentiality). And if you dare to criticize Scientology, they see that as proof that you are mentally defective, and an "unethical" Suppressive Person, too.

The Cult Test, Questions 0

Fogbuster

And your answer to the issue of world peace is to drain a few six-packs and toke some reefer... wow! Watch out, satan, wistah's gonna get ya!! ... ain't that an old movie!

Stay where you are, don't bother with this. The adults will take care of the business at hand.

Back to sleep now.... here, I'll even turn on MTV for you...



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__________________
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good to do nothing."

wistahpatsfan

I'm on a jobsite waiting for some material to be delivered. That's "jobsite" as in a place where people with a job do WORK! I'm heading outside to help my guys install some roof joists. Luckily it's a nice day.

Thanks for responding to the points of my post, stupid...oh, and playing directly into my hands......too easy!

# 10. Personal attacks on critics.

Anyone who criticizes the Guru, the cult or its dogma is attacked on a personal level.

Rather than honestly and intelligently debating with critics, using facts and logic, the cult will resort to low personal attacks on the critic, using name-calling, slander, condescending put-downs, libelous accusations, personal slurs, accusations of bad motives, and casting aspersions on the critic's intelligence and sanity --


"You are just an atheist, a liar, a dummy, a sinner, a drunkard, stupid, crazy, only in it for the money, etc..."

....The Moonies claim that their critics are Satanic and working for the Forces Of Evil.

Another red flag to watch for is how angrily cult members react when the cult or its guru is criticized. Most ordinary or "normal" people can tolerate some questioning and criticism of their organizations and leaders without blowing up and insisting that the critic is satanic, or working for the forces of evil, or part of a big conspiracy to destroy the organization, but cult members often cannot. They go non-linear very rapidly when you point out too many faults or shortcomings of the group or its leader — especially when they cannot refute that criticism.

It is just in the nature of true believers to demand absolute certainty in their beliefs. They like black-and-white all-or-nothing thinking, and they have little or no tolerance for doubts and uncertainty. So they irrationally attack the speaker at the first hint of criticism. True believers prefer simple certainty over uncertain complexity, and they don't like shades of gray or subtlety. Like George W. Bush said, "I don't do nuance." (See Eric Hoffer, The True Believer.)

The Cult Test, Questions 0