Gay (or not) and coming to Amsterdam? Cancel NOW!

Before you read this, ask yourself:

Would you plan a vacation to a country where Apartheid is still going strong and people of African descent are not allowed in the same places you are? Or would you go on a romantic weekend away with your wife to a country where women are not allowed to vote and cannot hold any important position in the government? Or would you travel to a country where people can be refused to hold a certain job because of their sexual preference and where kids can be kicked out of school because of the same.

If you are a rational, somewhat normal person like me, I assume you would answer NO to each of these questions. Well, realize that if this is the case, and you were planning to come the Netherlands. Cancel your trip. Make other plans.

The Law, christian public schools, gay teachers, gay students. A fun combo.

Dutch law allows religious educational organizations to not hire or fire teachers because of the single fact that they are gay*¹. Personally I have a bit of a hard time understanding gay christians, or why gay people would want to work in schools where they teach from a book that says it’s ok to kill them, but let’s be honest; it’s just wrong! But what is much worse, these same organizations have the ability to dismiss students based on the single fact that they are gay or bisexual. So you are 15, you are completely struggling with your sexuality, you live in an christian region, you attend a christian school and wham ; here’s another problem for ya!

The situation has been like this for years but on 8 feb 2010 (edit- postponed!) the Dutch government is going to discuss these laws and it is unlikely that things will change. The organization Expreszo (a Dutch publisher of a magazine for young gay or bi-sexual people) have called upon their readers to call in sick and go to the Dutch governmental capital tomorrow to demonstrate against this. I hope straight students join this call, that the classrooms are empty and that the streets are full.

I am disgusted by this situation. It makes me sick to realize that this is happening in my great country. Religious fascists have been getting away with this for too long already.

So, if you are planning to come to the Netherlands wait until this crazy laws are changed. It does not matter if you are gay, bi or straight. Just don’t come over.

Thanks.

Vincent

*1 ; it’s very complex. Different people have different interpretations of whether this is really the case. The fact is, that in practice it happens.

More information (Just in case you are interested) :

If you read this and you know me a little you know that i am against religions. But more importantly I am against racism and discrimination. And I am for equal and human rights. In all honestly it’s because of this why I am against religions. To my opinion religions are responsible for racism, discrimination and inequality. But that’s a different post.

I have always been very proud of how progressive and intelligent most of my fellow Dutchmen and Governments have been. But i am sorry to say i am not that proud any more. In spite of our liberal (in a non-US sort of way) and intelligent image the Netherlands actually have laws in place that are fascistic and inhumane. Laws that you would sooner expect in backward countries.

The Dutch constitution*2 (the boring part)

I am definitely not going to bore anyone with a lang slab of text about our constitution (Grondwet) and the rights of all Dutch people (grondrechten). But a little background is needed. Hope you can stay with me here.

>> Artikel 1 of the Dutch Constitution (Nederlandse Grondwet) basically says this : All who are in The Netherlands, will be treated equally in equal circumstances. Discrimination because of religion, worldviews, politics, race, gender or on any grounds what so ever, is not permitted. (For the record; this is my own translation and I believe it to be correct).

I am guessing it is pretty important article since it is the first one of 8 chapters of 142 articles and some additional stuff.

The 1994 Law of equal treatment (Algemene wet gelijke behandeling – AWGB) is based on this 1^st Article.  This law goes a few steps further and strengthens the article. It adds nationality, sexuality (sexual preference) and marital status to the list. It also clarifies that the situations where this equality is most important are employment, housing, services, healthcare, recreation and education.

The law does leave room for positive discrimination for the obvious reasons such as the elimination of inequality in certain, for instance, employment situations. But that is not relevant for this post.

Exceptions to the law rule!

You would say that this is perfect. We’re done. Leave it like that. Move on to other articles, make some new laws. But now comes the freaky bit. The Dutch have complicated things enormously by inserting a set of…. Exceptions! Yes people. The Dutch have managed to reduce a perfect constitutional gem like the first article to a contradictory monster that gets us into trouble every time! And guess who is benefitting from this debacle? Right ; Religious idiots!

The 3 basic exceptions are this :

1. Political organizations can demand that the people they employ share the political view of the organization.
2. Religious and/or ideological and/or philosophical organizations can demand that he people they employ share the religious, ideological and philosophical view of the organization.
3. Special education. Religious and/or ideological and/or philosophical educational organizations can demand that he people that are employed or that attend the educational organization share the religious, ideological and philosophical view of the educational organization.

For the record. By special education we mean religious schools. And by religious schools we mean PUBLIC religious schools. These schools are fully funded by tax-euro’s.

The situation is extremely complicated because there are different ways to interpret the combination of the 1^st Article, the Law and the exceptions. For me it’s pretty simple, but as there is reason for this post, it’s easy to see that the Dutch are not unified on this topic.

*² I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to know everything about the Dutch constitution or laws. This is my view and if you think I am basing this view on the wrong information or or a wrong interpretation of correct information let me know.

I’m taking a break from twitter and facebook !

Thanks for visiting my blog. I am currently on a break!

From 3 february 2010 until ‘who knows when’ i will be taking a break from 90% of my online activities. So this means no @vizhnet on the witter, no Vizh Net on the Facebook and no “it’s Vizhnet’s blog” for a while!

REASON 1 : New (interesting) activities, more (interesting) work, a new training and the need for some downtime are completely to blaim.

REASON 2 : The motivation and the fun is more or less gone. I need it back. Without it, i’m useless.

DURATION : If i survive the cold turkey; at least a week. Maybe longer. I do not know.

For the record, i will not read my Twitter @ mentions or DM’s or the Facebook entries during this period. Get in touch? ; leave a comment – open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

“See” y’all later, i’ll be back.

Vincent / Vizhnet

(I will receive comments on this post by email, so feel free)

Join these Atheist Networks – New banners!

I have been completely neglecting my duties as an Atheist blogger, and for that i appologize.

The main reason has been work getting to hectic to sit down and, really start writing anything. Even though this has not changes, i promise to try and do better.

So expect some posts on this here blog, ok?

To reach as many people as one can, i am also a member of the following atheist networks. These groups allow you to interact, get and share information and also, have a bit of fun while you there.

For those who already know, and are members; go and do more on these networks.

If you have stumbled upon this blog (or you did a search for flat earth), if you are thinking of coming out as an atheist or becoming a more active atheist; you REALLY should join all 4 of these great groups! I’m there.. Add me as a friend while you are at it.

For this special occassion i made 4 special banners that i will keep on my blog permanently.

Good luck!

Vincent / Vizhnet !

Join me ‘in’ The Atheist Abyss’

The Atheist Abyss is a ning network site for atheists to discuss all things. Religious or not. Make friends. Follow campaigns. Post your random thoughts. You know.

Come and join me on this great network. Click on Scuba Jebus below to go to the TAA site.

I gotz a new avatar. You like?

I promise to put some new stuff on here soon.

But first i decided to change my avatar again.

Let me know if you like it.

And let me know if you don’t!

Regards,

Vizhnet

Happy New Year from @Vizhnet

Happy New Year all of you!

My new years resolution is that i will try to convert everyone i know to the great religion of Atheism!

What’s yours?

Hope you have a great time, and a great year!

Thank you for visiting my blog, hope you will in 2010.

Vincent / @Vizhnet

Teach our kids about religion. it’s ok!

I recently posted “Let’s start teaching ‘Atheism’ in school?” and got some really cool comments and suggestions. Not only here but also on the great community websites : thinkatheist, atheistnexus, the atheist abyss and atheist hit squad.

i invite you to read the post (here or on one of the community blogs), but more importantly the comment section as some of the things that were said will, at least, make you think about it.

This morning i posted a comment myself, but later decided to also use it as a separate post.. so here you go.

We should bow to the mighty ZEUS!

When i was in highschool, i obviously had to take history. I was very fortunate to have greek mythology enthusiast as a teacher. This meant that besides history of the world, europe and The Netherlands we spent a great deal of time talking about this enjoyeble subject. The great thing about it is that the way it was taught, is to my opinion exactly the way we can teach children about christianity, islam and other ancient religions of ‘today’.

Recently, during a holiday in Greece, i told my 8 year old daughter about some of the greek gods and their stories. I told her that the ancient Greeks used to believe these stories as truth. Because it is so obvious that the aren’t factual I did not make an effort to make clear that they weren’t. And even though the word mythology does not imply truth or falsity perse, it is my opinion that they are false. I’m sure most, if not all people these days, will agree with me that Zeus never really existed. My little girl does’nt. But she still thought the stories were great.

My point is that one day the bible, the thora and the quran will have the same status as other mythological ‘holy’ books. It can be taught in schools as part of history. One could take specialized courses in judeism, christianity, islam or theism in general. Or get a degree, or become a professor in ancient mythology. As this is already possible and i even know that some theology students are non-believers i am hopefull that this will happen.

Let’s not forget that, even though the theism that we know today is not factual and indeed responsible for a lot of the problems in our world, other ancient beliefsystems like the Greek polytheism were also very harmfull and ‘bad’ in their own time. Just because there are no active Greek polytheist fundamentalists around threatening to blow themselves up if we do not bow to the mighty Zeus, means we can see it as a part of history and teach our kids about it in a neutral way. And most importantly, without the fear of insulting anyone. If we take this approach to christianity and islam we might finally get somewhere. Like it or not, these beliefsystems are an integral part of our lifes and will effect our future for a long time to come. For former believers and but even for people who have never been part of a particular beliefsystem, like myself.

We do not need to ‘teach atheism’ to our kids, as teaching them about religions the way i described above, will ‘make them’ into what they are supposed to be. Smart kids. And one day there will be as much use for the word atheist as there is for the term anti-Greek-polytheist right now.

I for one, would like to see this happen during my lifetime. Care to help?

Let’s start teaching ‘Atheism’ in school?

This is my invitation to you, the reader, to tell me what you think about this.

Recently i tweeted : “If agreeing to the ridiculous claim that #atheism is a #religion allows us to ‘teach’ atheism in school, it might be worth investigating”

It was something that just popped into my head and i decided to tweet it as i often do with stuff that just pops into my head. Not really thinking about the consequences.

Atheism is obviously not a religion. I would say that anyone claiming that it is, could be best described as an idiot. I am just saying that by ‘agreeing’ with the ‘idiots’, atheism could gain the same status as most religions and it will then be able to start benefitting from all the special treatment that religions get. Government sponsoring, ‘get our of jail free cards’, lobby power and, importantly to be ‘allowed’ to indoctrinate our children.

But of course is not possible to ‘teach atheism’ as it is more or less the same as teaching kids how to be human beings. And as far as i am concerned that is what we are already doing by simply raising them. But anyway, one of the major benefits of gaining a ‘religious status’ for atheism could be that it will then be possible to officially teach our kids about religion from a secular non-religious perspective. And make it a mandetory course for all schools. Even for the faith based schools that we (in the Netherlands) still have and that, hopefully, one day will be replaced for secular schools.  I’m not saying i fully agree with this right now, but i like the concept enough to ‘throw in in there’.

I, for one, would not mind a mandetory course in ’secularism and religious believes’ in our schools. I would want my children to learn about all the ‘available’ religions. Especially as i am raising them to be rational (meaning without belief in fairytales, doctrines and other religious nonsense) and they will have to know ‘what is out there’ and what kind of people they will encounter on ‘their path’ to life.

Right now, in my kids school (a Dutch PUBLIC school) we can opt for a course with the highly dubious name ‘religious education’. This course is supposed to be about religion in the general broad sense and i am happy to say it is optional and not accessible for kids under 10. But as i live in a christian part of the country, the fact that the tagline for the course is ‘more than biblestories alone’ and the fact that this class is given by a christian lady i can imagine my kids will not learn too much about islam, scientology, buddhism, appolonius, simon or mithras. And what about NOT BELIEVING at all! Mmm.. maybe i need to talk to the school one of these days.

Well, if you are intested to share your opinion. Let me know what you think.

Regards

Vincent /@Vizhnet

Also posted on facebook, thinkatheist, atheistabyss, atheisthitsquad and atheistnexus.

Breaking; @zDennylife is un-American, dishonest and hates freedom

Yesterday i posted a comment on zDenny’s website about an article called  Good vs. Evil. and a post on this blog.

zDenny aka @zDennylife responded, but unfortunately not on the subject of my comment. He did however prove he is very un-American.  Below is the whole story. If yer interested.

zDenny,

I think you are not responding to what I wrote in my comment. I was trying to tell you something about the fact that there is no coherent group called ‘the atheists’ with a unified single objective.

However, by making this mistake, you raise an interesting point. What is true freedom. From your words, also in your comment to mister Hicks (the honorable Rev. James T. Hicks, D.D), I think you do not like freedom. I would like to go even further. I think you are against freedom.

You say this :
~~ however, I don’t support limits on freedom of speech and freedom of religion.~~

That makes two of us ; I do not ‘support’ limits either. But I do acknowledge that your laws (the first amendment) directly and clearly imply that there are limits for society. In normal English I guess you could say that to ensure freedom for everybody, everybody has to stick to certain rules to ensure that their freedom remains real ‘freedom’. The keyword here  is everybody.

In my view, freedom literally means that we agree that there is no single opinion, worldview or doctrine that prevails over any other. Your own laws basically allows anyone to have any kind of worldview and exercise their particular religious ritualistic behavior. But by ‘allowing’ this it automatically prohibits everybody else to disallow worldviews that are not their own. If everyone in a society sticks to that simple ‘Asimovian’ double rule there would be a nice little balance.

If you accept this, you will accept that this ‘rule’ is also automatically limiting. The rule specifically forbids anyone to enforce their worldview onto others. Especially in the public domain. So, for example, a devout muslim should be able to get a job at a predominantly christian school as, let’s say; a science teacher. But he cannot teach the children that mohammed is the only profit that they are allowed to worship. And you will understand this goes for all the different christian or non-religious worldviews as well.

I always thought that the basic idea behind freedom of religion is that, in a country of so many different belief systems everyone should keep that particular belief system to themselves. And especially out of the public domain. So that is why I said that there should not be any christian or muslim lawyers or judges. They should be lawyers and judges first, upholding the secular law of the country, BEFORE they are christians or muslims. For that is their personal spiritual worldview and probably NOT the worldview of 90% of the people they interact with in everyday life.

Then you say:
~~ We should ask for transparency and authenticity rather than asking people to hide who they are. I want an open and honest society rather than a closed and dishonest society~~

I ask you. How transparent, authentic, open and honest would your society be if one single school of thought would be the leading worldview taught in schools, used in courtrooms, to create legislature and used as a bases for domestic and foreign politics and warfare?  What if all other the worldviews that exist in that very society, both religious and non-religious, were oppressed and treated as second-rate? WAIT! That IS your society.

It is not very open and honest is it? It is actually extremely un-American! I guess i think you are extremely un-American.

‘THE’ Atheist does not exist (for @zDennylife)

zDenny or @zDennylife recently posted a blog about Good vs. Evil. Right here!

Below is my response slightly edited for this blog.  For your enjoyment.

Hi zDenny,

Hey, I found something we agree on : “While the Republicans seem to be more favorable to Christianity, it should be noted that George W. Bush did very little with his power other than fight two unnecessary wars.” :-)

But seriously. I am not writing this comment to make fun of you, or to deliberately insult you. I am not saying i would never do this, i wanted to mention something else.

From this and some of your other posts i get the feeling that you still think that ‘atheists’ are 1 big coherent group with 1 universal goal. And I can assure you ‘they’ or ‘we’ are not and that ‘they’ or ‘we’ don’t. There is not even a ‘they’ or a ‘we’. Or ‘us’.

I know that i get into arguments with religions bloggers and tweeters all the time, but the most insulting dialogues i ever got into were with ‘fellow’ atheists. To be honest; there are atheists out there (some of them pretty active and even well known) who are completely ignorant and say some pretty idiotic things. Check www.atheistnexus.org and check the comment section of the same sex marriage post if you want a laugh.

It proves that being an ‘out’ atheist does not automatically make you a rationalist, a realist or a nice person. And it definitely does not automatically make one an intelligent person. And I can assure you that i know some pretty devout religious people who i do see as very friendly, good, reasonable people. And some of them are very intelligent. My view is that you should realize that in the first place we (meaning everyone, including you and me) are human beings. That is the first and one of the few unifying qualifications for all of us. Before someone is a man or woman, before someone has a certain skin color or political agenda, is a christian, a muslim, a stamp collector, a job(title), a soccer fan, a murderer, a buddhist or anything else we are all just 1 thing. A human being. That’s not even about the science of it. It’s just a rational conclusion based on facts and reason. And yes, even though not believing is not a guarantee for being reasonable, non believers can be very reasonable.

Only after you realize that we are just human beings we can be qualified as what we believe to be the truth. Be it by being born into it, or something that one has gradually or instantly decided to believe to be the truth. Our worldviews differ, but in essence there is no real difference between you and me. I can obviously only speak for myself, but i my hopes for this world do not include ‘converting it to a secular state’. I can tell you what my hopes are, but that would take to long. Let’s just say that my hope for the future of this planet and all its inhabitants is that it will one day be religion free. And let me assure you that this does not mean that i want to deny anyone’s right to have a personal spiritual worldview or lifestyle. It just means that i would like to see that there is true freedom with regards to this personal spiritualism. This meaning that i want children to go to school to learn about facts, figures and the world. And i don’t want them to be taught that the bible, the quran or the collected works of L. Ron Hubbard are the only books that contain the truth about everything. I would like to see that institutions such as, but not limited to, all christian, islamic and judeic organizations to be a thing of the past. No more vatican, evangelicals of America, islam, scientology, hillsong church, tv evangelists, fundamentalism et cetera. I am absolutely sure that you also would like to see all of these organizations to simply dissapear. Unfortunately, you would obviously also like to see that your particular faith will be the only faithbased system for the world. I am sure you will understand that i do not share that particular ambition with you.

For the record; my post “Should we take away ‘freedom of speech’ from ID/Creationists?” actually makes very clear that I do not think this should happen. And it is not happening. Rights are not taken away from christians, or from any of the numerous other faiths’. I have to agree with Mossa’s comment that “Government promoting one religion over another is not freedom of religion”. BECAUSE there are so many religions to take into account, the only way a country and its people can survive is to NOT allow any of the religions to ‘claim’ any part of the social structure or politics. So no faith based schooling, no faith based political parties (or decisions) and no faith based law! No mandatory faith for students, teachers, lawyers or judges to be able to do their job. No swearing on the bible in court, no prayer in the classroom, no mandatory bible or quran studies and no sharia courts and no mandatory circumcisions. Only than the TRUE freedom of a people can be ensured.

By the way. Next time, if you choose to link to my blog (which I truly appreciate even if we disagree completely) try to throw in a mention here or there. I do when I link to yours.

Well my fellow human, I’m looking forward to your reply.

My best regards

Vizhnet / Vincent

Sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes. English is still not my first language.