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Denialism is the term used to describe the position of governments, political parties, business groups, interest groups, or individuals who reject propositions on which a scientific or scholarly consensus exists. Such groups and individuals are said to be engaging in denialism when they seek to influence policy processes and outcomes by using rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. The term was first used in the sense of 'holocaust denialism', but the usage has broadened to include AIDS denialism, climate change denialism, and evolution denialism."
AIDS denialism actively propagates myths, misconceptions, and misinformation to distort and refute reality. Denialism is the outright rejection of science and medicine. It involves actively contradicting and disregarding medical advice. It is steady state. Denialism is not open to criticism, and evades modification. Denialism is only open to additional evidence supporting its tenets and such evidence most often comes from the misuse of science and from pseudoscience. AIDS denialists, often for the sake of personal preservation or recognition, hold fast to old ideas in the face of new evidence.
One feature of denialism is the tendency to think of the denialist position as beleaguered, and under attack and in a minority that has to stave off the assaults of the vast wrong-thinking majority. As a consequence, those involved in denialism often, in the other justifications for their position, declare their strong allegiance to the principle of free speech. Interestingly, then, denialists often set themselves up as plucky underdogs, battling for their right to speak the truth against a tide of misinformation and, as often as not, conspiracies aimed at keeping them silent.
Deniers and denialists are both terms that describe people who refuse to accept the historical reality of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. There are also 9/11 denialists and those who deny that man ever walked on the moon. Denialism emerges from defiance against objective historical records or, in the case of AIDS, defiance against established science. Still, those who doubt that the Holocaust or 9/11 ever happened do not identify themselves as “denialists” but rather “truth seekers”.
It is plain to see, however, that HIV/AIDS denialists represent just one variant of the broader phenomenon of denialism, sharing common characteristics with Holocaust Deniers, 9/11 Truthers, and others who refuse to accept an indisputable historical record. At the core of denialism is mistrust–in the case of HIV/AIDS, the mistrust is of science and medicine. Scholars have identified the characteristics of political extremists and fringe groups that promote Holocaust denialism. These same characteristics apply equally well to HIV/AIDS denialism.
Like other extremist groups, denialists hold an absolute certainty that they are the sole bearers of “The Truth.” For HIV/AIDS denialists, the truth is that HIV is a harmless virus that cannot possibly cause disease, and that anti-HIV medications amount to nothing more than poison, DNA terminators that can themselves cause AIDS. Second, extremist groups believe that governments are under the control of conspiring forces. In the case of HIV/AIDS denialism, the power of Big Pharma and the medical establishment have corrupted the National Institutes of Health and biomedical sciences in general. A third characteristic of extremists is a hatred for its opponents, often seen as conspiring with their enemies. HIV/AIDS denialists attack the most visible scientists; especially those wh
o are widely exposed in the media as well as those who have publicly debunked their rhetoric. Fourth, extremists deny basic civil liberties to those whose views they see as their enemies. Ironically, denialists censor science by cherry-picking results of research while claiming to be the victims of censorship themselves, and often claiming that their rights to free expression are being systematically thwarted. Finally, denialists, as do extremists, indulge in irresponsible accusations and character assassination. As expected, denialists refer to AIDS scientists and medical specialists as Nazis, the mafia, and murderers.
Psychologist Michael Shermer is the leading authority on Holocaust denialism and he has found that Holocaust deniers’ “fallacies of reasoning are eerily similar to those of other fringe groups, such as creationists”. Remarkably, these same personality features that Shermer describes in holocaust deniers are immediately recognizable among HIV/AIDS denialists. First, denialism concentrates on opponents’ weak points without making definitive statements about their own position. In HIV/AIDS denialism, without a shred of credible evidence to the contrary, there is an incessant call for the one study that proves HIV causes AIDS while not recognizing the thousands of studies that accumulate to irrefutably show that HIV causes AIDS. Even knowing the complexity of HIV and the barriers it poses to vaccines, Peter Duesberg looked me dead in the eyes and said that failure to achieve an HIV vaccine means that an infectious agent cannot be the cause of AIDS. Second, denialists exploit errors made by AIDS scientists, implying that a few errors detected in a mass of work calls into question the entire scientific enterprise.
Holocaust and HIV/AIDS denialism share other common features. For both, millions of people died with the vast majority of Holocaust historians and AIDS scientists confirming the causes. The enormity of human suffering caused by the Holocaust and that of a plague like AIDS offers a platform for denialism. Another commonality is that conspiracy theories drive both Holocaust and HIV/AIDS denialism. There are striking similarities in rhetoric, using selected excerpts from credible documents and calling for a debate on matters for which there is universal agreement. Denialist groups of all types claim mounting controversy and the need for a debate. Both Holocaust and HIV/AIDS denialism have established their own publication outlets, such as the Journal for Historical Review for Holocaust denialism and Continuum magazine in HIV/AIDS denialism. There are full-length films produced by both movements, The Truth behind the Gates of Auschwitz, produced by David Cole for Holocaust denialism and HIV=AIDS: Fact or Fraud, produced by Gary Null and The Other Side of AIDS produced by Eric Paulson and Robert Leppo for HIV/AIDS denialism. The major deniers of the Holocaust are knowledgeable of World War II history and on the fringes of academia, just as the major HIV/AIDS denialists are well versed in the science of AIDS. Denialists of all types seize opportunities by political leaders who express support for their denialism, as has occurred in 2006 by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressing doubt that the Holocaust occurred and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa expressing doubt that HIV causes AIDS.
My book Denying AIDS and this blog are intended to debunk AIDS denialism and open access to the facts surrounding the human tragedy of HIV/AIDS.
I found incredible nice pictures of this church by jaime.silva
The Ascension church (Crkva-Svetog-Vaznesenja) in Belgrade is not very well known, but because of a personal reason, I have a connection to that church and so I wanted to write about its simple architecture and its beautiful interiors.
I found myself praying in front of this wonderful iconostatic, with a strong winter midday sun shining through the windows. The church lays in the middle of Belgrade's trafficked roads, but inside this little church it's completely peaceful. An unforgetable moment!
The church was built in 1863 following a project of Pavle Stanišić and Jovan Ristić, while the construction works were performed by Josip Štok and Fernand Stevanov, and the contractor was Koča Z. Popović. The order for its construction was issued by Knez Mihailo Obrenović , and the works were financed through donations of many Belgrade citizens.
The church was shaped in accordance with then prevailing romantism, following examples of the old Serbian monasteries, first of all the Ravanica monastery.
The first icons were painted by Nikola Marković in 1864, but later, this task was assigned to the most famous painter of that time, Steva Todorović, who completed this enterprise in 1881. Also, the original wall paintings made by Nikola Marković have been replaced with new compositions made by Andrey Bitsenko in 1937.
The church is rich in collections of icons, old books, articles of gold and other things from the XIX century.
Last summer i made a little tour with my family through the Raska (Sandzak) region. Not far away from Novi Pazar lie some of the most interesting sacral buildings of Serbia.
The monastery of St. George in Ras belongs to the most important sacred places in the history of Serbian people. As early as the Middle Ages it became known as "Djurdjevi Stupovi", named after its pillars towers which adorned the monastery church. The monastery was founded by the founder of the Nemanjic dynasty, Stefan Nemanja, in the second half of the 12th century.
According to the narrative of his biographer and son, later Serbian king Stefan Prvovencani (First Crowned), Nemanja vowed to build a temple and consecrate it to St. George, to whom he had devoutly cried for help in his prayers many times in his life. After he had assumed supreme power over Serbian lands (1166), Nemanja began to build the monastery.
Around 1175, the church was painted, and the monastery instantly gained high reputation as the first endowment of the Nemanjic dynasty.
Although Stefan Nemanja had built churches and monasteries before, as a territorial sovereign (St. Nicholas, the church of the Holy Virgin in Toplica), the monastery of St. George in Ras represented a turning-point in the ideology of Nemanjic rulers.With its exceptional position in the vicinity of the cathedral temple of the episcopacy of Ras, and based on the ancient spiritual foundations, the monastery of St. George established the Christian thought of the Serbian state. The world in which Djurdjevi Stupovi played an important role was profoundly altered by the Turkish conquest. War and poverty, emigration and violence, turned the life of the monastery into mere survival, and even that was endangered at the end of the 17th century. For some time, the monastery was deserted (1688), then fire and tyrant hand caused serious damage to the church and the monastery complex, and many ancient Serbian manuscripts suffered considerable damage.
At the beginning of the 19th century the monastery of St. George was a ruin even more devastated by wars. The stones of the glorious foundation were built into the nearby conquerors` fortifications. Аfter the partial reconstruction that was conducted in the 1980’s, the monastery revived its liturgical activities in 2002. By great efforts from the Serbian Orthodox Church, behalf of state institutions, firms and individuals, as well as of Serbian people, the dormitory was renovated and young monastic fraternity moved in.
Djurdjevi Stupovi in Ras (together with Sopocani and Peter’s Church) has been included into the UNESCO list in 1979, as a monument of outstanding importance.
The church lie on top of a hill and the panoramic view overlooking Novi Pazar is fantastic. The external appearance of this single-nave temple with a tripartite sanctuary, a nave with lateral vestibules and a narthex (entry hall), flanked by two towers, emanates a spirit of western Romanesque building (the so called Raska School).
With the addition of the apse on the eastern side in 1282/83, the entry tower was transformed into a chapel and the tomb of King Dragutin. Here the official Website with very beautiful pictures and here some more information with plans and videos.
