They Blew it All, Because Bronze Age Bigotry Came First.

Eunice and Owen Johns lost their high court case to become foster carers because they refused to say that a homosexual lifestyle was acceptable. The social services feared that this would be a problem (and it would be) if they adopted a child who would later enter into homosexual lifestyles. Of course this is being seen as yet another occasion when the rights of Christians is being superseded by the rights of homosexuals.

Well it isn't. No one can force the more "rigorous" practitioners to like homosexuality, but when they are in a position to actually put this belief into practice, potentially on a child then we have a problem. It isn't the thought police. It is saying that a person may have views that may result in an adverse situation that clouds their professional approach. That you may have views that are considered controversial in a private setting, but may create a conflict of interest in professional situations.

The law that has brought about the court case, currently says that the rights of a person to live free from homophobic discrimination supersedes their right to be discriminated against on the grounds of religious prejudice. That is the right of a person who had their sexual orientation determined by matters out of their control has the right to not be discriminated against by someone who signed up for a religion, who has the opinion that gayness is bad because some book told them it was. I'm sorry but it is a strange moral standard when an opinion has more moral worth than someone being persecuted for something they had no control over. And no amount of strongly worded letters by Dr Carey about how Christianity is being trampled on by gay rights (well you want to be free to persecute, so go figure.) changes that fact.

I think stories like this wind me up so much because of the sheer wastefulness of them. This couple (and I'm sure they were pretty good foster parents in the past, who had a lot to offer.) went to court to try to justify being specially immune from the law because some old book said (about twice) that they had to discriminate against a whole group of people. I hope it was worth it. That they went all this way to defend a biblical issue that on the scale of things isn't that big a part of the Christian faith. That any reasonable person might have thought that wasting all that energy on upholding a "value" that is so irrelevant and blatantly morally wrong. Now a child has lost the chance of having some kind of stable upbringing because upholding some piece of Bronze age bigotry was obviously far more important. What a waste.

It is interesting that they sort of issue a similar statement of regret, but obviously without seeing the inherent irony of what they say:

"'Worst of all, a vulnerable child has now likely missed the chance of finding a safe and caring home at a time when there are so few people willing to foster or adopt."

Baroness Warsi and Anti Muslim Bigotry in the UK

1. What the BBC puts Muslims.... story was really about.

2. I flush the "Muslim toilests" down the loo as bullshit

3. 5cc demolishes the "Muslims tell British to go to hell..... headline

4.MCB tell the Daily Express a few home truths. (presumably after they had finished telling us all what to teach in our schools.)

I found all of the pictures above just by typing Daily Star / Express Muslims, no loaded terms like racism etc. I also found that what the front page images were saying was either untrue or completely distorted in every item I have put up above. With this in mind it is interesting to hear what Baroness Warsi had to say about anti-Muslim prejudice in the UK today.

Baroness Warsi's speech has been pretty controversial to say the least. If you look on the Telegraph blogs which is generally a good place to find varying right wing conservative opinion (Warsi is a Tory after all.) you get a mixed response to what she said, from the ghastly Lord Tebbit basically saying she should shut her mouth, to Peter Oborne agreeing with her, and lots of comments on his article... er not. As I said the debate is rather confused and seems to fall between two issues, the first being whether or not Muslims are particularly singled out in the prejudice stakes. The second is whether the British have a legitimate reason to fear of Islam / Muslims in the UK to "justify" that fear. Let us look first at argument number one, are Muslims particularly susceptible to prejudice in the UK? In my opinion this is pretty straight forward and I agree with Baroness Warsi that it is pretty widespread and in some ways the acceptable face of prejudice these days. The sentiments around the headlines I have shown imply that British Muslims demand special treatment; that they as the minority expect the majority to confirm to their values. Muslims are ungrateful and unpatriotic towards Britain; no - they actually hate the UK, and that they have a sense of victim hood (listen to Jon Gaunt's claim of "bleating" in this heated interview on the Jeremy Vine show, about 13 minutes in.) and that they have the audacity to claim to be victims of prejudice, a claim no one in the majority should indulge at face value. The sense that the Muslim minority are the recipients of special treatment at the expense of the white majority was in some part a triggering point in the Burnley race riots 10 years ago. Again as with the headlines, this seems t6o be more a case of here say than actually having any basis in objective truth if you care to sift through the evidence. All of which is mixed in with urban myths and misunderstandings over individual anecdotes blown out of proportion and falsely repeated as truths. Anecdotally I do a few hours in my local pub on a Thursday night, and I overheard two separate patrons grumbling about these very things in relation to the Warsi speech, that was in one five hour shift. Then there are those stupid chain posts on facebook, things like "you can't do X in case it offends minorities [aka Muslims], that do the rounds with depressing regularity. So on these levels yes, Muslims in the UK are more vulnerable to facing prejudice in relation to other people.

The second argument revolves around whether Islam, or at least the radical forms of Islam are a threat to modern Britain and the West itself, and is Islam uniquely incompatible with western values? Well in the case of radical Islam yes it is a threat to western values, but that doesn't make it unique. The founding doctrines of Islam like the other Abrahamic sects are a product of their times, which aren't our times. They were written in a rougher tougher age when justice was rough and justice was done by hitting people with swords. Where women's rights were unheard of. Where enslaving your fellow man was just "stuff that happened". It is therefore no surprise that religious fundamentalists of all the major religions will end up clashing with the liberal pluralistic values of the democratic west. The old testament and the harsher end of the Quran is about as far removed from what we would call "western values" as you can get. If Islamic fundamentalists take this stuff at face value then it is unsurprising that some will denounce the west as decadent and whatever. However let us not forget that right wing Christian authoritarians regularly denounce the west, and sectarian organisations like the EDL clearly loathe pluralism and democracy though they claim to be patriotic.

It is often claimed that Islam is uniquely evil and incompatible with western values. This really isn't true. Religions sort of sawtooth in the violence done in their name, at present radical Islam is peeking all over the world, and violence is done in the name of Islam, even on the streets of London in 2005. But let me stress that religious violence is not just confined to Islam, all the major religions will resort to bloodshed if taken to extremes. That when people resort to a combination of dogma, adherence to violent medieval codes of practice and supremacism, then the shit will hit the fan. But that was part of Baroness Warsi's point. Muslims are a diverse group of people, some take it too literally, most pick and choose what to believe. Most probably haven't even read most of the Quran, like most who say they are Christians, who haven't even read most of the Bible. Most modern people either couldn't or wouldn't be able to follow them totally to the letter these days anyway. All Muslims seem to be far to often lumped in as one monolithic group of ultra excitable fanatics who want to burn and stone stuff at the drop of a hat, and that is just removed from reality. As for Islam being uniquely incompatible with a liberal democratic society. Take a look at the protests in Iran in 2009, and the people of Tunisia rising up against a grasping kleptocrat. Seems the people in those countries aren't to keen on living under authoritarian regimes, both countries that are Islamic majority ones.

I would be naive to say that Islam has it's fair share of problems, all human organisations do. The Abrahamic faiths will always struggle to find their place in a modern democratic society that increasingly seems to reject the influence they once had (and a good thing that is too.) and contradicts the archaic doctrines they hold dear. But when I see the horrible comments about Muslims on the Telegraph blogs, and some of the casual racism spouted off as truth, we have to remember that these are human beings we are talking about. Muslims aren't some monolithic alien species who are wholly incompatible and irreconcilably different from the rest of us, a point I believe Ms. Warsi was trying to make, and a point that sometimes needs to be made a lot more.

Bashing the Bishop Pete of Willesdon

Bishop Pete of Willesdon, bloody Willesdon? Do they have an Archbishop of Wythenshawe? A Vicar of the parish made up of the Burger King on the Northbound Trowell Services on the M1? -. I digress. Bish Pete is officially the most horridest man in Christendom after he made some stupid comments on Facebook about the royal family, Katie and Williams wedding likely lasting seven years, Chas's ears, the royals being a bunch of philanderers -and a tasteless joke about a princess and a bridge column in a tunnel in Paris (I made the last one up by the way). Why do I mention this preposterous story? Well Melanie Philips; Peter Oborne; Richard Littlejohn, and some prat no-ones ever heard of on the Torygraph blogs are saying that this [Anglican] godbloke; who has made republican comments as well - should be sacked as technically the Queen is a sort of his boss (what about God?? Is she like the Department manager and he's the MD or something?), and he swore an oath of allegiance to her, so technically he has committed the ecclesiastical equivalent of slagging his boss off online. This is all interspersed with how republicans are just a bunch of mean minded; disloyal killjoys, blah blah -who should just shut their faces. So much for the ostensibly libertarian Torygraph, yeah free speech if you sing to the right songsheet more like.

It's not the unedifying and slightly weird "reverential" forelock tugging that seems to be going on with some of the conservative commentators response to our royal betters tieing the knot, that bugs me about this story, though I do hear "get a fucking grip it's 2010 for gawds sake!" screaming in my mind with some of the coverage this weddings getting. No it's how they are reacting to an institution [The C of E ] they supposedly revere as an essential part of our "Judeo Christian bedrock values". In case they haven't noticed the C of E is dying on its arse a bit at the moment. The guys comments were a bit in bad taste yeah, but come on! The C of E is losing followers. Joe public loses interest with stuff like this. It's trivial. It really highlights the bubble some of these people are in in regards to the role of the Anglican church in regards to modern Britain. It is almost pitiable to see these guys getting worked up at the "harm" this is doing to the church. Yeah it causes harm, it shows how out of touch it is, getting worked up about it. People won't want to know. Kick this bloke out! Yeah it's not like the C of E is having staffing crises is it? Do get a grip.

And on a final note. As I said his comments were a bit of a case of republican sour grapes. But I know that some of the homophobic comments from that same institution are a lot worse, and are directed at people who don't have the material trappings of bishop Petes targets either. I wonder why these commentators (I'll let Oborne off the hook) don't get half as worked up about that sort of sentiment?

The Double Front Faith Schools Put Up.

One of the great ills of our age is how our kids (well yours, I don't have any myself) education has been used as an ideological battleground. Schools are political, and don't be an unwitting casualty for Gods sake. This article on the findings of a school adjudicator discovered that Christian faith schools unwittingly favour middle class kids, though that is of little surprise to me. Faith schools are largely problematic because they segregate different faiths off from one another at an early age (apparently just shy of 70% of Northern Ireland's under 25's have never met the "other side") and now to top it off they (the adjudicator did say other faiths do it) compound it by segregating on class lines as well. It is hard to see how we can have a harmonious society when so little mixing occurs.

Like faith segregation; class segregation brings problems too and is far more widespread than the former. For an in depth analysis of the problems it brings, direct to the Nick Davies education articles, it's there in the blogroll. The basic gist of the articles can be summarised as the fact that a large middle class intake into a school can be a large driver for academic success. I'm not saying that means all working class parents are rubbish at raising their kids, or that middle class people are automatically academic "betters" - God no, it is a more practical fact. More affluent parents can focus more holistic attention to a school. Why? Because their income is higher, it is easier for one parent (aka Mum) not to have the need to work, or at least to work full time, thus they have more free time to pursue on things like schools. A working class family may have two parents who by necessity have to work full time, perhaps holding two jobs, or more. Many of these jobs have crap hours that coincide badly with school hours. It isn't that they are short on parenting, they are short on time and this is what the article touches on. Middle class parents can win favour with churches by being more flexible to attend them, or to help out with voluntary church work. They know this and are sort of in tune with this back door selection. There is nothing fundamentally "better" about what faith schools teach that explains their academic success, but they can attract a high intake of kids with parents who have the time to push for high standards and tada! Although I can't overlook the more questionable parts of a faith schools curriculum it seems a lot of middle class parents can. I can't say I blame them but it does unwittingly exacerbate what is wrong with schooling today. Right wing columnists are missing the point when they say that the comprehensive system doesn't work, it doesn't really exist in the first place. Selection didn't end with the cull of the 11 plus, it just went on under more coy methods. As I said a devoted bunch of middle class parents who have the free time to expend huge amounts of energy on their kids education can drive schools to up the game, but they are not touching many schools at all, and these are falling behind and is at the root of everything that is fucking everything up in our education system. Pushy parents who have the time to join the PTA and give a head teacher a flea in the ear may be a colossal pain in the arse but they are an effective one. It is unfortunate that they can be a scarce one.

PS. I must implicitly point out that I am not saying working class parents don't place as much value on their kids education, that is obviously untrue. It is that often they simply do not have the financial freedom to expand as much free time to get involved as they may like to. But by increasing the amount of the parents who do have the time to other schools, then they hopefully speak for them into the bargain as well.

Halal Hulabaloo

There has been quite a lot of feedback in the papers from "outraged" readers in regards to the Mail on Sundays "expose" on the widespread distribution of halal meat to well known stores and food outlets without this being made clear to buyers / eaters, or even mentioned at all. I didn't actually think that it was not that well known that cheap halal meat was frequently sold - not just to take aways, but to other places too. Despite what the coverage may say this isn't in case it offends Muslims. It is just pretty good value for retailers and food outlets buying in bulk. There is really one profit that these guys are in awe to, and it ain't Mohammad.

Now back to the outcry. There is the question of the ethical nature of halal based killing of food animals, and whether it is right to keep schtum about how the meat we eat is killed (and treated.), and I have no stick with that, they are valid ones. As for the cruelty of the halal method? Despite the silliness of having to get a green light from God before killing an animal for food, as many religious purity ceremonies don't make much sense. Well the sad fact is there aren't many "pleasant" ways of systematically killing meat mammals and poultry birds with advanced nervous systems. It is a case of trying to meet the least bad option really. But that really is to miss the real gripe of many of the letters. A gripe they try to cover up (badly) in the language of animal welfare. It is grimly humorous to see complainants writing in, trying to make out that they are some kind of Linda McCartney clone, when you know that their sole contribution to animal welfare was to feel a bit bad eating gammon and pineapple at the Brewers Fayre, after watching "Babe" on Sky Movies the night before. The complainants are mostly more teed off that they may have unwittingly become involved in an Islamic tradition, than what was going through a sheep's mind before it was revolving on a rotating spit in a kebab house window.

One letter to the Mail on Sunday really encapsulated that - when you took out all the more evasive weasel wording - it was a "bloody Muslims" rant fest at heart, was the one I have reproduced below by Mrs Felton, who gives the game away with all the huffy solipsistic sanctimoniousness and fake; turned up to eleven - moral outrage of chintz soaked suburbia, that only a pissed off Mail letter writer can master

"In his letter regarding Halal meat being sold when not specified as such, Fiyaz Mughal [the Director of Faith Matters] states that the 'respect of religious beliefs is what makes us a tolerant society'

Where is the respect for my religious beliefs, when I am expected to eat meat that has been ritually slaughtered?

I find the whole concept deeply offensive on a spiritual and moral level, and I am furious that I have probably consumed halal meat unwittingly. It seems a case of some animals being more equal than others.

C. Felton (Mrs.) Gillingham Kent. "

Now I summoned all my "Northernbloke" lackeys together, which was easy as it consists of just me, and we came up with this equation. The "Mrs C Felton of Kents, animal welfare to "they've got all sorts of yuman rights these days" percentage differential, which is expressed as follows.

%AGE OF MRS C FELTONS WAKING MOMENTS DEVOTED TO THE WELFARE OF COWS THAT ARE BURGER FODDER. - 0.00%

%AGE OF MRS C FELTONS OUTRAGE AT "NOW MUSLIMS BAN PROPER ENGLISH AND CHRISTIAN MEAT." -100zillion %

Mrs Felton and many like her who write in at their "outrage", couldn't give a flying fuck about how some cows spent their last few hours on this earth, and that for me is the only real potential ethical problem there is with this sort of thing. I can't change their views. But I do get pissed off that they are so bloody mealy mouthed and backhandedly snide about what they really mean. If you want to be controversial go the whole hog. Write in and say "You can sod right off if you think I'm eating smelly muslimist meat." It may not be nice sentiment, but at least it would be honest.

Some Pope Related Stuff.

I was in two minds as to whether to comment on the Popes visit to the UK. I mean what more can really be said? Obviously Richard Dawkins is going to have something to say on the matter. Obviously a lot of the right wing press are going to get in a lather about a bloke who openly espouses the evils of secularism, permissiveness and gay rights. I imagine there was a run of collective pant wetting going on when "Papa Ratzi" attacked multiculturalism and the fact that you can't call Christmas Christmas in case it offends other faiths. All the stuff they say that the liberal elite ban anyone from discussing, by discussing it at every opportunity; every fucking day in their columns(hmmm). In short the whole debate had more straw men being tossed about the room, than a boozy row at the Gummidge household. Oh and the Pope compared atheists to the Nazis. In short the whole thing has been pretty depressing reading. I won't repeat verbatim any of the specific charges levelled at the "militant atheists" and "anti Christian bigots", but let us look at some of the general charges condensed down here:

THE COST OF THE VISIT.
The total cost of the papal visit is estimated in the range of £12 million. There have been concerns about the Pope being treated as a head of state for his trip, and that the Vatican doesn't behave like one. It is immune from UN human rights charters for one instance. That was the point in the letter signed by 50 people, including Richard Dawkins; Stephen Fry; Johann Hari etc. They agreed that they didn't want the pope banned,(undemocratic) but could the Vatican have stumped up some of the cash. (they're hardly having to patch their boots up are they?) It's a legitimate question and was not asked in a particularly rude manner. In fact it is hard to see why the Mail accused Stephen Fry of being "shrill" (though I can see the context for that connotation.) I couldn't see him mouthing off incoherently in anything I saw him mentioning the visit. It's a free country. People have a right to ask whether their taxes are being spent [as they see it] fairly. Catholics do make up only 9% of the UK's population**

MILITANT ATHEISTS.
The militant atheist charge is as old as the hills. It would be much easier for the Church of Rome (and all the other faiths) if atheists were good atheists. That is they were of the "I don't believe, but do respect belief variety. Even now religious criticism is still considered a bit "bad mannered". Of course this leads to the secondary charge of militant atheists "picking on" Christians. In a way I feel that some Christians do see what is legitimate criticism about the veracity of their faith, and leeway their religion receives -as being picked on or persecution. No idea should be considered off limits for sceptical analysis in a free country. Indeed secular humanism and atheism itself are subject to some of the most unpleasant abuse from critics of these. The pope himself said that an atheistic world view leads to the fricking Nazis, who tried to erase God, which they didn't. That secular values will lead to anarchy as religion and morality are intertwined. He has a right to say that of course. I mean what else is he going to say about secularism and atheism, which are the two single most threats to a faith based system. It is no wonder they rattle the devout so much. As I said free speech means that they should be allowed to voice their concerns. It is a stretch to say that the "militant atheists" had that much of an affect on the whole thing. Dawkins gave a speech. No citizens arrest was made. The red tops barely mentioned the protests at all. The BBC of course covered all sides (and got flack off the conservatives in the press for doing so.) and certainly did not privilege the "Catholic haters" over the Pope. In fact the "New Atheist" movement as a whole isn't as widely known as the religious would imply, how much influence they have outside the dining rooms of the Guardianistas is unknown. The atheist bus thing smacked of trying a bit too hard. And has anyone ever seen someone wearing those atheist T-shirts on the Richard Dawkins site, cause I never have!

I also got a bit fed up hearing right wing pundits banging on about how liberals /the left / cultural Marxists or whatever were out of line or "sneery" at the Pope. I mean how else where they going to think about him. He's called gay marriage a "great evil", all the stuff about contraceptives and AIDS in Africa. His unfettered conservatism, to name a few. They are going to be a bit pissed off with him. There would be something wrong if they weren't. It is no good moaning about people moaning about someone with controversial views. Yeah they are going to want to counter them. It is .... free speech remember. (I'm not supporting spouting a load of straw men and crude abuse passed of as "debate." If you want to fully embrace the spirit of free speech be prepared to stick some really good points in there.)

THE POPES ROLE IN THE CHILD ABUSE.
This is really the smoking gun. The ecclesiastical elephant in the room. Probably the main point of contention for both the secular humanists and the greater public at large, vis a vis the popes visit. The child abuse scandals of the Church of Rome are disgraceful., and the response from the Vatican is as well. I think it is hard to exonerate Ratzinger of any wrong doing in the whole affair. He held the head position of the title of the dodgy sounding "Congregation of the Doctrine Faith." which meant he was the head honcho for implementing Catholic law throughout the church, and was thus put into the orbit of the crisis. We have heard that he was warned of pedarest priests and resorted to censuring them, or subjecting them to ecclesiastical (not criminal) hearings (see post here.), and in 2001, writing letters to every bishop saying that on no accounts should they go outside the church to deal with this (he called this communications blackout "the goods of the church" in 1985.). It is not hard to conclude that because of who he is, he has evaded any criminal scrutiny for the role in abetting the cover up of child abuse, and putting the doctrines and pomp of the church before the welfare of living; feeling children. I really cannot say that I know of anyone else in a Western democracy who could have evaded any form of criminal investigation as easily as the Pope. I don't consider it impertinent of the likes of say - Johann Hari of the Indy, to question the legality of the Popes actions. As it happens another (now former) high ranking member of an organisation that has been heavily involved in the case around the abuse and death of a youngster; Peter Connely or baby P, has been reported in the papers, running concurrent with the Popes visit. Sharon Shoesmith the former director of Harringey children's services has been testifying before an education select committee, defending her role in the whole tragic affair. It is interesting to highlight the very hostile press she receives from the Sun newspaper in comparison to the generally favourable coverage the same paper gave to the Pope.

As for myself. I don't think the protests against his visit were out of line, and even if I did, as I said before it is a country with free speech so it would be tough if i did think so. The Pope should really hand over all the documents the church has on the abuse over to the police, should tell the practitioners of Catholicism in Sub Saharan Africa that God came to him in a dream and told him that condoms were OK with him. But I'm guessing neither will actually happen. Nor did I think that David Cameron would have stopped the visit, or that a citizens arrest would occur. I don't believe that; apart from practicing Catholics of course -most people were that interested. I think a load of kids and nuns were bussed around to bolster numbers though. His embrace of the Archbish of Canterbury was quite nice though. Showing that even religious divides can be bridged with time. I actually don't think Ratzinger is all that popular anyway in the UK. Certainly less so than his predecessor The reader comments in the papers are much less positive than the editorials. There is quite a lot of contempt for the way the church has carried on, and some of Ratzingers views on contraception and homosexuality. He is largely seen as an archaic figure in an archaic institution. A bit like Christianity in general in this country.

**And another thing. The Tax Payers Alliance who get about five bajillian huffy soundbites in the press every time something a bit left wing gets even a few quid of tax payers money, were mysteriously silent about the 12 million of tax their "allies" forked out for a minority faith. I'm sure they just forgot or something. But I bet they would have somehow remembered if another religion had received that much for a visit to the UK.

Glad "Burn a Quran Day" Was Extinguished

Pastor Terry Jones of (what is it with Right Wing American Christians who are named after the Monty Pythons? Terry Jones, Sarah Palin.) and his plan to have a "Burn a Koran Day." on the 9th anniversary of 9/11 was one of the stupidest ideas anybody has ever had. I just cannot conceive of any PR stunt that could possibly be more retarded than "BOKD" All it would have done was make the few followers this prat has look even more stupid than they usually are. It would have also have given some of the ultra radical Islamist nutcases something else to pretend to get angry and shouty about,whilst burning a flag or two. And God knows we need more of that kind of thing. Thankfully Pastor Monty Python has called it off, so it perhaps didn't have the whole effect that it may have done (though I did hear on the radio that three soldiers were shot in Afghanistan, that may have been motivated by the plans.).

This whole story exemplifies the juxtaposition between the inherent silliness of fundamentalist adherence to the major religions and the deadly seriousness of the consequences that can follow from fundamentalists acting on adherence to their religion. I might (slightly) concede that it could be conceivably possible, but probably extremely unlikely (IMO) that a creator of some sort might have ... well created stuff. It makes sense that mankind would join the dots and create a mythos of deities who made all this stuff to satisfy a teleological explanation for the universe. So from that point I suppose the quintessential nature of gods in human cultures isn't too puzzling. But I'm sorry - anyone who thinks that the Bible and Qu'ran are 100 percent carrot truth the word of god, is frankly kidding themselves. It is self evidently obvious to any passive observer that they were just made up by a bunch of semi literate people a zillion years ago, and that they are so full of plot holes and inconsistencies, that they make Star Trek Generations look like a well thought out piece of fiction. God no more wrote or had a hand in those books, than he did to the instruction manual for a 53 reg; four door diesel Ford Focus. I mean where to start showing the reason they weren't written by god? The fact that the rules set down in Leviticus are so obviously for a bronze age bunch of peasants, and would have little relevance if reenacted to the governance of say modern Manchester (though I'm sure that even those ancient judges would make a better stab at running Bolton council than the ones we seem to have had in the past 20 years.) . That god loftily creates the world and then just keeps banging on about a bunch of Palestinian tribes. That if you wanted to incarnate yourself as a man to redeem mankind. Then perhaps getting yourself nailed to a plank of wood after about 30 years is a bit of a wasted opportunity. How much good could J.C have done if hew lived to about 95? To the fact that dictating your memoirs to an illiterate 7th century Arab merchant is pretty fricking stupid. He should have waited a few centuries and put them up on twitter or something. It is hard to disagree with Sam Harris when he said that if the entire human race woke up with collective amnesia, shorn of all cultural relevance and context, that these books would largely be discarded as nonsense. These books are the work of human beings. Flawed, often cruel by our standards but the work of human beings, and not some gold standard lifestyle guide by a superbeing, and that is the problem of treating them as such. Humans are often wrong, callous and just plain stupid, and that is why no persons opinions should be considered infallible, as ten thousand levels of trouble will inevitably follow if they are treated as such.



That was the thing that bothered me so much about what happened 9 years ago. It wasn't the sheer brutal audacity of the attacks. Or the inhuman callousness of what these brainwashed fuckwits pulled off. It was the sheer pointlessness of the attacks. What is so utterly heartbreaking and tragic about the attack is that those 3000 people who were burned, crushed and vapourised in the crime itself, was that they died for nothing, nothing at all. They were wiped out for a cause that had 0 percent salience. Nil. Most terrorists and wars ostensibly claim to have some material cause such as resources, or a homeland etc. But not with attacks like these. They are literally killing for fairy stories. They thought that a sky pixie wanted them to fly "the others" into wall at 500 mph. That this pastor thought that the creator of the entire universe wanted him to burn "the others" book, because obviously that is high on the list of priorities for the high lord of all space time itself. I can't think of anything as tragically stupid as killing human beings, or persecuting others - because a few badly written books tell you to. That is essentially all religiously motivated violence boils down to.


How fucking tragic.

A Mosque "at" Ground Zero.

There is quite a furore going in in the US at the moment about proposals to build a 13 storey £100 million dollar "super mosque" in New York about two blocks from (180 m or 600 ft) away from ground zero (you can see the location here on Street View. The grotty looking "Burlington Coats" building in front of you is to be razed for the proposed centre.) . Many are up in arms about a mosque (it is actually proposed to be a community centre, auditorium and other stuff. The prayer room will not be classed as a mosque to give the developers more say over who can use it.) being built so close to a place devastated by Islamist inspired terrorism. Indeed some of the wording on articles hostile to the plans, is designed to make out that the "mosque" is going to be built on the site itself. (It isn't.) So what is going on here do we ask? Well let's rewind a bit to see how the whole thing kicked off.

On 9/11 the morning staff of Burlington coats were in the basement ready to start work. They never would. One of the landing gear from the hijacked planes fell onto their workplace and crashed through two floors (no one was hurt, it was empty on those levels.). Burlingtons closed down permanently, and eight years later a nearby mosque that was overfilled, used the building as an overspill prayer room. The imam of that mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf - a Sufiist who had founded a group promoting understanding between American Muslims and their non Muslim countrymen saw the irony in using a place damaged by terrorism to be used to promote a more stable situation. No-one seems to have batted an eyelid at this, as like many of these kinds of stories - a single quite innocuous story gets mega coverage out of the blue. This time a right wing blogger who founded the "Stop the Islamification of America." got wind of Raufs plan to develop the site of his prayer room to create his centre. A thereonin all hell broke loose. Sarah Palin started twittering. Newt Gingrich got quite cross. Glenn Beck. Well just acted like Glenn Beck.

On one level the reaction is unsurprising. It would have been difficult to have justified building a thirteen storey mosque at ground zero itself. The sad truth is that those towers were destroyed in the name of the most radical elements of that faith. I must emphasise that I don't think all Muslims were complicit (they weren't.). But it would be [a bit] like building a tribute to the RAF in Dresden. Both these organisations are mainly composed of upstanding people, but the unpleasant links are there. I do understand why the families of the victims (but some others have more questionable motives.) were alarmed. But on the other hand, the proposed centre is being built by Sufi Muslims, who have no links to Al-Quieda (how could they?) which is an important distinction. I doubt anyone would object to a Methodist community centre near Manchester's Arndale Centre (attacked by the supposedly Catholic aligned IRA.) That is a distinction that has not been mentioned much. Also Rauf himself seems an impressive figure. I am always wary of these religious "centres", but the guy seems legitimate in wanting to promote harmonious relations, and we need that now more than ever. He seems the kind of prominent moderate who may be able to do that. Lastly geographically the street is quite concealed (you'd hardly give it a second glance). From street view, ground zero is not visible, screened by the surrounding streets. The existing building is surrounded by large buildings, and I doubt even a thirteen storey structure would look conspicuous there. It certainly isn't right in the noses of people wanting to go to ground zero In fact had this story not received so much coverage, the new centre would likely have gone unnoticed to the greater world. In the end it is really an issue for Rauf and the victims to come to an accommodation with. It would be churlish for me to go one way or the other. But that hasn't stopped a few people, who I think have less than admirable reasons to nail their colours to the mast.

Littlejohn has done an article covering this story. The article focuses on the effects of the story on Barack Obamas popularity. There isn't really much to say about the story (insults out of touch lefty's, who hate normal people.) but he takes Obama to task for saying

"As a citizen and a President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practise their religion as anyone else in this country."

I know that may not go down well with a lot of Americans, but it is from a constitutional point of veiw correct. But in practice Obama can't really do much to stop it (assuming he would want to anyway.) It is a private venture on private land. Sarah Palin, and Gingrich and whoever always like to nail their libertarian, small government; colours to the mast on every occasion possible. Wouldn't Obama cracking down on a private building on private property, be an example of the most heavy handed statism any horrid property hating socialist could only dream of? Or does libertarian principle only apply to certain things. (hey it is them who bang on about this all the time.)

The article highlights the barmy "theories" that Obama is a Muslim because err.. his middle name is Hussein, or something. Apparently in the wake of this, a quarter of Americans believe this to be so. (Yikes!) This emphasis on Obamas "otherliness" has been a recurring theme. As well as all Muslims being perceived as fith columnists ("Muslim Obama" being a sleeper is a popular conspiracy.) It all has the air of some very murky rhetoric being chucked about. For all Littlejohn may berate the US president for not condemning the "mosque", I find it rather admirable he is trying to ride the storm a little, not giving some of the more extreme sentiment a platform. It does however highlight the lengths that the ultra conservatives will go to attack their president. At once tawdry, depressing and rather scary. These people are sore losers to say the least. I hope Obama knows what he really is up against.

PS Littlejohn comes out with this corker:

"In so doing, he displayed an ignorance of history which made David Cameron’s recent confusion over the timing of America’s entry into World War II look like a minor clerical error.

Obama’s words would have come as a surprise not only to the Founding Fathers, who established the United States on concrete Christian principles"

Didn't they do all that freedom from religion as well as of it too? They were strict in stipulating the divide between religion and the state. Looks like Cameron isn't the only one who needs to do his homework.

*This link below highlights the origins of the "mosque" in greater detail.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Gerald Warner Straw Mans Richard Dawkins.

Gerald Warner is a bit of an odd cove. A Telegraph blogger, he's one of the most crustiest old reactionaries I've ever heard of. He's so staggeringly; curmudgeonly old fashioned, he could seriously make professional fuddy duddy, Roger Scruton look like an eligible contender to present the next series of "Pimp My Ride". His blog is therefore excellent fodder for on line car crash entertainment. A taster of which can be this entry, which throws a series of attacks at Richard Dawkins for being the godawful militant atheist scoundrel that he is. It is a series of unfocused criticisms of [Dawkins] wanting the Pope to be arrested, to his documentary on faith schools that's going out on More4 this Wednesday. The entire article has so many straw men in it, it begins to resemble a Worzal Gummage themed fancy dress party. So we get stuff like this:

"Dawkins calls on us rather a lot, which might seem a touch inconsistent in a man who has said: “People can believe what they want, but I wish they would leave the rest of us alone.""

No one is under duress to listen (let alone abide by) to what he has to say. I don't think the same can be said about some of the major religions (obviously with varying degrees of intensity.) in the past, and indeed the present.

"Dawkins argues in his programme that religious schools encourage social segregation. So do public schools, such as Oundle, his alma mater; Oxford colleges such as Balliol where he was educated or New College where he was a fellow; and just about every institution that promotes excellence or within which people freely associate. Does he regard them as a menace too?"

I suppose they do practice a form of segregation on the grounds of wealth and exam results. Oxford in principle is open to anyone who has the intelligence to meet the entry requirements. I don't think it can really be accused of encouraging social segregation (though there is likely an atmosphere of idiosyncratic donnish eccentricity about the place, that outsiders may find odd.) . The dangers of religious schools come from the fact that they widen and compound the fractuous gaps that the already highly mutually exclusive religions import on our society. They also impose their subjective values as "truth" on small kids, rather than giving a broad education which encourages varying viewpoints and critical thinking, two of the best gifts a child can receive, and that is why I personally dislike faith schools so much. When we hear that 95 percent of kids in the harmonious paradise of Northern Ireland who attend segregated schools, of which 68 percent of 18-25 years old never meet the "other side" at all! (No really!) Then we have insider reports of schoolkids at a Muslim school being taught that Jews are monkeys! yeah we must conclude that there are reasons to consider them a menace to social harmony, and thus in a different league to the "dangers" going to a public school.

Faith school children just freely associated themselves into their schools! Come off it Gerald.

"Despite his attempts to deconstruct established religions, Dawkins does not bring the same relentless empiricism to bear on superstitions which he himself embraces"

Oh it's this argument again. Dawkins bad for bashing "your" superstition. But you bash his "superstition" and that's good. So you're attacking him for his embrace of the very evil (a "faith" position) that you yourself are defending, as it is only evil if it is someone elses one.

Genius. I'm sure man made climate change won't get mentioned in the next sentence.

"such as man-made global warming:"

Original aren't they?

"he has even recommended Al Gore’s notoriously discredited film on the subject."
Who discredited it? It's supposed errors were cross examined by a court. They found no evidence for iffy research.

"He also supports the Great Ape Project, which seeks to extend moral and legal rights to great apes."

If only there was some chemical compound in the cells of animals that was like a record of the ancestry of different species that could link mankind to chimps and gorillas.

"Dawkins carries his reductionism and scientism to lengths of intolerance that dismay even some of his admirers. When the Oxford theologian Alister McGrath accused him of being ignorant of Christian theology, Dawkins asked, with classic academic rigour, “do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns”?

This is such a silly argument, my eyeballs fall out of my head whenever I hear it. Christian theology and the existence of God are two completely different issues. This is no different to someone arguing that you can't say the Force is made up because you've only seen the Star Wars films and haven't read George Lucas's biography, every star Wars novel and every single Wookiepedia article.

"So, would he debate Marxism with Eric Hobsbawm without having read a word of Marx."

Dawkins isn't into splitting hairs on the finer points of theology. He's concerned about the case for the existence of God, and the truthful merits of the major faiths. The two are almost totally mutually exclusive

Stuff like this makes me think that the God /no God question is literally an exercise in banging your head on a brick wall, preferably a wailing one.

Prince Charles and Hot Air

The Prince of Wales has delivered an interesting speech at Oxford university, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies, of which he is patron. I don't say that the speech is interesting because of the prose and the quality of what was said. It is pretty typical Charlie fayre. Boring, long winded, repetitive and veering on random tangents, almost haphazardly. And very ... VERY long!! (TRANSCRIPT HERE). Although Charles appears to be an advocate of a certain school of postmodernist thought, that decrees "Western Empiricism" (the dreaded hegemony.) is just one (very horrid) paradigm, and an "innate" Eastern Spirituality is another equally valid way at looking at the world. Thus the world is divided into immutable and exclusive blocs of thought, which I just think is slightly patronising, but that's just me. It is ironic therefore, that as this picture below points out, perhaps the one universal constant, that can surpass any intelectual boundry of thought is that Charles is a bit boring.

The speech focuses on [what he sees as] the need to apply the wisdom of "Traditional Spirituality" to combat climate change. The talk isn't a call to arms to follow Islamic practices to combat climate change as some have claimed. But is a discussion on the need to heed "traditions" which emphasised the unity of man and nature , to allow us to live in harmony with our environment - not just relying on the "materialistic rationality" of the contemporary scientific method, which elevated man beyond nature (most biology textbooks would disagree!!) and caused the problem in the first place, by borrowing from ying; to pay yang .... or something.

Now I don't have a problem with such a well known figure highlighting climate change, and indeed the perverse way the third world bears the brunt of it. Good on him for not being put off by the vocal deniers as well. However like many speeches he gives on scientific things like climate change; medicine, and technology -he has to pepper the few sensible points he makes with a lot of rather strange concepts about "soul" and "wisdom of nature." He seems to have this idea that nature has some "essence" or "spirit" that Western thought has forgotton (or hubristicly chooses to ignore.) but our ancestors, and the mystic cultures of the "East" still recognise and nurture. What he fails to grasp is that when he berates science and its "empiricism" for ignoring the "soul", is that science is (by definition) under no obligation to do so. He's making that same mistake about science. That it is just another ideology and belief, and is there to provide an all encompassing world view. It isn't! Science is just a (very effective) means of studying the world. There is no onus in factoring in unfalsifiable things like the soul, that is just a matter of opinion, and that is what Charles should be told before he sounds off.

Here's a few excerpts of what he said;

" Over the years, I have pointed out again and again that our environmental problems cannot be solved simply by applying yet more and more of our brilliant green technology – important though it is. It is no good just fixing the pump and not the well. When I say this, everybody nods sagely, but I get the impression that many are often unwilling to embrace what I am really referring to, perhaps because the missing element sits outside the parameters of the prevailing secular view. It is this “missing element” that I would like to examine today. In short, when we hear talk of an “environmental crisis” or even of a “financial crisis,” I would suggest that this is actually describing the outward consequences of a deep, inner crisis of the soul. It is a crisis in our relationship with – and our perception of – Nature, and it is born of Western culture being dominated for at least two hundred years by a mechanistic and reductionist approach to our scientific understanding of the world around us. So I would like you to consider very seriously today whether a big part of the solution to all of our worldwide “crises” does not lie simply in more and better technology, but in the recovery of the soul to the mainstream of our thinking. Our science and technology cannot do this. Only sacred traditions have the capacity to help this happen."

He tacitly admits it is just an opinion of his here. The speech is loaded with gratuitous self pity that no-one takes his received wisdom at anything more than face value (I'd say he was being generous to himself. I doubt many listen to practically anything he has to say on this matter.) He doesn't seem to understand that no one is obliged to take an unsubstantiated opinion at more than face value, and usually people don't. It's pretty much a rant about how everything would be great if it wasn't for horrid old technology.

"In general, we live within a culture that does not believe very much in the soul anymore – or if it does, won’t admit to it publicly for fear of being thought old fashioned, out of step with “modern imperatives” or “anti-scientific.” The empirical view of the world, which measures it and tests it, has become the only view to believe. A purely mechanistic approach to problems has somehow assumed a position of great authority and this has encouraged the widespread secularisation of society that we see today. This is despite the fact that those men of science who founded institutions like the Royal Society were also men of deep faith. It is also despite the fact that a great many of our scientists today profess a faith in God. I am aware of one recent survey that suggests over seventy per cent of scientists do so. I must say, I find this rather baffling. If this is so, why is it that their sense of the sacred has so little bearing on the way science is employed to exploit the natural world in so many damaging ways? I suppose it must be to do with who pays the fiddler. Over the last two centuries, science has become ever more firmly yoked to the ambitions of commerce. Because there are such big economic benefits from such a union, society has been persuaded that there is nothing wrong here. And so, a great deal of empirical research is now driven by the imperative that its findings must be employed to maximum, financial effect, whatever the impact this may have on the Earth’s long-term capacity to endure. This imbalance, where mechanistic thinking is so predominant, goes back at least to Galileo's assertion that there is nothing in Nature but quantity and motion. This is the view that continues to frame the general perception of the way the world works and how we fit within the scheme of things. As a result, Nature has been completely objectified – “She” has become an “it” – and we are persuaded to concentrate on the material aspect of reality that fits within Galileo’s scheme."

The empirical based view of the world he complains about is the only view science can take. BECAUSE IT IS A METHODOLOGY NOT A BELIEF SYSTEM!! Ditto for religious scientists (70% sounds WAY too high, but he doesn't quote the source.). They don't apply the two together, because they are two different things! As for a decline in the belief in souls, and an increase in secularisation with tech / science. That tends to happen. People rely less on supernatural explanations, as things can be explained objectively. Most of the time anyway.

"I hope you can just begin to see my point. The utter dominance of the mechanistic approach of science over everything else, including religion, has “de-souled” the dominant world view, and that includes our perception of Nature. As soul is elbowed out of the picture, our deeper link with the natural world is severed. Our sense of the spiritual relationship between humanity, the Earth and her great diversity of life has become dim. The entire emphasis is all on the mechanical process of increasing growth in the economy, of making every process more “efficient” and achieving as much convenience as possible. None of which could be said to be an ambition of God. And so, unfashionable though it is to suggest it, I am keen to stress here the need to heal this divide within ourselves. How else can we heal the divide between East and West unless we reconcile the East and West within ourselves? Everything in Nature is a paradox and seems to carry within itself the paradox of opposites. Curiously, this maintains the essential balance. Only human beings seem to introduce imbalance. The task is surely to reconnect ourselves with the wisdom found in Nature which is stressed by each of the sacred traditions in their own way."

The only view of "our deeper place in the world" that gets unfashionable is Charles opinion of humans place in it. Look in one of the many good books on popular biology / nature, for a good (and well researched too) narrative on humans role in nature. It's a zillion times more interesting than the iffy new age cobblers, based on nothing but his royal opinions, on offer here.


"Such instruction is hard to square if all you do is found your understanding of the world on empirical terms alone. Four hundred years of relying on trying and testing the facts scientifically has established the view that spirituality and religious faith are outdated expressions of superstitious belief. After all, empiricism has proved how the world fits together and it is nothing to do with a “Supreme Being.” There is no empirical evidence for the existence of God so, therefore, Q.E.D, God does not exist. It is a very reasonable, rational argument, and I presume it can be applied to “thought” too. After all, no brain scanner has ever managed to photograph a thought, nor a piece of love, and it never will. So, Q.E.D., that must mean “thought” and “love” do not exist either!"

Oh Charlie! What shall we do with you! Any study of animal / human behaviour will show evidence for love (or more accurately some kind of altruism / getting ones rocks off combination that we would class as "love" ) Ditto anything written, spoken and published, kind of hints that something we call "thought" exists. Both may be subjective terms, but science can show that the brain / hormones produce an empirically observed sensation, which can then contribute to sensations that can be called these things by the philosophers and poets. etc.. The evidence for God is bit more thin on the ground though.

"The Modernist ideology that has dominated the Western outlook for a century implies that “tradition” is backward looking. What I have tried to explain today is that this is far from true. Tradition is the accumulation of the knowledge and wisdom that we should be offering to the next generation. It is, therefore, visionary – it looks forward.

Tradition is a broad school. A bunch of customs and idioms passed down through the generations. It can be visionary, profound, or complete bollocks. Starting something that becomes a tradition may be an attempt to look forward. But respecting traditions is - by the nature of tradition, "backward looking". Where the hell else are we supposed to get them from?

The entire speech (and there is a ton more of it) is pretty much in the same vein. Berating science for becoming to big for it's boots, and for technology and secularism making us lesser people, whilst materially better off. He also accuses scientists of putting profit before principle, which isn't very nice. Now perhaps our more materialistic world has made us greedier and less in tune with nature (though we seem these days to increasingly value environmental issues and technological innovations to curtail the damage man has inflicted on the planet. I also don't recall that our "spiritual" ancestors had a green party either.). If the cause of some of the damage is by the products of science and technology (and can also be objectively analysed. You can't do that with a spirit, which negates his point about science pursuing that line of action. Hey I didn't write the speech!!), then can we not use the same instruments to assess and negate the damage? Shouldn't Charles have a bit more grace, and explain that it is only his opinion that our "spirits" being out of kilter is the root cause?

For all Charles' self deprecating grumbles about how he is the shunned rebel spouting the unfashionable and unorthodox. I doubt he would have the self awareness to admit that this is all just his opinion on how to tackle these issues, and that he doesn't expect anyone to give him any more intellectual credence with that in mind. I think he would be saddened to learn that a) In a scientific context, his arguments are bunkum, and show he doesn't understand what the scientific method is.. Which is a bit a bummer if you have a lecture that goes on for 30 years about the abuse of the scientific method. b) he just isn't a good speaker, or polemic. I truly am being generous to him with my criticisms. It really is shooting fish in a barrel. Every line in that speech is utter dross. It is hard to argue with Johann Hari, when he says that the only reason any of his stuff gets airtime at all is due to his royal status. Even with all the trappings his role entails him too, that we don't have, he still has trouble with what he says getting airtime! It is testament to the appalling quality of his writing, that someone as high profile as the heir to the throne can write this, without seeing the forest for the trees. I really would stick to opening supermarkets!

"I am slightly alarmed that it is now seventeen years since I came here to the Sheldonian to deliver a lecture for the Centre that tried to do just this. I called it “Islam and the West” and, from what I can tell, it clearly struck a chord, and not just here in the U.K. I am still reminded of what I said, particularly when I travel in the Islamic world – in fact, because it was printed, believe it or not, it is the only speech I have ever made which continues to produce a small return!"

Dawkins Vs the Pope... Or Not

It's been rocky times for the Catholic church these past few years. Pope Benedict XVI seems to have this ability to alienate his church from the rest of the wider world. He upset the Muslim world by requoting 14th century Christian leader Manuel Paleologus, who vented his spleen about Islamic wrongdoing, presumably after having a bad day in the office when the people he was sounding off against took Constantinople. He upset the Jewish community by lifting the excommunication writ on a bishop who was a vocal holocaust denier. He upset the Anglican church by starting an initiative to get the more "harder" proponents to jump ship to Rome, thus robbing the C of E of its finest tombola operators. (I doubt jumble sales in this country can ever be revived after this.) He caused upset in South America by saying that the native inhabitants had been silently really happy to have discovered Christs light when the Europeans showed up. How they felt about all the other "benefits" I think we can guess. Yes if you aren't a Roman Catholic and follow the teachings of a deity or religious belief, chances are Joseph Ratzinger has pissed you off with a Papal pop at your religion. And if you aren't religious (and if you are too), then the awful scale of the child abuse cover ups that have come to light in the Vatican, should engender similar feelings about how his church can act.

In an attempt to try and mend a few fences, the Vatican has decided to revive the "Courtyard of the Gentiles.", which isn't a bad 19th century novel; but a foundation set up by the current Popes more liberal predecessor (Benedict is apparently personally not to hot about it.) to improve relations with other faiths, and even with atheists / agnostics / light deists -through debates and dialogues throughout the year. I can see why the Vatican may have persuaded his popeness to do this sort of thing, even if he has reservations. They have been badly (and rightly so) battered by the child abuse cover ups, and some form of damage limitation is needed [from their perspective]. In an ideal world, it would also be a brave move in the current climate as well. The so - called "4 horsemen" of the vocal atheists; Sam Harris, Dan Dennet, and the Lennon and McCartney of the "new atheist movement; Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins, have been capitalising on the scandals that have engulfed the church of Rome. Their criticisms becoming more vocal, and in my own personal opinion; more justified and relevant as well. This would be an ideal time for the Vatican to address them. So that is why they err....., not to put a finer point on it. Aren't. I quote:

" The foundation, he [President of the Popes council for culture] said, would only be interested in "noble atheism or agnosticism, not the polemical kind – so not those atheists such as [Piergiorgio] Odifreddi in Italy, [Michel] Onfray in France, [Christopher] Hitchens and [Richard] Dawkins".

Such atheists, he added, only view the truth with "irony and sarcasm" and tend to "read religious texts like fundamentalists".

Hmmmmm.

Call me cynical, but "noble atheist" sounds like code for "atheist who doesn't ask awkward questions." What the horsemen may call the "believer in belief". The atheist who doesn't believe themselves, but is not anti-theistic to any degree. Yes I don't have a problem with them being debated with, but if you are serious about dialogue, you have to debate with anti theists as well. Debate on your own terms isn't debate at all.

As for the reading of religious texts? Are they just symbolic metaphor or analogy, or the fundamental;- revealed word of God? Or whatever suits at a given time?

It is hard to find an example of such blatant evasiveness of public discourse as this. This kind of own goal in a damage limitation exercise for Gawds sake! It shows how much of a bubble the Vatican seems to live in. The new atheist movement will have an utter field day with this. Will the Vatican bite the bullet and take on the challenge? Watch this space!

That Little bit of the Fifteenth Century, Right Here in the Twenty first.

We tend to think that religious leaders; who are such shrinking violets that they have to imprison a teacher for calling a teddy Muhammed, or can claim that loose women cause earthquakes, and not be laughed off the face of the earth. Or incite people to set fire to stuff over some daft cartoons in a shitty Danish paper no-one reads, is a trait exclusive to the Muslim world. A sign of religious lunacy unplugged, a theocratic zeal (by the minority) that has been largely banished from the once Christian Europe. So it's going to be obvious that a 26 year old pop star; who is looking at two years in jail for blasphemy, for saying dinosaurs are more plausible than parts of a holy book, has happened in Saudi. Wrong! This pop star,- Dorota Rabczewska; is from Poland. Yes in the godless, athiestic wastelend of Europe, it is potentially possible (the article this post is on about is highly partial, so its 20/20 how likely she actually faces jail.) to be imprisoned for "disrespecting religion" She actually said:

“it is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes.”

Oooh Dangerous...

This got the response from a Polish fundie, worthy of Stephen Green of Christian Voice.

"Ryszard Nowak is chairman of the Committee for the Defence Against Sects. This group exists to “protect Christian values”

It is clear that Doda thinks that the Bible was written by drunkards and junkies. I believe that she committed a crime and offended the religious feelings of both Christians and Jews."

No? She challenged an idea. It's called freedom of speech.

If you think this is just sabre rattling, it becomes more disturbing when we hear:

"The couple aren’t the first to be brought to court over offending Christians. In 2003, artist Dorota Nieznalska was convicted of “insulting religious feeling” and sentenced to six months of “restricted freedom” — that is, travel restrictions — and 20 hours/month of community service. Why?

In 2002, Nieznalska created an art installation called “Passion”. Part of the installation offended Christians.

League of Polish Families members attacked Nieznalska verbally and physically at the Gdansk gallery where her Passion installation was being exhibited last year. The work, an exploration of masculinity and suffering, shows a cross on which a photograph of a fragment of a naked male body, including the genitalia, has been placed. The League sued the artist. In July 2003, a court found Nieznalska guilty of “offending religious feelings.” It sentenced her to half a year of “restriction of freedom” (she was specifically banned from leaving the country) and ordered her to do community work and pay all trial expenses. When the judge read the sentence, League members packing the courtroom applauded ecstatically. The artist has been pursuing legal appeal to get the sentence overturned on free speech grounds."

Whether it is just pure shock value, or whatever. It is appalling that an EU member can restrict travel and impose community service. -For an artist who superimposed a willy on a cross. No-one was harmed, a victimless crime, and you get treated as if you had shoplifted. This is the problem with curtailment of freedom of speech, especially vis a vis religion. If they can get "offended" at this, and get them prosecuted, what next? You can bet that, empowered; - they will find something else to censor. A disturbing cycle. The article ends with this interesting, if slightly shouty summation.

"How can Europeans cry foul when Muslims are offended by a cartoon, when they themselves press charges and demand imprisonment over something as simple as a pop star making negative statements about their religion?

Blasphemy laws are an offense to anyone who values liberty and intellectual freedom. They are a tool used by religious fundamentalists to silence nonbelievers. Fundamentalists of different religions do not use the laws to silence one another (such as Christians vs. Islamists); no, they are used solely against the secularist. Maybe it’s time for the secularists to start suing** the religionists!"

** I know he's being sarcastic, but better to shoot down these peoples "arguments"with debate, than call in the lawyers. If you have to immediately do that, then you must have pretty lame foundations.

Melanie Phillips Just Doesn't Get Science.

I chanced upon this completely bizarre article by Melanie Phillips, on the Science / Religion schism. I don't actually know why I actually even have to describe it as bizarre. I mean what else did I think it was going to be? I was alerted to it by a blurb on a conservative leaning magazine, whose name I've forgotten in Sainsburys today. (Northernbloke inspirations can pop up pretty much randomly.) It was as delightfully full of holes as I expected. I think Mel could be described as a "cargo cult intellectual." She tries to use the right words to dress it up as a serious academic expose on the hypocritical entrenched irrationality of the new atheists / rationalists /the left/ supporters of anthropogenic climate change. Tick whoever fits the thing she disagrees with in the respective point in the article. But in the end it is just a hodge podge of superficial straw men, tortured logic, double standards, and passive aggressive intellectual buck passing. (count how many times she uses the "Anyone who disagrees with X is branded a bigot by X argument. NB Try and argue your corner a bit more then!) What also strikes me is her complete scientific illiteracy, and ability to turn the article from a diatribe against militant atheists, to an anti euthanasia screed, to a climate change denial piece, to a Britain's going to the dogs rant. It really boils down to a "The liberals are the real bastards" piece, with the standard "guilty as charged." right wing memes chucked in. It is a staggeringly silly article!

Ready for the knockdown? Here goes:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that reason and religion are mortal foes. Reason deals a death blow to religion; religion is clearly irrationality on stilts. "

They can be mutually exclusive, and often are. But reason (the ability to use rationality and a systematic outlook to assess a thing) and religion (the belief, and belief structures in place, in a divine force that controls the destiny of the material world / humans) can go hand in hand. It was; when the major religions formed, ostensibly reasonable to believe in a force that created the universe (for want of a better explanation.). Religious doctrines can have rational origins (the Islamic taboo against booze is sensible for a religion founded in a desert region.) The real, bare bones schism of analysing the universe is between "science" and "faith" and "knowledge" and "belief ". Science is a methodology, a way of looking at the universe, by hypothesis and objective observation of evidence. Faith is a belief (it could be drawn from a rational analysis.) system. It sets out with a presumption of truth. It may even survive things that disavow this truth, or it may shoe horn parts of evidence to bolster a truth. These two doctrines are utterly different ways of looking at the universe (this doesn't mean they are automatically hostile. And that the "other" camp is "bad". A thing that Mel has not taken to heart.). And really are a meeting, - not of opposites, but of two incompatible paradigms, that are of two worlds. (I emphasise they are not enemies. Just totally different.)

"If only religion didn’t exist, reason would rule the world and there would be no more wars, tyrannies or murderous hatreds. It follows therefore that religious people are either stupid or unbalanced and are inimical to progress, modernity and happiness.

Well, this universal truth isn’t true at all. In fact, reason is underpinned by religion — at least the Biblical variety. Without Genesis there would have been no Western science, no equality and human rights and no liberal belief in progress."

Religion doesn't cause these bad things. Human nature does. Irrationally based world views and exclusive religious doctrines can (and do) compound these things. That is the real root of reasonable objections to doctrine and faith based analysis. (not always the domain of the religious.) True reasonable thinkers are above such generalisations about religion being solely the cause of human ills.

The claim that the bible has naturally brought about modern science and "enlightenment values" is also very dubious as well. The Genesis creation myth is; even by the standards of its own time, a pretty poor hypothesis about the creation of the world. There is no mention of ancient Greek disciplines such as those of Aristotle and Plato, which if anything (it would be hard to say one specific thing created "Enlightenment values.") contributed the most to establishing modern scientific paradigms. Or other great cultures that predate the New (and Old in some cases.) who seemed to have both grasped science and culture. Indeed the "golden rule"* (Treat others as you wish to be treated.) was likely external to the Abrahamic faiths.

She continues on:

"Indeed, the paradox is that some of our most noisy advocates of reason say a lot of things which are demonstrably absurd.

Take those scientists who promote not science but scientism — the belief that science can deal with every aspect of existence. The scorn and vituperation they heap upon religious believers is fathomless. And yet their materialism leads them to say things which are just… well, nutty.

For example, Professor Richard Dawkins told me he was ‘not necessarily averse’ to the idea that life on earth had been created by a governing intelligence — provided that such an intelligence had arrived from another planet. How can it be that our pre-eminent apostle of reason appears to find little green men more plausible as an explanation for the origin of life than God? "

Mel drops herself in it a bit here. She has for once, cited an example of one of her "accusations" against the Antichrist of atheism himself no less. It is fairly easy to hypothesise that life may exist off Earth. The fact that life exists here is proof that life exists somewhere. This means that given the right conditions and chemical raw materials that it could be hypothesised that it exists elsewhere. Extrapolate up to sentient life (though your perhaps best to wait before evidence of life off Earth before seriously doing this.) and them seeding life elsewhere. Hypothesising the existence of a superbieng (who can break the laws of physics) with no real physical proof of its existence is a bit harder. Melanie Phillips cannot objectively analyse varying hypothesis, and relies on personal opinion. A bit of a bummer, for an article on assessing the scientific method.

"Contrary to popular myth, Western science was not created by Enlightenment secularism. It grew out of the revolutionary claim in the Bible that the universe was the product of a rational Creator, who endowed man with reason so that he could ask questions about the natural world."

That doesn't really stand up. For a start most people can figure out that the world seems to obey some kind of natural laws, and lots of things consistently behave in a routine way. There's an order in place, (though most revealed religious beliefs fall a bit flat on trying to figure out what this order may be.) and that people can study that order to figure it out. Hey Mel, that applied even back then.

I'm not going to slate the Bible totally. I think Jesus had a few good ideas, and smoothed over some of the sillier cruelties of the Old Testament. Although not a believer myself, Christianity has given nice hymns and churches. It can be inspirational and uplifting. It is also often intolerant and divisive to the point of inciting hate, and hypocritical. But one thing that is consistent about it (and it's Islamic and Jewish cousins) is it's inherent irrationality. These three faiths are concerned with the parochial. They are didactic, revealed from authority and are (to the practitioners) exclusive to the truth, to the extent of the contrary (in English this means they are self evidently the truth, and contradictory things should be ignored /revised accordingly.) This doesn't provide an atmosphere clement to rationality.

We get these nuggets that pretty much speak for themselves.

"This is because ideology [secular], by wrenching evidence to fit a prior idea, is inimical to reason and sacrifices truth to power. That’s why environmentalism’s most famous offspring, man-made global warming theory, is totalitarian gobbledegook. There is no evidence to support it, plenty of evidence against it and even more evidence that much of the ‘science’ on which it is based is fraudulent."

None? None at all? Even though Carbon Dioxide (even natural CO2) is a well documented greenhouse gas? No evidence?

"But like other ideologies, it appears immune to challenge, however compelling the case against it."

Circular logic.

She then comes out with this.

"It can’t be [why "militant athiests" dislike religion] that religion has committed terrible atrocities, because atheism has committed terrible atrocities too. Maybe it’s the fear that Biblical morality fetters the freedom to be footloose and fancy-free. After all, if genes are selfish why should they alone have all the fun?"

Oh look, it's the "Hitler and Stalin were atheists too" canard. It's been debunked better elsewhere, so what about the "selfish gene" comment? Its a misunderstanding on her part. The "selfish" only means that a species genes have no "purpose" beyond being perpetuated. It doesn't mean that selfish genes (they're mindless protein chains, and physically couldn't "feel" anything anyway.) beget selfish species. Jeez someone by this woman a science book!

"But since Biblical religion actually underpinned reason and morality, the decline of religion means the erosion of truth and conscience. If religious totalitarianism was rule by the Church and political totalitarianism was rule by the ‘general will’, this is cultural totalitarianism, or rule by the subjective individual.

In Britain, the effects are plain to see. Everything is upside down: the transgressive becomes the norm while the normal is discriminatory; victims become aggressors while aggressors are indulged; education leaves children in a state of noble savagery; broken families are promoted as lifestyle choice.

And a brutal utilitarianism means elderly or coma victims are starved and dehydrated to death, with anyone who dares to mention the sanctity of human life dismissed as a Bible-bashing nut-job."

Let's put aside that religion and morality are somehow physically intimately bound at the seems; - my brain is really starting to hurt now. Seemingly completely interchangeable right wing memes are being mashed up together with tortured logic to produce a horrid anti - science mess.

I realised that in the end I had to throw the towel in a bit with this stuff. I mean how can you possibly counteract an article that berates its opponents for treating the world as divided into two impermeable factions, their opponents being horrid bigots. - By splitting the argument into two utterly opposing camps. The other side being horrid bigots. I mean for Gods sake:

" In Manichean fashion, the left divides the world into rival camps of good and evil. Anyone who is not on the left is ‘the right’ and thus beyond the moral pale. But much that is demonised in this way as ‘right-wing’ is simply an attempt to uphold truth, reality and liberty against the distortions, fabrications and bullying of ideology."

Takes one to know one Melanie.

I need a bloody drink now.

*There is some evidence to suggest that Jesus may have been influenced by Hellenic disciplines. It is thought that Joseph was no humble carpenter, but a master tradesmen, with JC as his apprentice, travelling around the world, and immersing himself in foreign disciplines (even perhaps what is now England). The "son of God" thing may have been Jesus applying Helenic systematics to a local religion. Him seeing himself as a gateway between God and ordinary "Joe Palestinians" A kind of Bronze Age mathematical out the box thinking.

There's Persecution, and there's PERSECUTION Dr Carey.,

Christianity has been in the news for two completely different reasons these past few weeks. The first was due to a letter by Lord Carey (and co-signed signed by a few others.) who you may know better as the bloke who played Ace Ventura.. Only joking, Dr. George Carey the rather low rent former Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems to have gotten a second wind in him since they shoved him into ermine clad retirement in the Lords. It seems that the former archbish thinks that Christians get a rough deal in the UK in relation to how minority faiths are (IHO) pandered to. He has come to this conclusion in large, due to several cases of Christians not being able to wear crosses at work (in a hospital in this case) whilst headscarves are allowed. The kind of thing that gets the "martyr" a photosplash in the paper of them looking wounded in a cardie, whilst fondling their necklace. The letter then connects this to other "attacks" on Christianity such as civil partnerships, and the usual stuff:

"In a number of cases, Christian beliefs on marriage, conscience and worship are simply not being upheld. There have been numerous dismissals of practising Christians from employment for reasons that are unacceptable in a civilised country. We believe that the major parties need to address this issue in the coming general election."

(That end bit loosely translates in to a memo for Dave or Gordon. "Can we be excused on being subject to rules and discourse everyone else has to follow**. Because our set of opinions are more specialler than others, God says so, well we says he says so, so he says so.")

**I'd like to see a racist shop assistant try and use the excuse "I can't serve black people, it goes against what I believe in." on his boss and keep his job. It's a bit of a straw man, but that is the gist of what these people are saying.

there's a footnote condemning proposals to broaden sex education (that has a Muslim signatory as well as the president of a highly conservative family focus group.) The contents of this letter are less of a surprise than seeing a freezer full of lollys in an ice cream van. As the superb stand up Marcus Brigstoke said, the [Abrahamic Religions] are a lot like Scousers, they all like to claim they have it harder than everyone else, and it's an observation that like all good ones has a lot of truth in it.

Now I'm not belittling the fact that people have (and continue) to suffer for their beliefs (and we're talking WAY more than just being told not to wear some jewellery) From monks in Burma to Christians in Sudan to the Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. Nobody should be singled out for persecution (on pain of death even.) on the basis of what they are and believe in. To Careys credit he does highlight the difference between these examples and the ones he brings up (as disrespect) Now it's hard to say these lesser "martyr" cases around stuff like crucifixes, actually constitute "persecution". Everyone has to cede some autonomy in a work place when they sign those contracts. This letter (and the "call to arms") really strike me more as a widespread social belief that religious opinions (which is what revelatory based beliefs are) are somehow different to other opinions, and need to be ringfenced in a way no others do. Also the increasing backlash from more vocal strains of belief, and the "new athiest" movement is causing a counter assertion in response. Lastly the genuine decline of faith in Europe means traditional religious authority has lost the clout it once had, and that aint no fun to the ecclesiastical big wigs with chips on their shoulders. What is surprising about this letter, and all the sympathetic popular press coverage it got from some quarters, was how it contrasted with a much more serious story from the Church of Rome, which didn't quite have the same level of coverage.

It is almost churlish to compare these two cases. The first is really little more than a few clerics throwing their toys out the pram at the horrid old secular world, the second is way, way more serious. But they merge on the issue of "respect" for religion in greater society, so linking them at the hip.

What has come to light from a Panarama programme is that Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) has been accused of directly covering up one of many instances of child rape committed by priests on vulnerable children. Ratzinger was the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith" which amongst other things meant he would have overseen any responses to child abuse from his priests. A priest by the name of Friar Lawrence Murphay was accused by several testimonials of abusing 200 deaf boys at a special school in Wisconsin. Despite the wishes of Ratzingers deputy for a clerical trial (not in a "proper" court BTW), Murphay was effectively censured to a remote school after he wrote to Ratzinger saying "he was ill, and wanted to live out his priestly days in dignity." after this heartfelt stuff; in the same state, over 5 new accusations have been made. Things look even murkier when we learn that Cardinal Sean Brady has admitted he was present when children were told to stay silent about their complaints about the child abuser Friar Brendon Smyth. (Do we have the horrible feeling that the childrens silence was conditional on pain of eternal damnation??) Yes Sean Brady, whose only the highest ranking priest in Eire after 35 years, has decided after prayer and reflection to own up to not investigating multiple complaints against what turned out to be a serial child rapist. Then we get this incredible official statement by the Popes PA:

"The Pope's official spokesman, Federico Lombardi, said the Murphy case had only reached the Vatican in 1996 - two decades after the Milwaukee diocese in Wisconsin first learned of the allegations, and two years before the priest died.

The diocese had been asked to take action by "restricting Father Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts", Fr Lombardi said"

So by the PA,s own admission, the diocese had been ordered by another arm of the church to keep schtum, and that no one in 20 years considered 200 accusations of child abuse that big a deal to report to the guy supposed to fucking sort this stuff out!

I really don't need to continue with this sorry story. Chances are more will inevitably come out in due process, and what more can be said really? When it takes one of the emerald isles chief clergyman 35 years to come clean about covering up accusations of CHILD RAPE for gods sake! It's the children I feel desperately, heartbreakingly sorry for. They were told that this organisation was their only way to happiness and salvation and then it betrayed and ignored them in the worst way imaginable. And to top it off the very people they were supposed to revere stood by and did nothing, because in the end all they all they really gave a shit about was keeping up the incense fuelled appearances. So I'm sorry Dr Carey, yeah while I might feel a bit sorry for some spinster who got suspended for wearing a religious chain, it rings a bit hollow saying that the secular west picks on Christians, when in this part of the world even today, high ranking religious officials can be so heavily implicated in covering up child abuse and not even face immediate questioning from the police forces (who really thinks there's any chance the Pope will be brought in for questioning?). It's hard to conclude that religion is heavily discriminated against, when no other organisation would have got off as lightly. If this level of cover up had happened in the royal family, we'd be facing a constitutional crisis. If the government was implicated in this way; at the very least we'd be having the election next week. The red tops usually are on stories like this, like bluebottles round a dog turd. Senior social workers were vilified by the Sun and received death threats for the Baby Peter case, but there's virtually even a squeak here? Because the strange way religion seems to play by a parallel set of rules in our society. If these insinuations are 100% true, this means that the senior authorities not only sheltered recidivist paedophiles from prosecution, but failed to warn anyone else about their natures. This meant more childrens innocence taken, and youngsters that should have been safe, under the influence of dangerous men. At the very least the police should LOOK in to all the relevant papers to this case to obtain names. It is perhaps too much to hope for that the Pope and Cardinal Murphay show up at the local police station to explain themselves in this affair, but perhaps organisations like One in Four might be able to put the pressure on. But I know the victims certainly need more than the damage limitation PR we are getting from the Vatican.