Rattled of Mayfair

I happened across even more evidence that those militant apologists are seriously rattled by Richard Dawkins recent survey about UK Christians today. The Daily Telegraph, fresh from the deliciously bile filled article I mentioned yesterday about the sins of the Father, also features an article by Charles Moore, the ex-editor of that that paper who takes another snipe at Dawkins putting even more phantasmal words into his mouth than a writhing Pentecostalist speaking in tongues.

I've come across Moore before, he's one of those right-wing intellectuals who thinks that religion is good for us plebs; I'm suspicious that what he really means is that it keeps Eton and Cambridge types like Moore at the top of the heap by venerating tradition over reason and the parochial interests over equality. The last occasion I had to listen to the views of Mr Moore was at a public debate between him and Dawkins, it's obvious from spittle flecked words in this article that Moore is still bitter about the intellectual drubbing that Dawkins gave him that night, the man obviously finds it difficult to reason objectively about what he believes and clearly bears a grudge.

Practically every paragraph of Moore's article reads to me like a smug and narrow minded puff of Tory hot air in favour of inequality and establishment, all the usual canards are there, Dawkins, Gays, Science, Atheists, morality, virtuous faith, Jews, (murdering) Muslims and the EU, climate change denial and abortion would have made the complete set but I guess there must have been a word limit. The conclusion of the piece is a rather bizarre argument along the lines that the C of E privilege is a good thing because it discourages other religions from squabbling over power and therefore different followers from killing each other, at first glance this seems like a contorted and circular piece of illogic but I have to admit, if it's true, it's a compelling argument for secularism and atheism..

Rattled cages

It seems that our religious brothers and sisters are well and truly "rattled" by the recent survey done by Ipsos MORI and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. The results show pretty clearly how little people in the UK know about and/or practice Christianity (by any sane definition) even though they tick "Christian" on census forms; dispelling the myth so often offered by religious politicians that Britain is a "Christian country". What people choose to call themselves is of course a matter for them but when inaccurate population statistics are used to justify and support religiously inspired legislation (i.e. state funded faith schools) then proper research like this is essential in order that secularists can expose this "majority" argument as a specious one. However, as Corporal Jones once famously said "they don't like it up em sir, they don't like it up em!" since release last week there has been a fire-storm of publicity and apologetics around the results of this survey, Baroness Warsi took the opportunity to rally believers of all flavours against "secular fundamentalists" during her recent visit to the Vatican and assorted Bishops and faith defenders around the country have been rabidly exercising their right to completely ignore the actual results and avoid dealing with the arguments by lobbing childish ad hominem attacks at Dawkins instead.

Even the once decent Daily Telegraph got in on the act, excreting a story about one of Dawkins' forebears a Henry Dawkins (1698-1744) who owned slaves in Jamaica (shock horror!); quite astoundingly the reporter actually asked Dawkins in all seriousness if he thought that since he was an ancestor of Henry that he might have inherited the gene for supporting slavery. I can only conclude that the Telegraph are running their own genetic experiments these days, crossing morons with idiots to breed the next generation of slime bearing reporters. If you wish to waste 5 minutes of your life reading drivel then the story is here. On Sunday Dawkins appeared on the "Big Question" TV show to talk about the survey, along with some Woman from the Telegraph who completely humiliated herself, claiming to be a "miracle believing" Christian she then went on to admit not knowing that the first book of the Bible is Genesis and that she believed the English language to be based on the Bible (how quickly I forgot all that Hebrew my native tongue is based on!) Watching this program it seemed that "Christianity" may be defined as anything one wishes. I think I'll start calling myself a "snooker player", having neither a table, cue, chalk, coloured balls or any knowledge of the rules of the game.

One thing that the Telegraph neglected to mention about good old Henry of course, was that it's a pretty safe bet he was a Christian, in the upstanding company of every other white slave owner in Jamaica at that time who were also good Christians. They also neglect to mention the good Christians who opposed Wilberforce and the 1000 years before this when good Christians condoned slavery without so much as a second thought; so much for "Christian" morality, they are welcome to it, not only do they cherry pick their Bible they cherry pick history too.

Secular progress

I was very pleased to read today that Bideford (Devon) council has lost a case bought by an atheist councillor (Clive Bone) and the National Secular Society. The argument was over the policy of that council to start council meetings with a prayer (to the Christian God), being an atheist and being pro-separation of church and state Mr Bone questioned the councils powers to enforce such a practice, claiming that it was discriminatory in nature and an inappropriate ritual. I can see his point, why some Christians feel it necessary to stamp their superstitions and rituals over everything regardless that there are many who don't share those beliefs is arrogant, divisive and somewhat sinister frankly, much like compulsory prayers in schools. In a statement Mr Bone said,

"Religious freedom is an absolute right and so is freedom from religion an absolute right, in my view."

It's fairly predictable to read the religious responses to this decision, bleating about "religious freedom" is the most common complaint, of course to some "religious freedom" means the freedom to impose your dogma on everyone else whether they want it or not. Then we have the apologists who harp on about "why can't everyone just get along", which translated means "why don't those pesky atheists just shut up and stop causing a fuss", I suspect that's exactly what most majorities think when they are accused of unreasonable behaviour by any minority that aren't content to do nothing.

More worryingly, the Bishop of Exeter is saying that he'll be encouraging councils to hold prayers in their meetings, in other words encouraging them to break the law then? Some people just don't have an ethical bone in their bodies, next they'll be moaning about not being allowed to burn witches in council meetings, after all that's part of the Christian "tradition" too isn't it?

Clowning around

I noticed that the debate about female bishops in the Anglican church has resurfaced recently. I must say it all seems very alien to me, why any organisation (particularly one aligned to a supposedly modern state) would want to exclude 50% of this planets' talent base from it's leadership ranks is baffling, I can't help but wonder why a few differences in a persons DNA would make such a difference, imagine if those DNA bases coded for skin colour or hat size instead of sex, what a furore there would be.

Anyway it's not an organisation that I wish to belong to and not just because it discriminates against Women, as Groucho Marx once said "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member". I believe in freedom of expression and free speech so any private club should be free to choose it's own rules under the law but in this case it seems that an exception has been made by our society along fault lines of tradition, revelation and authority, never good reasons to do anything.

One thing that struck me more than the comedy of this debate was the picture that the independent newspaper chose to use for their story on it, a strident, disrespectful Atheist caption writers dream, "where does religion fit in modern society" would get the ball rolling or maybe "The hat’s nice, but he could use a bit more greasepaint." :)

The religion of peace

I'm seriously glad I don't live in Indonesia it seems to be becoming more of an intolerant and fundamentalist state by the year. Recently an atheist, Alexander Aan, made a defiant declaration of his personal viewpoint on Facebook saying simply that "God doesn't exist" For his troubles he's now staring down the barrel of a jail sentence for blasphemy (a victimless crime) Some Muslim groups in his homeland are even calling for him to be beheaded as apparently jail isn't good enough for non-believers. Of course many would say that these are the voices of extremists but we hear this kind of thing so often I find this point of view increasingly hard to swallow.

Indonesian law only recognises six religions (Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Confucianism) and bad mouthing any of them is a chargeable offence punishable with a maximum of 5 years in prison. Have you ever heard anything so mind crushingly backwards? Well, maybe creationism, LED watches and the x-factor.. in any case it's with sadness that I strike another beautiful country with pernicious cultural values off my bucket list.

Joke du jour

Coming back from yet another recent EU summit in Rome, various European leaders were forced to take the train due to a strike by Swiss ATC controllers; sitting together in the same compartment, travelling through the Swiss Alps, were Sarkozy, Cameron, Merkel and the young and very attractive female Irish foreign minister.

The train goes into a dark tunnel and a few seconds later there is the sound of a loud slap. When the train emerges from the tunnel, Sarkozy has a bright red, hand print on his cheek. No one speaks, everyone is extremely shocked and embarrassed.

Angela Merkel thinks: Sarkozy, not able to help himself, must have groped the Irish girl in the dark, and she slapped his cheek.

The Irish girl thinks: Sarkozy, not able to help himself, must have tried to grope me in the dark, but missed and fondled Merkel and she slapped his cheek.

Sarkozy thinks: Why me? That perfidious Cameron must have groped the Irish girl in the dark knowing that I'd get the blame for it and she slapped me... the English bastard.

And Cameron thinks: I can't wait for another tunnel, so I can smack that little French shit again.

Busy week

I can't believe it's a week since my last post!

It's been a really busy week for me lots of stuff happening at work, we're expanding, hiring people and setting up a bigger office (knocking a hole in the wall through to the empty offices next door and expanding sideways!) all good stuff but enormously time consuming. There's been a lot of stuff happening in the news to talk about though, every day I've seen something that I felt the urge to scribble about but never quite got around to it, what with work, kids, short days and cold nights this time of year always seems to rush by the quickest.

I noticed that the unholy row over the Jesus & Mo. cartoons has intensified and spread to more universities, the student (Robbie Yellon) running the atheist society at UCL who originally sparked the protests has resigned, it's not entirely clear why but I suspect he got a little more than he bargained for by invoking the wrath of the superstitious in this way. Apparently, due to the screechy whining of a few Muslims, the special (untouchable) status of certain religions is being affirmed by the authorities at UCL, I wonder what's next, a ban on satirical criticism of the Government or the Royal family, what about the English cricket team?

In a linked story Rhys Morgan (above) the teenager blogger and Crohn’s disease sufferer, famous in sceptical circles for taking on a large medical clinic in the USA who peddle "alternative" non-evidence based "cures" for cancer sufferers and charge a lot to do it. After heavyweight threats and legal posturing from the USA Rhys came out on top of his argument with the Burszynski clinic wining much praise and admiration from fellow rationalists around the world. In a show of solidarity with the Atheist students at UCL he also posted the Jesus and Mo cartoon on his (personal) blog only to be formally warned by the head of year at his sixth form college in Cardiff, he now faces potential expulsion unless he removes the cartoon, let that sink in for a second, in Britain in 2012 satire has now overtaken threat of violence as an act for which people can be bullied and excluded from our supposedly secular institutions. I can't help thinking that our ancestors, many of whom gave their lives fighting for principals of free-speech and liberty from tyrannical ideologies (like Islam) would turn in their graves at such a display of spinelessness.

I came across another example of someone wanting to remove the argument from the debate last week. The philosopher Alain de Botton has a new book out called "Religion for Atheists" and has a TED video discussing the ideas in it. He's a good speaker but I can't agree with his conclusions, as far as I can see he's advocating that Atheists should just ignore religious people, stop arguing with them and get on with the business of stealing everything that's (supposedly) good about religion, things like ritual, art, music, morality etc. He calls this "polite difference", but in my view ignoring people and refusing to engage with their ideas albeit in opposition is the opposite of this, but then again I'm far to honest to get into politics. Of course politeness might work if religious people adhered by the same laissez faire principals, but they demonstrably can't, they are compelled to proselytise, interfere and dictate, so the argument is fatally flawed from the get go. In any case I don't see what's so good about religion that I'd want to emulate it; if church attendance statistics are anything to go by then most people these days don't care much for such ritual (at least the ones in Europe who have a free choice), the vast majority of modern music is not religious, the vast majority of art is not religiously inspired any more and as for morality, religions of any hue are demonstrably unnecessary to live a fulfilled, moral and meaningful life. I must conclude that whilst de Botton may of had a point for Atheists living prior to the 19th century, for those of us living in the 21st he appears to be hopelessly out of touch.