Feeding The Fish

(Greetings PA readers! Have a look round, have a read, tell me what you think. And for those who aren’t from Planet Atheism, check it out!)

A while back, I almost had my comment on this article of Rowan Williams (Archbishop of Canterbury) published in The Times, it was a bit of a surprise as I’d left it on the online version (It seems they really do read them!) but I got an email saying they wanted to use it. And then another a few days later saying in the end they didn’t have the space (Soo close…). Anyway, I thought I’d go back and expand on that comment. Dr Williams article starts off with a loving tribute to Wilberforce and then starts down far more suspect lines.

I believe that it is possible for a state to have a moral basis without thereby becoming confessional or theocratic. It involves a state being ready to recognise its own history; to say that its horizons and assumptions are indeed grounded in a set of particular beliefs, and to embody in its political practice ways of allowing those foundational commitments to be heard in public debate.

By ‘moral’ the Archbishop of course means religious. The rest of us are naturally an unruly bunch that moved onto the thieving and killing as soon as we realised that as there was no afterlife to reward or punish us there were no restraints on our behaviour whatsoever. He seems to be of the hope that secularism is just a phase and sooner or later the country will look back into it’s history and welcome the church back into our hearts and government. Although Britain is historically a Christian country, to claim this as justification for a continued role for the church in government is ridiculous. We’re an increasingly secular country with (according to Tearfund) a 2/3 majority of people who do not attend church and only a narrow majority of 53% that call themselves Christian (and only 59% who are religious at all). Hardly a sweeping mandate for the continued integration of faith into government.

The establishment of the Church of England, as it has evolved in the past century or so, has turned out to be such a mechanism — a rather awkward one. But if the church were to be disestablished, the question would still be there in an acute form: how does the state properly expose itself to argument about its collective moral status?

Through ELECTIONS. It might not always work perfectly in practice but it’s a far better method that creating an integrated watchdog that only really represents a subsection of the community. I find the Lords Spiritual to be far less than an effective watchdog for our morals, where were they when the repeal of Section 28, the clause in the Local Government Act preventing schools having material in schools that portrayed homosexuality as anything other than freakish and abnormal (but was also taken by a great many teachers to mean that they couldn’t even discuss it with pupils) was stalled for years in the Lords? Naturally,They were in opposition (page 51). A moral stance, maybe, but the wrong one. Doubtless this is the kind of thing Dr Williams would bring up as a reason why they’re needed, to maintain legal discrimination against homosexuality. It’s hardly a surprise I don’t trust the Lords Spiritual to watch over our government’s morals.

And I make no apology for saying that the nature and extent of religious representation in the upper house — a bigger issue than the number of Anglican bishops holding seats there — is not a marginal question at all in the light of this discussion.

It’s not a marginal question at all, it’s vitally important that in what ever the new reformed chamber looks like we move away from this entrenchment of the church(any church). We urgently need a Separation of Church and State, the current situation where the Prime Minster actually gets say over who becomes Anglican Bishops is just ridiculous. If the Archbishop is desperately worried about the path our country will take once the Bishops no longer have their say, he’s welcome to stand for election himself. Highly religious people in government? Fine, as long as they were elected and aren’t simply there because of their religious beliefs.I’ll accept the argument for a moral aspect to government (I’m opposed to a elected second chamber for different reasons) but it’s incredibly cynical to say politicians aren’t capable of the role and incredibly arrogant (not to mention insulting) to say we need religious people to do it for us. The idea that morality comes from religion is really something the church needs needs to grow out of.

I watched the Panorama: ‘Wi-fi: A Warning Signal‘ the other night and was just shocked. It’s an excellent example of some really shoddy journalism and science and it’s taken me a few days to fully get my head round the issues.

The program hinges on three main arguments:

1. Mobile phone masts are dangerous
2. Wifi signals are more powerful than phone masts and therefore are as, if not more, dangerous.
3. A subset of the population are extremely effected by electromagnetic fields, therefore it’s not inconceivable that they have an effect on the rest of us.

However, all of these arguments are based on shody or non-existant science and scaremongering dominates. Keyton uses emotive words like ‘radiation’ around 30 times which, whilst a scientifically accurate description (in the same way that radiation could be used to describe light), is for most people associated with the dangerous radioactivity. A Swedish scientist Kenyon makes much use of was voted most misleading scientist of the year in 2004 by 1,600 of his peers for his views on electromagnetism (which is the area he is quized on in this program). He dismisses a WHO official because of his former work in the mobile phone industry yet didn’t raise an eyebrow about the ever helpful Alasdair Philips who makes money off of telling people EM fields are harmful and selling them protective gear right now.
Let’s take it one at a time.

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(Hat-tip to Stephen Law)

Going back to my earlier post, maybe I was a little harsh on Odone for describing Richard Dawkins as a ‘Secular extremist’, after all Rowan Williams and Cormac Murphy-O’Connor (Head of the Anglican and Catholic churches in the UK respectively) published the following in a report:

Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development.

However, they fail to recognise that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position.

Not that the report gives any justification for for atheism as a faith position (which it’s not) or it being an intolerant one.
An intolerant faith position would be one that doesn’t allow other people to hold their own views and actively persecutes those that hold different views, merely saying you think other people’s views are wrong isn’t. The fact that this comes from the respective head of the two largest churches in the country fills me with such hope.

They are part of a vicious homosexual agenda.

The Telletubbies are set to be banned in Poland after a government media watchdog decided they encouraged homosexuality.

The children’s Tv programme has fallen foul of Poland’s government-appointed Children’s Rights spokesman, who believes the show is “gay propaganda”.

A special committee has been appointed to examine the claims including allegations that Tinky Winky’s handbag was breaking down gender barriers and encouraging homosexuality.

….?

I didn’t even know they had sexes…
I completely agree with this decision, if we put genderless creatures with tvs in their tummies and handbangs in front of children, the next thing you know they might start choosing to be gay!

I read this manifesto over at The Rights of Man a while ago, it seemed to have some good points but there was something in the tone that put me off a bit. I found this rebuttal today, mostly spot on (perhaps does get a little too personally attacking for my liking) but I couldn’t agree with this bit:

“Make the state recognise/support male domestic violence victims”
“Support anonymity for men accused of rape, unless found guilty”

These two points are about denying the reality of men’s violence against women, by on the one hand belittling it by claiming that men suffer just as badly, and on the other hand, not recognising the scale of it, by claiming that women make false allegations of abuse.

And no, you wouldn’t expect me to support the idea that every woman who incredibly bravely reports her rape to the police should be institutionally considered to be a liar. And it’s an interesting and illustrative choice of priorities, isn’t it, to put this in rather than attempting to increase the 15% reporting rate and the 6% conviction rate or decrease the horrific number of rapes in this country.

The point of anonymity is not to say that the women are assumed to be lying, but to protect the accused from the media, which just by reporting suggests guilt and spurs legions of people into punitive action irregardless of the actual evidencea and quite literally destroys lives, take the vilification of Robert Murat (in the Madeleine McCann case) whom the media leaped on because he fit a fairly vague description. We live under the rule of law and guilt can only be determined by a jury and the punishment must be done through legal means. Keeping the court of public opinion out of it until the legal process is complete is a really good idea. Anonymity of accused is simply reaffirming that people are innocent until they are proven guilty, and this extends way beyond rape cases.
As for increasing the 6% conviction rate, I think setting statistical goals is dangerous. I find it highly unlikely that only 6% of reported rapes actually occur, but pushing for a statistical change suggests that we need to lower the amount of evidence needed, incredibly risky when so many rape cases revolve around one account verses another with little means to work out who’s telling the truth. I think it’d be great for more guilty rapists to be convicted, but I don’t see how that can happen as a trend without making it easier for the innocent to be convicted.

Tony Blair wrote an article for The Times the other day, and said this in defence of his foreign policy:

I was stopped by someone the other week who said it was not surprising there was so much terrorism in the world when we invaded their countries (meaning Afghanistan and Iraq). No wonder Muslims felt angry.

When he had finished, I said to him: tell me exactly what they feel angry about. We remove two utterly brutal and dictatorial regimes; we replace them with a United Nations-supervised democratic process and the Muslims in both countries get the chance to vote, which incidentally they take in very large numbers. And the only reason it is difficult still is because other Muslims are using terrorism to try to destroy the fledgling democracy and, in doing so, are killing fellow Muslims.

What’s more, British troops are risking their lives trying to prevent the killing. Why should anyone feel angry about us? Why aren’t they angry about the people doing the killing? The odd thing about the conversation is that I could tell it was the first time he had even heard the alternative argument.

Blair’s seems completely baffled at the inability of people to act completely reasonably all the time. Yes, if you look at it logically we’re not the enemy, the terrorists are (and I suspect there are more Iraqis who would agree with that than it would seem), but we are hardly the whiter than white liberators we’d need to be to really feel incredulous as to why people are angry. We entered under a ’shock and awe’ bombing campaign (whose bright idea to win hearts and minds was that?) with civilian casualties to start off with. We can look at it as necessary sacrifices to remove a brutal dictator, but we weren’t the ones making the sacrifices.

I remember seeing on the news a little bit after the war officially ‘ended’ a crowd of people gathered after a car bombing and someone was telling the reporter how someone else (naturally) had seen an American bomber drop a bomb that caused the explosion. Ridiculous to our ears, what interest would that serve? What reasons would they have? It doesn’t matter, it seemed that people were ready to believe that that would happen. It is actively in terrorists’ interest for the Iraqi people to focus their hatred on the British and American forces and with the raw materials available I doubt it was a difficult task. Each new crackdown to hinder the terrorists (like that amazingly stupid wall) is an active intrusion on the lives of everyday citizens, necessary perhaps, but I really don’t find it as hard as Blair to see where the resentment comes from.

Why do people hate us? Perhaps as Blair wants to believe, because they’re not in full possession of the facts, I suspect a lot of the blame can be laid at the feet of the Anti-American spin doctors throughout the region, but the important fact is that their lies are just believable, who needs to construct elaborate lies when you can just show the pictures from Abu Grav over and over? Blair is right in the sense that the terrorists are the real enemy, but if he really doesn’t understand why people are angry then that is a real concern.

I’ve just read a truly awful article over at the Guardian ‘Let us pray for the soul of Richard Dawkins‘. It sets out to portray Dawkins as an angry, hate-filled man with a crusade against the faithful. Dawkins may be passionate in his belief that all religion is folly, but it’s hardly the foaming-at-the-mouth rage Christina Odone wants you to think.

All faith is blind, rationality is anathema to believers and religion is the enemy of science: the tenets at the heart of the Dawkins dogma have been polished again and again and so widely transmitted that they have become common currency.

Notice the language here is careful to portray Dawkin’s views as just another religious view, ‘tenets’ and ‘dogma’ are meant to convince us that his views are just as rigid, intolerant and irrational as the worst of religious beliefs. However, Dawkin’s view here is entirely logical. Faith exists in spite of evidence (otherwise it wouldn’t be faith), science requires evidence, therefore religion and science whilst maybe not enemies (again Odone’s words), certainly are utterly different ways of looking at truth (with scientific truth having the advantage of being testable and more practically applicable).

Dawkins is not the only world-famous apologist of secularist extremism. Christopher Hitchens is similarly critical of religion; so is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch MP who received death threats for her criticism of Islam.

‘Secular extremism’? I’m not quite sure writing books and making TV shows that outline his views and hope to persuade people through rational argument is deserving of the same ‘extremist’ label we tend to reserve for those that actually kill or terrorise others on the justification of their faith. And ’secular extremism’? How does that even work? I can accept ‘Atheist extremism’ perhaps (although Dawkins is not one), but ’secular’? I find it hard to see how you can get extremists advocating for a separation of church and state, but maybe that’s just because I agree with it.

But Hitchens and Ali now operate primarily in America, a nation where 95 per cent of citizens believe in God and church attendance is growing, not dwindling. They can jab God and his followers, but theirs is only a faint note of discord, overwhelmed by the church choir.

In secular Britain, faith-bashing carries far more resonance and risks causing far greater damage. In this country, belief is a minority practice and believers a persecuted lot. The rabid attacks by Dawkins and his camp-followers spur even the most mild-mannered Christian, Muslim or Jew into a hard-line position.

Oh spare me. It may be a slim majority (53% Christian, 59% religious) but it’s still a majority. Odone’s attempt to create a picture of a tiny persecuted minority is statistically flawed as well as factually. Where’s the persecution? Increasing amounts of people disagreeing with religion and saying so publicly does not in itself constitute oppression. Are laws being past not allowing people to worship? Are churches being forcibly closed? Are the faithful being hounded in the streets? If Odone is feeling this persecuted by some books and lectures, how would she handle the kind of persecution against Athiests that seems so rampant in America? And then she uses this non-existent ‘rabid’ persecution to justify religious people becoming more hardline? ‘I’m going to say you poked my eye out so I can take yours’? That seems enlightened, I’m glad Odene represents a minority of the kind of religious people I tend to meet (though unfortunately the kind that tends to get printed).

Her rhetoric on America isn’t much better; Is she really saying that it’s OK to dissent only if no one is listening? Given the seemingly common hatred of Atheists in America, you’ll forgive me if I find the image of the ‘faint note of discord’ of a persecuted minority being overwhelmed by a chorus of hateful ignorance a horrific one.

But there is hope. In a recent interview, Dawkins describes a gigantic intelligence which designs the universe. He acknowledges that there may be an awe-inspiring and uplifting force out there and that he is prepared to encounter it. It sounds suspiciously like God under another name. Catholic schoolchildren used to pray for the conversion of England; nowadays, I’d settle for the conversion of Richard Dawkins.

For the only hope for tolerance is for him to publish a stream of new titles - The God Solution, The Selfless Gene - and address cosy church groups as an apostate who has seen the light. With their loudest persecutor silenced, believers would see no need for hard-line posturing. They would once again feel like ordinary citizens rather than a hunted species that must bare its fangs to survive.

Also in the News: Flying Pigs Ice-Skate In Hell! I’d love to get a look at this interview as it’s either entirely fabricated or incredible mis-quoting. Dawkin’s doubtfully said something along the lines that he accepts that an intelligent designer could exist as it can’t be disproved, but then he tends to go on to say that he also can’t disprove Russell’s Teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster and that invoking a designer only raises more questions than it answers.
It turns out by Obane’s standards, the only hope for tolerance in our society is for Dawkins to conform and convert. It seems the days of tolerance meaning actual tolerance for other people’s points of view are over. This is just trite, Dawkins as a ‘persecutor’? The faithful as a ‘hunted species’? What country is Obane living in?

Simon Walter’s of the Daily Mail launched a scathing attack at blogger Owen Barder (whose site seems to be down as a result). Reflecting the best journalistic traditions of the Daily Mail, it’s full of mis-direction, half-truths and things that just flat out aren’t true. Tim Worstall did an excellent deconstruction of it. Here are the highlights:

A former aide to Tony Blair has posted on his website an attack on the Prime Minister which compares President George Bush to Hitler.

The attack, which has shocked Whitehall, appears on the outspoken, sexually explicit, website blog of £100,000-a-year civil servant Owen Barder.

I very much doubt the attack ’shocked Whitehall’ as it wasn’t even his comment, he’d just linked to a Guardian article. Which, while doubtless suspicious behaviour, isn’t in itself a crime. And ’sexually explicit’? Please, the only thing that comes was his rather frank accont of his vasectomy which Walters is infering is one of the least explicit things he’s written about. It’s just a cheap ploy to gain some shock value in his opening lines.

He’s also guilty of crimes like condemning the abduction of terrorist suspects to be tortured in parts unknown.

Mr Barder condemns ‘extraordinary renditions’ whereby America - allegedly using UK airports with Mr Blair’s support - snatched Al Qaeda suspects and tortured them.

Which wasn’t an entirely treasonous opinion last time I checked…and he’s quite right to do so.

Margaret Thatcher is described as ‘pernicious,’ while ex-Labour leader Neil Kinnock is praised for making ‘one of the finest speeches in British politics’.

It turns out ‘pernicious’ was a comment someone else had left on a post. Journalistic integrity of the highest source here.

And the real killer? All of this was written during an unpaid two year sabbatical, so he wasn’t even a member of the Civil Service at the time! Making the entire point of the article well, pointless.

The comments section on the article was closed rather quickly. It’d be more honest of the Mail to remove it all together if they don’t allow comments that seriously question the article (as many other newspaper comments sections are happy to publish). But maybe honesty in procedure would be asking a bit much of a newspaper that would print this garbage.

Looking in the Google ads bit at the side of the page I found a link to ‘The God Argument‘, it tries to make the logical case for God being behind the universe’s creation. Let’s have a look:

Is The Universe Eternal?

The Kalam Argument demonstrates using simple logic that the universe cannot be eternal. The argument is initially credited to Aristotle.

The Kalam argument says that if the universe is eternal, then the past must be eternal and without a beginning. But if the past was eternal, then we could of never arrived at the “NOW”. To get to the “Now” from an eternal past, means we would of had to traverse (go through) an infinite amount of time (all of eternal history)! But that’s impossible, it’s like trying to count to infinite, you can count on forever but you will never arrive! A good analogy is trying to jump out of a bottomless pit, you won’t have much luck.

The world of time we live in and eternity are two very different things. Time cannot be eternal in the past as we could never traverse infinite or have an infinite succession of events. The universe could go on forever without end, but this is different from being eternal and unchanging.

The problem with this is that time cannot be divided into a series of ‘ nows’ (as Aristotle himself said when analysing Zeno’s thinking in the arrow paradox). We could arguably divide a second into an infinite series of instances which we have to travel though, yet it doesn’t stop us moving through the seconds. A better analogy than jumping out of the bottomless pit would be falling down a bottomless pit, but this still isn’t good as it implies the pit had an opening, which an eternal universe wouldn’t have.

The universe might turn out not to be eternal, but you can’t disprove it through a thought experiment.

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The Pope talking in Latin America tells people that their ancestors were “silently longing” for Christ and seeking God “without realizing it”.

See, I always thought “she was longing for it” wasn’t a good excuse for rape, but hey what would I know, I’m not the Pope.

He also said it wasn’t an “imposition of a foreign culture”, you really can’t make this up…