What’s Next?

MPs are investigating Catholic Schools to investigate if their approach to education is perhaps a little too driven by the church’s insane, counter-productive and murderous attitude to sex:

The move comes after a 66-page circular from the Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O’Donoghue, instructed Catholic schools in the North-west to stop “safe sex” education and place crucifixes in every classroom.

Schools were also told not to support charities that promote or fund pro-choice policies, singling out Amnesty International – which is in favour of abortion for women who have been raped in war zones. Barry Sheerman, the Labour chairman of the committee, said there was evidence from other areas of the country of Catholic schools being told to adopt a more fundamentalist line.

In his document, Fit for Mission, Bishop O’Donoghue wrote: “The secular view on sex outside marriage, artificial contraception, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and Aids, and abortion, may not be presented as neutral information.”

You have to admit the man talks a lot of sense. Obviously teaching “Safe Sex” is just going to lead to those poor children having pre-marital hanky-panky in classrooms (Hence the crucifixes to remind them that they are always being watched). I think it’s a completely unfair comparison where people say it’s like giving kids a gun, telling them nothing about the safety catch and trusting them not to use it. What’s that? Studies say all this approach will do is create a generation of children who have no idea what the risks are or how to prevent then but yet will have sex at some point anyway? You’ve obviously forgotten the first rule of the game, if ’secular’ science or so-called ‘facts’ contradict what the church would like to be true then that’s obviously not ‘neutral’ infomation and shouldn’t be taken in to consideration. Only Official Catholic Facts™ should be used. These include useful tips like Condoms don’t prevent AIDS and Condoms are made deliberately to kill you.

What people keep on forgetting is that so-called “Safe Sex” is an oxymoron, you may be less less likely to get pregnant (and potentially die because abortion is immoral) or catch an STD (and die) if you use a condom but in doing so you’re messing up God’s plan and putting your immortal soul in jeapody. Obviously Catholic Schools should be more concerned with these young ones’ souls than their short, pathetic moral lives. By not teaching children about this potential path to Hell, they’re doing them a favour! In fact I can exclusively reveal a future policy to stop teaching ’safe road-crossing’ so their pure, young souls can be swept into heaven before this evil world has a chance to corrupt them further.

It’s quite literally the least they can do for them.

The Vatican have updated their list of deadly sins! The New Sins are:

• Polluting
• Genetic engineering
• Being obscenely rich
• Drug Dealing
• Abortion
• Pedophilia
• Causing social injustice

The fact that it exactly doubled is interesting, how likely is it there just happened to be exactly seven more? You suspect that there are some in there just to make up the numbers (Being obscenely rich seems a likely suspect, it seems a lot like ‘greed’) . More concerning, there might be sins out there we are not being told about. I mean, have these always been true and no one told us? I’d find the Bible a lot more convincing if there was a passage along the lines of ‘And lo, you shall discover the means to edit the code of life, a discovery with enormous potential benefits for humanity, but beware, doing so is a MORAL SIN’, as is it’s hard not to think they’re making these up as they go along. But then, he’s got The Hat, who am I to argue?

Is it just me or are these new sins less, well, fun than the old ones? I can’t imagine an ice cream series based around ‘abortion’ and ‘drug dealing’ taking off. I was going to be snipy that drugs that “weaken the mind and obscure intelligence” might rule out communion wine but then I remembered that it magically stops being wine, neatly sidestepping the issue. Then I was going to complain about the Vatican’s own ‘obscene riches’, but I can’t find any evidence that it’s really that wealthy anymore (the best source that didn’t invoke the illuminati was a 1965 Time article) and I really do prefer to have sources. As I can’t have those ones, I’m going to call hypocrisy on these two:

Abortion - You want abortion rates to go down? Stop complaining about contraception.

Pedophilia - It’s nice to hear some that it really is a bad thing, but when there are official records of ordering coverups and accusations that the pope himself was involved (though in the interests of fairness, the Catholic Church contests this), I find it hard to take this seriously.

But don’t forget, all you have to do is confess and you’re off the hook! It’s a fair world after all!

It’s a bit of a strange week, here I have atheists defending establishment and theists attacking it.  Normally I’m a big fan of Jonathan Calder, but I think he’s wrong on this one.

So the question to ask is not what the ideal relation between church and state would be. Instead, as a good Popperian, I believe that we should ask what problem disestablishing the Church of England would solve. And a little reflection will tell us that it would makes things far worse.

I write this as an atheist, albeit one with a great love of church music and architecture. I suppose I could allow myself to enjoy these while adopting an intellectual faith (rather after the later Wittgenstein) and say that when Christians talk about everlasting life they are really saying something profound and poetic about this life, but that would be dishonest of me. Most Christians mean what they say about the afterlife, and it is not true.

As an atheist, then, I have to recognise that religion can be a hugely destructive force. What I value about the Church of England is that it largely keeps the Christians quiet. I saw a joke in one of Charles Masterman’s books from the Edwardian era to the effect that the established church is the greatest bulwark against the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. That has to be a point in its favour.

Disestablish the church and you will set free the evangelicals and their deeply conservative philosophy. That is the last thing I wish to see. If you doubt this, look at the USA. It has no established church, but the religion has a far greater role in national life.

I come down on the side of  disestablishment because I think that some of those conclusions are wrong. Arguably, the better guide for what happens in a secular British state isn’t the United States but the continent, where secularism hasn’t resulted in anything like the power of religious fundamentalists have in the US. There are far more factors at play here than state-church vs secular-state but culturally Britain has far more in common with the increasingly secular Europe than the highly religious US.

This argument also relies on it being true an established church keeps radical elements at bay, I think it would do if it were more strictly enforced but I think we’d be hard pushed to say the CoE is a particularly enforcing organization at present and if it were, I think there’d be widespread agreement that this was a bad thing. Even if it were true that an established church kept Christians quiet, that’s hardly a point in it’s favour. I disagree with them but would rather they speak up than keep quiet, if nothing else it gives me more to blog about.

It also assumes Church of England is itself benign. I think Theo Hobson has it right when he says that the age of the Liberal CofE has ended. In the benign, moderate Church of England we have the Bishop of Carlisle saying that being nice to gays is causing God to hate us so much he kills people. The constant talk of a split tells that this is not a universal attitude, but it is definitely mainstream. The CoE can’t be relied on to defend us from conservatives outside when it has it’s own powerful wing of conservatives, this should by itself make the case for disestablishment to those concerned by that: It is far more likely that the conservative wing will exert force through the CoE’s entrenchment than another faith or denomination rise to the same level of influence. I still don’t find that especially likely as establishment is becoming like the monarchy, theoretically powerful but would cause a constitutional crisis if it ever stepped over the line.

I’m much more optimistic that disestablishment is possible. The demographics are with us, as much as half the population claims ‘no religion’ and the CofE is no longer the largest Christian denomination. The case of secularism can definitely be made and if not that, the case against privileging what is now a sub-culture is even stronger. I’d shy away from saying it’s inevitable, but it’s certainly extremely likely in the next few decades. The key now is to be watchful for a ‘multi-faith’ settlement to try and worm it’s way in (arguably the real meaning of the Archbishop’s Sharia speech the other week). We shouldn’t try to extend special protection, but reduce it so that we all stand on the same level.

Everyone’s favorite Archbishop thinks that Sharia Law in an inevitability in Britain. Not only that, he wants to help it along. I really couldn’t ask for these stories.

But Dr Williams says the argument that “there’s one law for everybody… I think that’s a bit of a danger”.

Ohhh boy, this isn’t going to be fun. I’ll accept there’s a whole lot more to Sharia law than what we commonly associate it with it, but even if it were the fairest legal system ever created, it shouldn’t be able to bypass the democratic process our laws rely on just because some people like it better. If there are good parts of Sharia law, let’s hear about them! Let them be debated in the House of Commons and MPs pass them into law for everyone to live by. It is very concerning when someone who sits in the House of Lords doesn’t seem to understand why the rule of law backed by the democratic process is preferable to self-appointed courts.

Dr Williams argues that adopting some aspects of Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

Yes, “One law for them, one law for us” has always been fantastic for social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

I’m fairly certain if both sides want to a third party to mediate discussions they can ask whoever they like to do it, the only difference here would be making it officially binding. Once it exists officially there’d be much more incentive to use it rather than the rather nice court system the rest of us have to put up with, making it harder for people in these communities who don’t want to use Sharia to opt-out.

“There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.”

Question One: Does the religious law in question violate existing law?

Question Two: Is it a bad law that should apply to no citizens and should be repelled?

Question Three: If ‘yes’ to the first and ‘no’ to the second, why does this group deserve special treatment?

Dr Williams adds: “What we don’t want either, is I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people’s religious consciences.”

You’re allowed to disagree with laws, you’re allowed to campaign to change them, you can even break them and accept the consequences. What you don’t get is special dispensation from the law because your religion says otherwise.

“We don’t either want a situation where, because there’s no way of legally monitoring what communities do… people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes another way of intensifying oppression inside a community.”

I can’t be reading this right, is he really saying the best way to stop unofficial oppression under Sharia is to officalise it, because then at least we know it’s going on?? See, I’d have thought the best way of intensifying oppression inside a community would be to legitimize it into public law. But then I’m not Archbishop, what would I know?

To sum up: Having different laws for different people is a very bad idea.

Are you ready for news from liberated and democratic Afghanistan, our allies in the War on Terror and whose government British soldiers are dying to defend? You bet you are!

A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet. The sentence is then upheld by the country’s rulers. This is Afghanistan – not in Taliban times but six years after “liberation” and under the democratic rule of the West’s ally Hamid Karzai.

The fate of Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has led to domestic and international protests, and deepening concern about erosion of civil liberties in Afghanistan. He was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed.

Mr Kambaksh, 23, distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University with the aim, he said, of provoking a debate on the matter. But a complaint was made against him and he was arrested, tried by religious judges without – say his friends and family – being allowed legal representation and sentenced to death.

Everyone repeat after me: realpolitik is awesome.

Well that seems like a good idea!

I can see a case for independent inspectorates for schools where there is a need for different methods of education because of the special needs of the pupils. It makes sense for schools for the deaf, blind or those with learning disabilities to be vetted independently of the rest of the school system, but I don’t see why this is the case for these faith schools. Children of Muslim or Christian parents do not inherently require a different approach to education in the same way deaf children do, there is no reason faith schools shouldn’t be judged by the same body and held to the same standard as non-faith schools.

I’ve just read this article about how members of fringe Muslim groups tend to be over-represented in the media. I don’t doubt there’s truth in that and I can see there’s a good point in there somewhere, but the dressing just makes it hard to find. See, I’d have assumed mainstream Muslims would be angry that it’s the violent extremists that get so much press, turns out I’m wrong! It’s those nasty liberal, progressive Muslims that are spoiling it!

So, I am sick of Tarek Fatah’s tirades, the Communications Director of the fringe organization Muslim Canadian Congress. The fact is that most of his positions are outright unIslamic and unrepresenting of the vast majority of Muslims. For instance, his organization endorsed same-sex marriage, campaigned against Islamic family courts, and pretty much came out on the wrong side of every mainstream Muslim opinion. So, WHY, does any of the media give ANY credibility to this tiny group of fringe nut-cases?

Yes! Those nut-cases! They think that there’s nothing inherently evil about society recognising commitment in homosexual couples and that governments shouldn’t legitimise self-appointed courts passing down judgements that have no basis in actual law. Those guys are so wacky!

Damn you media! You’re portraying Muslims as far more reasonable than they really are! Wait…that doesn’t sound like the media I know and love….

Michael Nazir-Ali (the Bishop of Rochester) has launched a vicious attack on the evils of multiculturalism, which as he defined it:

Required that people should be facilitated in living as separate communities, continuing to communicate in their own languages and having minimum need for building healthy relationships with the majority.

Well, when you put it like that, I don’t like it much either. Naturally we then have the backlash and the counter backlash. I’m going to ignore the issue of how bad the problem is or isn’t and hone in on something the Bishop said about the cause:

Much of this has come about because of a “neutral” secularist approach which refuses to privilege any faith. In fact, secularism has its own agenda and it is certainly not neutral. It is perfectly possible for Britain to welcome people on the basis of its Christian heritage.

In the same article, he’s denounced multiculturalism and secularism, missing the point that the approach best to tackle the negative aspects of multi-culturalism IS the secular approach. Far from secularism being the cause of the problem, it’s the best way out.

The idea that Britain is a ‘Christian Country’ is the mindset that makes multiculturalism sound attractive. The desire to keep it that way and yet welcome non-Christian immigrants leads to the idea of separate spaces, that over here we can be Christians and over there you can be Muslims. This is tolerance of you living in Britain, not acceptance that you are British. As long as being a Christian is promoted as being a key part of British identity, creating a workable single culture is impossible.

If we look at the fuss in the US over placing ‘Under God’ in the pledge of allegiance only fifty years ago, we can see that it has ruined the point of the line. ‘One nation, indivisible’ is a strong, secular statement of unity, ‘One nation under God, indivisible’ has created division. We are stronger and more welcoming as a group when we don’t needlessly divide ourselves. As religion remains a core part of many people’s identity, when looking for a national idenity for all it makes sense to take that most divisive question off the table. We want an identity that speaks of inclusion and acceptance instead of separation and tolerance.

A secular basis for society allows us to create a big tent we can all feel comfortable sitting inside. We naturally need our tested foundations such as democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech, etc to underpin the society. These aren’t simply justifiable because they’re part of our heritage (and it’s worth remembering some of them are quite recent additions) but because they’re fundamentally good ideas. There was a lot in the comments of that article about how Christians wouldn’t be granted the same freedoms in the Middle East that Muslims are granted here. That misses the point: We shouldn’t aspire to be different from countries like Saudi Arabia, we should aspire to be better.

Much as I enjoy watching the Bishop argue with the dictionary, secularism is by definition neutral. If it has an agenda, it is one I hope the Bishop can share: Making it so neither of us has to sacrifice our principles to exist in the same culture in peace.

Through some fluke of StumbleUpon I seem to have had a surge of visitors - Hi to everyone and thanks for commenting! I’m glad I’ve had some Christian commenters for the last few posts; the blogs I read with a mixture of readers tend to be the most interesting ones. If nothing else, knowing I’m not solely preaching to the choir keeps me honest!

Matt asked:

Is it the active belief that gods do not exist and CANNOT exist, along with a concerted effort convince others of this? Or is it merely a LACK of belief that deities do exist (due of course to a lack of evidence), and not really caring what other people believe? Is there even a DIFFERENCE between these two “types” of atheism? Do people like me, who claim to fall into the second category, really just belong to the first category and are just kidding themselves and afraid to take a strong stance out of some desire to be polite or politically correct? I’m honestly asking here, none of this is meant to sound sarcastic or pedantic.

What you’ve hit on here is the difference between strong and weak atheism. Strong atheism is the positive assertion that there is no god, whilst weak atheism is the lack of belief in god.

If I were to say I was certain there was no god, I would be a hypocrite because I claim I arrive at my conclusions by following the evidence and (as many will happily point out) gods cannot be disproven. However, I see the lack of evidence for any of the multitude of gods that humanity has worshiped and enough convincing explanations of natural phenomena without invoking the supernatural that I see no reason to believe and live my life on the assumption that there’s no one there. ‘Weak’ atheism doesn’t in itself mean a weak stance - I have no idea how the numbers break down overall but I don’t know of any high profile atheists who hold themselves as members of the strong kind.
The idea that atheism is itself a faith can get interesting, I’m sure there are atheists who positively believe there is no god but my kind of atheism requires no belief in things that are unknowable.

There was a lot in the comments about militant atheists really existing and I wasn’t denying they do, just that the definition given defined ALL atheists as militant atheists. To be honest I’m not keen on the word ‘militant’ because it’s already loaded with a lot of meanings that don’t necessarily apply. Pretty much the worst excess of ‘new’ atheism is those who are on occasion a tad vocal or annoying, I include this image from Principles of Parsimony to aid with comparison:

We’re not even in the same league here folks.

But that doesn’t mean this isn’t something atheists should think about, our most prominent figures are those who commonly criticized for being too harsh, should we be concerned? To be honest, I think this is inevitable in any group that doesn’t have a formal leadership structure, the most common quoted atheist spokesmen will be those who are in the press more and confrontational people make better fodder for the press (this isn’t the way it should be, but I digress).

When I read Dawkins it does unsettle me a little sometimes, he rightly skewers the more fundamentalist aspects of religion but leaves little room to work with moderate groups, saying that we can’t be tip-toe around them because they create an environment that tolerates extremists. This is a little strange because you often see Dawkins work in common with religious leaders on various issues, this might be a ‘do as I do, not as I write’ situation. I think it’s perfectly possible for two people to think the other person is utterly mistaken, yet work constructively towards the better society both want. I confess to feeling unease about terms like ‘faith-heads’, I think the world has enough epithets. Richard Dawkins is a truly formidable mind and deserve the accolades he receives, I just wish The God Delusion had been up the standard of some of his other writing (which sets a high bar for him to cross). I found Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great to have a more reasonable tone, ironically because his criticisms were more detailed and specific (and hence also less prone to generalization).

But of course I’m glad they’re there, because their primary targets are always the most despicable of religions and their practitioners, and those are groups it is useless being polite about and need to be constantly and publicly confronted. We need vocal figures that aren’t afraid to get into the fight when the situation warrants it, like Christopher Hitchens speaking out when Jerry Farwell died. They provide the intellectual backing that lets the rest of us answer back when someone implies that we are no better than Stalin, simply for sharing his lack of belief. I think they walk a difficult line and would doubtlessly be denounced as intolerant and as bad as murderers no matter what they did, so I understand the ‘why bother to be extra kind?’ attitude.

And if nothing else, high profile ‘militant’ atheists let the rest of us seem reasonable in comparison: ‘Ooh, did that nasty Dawkins hurt you? Here, come read some nice Hement Mehta and we’ll have a cuddle’.

Everybody run! Fundamentalist atheists are roaming the streets, selling their books and giving lectures! The time for tolerance of this behaviour is over!

The Archbishop of Wales seems concerned about the rise of ‘Atheistic fundamentalism’. For the sake of my sanity I’m going to ignore the repeats of the ‘winterval’ and related myths (how I wish bishops and journalists would do the tiniest bit of research) and just point to Oliver Burkeman’s excellent article on the subject here. Let’s move onto those fun fundamentalist atheists.

The archbishop said “atheistic fundamentalism” was a new phenomenon.

Huh, see the trouble with the idea of fundamentalist atheism is that we have nothing to be fundamental about. I don’t have a holy book to assert is fundamentally true and unlike religious fundamentalists, I know exactly what would change my mind: Evidence.

He said it advocated that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance, and that some view the faith as “superstitious nonsense”.

Whilst many atheists might not say it so bluntly out of politeness, atheism is the belief in an absence of gods; by definition we see most of religion as untrue and useless superstition. That’s not being an extremist or militant atheist, that’s just being a normal one.

Dr Morgan’s Christmas message comes after the general director of the Evangelical Alliance, the Rev Joel Edwards, compared militant atheists to King Herod in their intolerance of religious faith.

Dr Morgan said: “All of this is what I would call the new “fundamentalism” of our age. It allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion.

But he said “virulent, almost irrational” attacks on it were “dangerous” because they refused to allow any contrary viewpoint and also affected the public perception of religion.

King Herod: Slaughterer of infants. Richard Dawkins: Writes books and gives speeches where he tries to persuade people through rational argument. I can see how the two can be confused.

I’m not quite sure these people quite understand what intolerance is, it is not intolerance to disagree with someone publically (you could even say that’s the definition of ‘debate’). The claim that this wave of atheism is closing down debate and disagreement is just plain wrong, doubt and scepticism are key foundations of current atheist thought. The hypocrisy here is evident, Dr Morgan is complaining about atheists shutting down the debate whilst Rev Edwards compares prominent atheists to mass murderers for writing books. This isn’t an isolated example; the Dean of Southwark compared Richard Dawkins to the July 7^th suicide bombers on much the same ground. That is what intolerance is- I don’t like your ideas so you’re at bad as Stalin! Or Hitler! Or the evil spawn of the two! I would call these ‘virulent, almost irrational’ attacks, yet they seem to be common, used by seemingly respectable people and journalists don’t seem inclined to question them. If atheists are venomously suppressing dissent, we don’t seem to be that good at it.

In the end there is this fundamental point that the act of disagreement isn’t in itself intolerant; two people can disagree yet respect each other’s right to hold those opinions and to continue existing. I feel perfectly comfortable with the Dr Morgan being out there and disagreeing with me, but from this article I get the impression he doesn’t feel the same. He managed to create a definition of fundamental atheism that would apply to all atheists and describes it as inherently intolerant of the Christian faith for disagreeing with it. Seeing as simply holding atheist views is intolerant and the point of the article is that this intolerance is wrong, the logical conclusion of the definition and argument is that public atheism shouldn’t be allowed to exist - I have to say I’m not feeling too tolerated. Moreover, the article demonstrates that any atheists who step up to the public square to give and defend their arguments will be accused of being exactly as evil and extreme as people who kill babies and innocent civilians. Remind me who’s shutting down debate again?