Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

I’m watching the BBC series ‘Around the World in 80 Faiths‘ with great fascination and enjoyment. Anglican vicar Peter Owen Jones is an engaging, entertaining and (up to a point) honest guide to the world’s rich variety of spiritual wackiness.

Peter Owen Jones

Owen Jones ‘heard the call’ 15 years ago, having previously spent his time running discos and advertising campaigns. According to the BBC’s website, this rustic padre feels that the Church of England “is too much a faith of the head and not enough a faith of the soul”. This televised journey, then, is a search for the pure spirit of the divine and how it manifests itself in so many ways.

As our guide, Owen Jones is remarkably willing to immerse himself in beliefs and practices very alien to the genteel rituals of an Anglican service. Sometimes he is moved, sometimes bemused and (so far – I’m three episodes in at this point) only once really disgusted. A voodoo ceremony at which animals – including a kitten and a puppy – were bloodily sacrificed left him very disturbed. His revulsion, it seems, was not on theological grounds but simple humanitarian ones and was easily shared by atheists like me. Believe all the hocus pocus you like, but leave the kitten out of it.

Naturally he has his limits. As a believer, Owen Jones is rather too willing to see people – and feel himself – moved by the holy spirit where a more neutral observer might witness hysteria, hyperventilation or simple credulity.

On the whole, though, Owen Jones is accommodating and open. Indeed, the only note of disdain so far was reserved for atheists. He said something to the effect that we infidels would regard all these manifestations of the divine as a “form of disease”. I’m not sure if Owen Jones is aware of the variety of attitudes towards religion among atheists, or whether his generosity of spirit simply stops short of those who don’t share his belief in the divine. Either way, it’s worth noting that not all of us consider religious belief per se to be a disease or shared dementia. In fact, I believe that a predisposition to spiritual experience is a natural result of evolution – a subject to which I will return in a future blog.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the series, keen to know if Owen Jones will address the one big question that so far he has avoided. There seems to be a implication, from what he has said, that the prevalence of religion across the world means that there is a common phenomenon behind it – no less than the divine itself. This is an argument that crops up often: if so many people believe in a divine spirit, it must be there.

This, of course, is poor logic. There is an obvious counter argument which hinges on the fact that the very nature of religious belief is exclusiveness. Religions are not mutually compatible. You cannot accept more than one. You must, by that token, believe that all the others are wrong. And yet there are thousands of separate religions and, within each faith, many variations of the type. The divisions between them are so hotly debated that the supremacy of one over another is often expressed violently, at the cost of many lives and much suffering.

And it’s self-evidently true that they can’t all be right. At most, there could be only one true faith. Therefore, even if you are a believer, you must believe that the vast majority of faiths are … well … nonsense. No matter how fervent your faith in your god and your prophets and your mythical tales, you have to contend with the simple fact that the majority of people in the world – even the religious ones – think that what you believe is rubbish.

How would we recognise the true faith? For me, a key test would be reliability. If a faith is real, it should work – not now and again, not in strange and oblique ways, but reliably and repeatedly. And yet we know that no faith matches this criterion. Prayers and imprecations are, at best, a hit and miss affair. Even the most extreme piety, the most self-abasing unctuousness, only rarely seems to deliver results. And if a faith really was the genuine article, then surely it would seem self-evident. Everyone would flock to it. All others would fall away.

The faithful, of course, get around these problems with a blinding array of excuses and prevarications. Chief among these is the idea that we are being tested. Yes, even supposedly loving gods, who are keen to bring us to their ethereal bosoms, enjoy tormenting us – to an extent, in fact, which means that most of us will fail.

Now try applying common sense to this situation. If even the faithful insist that the vast majority of religions are wrong – indeed, all but one of them – then it stands to reason that there is a very good chance that all of them are. As we’ve already seen, if you pick any one faith you’ll find most of the people in the world are against it. You can do this for every religion.

So, if all the religions are demonstrably wrong, and they all have the divine as their common thread, the inescapable conclusion is that the very concept of the divine is itself wrong. It might be a delusion. It might be the ‘misfiring’ (as Dawkins would put it) of part of our psyche (which is kind of where I’m heading with the evolution thing). It might simply be that we poor mammals are simply not up to the task of comprehending the entire universe and must weave stories to accommodate what we can’t fully grasp.

Whatever the explanation for our tendency towards superstition, if we are honest we must at least acknowledge the possibility that at the heart of the world’s religions lies … nothing. That the divine is merely a common and rather simple device employed by the other thing we all share – our brains. So far, this is what Owen Jones has failed to do. Oh well, just sit back and enjoy the wackiness.

There’s an excellent article – My Christmas message? There’s probably no God – by the reliably feisty Polly Toynbee over at the Guardian website. Aside from being a leading journalist, Ms Toynbee is the president of the inestimable British Humanist Association (BHA – of which I am a proud member).

The piece is largely about the disestablishment of the church in the UK – a fine ambition but one not likely to be realised any time soon. For those who live in more enlightened countries with regard to religion, one might need to explain that the ‘establishment’ of the Church of England refers to the fact that it is the official state faith. And this has greater implications than the choice of carols sung at the House of Commons Xmas party.

For example, although there has been some slight reform of Parliament’s upper house, the Lords, there are still 26 unelected bishops who sit – and vote – in the house purely by dint of their cassocks. And the very existence of an established church provides ammunition for those who would perpetuate the myth of Britain being a ‘Christian’ country.

And yet, though I (and, as it happens, many church leaders) would like to see disestablishment, the fact that the UK has a state religion bothers me less than the more surreptitious ways in which religion is creeping into government business.

Given that ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was so cosy with soon to be ex-President George W Bush, one might not be surprised to find that – following the American model – faith-based organisations are playing an ever greater role in government programmes in the UK.

Such faith-based initiatives have been a disaster for the US. For instance, there are countless examples of evangelists with no training or experience running such things as drug counselling programmes. Usually, the hapless victims who attend them do so under duress – usually at the order of a court. And the so-called ‘counselling’ often consists of no more than religious indoctrination.

In the UK, both Blair and his successor, the equally god-bothering Gordon Brown, have seen to it that organisations with religious agenda have been given preferential treatment in winning contracts to carry on what should be government work. There are more details at the BHA site, which explains:

Faith communities already have privileged access to Government. But the Government also wants to involve them in policy making, and to expand their role in the provision of services in the community. And why doesn’t Human Rights Law apply when public services are contracted out to charities?

Depressingly, President-Elect Barack Obama has stated that he wants to increase the use of faith-based initiatives. And there is no sign that this trend is abating in the UK.

The BHA is highly active in campaigning against this. It has the respect of politicians and the more progressive and intelligent members of the clergy. And I would recommend that anyone who lives in or cares about the UK should become a member.

What the UK needs isn’t just disestablishment but a genuine separation of church and state – along the lines of that in France, rather than the somewhat poor impementation of the principle in the US. The state should and must represent all citizens. Faiths are, by their very nature, exclusionary and discriminatory and they have no place in government business.

Deciding what constitutes ‘discrimination’ isn’t always an easy matter.But an employment tribunal in London has just made a very wise decision.

Lillian Ladele was a registrar with Islington Council, in North London. One of her duties was conducting marriages – and, with recent changes to the law, this now extends to civil unions for gay and lesbian couples.

But there was a problem. Ladele is a Christian, and she decided that her beliefs did not allow her to carry out such unions. She refused to perform gay weddings. Islington Council fired her.

She took the council to an employment tribunal, which sided with her. They found that she had been discriminated against on religious grounds. But the case went to appeal, and the employment appeal tribunal rightly concluded that it was not the council but Ladele herself who was guilty of discrimination.

The duties of a registrar are defined by law. Ladele’s religious beliefs are her own, personal choice. If these prevent her from carrying out the duties of a registrar then, clearly, she is not competent to fulfill that role. When the law – and therefore the duties of a registrar – changed, Ladele should have asked herself whether she should continue in that role. It was a matter for her personal conscience. What she decided to do was to attempt to remain in her job and force her views on others by saying that she would not carry out that job properly. This was a selfish and unreasonable decision by her.

She claims that she never intended to deny the rights of gay people. But that was precisely what she was doing. They do, indeed, have a right to a civil union. She has no right to deprive them of this merely because of her personal beliefs. This is not a religious issue – religion has no place in such government business. This is a civil liberties issue and Ladele is clearly guilty of eroding the civil liberties in Islington.

The council is not guiltless in all this. The tribunal found that they had handled the situation badly. Nevertheless, the key issue has been successfully resolved: it is now clear that a government functionary does not have the right to discriminate against people purely of the basis of that functionary’s private and irrelevant beliefs. A victory for common sense.

Watford Area Humanists are attempting to have Darwin Day – 12th February – made a Bank Holiday in the UK (that’s a national holiday for you foreigners).

The day marks Darwin’s birthday. But in addition to celebrating the man, the Humanists feel we should also celebrate his achievement – arguably the greatest advance in knowledge that humans have achieved. (Okay, so physicists might have a different take on this, but it’s certainly up there with the greats like relatively and quantum theory.)

The group has created a petition on the UK Government’s ‘No.10′ website. So add your voice to this call for reason. Go to: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Darwins-day/

No doubt some crusty old businessmen (and religious nutjobs dishonestly disguising their agenda under the mask of business concerns) will moan that the last thing the UK economy needs is another ‘wasted’ day when no work is done. But there’s a simple solution to this: get rid of one of the many religion-based Bank Holidays. Hardly anyone can remember what they’re about anyway. And why is modern society still celebrating, en masse, the fanciful notions of a minority? If we’re all going the celebrate together, let’s celebrate something that really means something and affects us all.

Just how much are fundamentalist and bigoted religious views driving Sarah Palin’s bid for the VP slot?

And given that Palin has now been found, by an enquiry, to have acted unethically, can she be trusted in such a powerful position?

A poll suggests that an increasing number of religious people in the US think politics shouldn’t be preached from the pulpit. Well, it’s about time…

According to the poll by the Pew Forum, some 50 per cent of conservative church-goers believe that “houses of worship should not express views on day-to-day political matters”. That’s up from around 30 per cent in 2004. Democrat believers have always been less keen on campaigning from the pulpit.

That’s a small step to getting politics out of religion. Now if we could just get religion out of politics…

The ACLU in the US is celebrating a decision in Fredericksburg that it says is a victory for freedom of religion. Well maybe. But it’s a defeat for freedom from religion.

The issue, as reported on the ACLU website, revolved around the saying of prayers to open Fredericksburg City Council meetings. The decision of a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was that an existing policy – that the prayers be non-sectarian – should be upheld.

The ACLU statement says:

“This is a victory for religious freedom,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “The Supreme Court has long held that government officials are allowed to open legislative gatherings with a prayer, but that such prayers must in no way indicate a preference for one religion over others.”

“Individuals are free to express their own religious preferences, but religious equality cannot exist when the government is allowed to use its considerable power to promote one particular faith,” added Willis. “Today’s ruling reaffirms that fundamental principle.”

But Willis makes no mention of any right to be free of such religious mumbo-jumbo altogether. While the prayers may not be offered to the peculiar gods of Christianity or Islam or Judaism (or any one of thousands of other gods available to the credulous), presumably they will assume the existence of some kind of supernatural deity. Quite how this obeisance to some non-specific spirit is connected with council business is not clear.

It seems that the ‘fundamental principle’ referred to by Willis does not extend to atheism. Nor does it embrace the separation of church and state, about which Americans make so much noise and so little effort.

The four votes on aspects of the Embryology Bill in the UK presented an opportunity for the religiously blinkered to put narrow-minded dogma before compassion and scientific progress. They were soundly and properly trounced.

It’s always good to see reason prevail. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill represents the most important development in fertility law in the past 20 years.

The UK, being largely free of the religiously inspired shackles that hamper scientific progress in other countries (including the US) is already a world leader in areas like stem cell research. This is important science: advances in embryology offer the possibility of cures for crippling and fatal diseases.

But not everyone is happy about this. The Roman Catholic church, for example, did its best to cripple this bill. It lobbied hard, placing enough pressure on the Government to force a free vote, so that Catholic members of Parliament could do their best to impose that church’s prejudices on the whole population of the UK.

There were four key issues:

• The use of hybrid or ‘admix’ embryos. This is where the nuclei of human cells are inserted into the egg of an animal, treated so that no characteristics of the animal remain. The resulting embryos are kept for only 14 days, in order to harvest stem cells.
• Tissue typing of embryos so that parents can choose to give birth to a ’saviour sibling’. This would happen where a current child has a disease that could be alleviated or cured by having a sibling with the right tissue type.
• The removal of the need for a father when considering the eligibility of applicants for IVF treatment. This paves the way for lesbian couples and single women to receive the treatment.
• The reduction of the limit for abortions from the current 24 weeks to 20 weeks.

Each of these issues attracted an amendment attempting to ban the process or (in the case of abortions) lower the limit. All four amendments were defeated by very healthy margins.

In most cases, those opposed to the processes or treatments presented their case based on junk science or dubious statistics. It was painfully clear, however, that the motivation for the amendments was not built on evidence or reason but on religious prejudice.

In the case of hybrid embryos there was much gibberish talked about ‘Frankenstein’ babies and the creation of freaks. Yet these embryos would never be viable and are, in any case, destroyed after two weeks.

People argued that the creation of ’saviour siblings’ is wrong. They talked about bringing a child into the world purely to provide ’spare parts’ for an existing child. This argument is just as cretinous. It suggests that arms or livers might be harvested, which is pure nonsense. The saviour sibling provides bone marrow and other cells. And any idea that the saviour sibling might not be loved equally by his or her parents is clearly wrong: if anything, they are likely to love it even more for its role in saving the life of the older child.

The opposition to the changes in the IVF law centred around the idea that it would somehow marginalise men. I noticed that this argument was mostly put forward by men. It ties in with that tired old idea that a family is not complete without a father. That would be more convincing if all fathers were perfect. The truth is that, regardless of whether IVF is involved, many children are raised very successfully without one parent or the other. So this amendment was inspired by notions of the family that belong in the Victorian age, not in the 21st Century. And I think there was an unhealthy dose of faith-based homophobia in there too.

Abortion is a more emotive subject and one where the desire of a religious minority to impose its views on the whole of society was most clearly evident. The 24 week limit was set in 1990, based on the best scientific evidence about the viability of the fetus up to that point. Nothing has changed. No new evidence has come to light. Yet there were two attempts to push the limit back – first to 20 weeks and, when that failed, to 22 weeks. That failed too.

Some MPs wanted the limit reduced to 12 weeks, which is where it stands in some (mostly Catholic) countries, such as Spain. Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at 12 weeks.

The statistics make for interesting reading, though. In the UK, some 55% of abortions are carried out at under 9 weeks. This type of abortion usually involves nothing more than an injection. The fetus is reabsorbed by the body. (So much for its being a fully fledged human life. Could you have a clearer illustration of the fact that it is nothing more than a bunch of cells?) A very high percentage of pregnancies also spontaneously abort within this period, too – often without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant. That, too, doesn’t sit very well with the religious viewpoint and is a fact largely avoided by the anti-choice faithful.

A further third of abortions are carried out in the 9-12 week range. That means that 89% of abortions happen at 12 weeks or less anyway. In fact, only 1.5% of abortions happen in the 20-24 week band. And the vast majority of these are carried out for reasons of health complications or problems with the fetus.

So the ‘moral’ objection that so many proclaim is nothing of the sort. It is simply an attempt by a self-righteous few to impose their irrational, superstitious and medieval ideas on the whole of society. That’s arrogant and, given that they wrapped their arguments in pseudo-science and bad statistics, deeply dishonest.

Fortunately, rationality prevailed. So did compassion for those whose suffering may be relieved and whose lives may be saved by the science that will result from this bill.

A UK professional photographers’ group has hit back at the Metropolitan Police’s fear-mongering campaign against photographers. But at least the ‘togs have a sense of humour.

In classic Orwellian fashion, the Met’s ad campaign (which I wrote about in Pump up the paranoia) incites the general public to watch itself. It promotes suspicion and fear. Its headline, “Thousands of people take photographs every day. What if one of them seems odd?” seems calculated to appeal to that fraction of society that likes to appoint itself the guardian and judge of the rest.

It continues: “Terrorists use surveillance to help plan attacks, taking photographs and making notes about security measures like the location of CCTV cameras. If you see someone doing that, we need to know. Let experienced officers decide what action to take.” And it ends: “Terrorism. If you suspect it, report it.” The likely result of the paranoia this kind of campaign generates is the suppression of the press. News photographers already have a hard time doing their job without every gullible nerk thinking there’s an RPG inside that long lens.

But photographers and terrorists are not the only groups capable of dubious behaviour.

[photopress:EPUK_poster.jpg,full,alignright]The Editorial Photographers UK (EPUK) group maintains a website with information and news for photographers as well as a private mailing list. It’s an invaluable resource for documentary and reportage shooters, providing advice, guidance and support, often in a more timely and effective way than any formal industry body.

Now. in association with the National Union of Journalists and the British Press Photographers Association, it has responded to the Met’s shameful behaviour. Its own poster design (available on t-shirts and mugs here) mimics the Police’s posters, but with rather more wit.

“Thousands of coppers stop photographers every day,” it says, with forgiveable hyperbole, “What if one of them seems odd?”

Then, with a reference to the Police’s frequent abuse of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act, it says: “Police twist the laws to help prevent protest, stopping people and threatening arrest under vague all encompassing terrorism laws. If you see a copper behaving oppressively we need to know. Let experienced journalists decide what action to take.”

STATE CONTROL. IF YOU SUSPECT IT, REPORT IT.

It seems that Turkey doesn’t quite grasp the concept of free speech. It has again blocked access to YouTube for content it deems insulting to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the country’s founder.

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