Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

Far from religion providing an answer to society’s ills, it might be a significant part of the problem. These are conclusions you could draw from a new report.

The report, by Gregory Paul, is summarised by Sue Blackmore in the Guardian. Blackmore is justly cautious about many of Paul’s more contentious conclusions. But they are nonetheless based on some very strong correlations that will make troubling reading for those who believe morals and a virtuous society can stem only from religion.

And they are even more worrying for those who live in the US. Here’s a little montage of what Blackmore says:

I have often quoted his earlier, 2005, research which showed strong positive correlations between nations’ religious belief and levels of murder, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and other indicators of dysfunction. It seemed to show, at the very least, that being religious does not necessarily make for a better society. … In this latest research Paul measures “popular religiosity” for developed nations, and then compares it against the “successful societies scale” (SSS) which includes such things such as homicides, the proportion of people incarcerated, infant mortality, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage births and abortions, corruption, income inequality, and many others. In other words it is a way of summing up a society’s health. The outlier again and again is the US with a stunning catalogue of failures. On almost every measure the US comes out worse than any other 1st world developed nation, and it is also the most religious … he argues that religion is not a deep-seated or inherited tendency. It is a crutch to which people turn when they are under extreme stress, “a natural invention of human minds in response to a defective habitat”. Americans, he says, suffer appalling stress and anxiety due to the lack of universal health care, the competitive economic environment, and huge income inequalities, and under these conditions belief in a supernatural creator and reliance on religious observance provides relief.

The report itself is here (PDF).

A round-up of some of the best books published in 2009 that humanists, atheists and freethinkers will want to have in their libraries.

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The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins

In his previous books, Richard Dawkins, one of the world’s leading evolutionary scientists, assumed that most people knew about the evidence for Darwinian evolution. But it seems that many don’t. It’s not just creationists who labour under the delusion that the evidence is somehow weak – or even missing. Even ordinary people persist in believing that evolution is ‘just’ a theory (by misunderstanding what scientists mean by ‘theory’), that it shows no intermediate stages, that evolution can’t deal with the complexity of the eye or the emergence of flight. And, of course, the evidence accumulates and gets stronger every day. In this timely work, Dawkins lays out what that evidence is, and shows us – beyond doubt – that evolution by natural selection is a fact.

 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

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Ideas That Matter: Key Concepts for the 21st Century by A C Grayling

One of our leading philosophers guides you through some of the most important concepts that have shaped our time. The alphabetically ordered entries range across religion, philosophy, scientific theory and political movements. But it’s not just a dry reference work: as usual, Grayling leavens the important subject matter and profound implications with his accessible style, occasional seasonings of wit and customary passion. An invaluable lesson in how we got to where we are today.

 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

* See note below about AC Grayling’s latest book, To Set Prometheus Free.

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The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas edited by Ariane Sherine

A collection of writings – some thoughtful, some iluminating some hilarious – from 42 committed non-believers. The collection was compiled by Guardian journalist Ariane Sherine, who was behind the ‘There’s Probably No God’ poster campaign in the UK. The book contains contributions from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Charlie Brooker, Derren Brown, Ben Goldacre, Jenny Colgan, David Baddiel, Simon Singh, AC Grayling, Brian Cox and Richard Herring. In addition, the full book advance and all royalties go to the UK HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust.

 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

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Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Although not specifically about humanism or atheism, Goldacre’s passionate and often hilarious book provides a valuable lesson in how we need to uphold rigid standards in science. He first takes aim at the lunatic fringe – homeopathy, miracle vitamins and the like – showing how they exploit dubious, ‘sciency’ language to give spurious credibility to their claims while hypocritically condemning science whenever it shows them to be fraudulent, which is often. Then he goes on to attack two more mainstream menaces – Big Pharma and bad journalists. Basically, it’s all about truth and honesty, and how there’s very little room for either in medicine once money enters the picture. Essential reading.

 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

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The Rough Guide to Evolution by Mark Pallen

A very accessible overview of what is rightly claimed as the biggest idea mankind has ever had. The importance of the theory of evolution by natural selection – both to science and to our understanding of ourselves – is such that you simply can’t have too many books about it. This heavily illustrated summary covers: the origins of the idea and the theory’s own evolution; a brief romp through the entire history of life on this planet; and an examination of the impact that the theory has had on science, society, art, history and even religion. And excellent companion to the Dawkins book above (though I would buy the Dawkins first).

 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

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God’s Problem by Bart D Ehrman

Well, okay, maybe a book about suffering isn’t all that Christmas-y. And this originally came out last year (the paperback was published in 2009, though). The thing is, Ehrman is such a good writer, and what he has to say is so important, that I wanted one of his books in this list. And I’ve just finished reading this one. It’s quite a personal book because Christianity’s inability to deal adequately with the question, ‘if god is good, why is there suffering?’ was among the chief reasons Ehrman, a former fundamentalist, lost his faith. He goes through the list of answers that believers lean on in an attempt to answer this question – such as: good comes out of evil; suffering is the result of free will (the most popular and the most easily demolished excuse); god likes testing us; and so on. And he shows just how feeble these responses truly are. In the end, though, I found reading the book a positive experience. The message I took away is a humanist one: there will always be suffering – it’s up to us, as compassionate human beings, to do what we can about it.

 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

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* Update (17/11/2009): I’ve just been contacted by AC Grayling’s publishers who point out that his latest book is about to hit the bookshelves. To Set Prometheus Free, published by Oberon Books (ISBN:978184002962) is subtitled ‘Religion, reason and humanity’. It is a collection of essays dealing with the need for more secularism in society. In effect, it builds on Against All Gods: Six Polemics Against Religion and an Essay on Kindness, published by Oberon in 2007. You can probably infer the gist of the book from the chapters: Where are we in history?; Why I do not subscribe to religious beliefs; Why Bertrand Russell was not religious; Scientists confront Intelligent Design and Creationism; The War of the Books; The Good Life. Meanwhile, the book is available for pre-order from Amazon.

 Amazon.co.uk

Is god the product of our brains? A new documentary film seeks the answers.

The UK arm of the Alpha organisation has a poll on its website’s home page – does god exist? And when I visited the site, the response was pretty overwhelming: 96% of the 87,602 voters had said … NO.

And that’s surprising, because Alpha is a Christian organisation dedicated to getting people to believe in god. It’s an evangelical outfit with a soft voice, which uses low-key indoctrination techniques to suck in the vulnerable and credulous. It’s love-bombing for the iPod generation.

I’ve no doubt that, soon, the poll will be taken down or, um, ‘adjusted’ somehow. But just so you can enjoy what I experienced, here’s a screengrab (I’ve enlarged the relevant bit to ensure it’s readable):

Meanwhile, the ‘Belief’ section of The Guardian newspaper ran a poll (due to close on 22/10/2009) which asked the question, ‘Can you be good without God?’. With one day to go, the results were that 93% said ‘Yes, of course. You don’t need religion to be morally driven’. So much for ‘no morality without religion’.

Update 23/10/2009: The number of votes is up to 154,500 and the percentage of No votes has increased to 98%! Looks like the Alpha people have their work cut out…

Evolutionary studies have brought some bad news for certain types of evangelical Christian. According to new research, large broods lead to low-quality offspring, who then seek out low-quality mates.

Clearly, this is bad news for the Quiverfull movement. Adherents of this conservative, evangelical lifestyle promote large families as a way of populating the world with more Christians. Alas, it seems that what they may actually achieve is an increase in the world’s supply of idiots. Whether this is a good or bad thing for the continuation of the Christian faith will depend on your point of view.

The results of the research – which involved zebra finches – surprised the researchers, too. Scientists always believed that females of any species would always seek out the best possible males with which to mate. It turns out, however, that the female finches tended to mate with males of their own level. Low-quality females went for low-quality males – birds whose songs weren’t quite up to scratch or whose plumage was maybe a tad tatty.

Large broods have a tendency to result in larger numbers of low-quality females, because of the competition between siblings.

So where does this leave Quiverfull? Given that members of extremist cults tend towards intra-sect breeding, if not actual inbreeding, can one expect an inevitable decline in IQ levels among these Christian families?

As Eric Hoffer pointed out, hate is a major unifying factor in mass movements. And religions – even those that profess peace and love – are no exception.

In his book, The True Believer: thoughts on the nature of mass movements, Hoffer described how mass movements function through the suppression of individuality and independent thought. People who are unsatisfied with the present are brought together by an ideology that promises a better future. There are many mechanisms for bonding them into an effective whole: and one of those mechanisms is hate.

I was reminded of this when I read that a preacher in Arizona is praying – and encouraging his flock to pray – for the death of President Barack Obama. According to a report by Americans United:

The Rev. Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church told his Tempe, Ariz., congregation he prays that Obama “dies and goes to hell.” In an Aug. 16 sermon that recently came to public attention, Anderson said, “If you want to know how I’d like to see Obama die, I’d like him to die of natural causes. I don’t want him to be a martyr, we don’t need another holiday. I’d like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer.”

The racism is overt. The hate is painfully evident. The exact political agenda may be inferred but is, perhaps deliberately, less clear.

Anderson’s hate speech has been widely condemned. But it’s wrong to see it as an aberration. We might more properly view it as the violent eruption of a force that powers many mass movements.

Hoffer’s definition of ‘mass movements’ is fairly broad. The book was published in 1951, and so the horrors of European fascism – particularly the Nazis – and Japanese imperialism were fresh in the memory. Stalin was still in power. He delves further back, too, making frequent references, for example, to the French revolution. And he places religions – especially those of an evangelical or fundamentalist flavour – firmly alongside these other totalitarian and oppressive regimes. “The hammer and sickle and the swastika,” he wrote, “are in a class with the cross.”

The reasons for joining a movement are many, but commonly involve a conviction that the world as it stands is unbearably flawed. People who feel this way are, to use Hoffer’s term, the ‘frustrated’. They have no hope for the present. By joining a mass movement, they are able to slough off their unworthy selves, rid themselves of feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing, and find a new self-worth in the ambitions of a movement that promises a brighter future.

What the movement tells them is that change is required and cannot be achieved by gradual means. It requires a coup, a revolution, a jihad, mass exterminations, mass conversions, the absorption of all others into the corporate body, or perhaps a Second Coming. The movements’ leaders promise a hopeful future, often to be achieved by violent means: Christ, after all, claimed that the Apocalypse was at hand. (As it turned out, he was wrong – it’s been ‘at hand’ for two millennia now).

For the movement to be effective, its members must be united into a single entity: individual thought and action are destructive. Hoffer says of a movement’s members:

By renouncing individual will, judgment and ambition, and dedicating all their powers to the service of an eternal cause, they are at last lifted off the endless treadmill which can never lead them to fulfillment.

Hoffer lists a number of unifying agents of which the most powerful is hatred. This, Hoffer says, “springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance … That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them.”

This is all more subtle than it sounds. For a start, the self-contempt may be effectively disguised. A convert who rejoices in the glory of the faith – a faith that may (consciously, at least, if not truthfully) preach peace and love – may not stop to think of what is at the root of their abnegation, of their surrendering to the cause. Sin, Hoffer insists, is a key concept in all mass movements. Indeed, George Orwell pointed out that the imposition of rules so strict (and often vague) that one is bound to break some of them is a key characteristic of the totalitarian regime.

Identification with the movement is important if one is to enjoy its status and benefits – including self-approbation. Members sacrifice themselves to the cause and, says Hoffer, “The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others … the surrendering and humbling of the self breed pride and arrogance”.

Once we give ourselves up to the corporate body, we are also freed of personal responsibility. And this is how a political movement or a church is able to generate, harness and focus hatred.

Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.
— Adolf Hitler

Hate may take many forms. It might be the Rev Anderson’s frothing outburst of cretinous bigotry. Or it might come wrapped in smiles and charity, but be driven nonetheless by a deep conviction that if you are not part of the movement you are in some way ‘wrong’ and must be changed, whether you like it or not.

The True Believer is available from:  Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

Not long after the laws of England & Wales were finally cleansed of the archaic offense of blasphemy, there are forces in Ireland that want to actually introduce such a law there.

While most of us have made it into the 21st Century, there are people who would prefer to drag us back into the Middle Ages.

Dermot Ahern, Minister for Justice, is one of the main agitators for a clause in the Defamation Bill, currently before the Irish Parliament, that would make blasphemy illegal.

With fines of up to €100,000, the law would punish “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter” which is defined as “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage”.

One might assume that the clause is intended primarily to protect the Roman Catholic faith, and that the “any religion” definition is there to make it appear more reasonable.

But let’s say I invent a new religion (and why not? All religions are invented) – perhaps a faith that sanctifies the abuse of little children (no, wait, the Catholics have done that one), or maybe a religion that claims the moon is made of cheese and that the Queen is a shape-shifting alien. Presumably I could use that law in Ireland to prevent anyone taking the piss. After all, as the only follower of the faith, I would easily represent “a substantial number of the adherents”.

I present this reductio ad absurdum scenario to make a point. Even a casual examination of most faiths reveals them to be full of bizarre, outlandish, indefensible and often dangerous claims. Religions are used all too frequently to repress and oppress, to close minds and hold back progress. Far from being protected, they must be open to criticism.

I find many of religion’s ideas and precepts outrageous and offensive: there are, for example, people who genuinely believe they regularly eat the flesh and drink the blood of a man who’s been dead for 2,000 years, and that those of us who fail to engage in this necrophiliac cannibalism must suffer eternal torture. Any law that restricts my ability to say that such beliefs are idiotic piffle is an unwarranted attack on free speech.

Ireland has made great strides in the past few years in loosening the manacles of the Catholic church. It would be a shame to see the country slide back into superstitious intolerance.

A Brazilian archbishop has provoked a storm of protest through an act of excommunication. He expelled a woman from the faith – and condemned her to eternal torture – for failing to prevent her nine year-old daughter from having an abortion.

This heartless behaviour by Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho has itself been roundly condemned by politicians and even some theologians.

The girl was repeatedly raped by her stepfather over a period of at least three years. The stepfather has not been excommunicated. That retribution was saved for those who displayed compassion and understanding towards the girl – her mother and the doctor who performed the procedure.

What is surprising, though, is that people are surprised.

Sobrinho acted correctly – at least within the strictly limited boundaries of his world.

A religion is defined (and differentiated from others) by its belief system – its rules, its doctrine. The particulars of any one religion lie at the root of its claim to be the only true religion. They are what falsify all other faiths.

These rules and boundaries exist because they are the means by which the specific faith declares “this is who we are and what we stand for”. They are claimed as truths before which we must all yield. They are also the framework for the faith’s claim to morality.

This raises a problem. Although religious believers often lay claim to a moral superiority, the fact is that this doctrine represents a straitjacket. It denies the believer many avenues of moral, ethical, empathetic and humanitarian action.

Adherents must act according to these rules, otherwise they are not true believers. In that context, Sobrinho not doubt understood that excommunication, however immoral and uncaring it may seem to the rest of us, was unequivocally demanded. The basic tenets of the faith trump all humanity.

Now, it’s entirely possible that some bigwig in the Roman Catholic church – the Pope himself, perhaps – might override this decision. It’s happened before when such an act of faith has resulted in a PR nightmare for the church. What what would that mean for the religion?

If matters of doctrine become flexible, they also become meaningless. These matters are not defined and guided by reason. They are deemed to be eternal ‘truths’. As soon as they are seen to be alterable, in the interests of good publicity or other less spiritual motives, then they reveal the entire faith as hollow.

This might go some way to explain the diminishing of religions like Roman Catholocism. Either they remain rigid, true to their core beliefs – and thus reveal themselves as uncaring, inhuman and irrelevant to modern life. Or they adapt, and thus admit that the ‘eternal truths’ at the heart of the faith are nothing of the sort.

It’s a stark choice – to be irrelevant or meaningless.

The BBC series ‘Around the World in 80 Faiths’ has come to an end, and it seems like it was not a moment too soon.

Not that it was a bad series. Far from it. As a whirlwind tour of all varieties of mankind’s credulity, it was highly entertaining. The problem was that it was (perhaps necessarily, given the number of faiths) disappointingly superficial.

The presenter, Anglican vicar Peter Owen Jones, seemed to do his best to engage with each faith, though it was easy to see how he was predisposed to like some more than others. However, it was hard to shake the impression that this was little more than religious tourism of the most shallow kind.

Even when Owen Jones seemed to attempt to pursue a more profound question, it was usually done and dusted within a couple of minutes of airtime. Take, for example, his acknowledgement in the last programme of Martin Luther’s vile anti-semitism – a model that the Nazis referenced and on which they built. Owen Jones made a show of being guilt-ridden by this dark and shameful part of his own faith, because he was, that evening, to share a meal with Jews. When he brought up the subject over dinner, his Jewish host gave a generous response – that acknowledging the problem was the first step to solving it. This was, perhaps, more indicative of traditional Jewish hospitality than a highly developed philosophy. Owen Jones’ response was to treat the camera to one of his trademark gormless smiles and a statement to the effect that ‘that’s alright then’.

This was typical both of the programme’s superficiality and Owen Jones’ tendency to be easy on both himself and spirituality in general. He never really asked tough questions or delved with any seriousness into the causes or motivations of the faiths he briefly visited.

As the series progressed, he seemed in more and more of a rush. Perhaps his year-long odyssey was exhausting him, but by the last episode he seemed to be doing little more than name-checking faiths, with little attempt to explain their significance. His coverage of the Sami people in Finland, for example, amounted to little more than sitting in a tent with a shaman, grunting a little and banging a drum. He seemed unaware that joiks, the Sami’s unique musical form, is far more complex and rich than the simple chanting in which he momentarily indulged himself. Ray Mears covered this fascinating culture in far greater depth and with much more empathy, and did so as just part of a single programme.

The last programme was also marred by a naked display of prejudice. Predictably, the target of this bias was atheism.

In a series about faith, presented by a priest, I wasn’t expecting to see much coverage of atheism – let alone to see it presented as one of the 80 ‘faiths’. The only mention I’d seen so far (I missed one episode) was a rather sneering reference in the first programme which made the mistake of assuming that atheism is inherently reductionist and hostile to a sense of wonder. It is, of course, quite the reverse: but shedding the blinkers and restriction of religious dogma, it gies one the freedom to enjoy the full splendour, complexity and mystery of the universe.

Atheism, of course, is not a faith in that in does not require the suspension of rationality to believe in something for which there is no evidence. So counting it as one of the 80 faiths was, at best, a misrepresentation – one is tempted to use the word ‘lie’, and I’m not sure that I shouldn’t. Worse, Owen Jones decided to represent atheism by conflating it with communism, or more specifically, Stalinism.

This is a cheap trick, not uncommon among believers. Yes, Stalin both espoused and enforced atheism. But that does not make his actions or beliefs atheist. They were Stalinist. Stalinism was a totalitarian regime that, to aid its own survival, had to stand in conflict with other totalitarian regimes – notably, religion. Stalin’s repression of religion was ideological – and that ideology was communism, not atheism.

To use the excesses or characteristics of Stalinism to describe atheism – to equate the two – is not just logically and intellectually absurd, it is deeply dishonest. One might just as easily characterise and represent Christianity by the burning of witches.

Atheism is a philosphical (not religious) viewpoint – it is not a ideology. (And it should be noted that the richness of humanism, its history and philosophy, received only the curtest of passing mentions.) The tawdry trick employed by Owen Jones was the most obvious example of his prejudices coming to the fore. Of course, he wasn’t always called to the cloth: he is, in that respect, a convert. And it is typical of converts to turn their hate on what they may perceive as their own former inadequacies and on what they fear most.

Owen Jones also raved about the resurgence of spirituality in Russia (though not necessarily the old established faiths) without ever really questioning why this should be so. As presented, the implication was simply that, once the enforcement of atheism was lifted, people naturally return to religion. His interview with the token atheist went a very small way to suggesting an alternative – but not far enough.

Religion feeds on fear and uncertainty, and there has been plenty of both in post-communist Russia. People crave the stability of ceremony and community, and churches are happy to provide both. Hence people turn to the church – whatever church – not because the religion is offering something that is right or profound, but simply for the protection and comfort it provides. In this environment, an invisible pink unicorn or Flying Spaghetti Monster will function as well as Christ or Mohammed.

It would have been interesting if Owen Jones had thought to question the political and sociological forces at work. But his brief was very narrow and, being a believer, he is deeply biased towards believing that the embrace of supernatural ideas and submission to religious dogma are natural and right and trump everything else. This unwillingness to look further is a characteristic of the fundamental problem religion has with truth.

This series would have been so much more interesting, so much more valuable and profound, if Owen Jones had made his voyage alongside a humanist, or scientist, or psychologist. Then we could perhaps have had some answers to the key question, ‘why?’. But I don’t think Owen Jones would have had either the courage or honesty to do this.

A Guardian article about how marriage rates are plummeting contained one minor but, for me, highly significant detail. Even among those people who do say ‘I do’, an ever-reducing proportion of them are doing so in church.

According to the article:

…perhaps understandably, given the number of empty pews across the nation’s churches each Sunday, far fewer weddings include a religious ceremony nowadays. The number of couples saying their vows before God has halved since 1991.

Now, an apologist for religion might claim this as evidence of increasing godlessness. They will say that it’s evidence of moral decline. That is, of course, nonsense.

What it shows is that many of those people who did get married in church, both prior to and after 1991, did so for reasons that have nothing to do with religion or faith. Many of them, in fact, were almost certainly functional atheists.

I’ve known many people with no real faith – people who can’t be bothered to think about god from one year to the next and, if pushed, would confess that they are at most vaguely deistic or agnostic – who insisted on getting married in church.

Why? Because it’s traditional. Churches provide a picturesque and appropriately serious setting for the couple’s most important day. A wedding is an event and requires a suitable stage. Many people get married in a specific church because it’s part of the local community’s infrastructure, or because their parents got married there. I’ve known non-believing people to get their children baptised for similar reasons.

So why are people now turning away from the church? Well, the date of 1991 is significant. A new law was introduced around that time that allowed weddings to take place in approved locations other than registry offices and churches. Hotels, castles, stately homes – all manner of beautiful and impressive locations applied for and received licences that allowed marriage ceremonies to be carried out there. The only main provisos were that the location had to be a permanent structure (so still no weddings in hot air balloons) and must be accessible to the public.

Suddenly, couples discovered that they could have all the benefits of a church wedding (beautiful surroundings, etc) without any of that religious nonsense.

I’m sure that, even among those people still getting married in church, there are many who are not really believers but are doing so for the reasons already explained. Many churches, after all, still provide an attractive atmosphere. And there are plenty of people who are, at heart, deeply traditional, without being genuinely religious.

I’ve said before, and will say again, that the apparent religiosity of a society is, in many important ways, an illusion. People will continue to hang on to the rites and ceremonies of religion long after true belief has vanished. This is a cultural phenomenon, not a spiritual one.