Humanism, atheism and other freedoms

I’m currently reading, and enjoying, Richard Dawkin’s new book, The Greatest Show on Earth: the evidence for evolution. Apparently, he was inspired to write it when he realised that, in spite of the fact that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, many people don’t know that.

The book lays out the evidence in an easy-to assimilate way. Dawkins has had to be careful: he has been maliciously misquoted in the past by having short statements repeated out of context by creationists. (Apparently their ‘Christian’ morals don’t extend to honesty. And intellectual rigour is antithetical to creationism.)

As well as elucidating the scientific evidence, Dawkins tackles some of the muddle-headed ideas often thrown up by those who can’t cope with, or are scared of, evolution. For example, he carefully repeats that mankind is not descended from chimps, or any other kind of ape in existence today. We simply have a common ancestor – as we do with every other living thing.

Some of the other accusations thrown at evolutionists are more bizarre – almost to the point of cretinism, in my opinion. “I’ll believe we’re descended from monkeys when a chimp gives birth to a human” is one. This is so phenomenally stupid it’s hard to know where to begin. Dawkins makes a good stab at it, though. He also deals with the alleged ‘missing link’ (it isn’t missing), the lack of weird hybrids like the crocoduck in the fossil record (evolution doesn’t work that way so they should be missing) and the accusation that fossils show no intermediate stages (flat wrong on two counts: 1. There are plenty of fossil sequences that show steps along the evolutionary path; 2. Virtually all fossils are intermediate stages).

Then there’s the rallying cry of anti-evolutionists everywhere (or ‘history deniers’ as Dawkins rightly calls them): “what about the gaps in the fossil record?”.

Why wouldn’t there be gaps? What else could you expect? Fossilisation is a random happenstance relying on special conditions. Only a portion of the world’s rocks are capable of fossilising animals and plants during the rock’s formation. Special conditions must apply – conditions that don’t occur everywhere (a forest, for example, is not a good environment for creating fossils). Then the plant or animal has to be in the right place at exactly the right moment. Then we have to find the fossil. Untold millions must have been destroyed in the intervening period, by natural and human activity. Many more will be in strata where they will never be found. The fossil collections we have represent just a small fraction of the fossils that have been formed over the millennia.

Let’s consider an analogy. How many humans have lived and died? How many millions have been carefully buried, with clothes and grave goods in specially prepared ground? And yet how few do archaeologists find?

We’re lucky to have any fossils. And yet, the tens of thousands – or it is millions? – that we’ve been fortunate to find still paint a detailed and consistent picture. And they all fit beautifully with the theory of evolution. Indeed, ever since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, with his brilliant insight into the most important evolutionary mechanism – natural selection – every important discovery and advance, such as DNA, has fitted perfectly into the overall evolutionary picture.

(I’ll be dealing in more detail with some of the anti-evolutionary ‘arguments’ in my occasional series, Lies Believers Tell.)

All the arguments against evolution stem from one source. Ignorance. The very basis of these arguments is false because they rely on assumptions that simply are not true.

Creationists are the worst offenders. (Let’s remember that many religious people have no problem with evolution.) They listen only to each other. They repeat the same baseless lies and distortions because they don’t want evolution to be true. They prefer their ignorance because, however disconnected it might be from reality, it allows them to indulge in their bronze-age fantasies.

And this, sadly, is why I think Dawkins’ book won’t reach the people who need it most. Where truth and faith collide, the faithful will stick their fingers in their ears, incant loudly and give themselves up to ignorance.

The Greatest Show on Earth is available from:
 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

The creationists are at it again. Schools in the UK are receiving copies of a glossy new book, Explore Evolution, published by the hilariously mis-named Truth in Science.

What could be better? Surely a book on evolution is a good thing? Except that this book is one gigantic lie.

The book is subtitled The Arguments for and against Neo-Darwinism, but the contents are not nearly so balanced as that phrase suggests. Indeed, the material is carefully and deliberately twisted, distorted and unbalanced in order that readers – and these are schoolchildren, remember – will come to the conclusion that the Theory of Evolution is flawed and that other ideas are just as valid.

The book is, in short, a piece of creationist propaganda, heavily and dishonestly disguised as science.

Truth in Science is not a scientific organisation, it is an evangelical religious organisation. It just doesn’t have the guts to say so. (The British Humanist Association, at its Humanist Life blog, has an interesting breakdown of Truth in Science’s board members.) Instead, it flatters itself that it has a mission to educate, when in fact its mission is to lie to children.

Here’s how the organisation’s website describes what it’s up to:

At Truth in Science, we wish to highlight the scientific weaknesses of Neo-Darwinism and to encourage a more critical approach to the teaching of evolution in schools and universities.

We consider it is time for students to be exposed to the fact that there is a modern controversy over Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and that this has considerable social, spiritual, moral and ethical implications.

Creationists are always moaning, ‘Teach the controversy’ – but it’s actually the last thing they need.

First, there is no controversy. Even that much is a lie. Evolution is an established fact, and natural selection its most significant mechanism. Yes, there are debates and controversies within evolutionary science: that is the nature of science. Unlike religious faith, scientific knowledge continuously grows and adapts. It is a living thing, imperfect, incomplete but always getting better. Science is fundamentally honest in its willingness to admit its shortcomings and admit errors. Creationists and other religious extremists often take advantage of this openness, deliberately misrepresenting it as a weakness when it fact it’s a strength.

There is no controversy between evolution and … well, anything else, least of all religious fantasy. ‘Creation science’ is no such thing – it’s fundamentalist religious dogma and does not belong anywhere near a science class. ‘Intelligent design’ is just creation science re-badged when the latter was seen by sane, intelligent people to be fraudulent and intellectually bankrupt. If it is dealt with at all in schools (and I’ve yet to see a convincing reason why it should be) it belongs alongside other outdated mythologies, like the Flat Earth, dragons and witches – perhaps a footnote in a comparative religion class.

We know that the ‘teach the controversy’ ruse is an attempt to get creationism on the same platform as evolution – to pretend that they are somehow equivalent and equally respectable. Yet, the more that creationists (whether or not they admit to being such) make this call, the more they highlight the fact that creationism is not the equal of evolution. All they really succeed in doing is advertising the dreadful inadequacy of their ideas.

Perhaps this is why they are now resorting to such underhand tactics.

You’ll note that the mission statement quoted above does not mention religion directly, let alone creationism. Truth in Science [sic], like so other creationist organisations, has to resort to dishonesty in trying to sneak through its message – by inventing ‘scientific weaknesses’ and pretending there is a ‘controversy’.

One assumes they know, at some level, that creationist ideas cannot stand by their own merits. They have none. They must disguise them as pseudo-science. They can’t ‘teach the controversy’ because that would mean presenting their case fully and honestly, which is doomed to failure. So they don’t want to teach the controversy – what they want to teach the UK’s children are lies and distortions.

And so a religious organisation attempts to push its ideas on children by not mentioning their religious origin. It’s rather like a drug dealer hanging around the school gates handing out bags of crack pretending they’re sweets.

Clearly, creationist organisations, such as Truth in Science [sic] do not have the courage of their convictions, nor do they have the decency to put their case honestly. Remind me again about ‘Christian’ morals…?

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?

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, recently passed in the UK, was a triumph for reason, science and common sense. But not everyone has seen it that way: one religious group has tried to have the law overturned.

One of the advances permitted by the Bill is the use of cross-species research. Scientists believe this research – monitored and regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) – may unlock the secrets of cures for such devastating diseases as cancers and HIV/AIDS. Two licences have been issued by the HFEA – to Newcastle University and King’s College London – allowing work on human hybrid embryos.

This research can only be of great benefit to mankind. It has the potential to release untold numbers of people from suffering and premature death. Yet one small section of society feels that its archaic and bizarre supernatural fantasies give it the right to deny this benefit to the whole of society. The scaremongering by certain factions – that this research would create ‘monsters’ – shows an ignorance of science that one might expect from people whose intellectual framework was formed 2,000 years ago and hasn’t evolved since.

The Christian Legal Centre (CLC) brought an action in the High Court in an attempt to have the law overturned. Fortunately, common sense prevailed. The judge threw out the case saying that it had no merit whatsover and was “unarguable”. More importantly, she underlined that this kind of research is clearly “the will of Parliament” (you know, the democratic body that represents everyone, not just minority cults). CLC was ordered to pay £20,000 costs.

I’m sure this won’t make these arrogant Christians change their minds about this research. Nor will it help them bring their thinking into the 21st Century. But it might just give them pause for thought the next time their try to impose their narrow beliefs on a society that doesn’t share them.

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 storm has brewed up over the practice, by British faith schools, of hiring only those teachers who practice that faith. But once again, a deeper issue goes largely unchallenged.

Teacher unions have complained that the hiring policies at these schools is discriminatory. The schools and their supporters have responded that it is natural to want to have teachers who share the pupils’ faith. On TV this morning, I saw one religious journalist (didn’t catch her name) saying: “If you’re going to have faith schools, then they should teach the ethos of the faith and who best to do that than teachers who share that faith?” (the quote is from memory but is faithful to the meaning).

The argument over hiring practices is to do with the last part of that statement. The real issue lies in the first part.

Of the 21,000 schools in the UK, nearly a third – 6,850 – are faith schools. They are all government funded – that is, their money comes from our taxes. All but a small minority of these are Christian, either Roman Catholic or Church of England. Around 40 are Jewish and there are just a few for Sikhs, Muslims and Greek Orthodox.

Why do faith schools exist? It must be for the benefit of the parents, not the children.

A child’s mind is unformed, unfinished. The function of a school is to assist a child along the path of becoming a fully formed individual, and to do this through education, opening their minds to new ideas. As Richard Dawkins so memorably described in ‘The God Delusion’, a child is not a Christian or a Muslim or a Sikh. Those are complex belief systems with profound implications for one’s moral and philosophical outlook and adopting them requires – or, at least, should require – deep introspection and intellectual analysis. Children are not capable of this. Becoming a Christian, or whatever, is a process that should not take place, cannot honestly and convincingly take place, until adulthood.

Religious education is a process of shutting off other avenues of thought – rational avenues. If you want evidence of that, just look at a recent investigation by More4 News which found that creationism (a profoundly anti-educational mythology) is being taught by 14 out of 19 Jewish schools that responded, all 21 of evangelical schools following the Accelerated Christian Education syllabus, and half the Islamic schools contacted. Even five state schools confessed to teaching creationism. The investigation concluded that over 5,800 pupils were being taught this irrational and insupportable fairy tale – that they are, in other words, being taught lies.

But that’s the answer to our question. Faith schools exist to teach lies. They exist to indoctrinate the children into the ways of their parents. They exist to narrow children’s minds, not open them.

Some parents argue that they send their children to faith schools because the schools have good performance records. And this is true. But it is purely because the schools have callously exploited loopholes in the law that allow them to select only the brightest children – which would be illegal for state schools. (Presumably that leaves equally faithful, but less bright children to take their chances.)

Religion should be a private matter. If parents want their children to believe in the same myths they do, then that particular form of child abuse should be confined to the home. Ultimately, we can’t stop vulnerable children’s minds being twisted and narrowed in this way, but this abuse should not be supported by the state.

So solving the issue of discriminatory hiring practices is easy. Get rid of faith schools. There is no good reason to have them.

Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ is available from:
 Amazon.co.uk |  Amazon.com

The case of the British muslim who forced his children to flog themselves has rightly caused outrage – including among many in the muslim community. But are we in danger of missing a more important point?

The Ashura ceremony, part of the month-long period of ‘mourning’ known as Muharram, is an important part of the Shia calendar. It calls for blood. To commemorate the slaughter of Muhammed’s grandson and his family, many men indulge themselves in self-flagellation – a ritual they apparently call ‘zanjeer zani’.

Syed Zaidi, who was brought up in Pakistan, has long been one of them. But he went further. In a ceremony at a community centre in Levenshulme, near Manchester, he first ensured his own blood was flowing before passing his zanjeer – a chained whip with five blades – to two young boys, aged 13 and 15.

In court, the boys said they were ‘forced’ to whip themselves. Zaidi claims they were willing (though presumably under intense peer pressure to join in). Under the law it makes no difference. Adults have a duty to ensure that children under the age of 16 do not come to harm – which includes harming themselves.

Christopher Hitchens has famously condemned the religous indoctrination of children as child abuse. There could be no more graphic illustration than this bloody ritual. Allowing this to happen to these young boys was an act of both primitive savagery and callous stupidity.

Many in the muslim community agree. Some are organising blood donations as a way of partaking in the commemoration in a more civilised fashion. It seems that having young boys flog themselves is taking religious zealotry beyond the theshold of acceptable behaviour for most in our society.

What none of this addresses is the damage already done to these boys. One needs to ask if, once they achieve the age of 16, it would be perfectly acceptable for these boys – who would, indeed, still be boys – to indulge in tearing their own flesh. The Early Christians used to partake in similar self-mortification which the Romans considered disgustingly uncivilised. They were right. That was 2,000 years ago and Christianity, at least in that respect, has grown up a little.

What kind of damage must be done to the psyche, to one’s moral framework, to one’s grip on civilisation, to accept this kind of behaviour from anyone of any age as admirable, worthwhile or even sensible?

In order to reach that point where the boys would even consider taking the whip in hand, they had to pass through a process of religious indoctrination. Childhood should be a period of learning, of opening the mind. But religious education is all about closing it, narrowing the possibilities and outlook, shutting off avenues of thought, conforming to a blinkered – and frequently archaic and bizarre – worldview.

The fact that anyone could consider these boys as ‘muslims’ is an indication that child abuse had taken place long before the blades tore into their skin. It’s not the whip from which they need to be protected – it’s the path that leads to it.

Enforced conformity is the lynch pin of totalitarian regimes. We have just had yet another example of how religions try to enforce their narrow world views on others when a Christian radio station got its panties in a bunch over some schoolkids dressing up.

The Associated Press report, ‘Kids’ Dress-Up Day Draws Christian Ire’, explains how children at Pineview Elementary in Reedsburg, Wisconsin were enjoying ‘Wacky Week’, where they could choose to dress as either senior citizens or as members of the opposite sex. Note the word ‘choose’. The kids themselves chose this event and were, by all accounts, having fun.

Until, that is, word got to the right-wing Christian radio station Voice of Christian Youth America (VCY America). It seems that Jim Schneider, one of the hosts of the station’s Crosstalk programme, was so incensed by children enjoying themselves that he felt compelled to interrupt regular programming to condemn it. This resulted in the inevitable deluge of complaints to the school from his flock.

What was it that upset Schneider?

“We believe it’s the wrong message to send to elementary students,” said Jim Schneider, the network’s program director. “Our station is one that promotes traditional family values. It concerns us when a school district strikes at the heart and core of the Biblical values. To promote this to elementary-school students is a great error.”

Those are very revealing comments. First, he has assumed that there is any kind of ‘message’ being sent. Schneider seems incapable of understanding that people, even kids, sometimes just have fun. But then religious extremists are often of a profoundly paranoid bent, seeing secret agenda everywhere.

We move on to ‘traditional family values’. Would this be where Jesus told would-be disciples to ditch their families to follow him? No, must be some other kind of values. It’s interesting that when traditional values are invoked, they are so rarely explained. Who gets to decide what constitutes ‘traditional’. We used to send children up chimneys as sweeps – is that traditional? We used to keep slaves (the Bible even tells us how to go about it). Is that traditional?

This is another facet of the argument about who decides what is ‘Christian’ (see: The wrong religion). Each group, each sect, gets to decide what it considers ‘traditional’. Rationality, intellect, common sense and logic need play no part in this. A tradition is whatever each group decides matches its core values or ideas. Thus, one wacko offshoot of Mormonism might decide that polygamy – and possibly child abuse – is still a traditional value, while the rest of the church has somehow decided that there are some traditions that are no longer traditional.

The point of this is that these values are not in any way inherent – they are chosen. Schneider is invoking vague ‘traditional family values’ as if these are fixed, beyond debate and shared by all. And then he is condemning others for not complying with these values.

This is profoundly dishonest language and arrogant behaviour. Schneider is attempting to impose his ideas on the rest of us – effectively condemning anyone who does not share his narrow world view.

This is how totalitarianism operates. You must conform to its way of thinking. It is not about external rules – though there are always plenty of those in any repressive regime (religion included). It is about how you think, that matters. Why? Because totalitarian regimes – and especially religions – are intrinsically absurd. You must swallow the entire mindset otherwise there is a danger that, by rejecting one aspect, you come to perceive the stupidity of the whole system. It’s important, then, that everyone is brought around to the same way of thinking, that no dissent is permitted at any level.

And that’s the nub of what’s going on here. For what this kind of religion cannot abide is difference. The right-wing end of the religious spectrum, which is what we see at work here, constantly attacks ‘alternative’ lifestyles. They are dangerous. Thinking or behaving differently puts people outside the constrictive mindset on which this fascist form of religion depends.

This particular controversy illustrates just how intolerant these religious fanatics are when it comes to non-conformance. For heaven’s sake, this was a bunch of kids playing dress-up. That’s it. No agenda, no attempt to coerce children into depraved lifestyles. It’s the sort of thing kids do naturally, with a wonderful and admirable lack of self-consciousness. But the religious extremists cannot allow this to happen. These children must be controlled.

And then there’s that striking ‘at the heart of Biblical values’. Oh come on. Get a grip, Schneider. I would have thought the heart of biblical values would be more along the lines of ‘thou shalt not kill’ rather than ‘thou shalt not cross-dress’.

There is also the not so small point that schools are under no obligation to uphold what Schneider might decide are biblical values. And there’s the matter of the separation of church and state. Schneider probably thinks this separation is invalid. But that’s tough, because that separation is something that does happen to be a shared value – the Constitution and the law make it so.

The sad thing is that the bullying by Schneider and the sheep who obeyed him – his radio-listening flock – has succeeded in forcing the submission of the school into not having this event in future. These children have certainly learned a lesson: Thou shalt not be different.

There always was something slightly messianic about Tony Blair. Now he is calling for a greater role for faith in world affairs – as if religion were the solution rather than the problem.

[photopress:blair.jpg,full,alignright]According to The Guardian, Blair will be delivering a lecture at Westminster Abbey where he will say that “failure to engage with religious groups will drive believers to apathy or fundamentalism” (the Guardian’s words). Apparently, Blair believes that people are moving either towards religious extremism or a feeling that religion is a “spent force”.

That actually conforms with polls in the UK – religion is declining overall but evangelism and fundamentalism are increasing. But note the implication that both ends of the spectrum are a bad thing. And notice that there is no mention of atheism – just apathy. This is clearly a way of denigrating atheism without having the courage to do it directly. Blair is a slick spinmeister. He knows that atheists form a large section of British society. He can’t call them a problem outright. He has to resort to innuendo.

It is a common tactic for movers and shakers in the religious world to sideline secularism whenever there are debates about bringing world peace or social benefits. There is much talk about ecumenical approaches and multi-faith initiatives, but never the slightest consideration that taking faith out of the picture altogether might actually remove barriers to progress – that spending any energy and resources on considering the role of faith might be a wasteful irrelevance. Get rid of faith and you can get on with the job. But too many people in positions of power seem to think that the only solution to the world’s problems lies in medieval witchcraft.

This faith in faith says a lot about Blair. His crusading zeal in the role of Bush’s lapdog can best be explained, perhaps, by a common interest in supernatural phenomena. There seems no other reason why a pseudo-socialist prime minister would cosy up so snugly to a crypto-fascist president.

In an interview, Blair recently said that he largely kept his religion out of the public spotlight because “frankly, people do think you’re a nutter”. That’s an illuminating comment. It shows the massive gulf between the status of religion in the UK and the US. Indeed, in the UK, religious fervour is the perceived domain of the unhinged. In the US, it’s a requirement for the job of president.

But US-style religious extremism is creeping into the UK. Blair oversaw the rise of faith-based initiatives in areas where religion has no business – doing the work once done by government departments. Faith schools have become stronger. Even the anti-intellectual disease of creationism is on the rise. This may be Blair’s true legacy.

After leaving office, Blair converted to Roman Catholicism and is leading the Faith Foundation for young people (as the figurehead of New Labour, his experience of spin and indoctrination will come in handy here).

In case Blair hasn’t noticed, though, maybe we should point out that faith already plays a major role in world affairs. Ask anyone in Iran. Or Iraq. Or who lost loved-ones on 9/11. Perhaps what Blair, acting now as the acceptable face of the Inquisition, is trying to tell us is that people need the right religion. But we’ve been there before, haven’t we?

When atheists criticise the more risible aspects of religion or the actions of believers, the faithful often respond with something along the lines of “your point is worthless because that’s not real religion”. Do they have a point? Or are they indulging in a peculiar form of bigotry?

When I wrote When faith kills, one person on Digg denounced it as bigoted. The argument ran like this (I’m summarising): The people you criticised were not proper believers. What they were doing was not real Christianity. Therefore your arguments are invalid and unfair to Christians.

This raises an important question. Who gets to decide what is real religion? More importantly, perhaps, how do we discern which is the real Christianity, which the real Islam?

Islam, of course, has only a handful of variants. The miscellaneous flavours of Christianity, on the other hand, are many and various. Each one of them believes it has exclusive access to the truth.

At this point, one is reminded of the response to Christians usually attributed to Richard Dawkins but espoused by many atheists: that we are all atheists. Christians do not believe in many thousands of gods. Atheists just go one god further. This is rather well presented in this table of Christian and atheist beliefs.

It’s all about definitions. Every faith sets its own terms. Religions are self-defining. They are not constrained by evidence, by the historical record, not even by the physical laws of the universe or common sense. Every sect gets to define what it regards as ‘Christian’ behaviour.

The Digger mentioned above – who evidently defines himself as a Christian – had a very simple rule for determining what constitutes acceptable Christian behaviour. Give people a Bible and let them point to the section that validates their actions.

Alas, this is simple to the point of being simple-minded. First, which Bible? Various translations have been used at different times to support widely varying behaviour. Second, the Bible, as we all know, is infuriatingly vague and frequently self-contradicting. It is not an homogeneous work but a rather slipshod cobbling together of texts with inconsistent and incompatible philosophies, ethics and narratives. Even the three synoptic gospels can’t get their story straight. So each Christian sect tends to pick carefully those sections most amenable to it.

Third, many Christian faiths insist that the Bible is not to be read literally. Only those fundamentalist sects whose appeal is mainly to the more knuckle-dragging sections of society ask us to take every word as literal truth. The majority of Christians accept some, if not all, sections of the Bible as allegorical or metaphorical. Everything, then, depends on interpretation. And if you want to behave in a certain way, if you want to invoke divine approval for your actions, you are likely to be able to find something in the Bible that you can interpret as supporting your actions. This is why the frequently made assertion that the Bible (and only the Bible) is the bedrock of ethics and morality is so laughable. The Bible can be made to endorse anything (including slavery and genocide).

So let’s look again at where we came in. Some self-defined Christians commit a particular act, in conformance – as they see it – with their beliefs. But it’s an act that those of us in the real world consider heinous or ludicrous, and we say so. Then some other Christian comes along and says, “hey, those guys aren’t real Christians. You’re just using their behaviour as a way of having a cheap shot at all Christians.”

What this person is doing is using their own, necessarily narrow definition of Christianity to condemn the others as “not really Christians”. They are saying, “only my definition is valid” and “these people are not entitled to call themselves Christian”. That’s bigotry.

It is also a cheap trick. Christians can simply keep moving the goalposts, claiming that any action or belief criticised as secularists isn’t ‘Christian’ anyway, so the criticism is obviously an egregious attack on ‘true’ Christians.

I’m not tarring every Christian with this particular brush. There are many who state their beliefs plainly and have the courage to stick to them and take responsibility for them. When someone’s faith leads them into actions that cause harm to others, we have a perfect right to criticise not just the people themselves but the faith that coerced them into irresponsible behaviour. For other Christians simply to wash their hands of this issue by brushing off the miscreants as ‘not really Christian’ is cowardly and dishonest.