* * *

President of Peru, Alan Garcia, says that the death of Osama bin Laden (“demonic incarnation of crime, evil and hatred”) is a miracle, owing to the late Pope John Paul II. After all, Sunday saw not only Osama bin Laden being shot in the eye, it also saw the Vatican beatifying it’s previous head of state. And if you’re the President of Peru the divine synchronicity at play in these two events is undeniable. It can be “no coincidence”, says Garcia, that US special forces finally caught up with the man nu-media is quickly calling OBL on the same day as the beatification of the man they’re not calling JP2. (The Vatican has actually criticised the killing.)

* * *

Jesus is out of work. Self-flagellating actor, Jim Caviezel, has suffered a fate worse than death ever since starring in Mel Gibson’s torturous The Passion of the Christ. Shunned by the evil Jews in Gibson’s interpretation of the last days of the life of Christ, Caviezel is now shunned by evil Hollywood directors, he claims. Gibson apparently prophesied that all this would come to pass, telling Caviezel before filming The Passion that ”You’ll never work in this town again.” (What a salesman!) Gibson reportedly told Caviezel that this was a price they’d both have to pay for filming the Truth about Jesus, saying, “We all have to embrace our crosses.” *Cringe*

[Councillor Crumpton said:] “There are some glaring errors in the literature, for instance they refer to a ‘Ministry for Education’ when in the UK there is no such thing.

Cllr Crumpton also contacted the lecturer that is listed as Chair of Governors on the Free School’s website, Dr Ian Williams, who specialises in Muslim education.

In an email to Cllr Crumpton Dr Williams seemed to baulk at the idea of being Chair of Governors, he said: “I am involved in the Free School project though not as clearly defined as the web-site indicates.”

Cllr Crumpton said: “I find it strange that the academic lending his name to the project is an expert in Muslim studies and seems to point that this will in fact be a faith school, which is mentioned nowhere in the literature.

“They talk about a 4plus1 Education Philosophy and there is next to nothing on the internet about this except a religious school somewhere in America.”

“Free schools are a project of Michael Gove’s imagination and I firmly believe they have no place in Dudley borough.”

A spokesperson for the trust denies that the school would be a ‘faith’ school and said, “We have the credentials to do this as our teaching team and governors, which Dr Williams agreed to be chair, has decades and decades of experience in the education system.”

A public consultation meeting is being held at Cradley Liberal Club on Sunday, May 15 (2pm to 5pm).

Link: http://www.halesowennews.co.uk/news/8998671.Furious_row_erupts_over_proposed_free_school_in_Cradley/

The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to [Abbottabad]—called them “hill stations,” designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It’s the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.

There’s perhaps some slight satisfaction to be gained from this smoking-gun proof of official Pakistani complicity with al-Qaida, but in general it only underlines the sense of anticlimax. After all, who did not know that the United States was lavishly feeding the same hands that fed Bin Laden? There’s some minor triumph, also, in the confirmation that our old enemy was not a heroic guerrilla fighter but the pampered client of a corrupt and vicious oligarchy that runs a failed and rogue state.

Link: http://www.slate.com/id/2292687/

In other comments in today, Aditya Chakrabortty cites a few academics whose research suggests that painting extreme Islamists as intrinsically Evil does little to fight terror and isn’t even accurate.

The conventional view of Islamist terrorism is the one set out by Clinton yesterday, of a “violent ideology that holds no value for human life”: evil, inexplicable, and irreconcilable with any civilised values. Yet analysis from social scientists suggests the opposite.

However odd it may seem to use these terms of would-be jihadists and suicide bombers, some researchers describe Islamist terrorists as in the main rational, desperate figures operating in wrecked countries.

… What Merari’s research shows is “a large pool of psychologically healthy, basically altruistic suicide attackers”. That description comes from Eli Berman, at the University of California, San Diego. His use of the term “basically altruistic” is surely intended to be provocative, but what the economist means is that terrorists are often acting out of a desire to help others in their group.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/03/are-islamist-terrorists-basically-altruistic

Geoffrey Robertson QC who spoke at last year’s Protest the Pope rally and has called for the Pope’s arrest, is left dissatisfied by a country celebrating an “assassination”, and wonders at the international legal ramifications.

America resembles the land of the munchkins, as it celebrates the death of the Wicked Witch of the East. The joy is understandable, but it endorses what looks increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination ordered by a president who, as a former law professor, knows the absurdity of his statement that “justice was done”. Amoral diplomats and triumphant politicians join in applauding Bin Laden’s summary execution because they claim real justice – arrest, trial and sentence would have been too difficult in the case of Bin Laden. But in the long-term interests of a better world, should it not at least have been attempted?

That future depends on a respect for international law. The circumstances of Bin Laden’s killing are as yet unclear and the initial objection that the operation was an illegitimate invasion of Pakistan’s sovereignty must be rejected. Necessity required the capture of this indicted and active international criminal and Pakistan’s abject failure (whether through incompetence or connivance) justified Obama’s order for an operation to apprehend him. However, the terms of that order, as yet undisclosed, are all important.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/geoffrey-robertson-why-its-absurd-to-claim-that-justice-has-been-done-2278041.html

Noxolo Nogwaza was killed last month after what appeared to be a so-called “corrective rape”, an increasingly common crime in which men rape lesbians to “turn” them straight or “cure” them of their sexual orientation.

The 24-year-old’s face and head were disfigured by stoning, she was stabbed several times with broken glass and evidence suggested she was raped. A beer bottle, a big rock and used condoms were found on and near her body.

Human Rights Watch noted that no arrests have been made and claimed homophobic violence is continuing unchecked in South Africa’s townships.

Dipika Nath, a researcher in the group’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights programme, said: “Nogwaza’s death is the latest in a long series of sadistic crimes against lesbians, gay men and transgender people in South Africa. The vicious nature of the assault is a potent reminder that these attacks are premeditated, planned and often committed with impunity.”

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/03/south-africa-homophobic-attacks

Given that history, it is disturbing to learn, thanks to an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, that British charities are funding an African organisation that is pushing an equally unscientific approach to treatment of HIV: homeopathy. The Abha Light Foundation in Kenya is suggesting to its HIV positive patients that homeopathic medicines – which are regarded as placebos by the British Medical Association – are a suitable alternative to anti-retroviral drugs.

The giant Global Fund, which usually chooses its local partners carefully, says that it did not know that it was indirectly funding a group that was pushing homeopathy. But that is not the case with another donor, the Sheaf Trust, which describes its mission as “training homeopaths in Africa”. If people in the West want to waste their money on homeopathic remedies for minor ailments that is a matter for them. But when charities are raising money in Britain to push these quack medicines on desperately sick people in Africa, that becomes another matter entirely. This is a surely a subject worthy of investigation by the Charity Commission and the House of Commons Health Committee.

We have witnessed the terrible toll that medical obscurantism can inflict in the developing world. It would be an outrage if we sat back while British charities played a role in causing history to repeat itself.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-resist-this-medical-obscurantism-2278095.html

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Pakistan, President Barack Obama has said.

Bin Laden was shot dead at a compound near Islamabad, in a ground operation based on US intelligence, the first lead for which emerged last August.

Mr Obama said US forces took possession of the body after “a firefight”.

Bin Laden is believed to have ordered the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and a number of others.

He was top of the US’ “most wanted” list.

DNA tests later confirmed that Bin Laden was dead, US officials said.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13256676

Many Americans have been celebrating the death, with Ground Zero and Times Square providing footage seen around the world.

The BBC rounds up some political reactions including David Cameron: “It is a great success that he has been found and will no longer be able to pursue his campaign of global terror.” The FT reports that in Saudi Arabia, “the land of his birth, the news sparked cheers, mourning, denial – and a stream of conspiracy theories. Analysts say that – while bin Laden’s death is a big boost domestically for the US – the knock-on effect on the Middle East will be more complex and may even include an increased threat of terrorist attacks by militant groups.” The New York Times blogs that Middle Eastern confidence that Osama bin Laden would “do  the right thing” politically was low. For the Quilliam Foundation in the UK, Maajid Nawaz said, “Bin Laden’s death comes at a time when al-Qaeda is struggling to remain relevant. As events in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen have also shown, the Arab world has moved on since al-Qaeda was founded in the 1980s.  A clear majority of Muslims around the world have decisively rejected al-Qaeda’s vision; people’s real concerns are now about poverty, unemployment and a lack of government accountability; not about establishing a caliphate and fighting a worldwide jihad against the West.

“Bin Laden’s death – combined with the events of Arab Spring – offers a clear chance for Muslims throughout the world to move on from the era of al-Qaeda and to find ways to achieve dignity, prosperity and social justice without resorting to violence.”

In a move unlikely to win friends across the Atlantic, some in Hamas have said that the killing represents the “state terrorism that America carries out against Muslims” – though the Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority, said he was unaware that anyone in Hamas would condemn the killing, describing it instead as “a major, mega landmark event, ending the life of a person who was involved in egregious acts of terror and destruction.”

In the last hour, bound to further muddy the moral water, it has been alleged via the controversial Wikileaks organisation that a crucial lead for the capture arose from the torture of bin Laden’s captured deputy in a CIA prison.

A second source – also an al-Qaeda “leader” held at Guantanamo Bay – then confirmed the courier’s identity, sparking an intense manhunt that resulted in the dramatic final raid.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8488436/WikiLeaks-Osama-bin-Laden-killed-after-tip-off-from-his-deputy.html

* * *

Offering his humble input into Malta’s current debate over whether to legalise divorce (you read that right, that’s the big current debate in Malta) a Minister by the name Tonio Fenech said that the Virgin Mary is very upset about the country even considering allowing divorce. Fenech warned that anyone voting for reform on marriage law is acting against the will of God Almighty. It seems the Baby Jesus wants the people of Malta to stay in their loveless marriages.  Obviously, the Malta Humanists have other ideas.

* * *

And conservative Anglican blogger “Archbishop Cranmer” revs himself up to threat level barking Tolkien-esque nutsoid over the royal wedding, as he slathers over the coverage, types up his notes, and generally has an ecstatic, pant-wetting, metaphysical breakdown about Royalty and “the inner being of the Church of England”.

These are just three of over 80 case-files compiled by the Association for Secular Humanism (ASH) in Malawi, where dozens of people have been jailed on imaginary evidence for the imaginary crime of “witchcraft”. Most are poor, elderly and from rural communities. ASH has campaigned successfully against efforts to recognise “witchcraft” as a crime. But some magistrates have been pursuing cases regardless, prosecuting people for an offence that isn’t even on the statute book. Others have been imprisoned for “pretending witchcraft”, or the catch-all crime of “disorderly conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace”. This despite the fact that Malawian law actually makes it a crime to accuse another person of being a witch.

The stories make heartbreaking reading. But when I speak by phone with George Thindwa, the ASH Executive Director, he sounds upbeat. He’s just received a letter from the office of the State President. “In fact I have it in my hand – I’m just coming from the scanning machine.”

The President’s office has agreed to review the case-files that the ASH had sent, and is “committed to ensuring that Women and the Elderly are not victimised in the manner highlighted”. Thindwa is hopeful that those listed could be free within weeks.

Wilson goes on to cover how “witchcraft” abuses are spread  by Pentecostal and Revivalist churches, how lack of proper healthcare drives people to “healers” who blame ailments on witchcraft, and how a “supernaturally” obsessed film industry exacerbate superstition into outright paranoia. The witchcraft films are exported from Nigeria and the article moves there, covering the similar campaigns of Leo Igwe. Whereas Thindwa’s campaigns in Malawi tend to focus on the elderly imprisoned as witches under abused laws, Igwe’s campaigns focus on children tormented and exiled as witches, often by those closest to them.

Link: http://newhumanist.org.uk/2548/witch-hunt-saboteurs

Anyway, they were remarkably quick to spot actress Sila Sahin posing nude in the latest German issue of Playboy magazine, and essentially recycle the interview as a news story. The big media spin on the story is that she is a well-known German-Turkish soap actress, hence she becomes apparently “the first Turkish woman” to appear nude in Playboy. And therefore presumed a Muslim. A naked, Muslim woman.

Dum dum dummmm.

Posing provocatively on the cover of German Playboy magazine with one breast exposed, Sila Sahin seems to be sending a clear and deliberate message to her conservative Turkish family.

‘I did it because I wanted to be free at last,’ she said. ‘These photographs are a liberation from the restrictions of my childhood.’

Her family have, unsurprisingly, reacted with horror, and her mother has cut off all contact with the actress.

‘My mother is still angry. It will be even more difficult with my grandparents, my aunts and my uncles,’ she said on the website devoted to her television soap.

She has, however, managed to talk to her actor father, who expressed concern over the pressure she will inevitably face from those not only within the Turkish community in Germany, but from the wider Muslim community as a whole.

… ‘My upbringing was conservative,’ she told Playboy. ‘I was always told, you must not go out, you must not make yourself look so attractive, you mustn’t have male friends.

‘I have always abided by what men say. As a result I developed an extreme desire for freedom. I feel like Che Guevara. I have to do everything I want, otherwise I feel like I may as well be dead.’

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1378455/Sila-Sahin-poses-Playboy-Muslim-model-upsets-family-nude-cover.html

The lengthy photo feature (shown here) did the media rounds in Germany. Obviously there’s a “boo” from some of her family and various Muslim sources,(Sahin says she’s “not sure” about her own religious beliefs). There’s another “boo” from those worried that if avoiding doing “what men say” is your main aim, then stripping off for the male gaze may not be the best way to go about it. But there’s also a “boo” from commentators worried that the shoot is such a “cheap cliché” based on exoticism, all too conveniently playing on Europe’s current angst about race, immigration and integration.

“When you look at the pictures you can see how cheap these people at the magazine think about Turkish, Muslim, Islamic, Oriental people,” said Hatic Akyün, who writes a column for the Berlin daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel and was born in Turkey but grew up in Germany. “It’s such a cheap cliché they’re using.”

Akyün said she and her Turkish friends were all exasperated to see that a Playboy cover was putting the issue of integration back into the headlines. She accused Playboy, Sahin and her handlers of stirring up controversy for publicity’s sake.

“That’s how it works in Germany. The integration debate works just like that,” she said. “They know exactly which buttons they need to push to get the media to jump all over it.”

Gökce Yurdakul, an expert on race, gender and Islam and a professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University, was equally disappointed with the way the German media have approached the topic. For too long women have been seen as representations of their nations, she said.

“She’s not a daughter of Turkish immigrants; she shouldn’t be represented this way in the newspapers,” she said. “This is an individual woman who is acting on her own behalf, not as a daughter, not as a part of a community.”

Yurdakul said Sahin is just tapping into what Germans expect to read about Turkish and Muslim women, that German society can liberate them.

Link: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15021188,00.html

The Gather : Celebs channel is a bit more forgiving.

Good for her. This message is one that most people can certainly embrace, and hopefully, her family will get over their dismay at her decision to pose nude. Who would have thought that Sila Sahin’s nude pictures could end up helping advance the cause of world peace?

Who indeed.

Link: http://celebs.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979263193

The London Evening Standard reports that Bishop Pritchard’s comments have been “hailed” as a welcome move against discrimination.

The move would be a major shift for the Church, and it could also lead to an end to the practice of parents attending church to secure their child a school place.

Under current admissions rules faith schools can choose how to allocate places, for example to followers of their faith, if they are over-subscribed.

… Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, chairman of Accord, which campaigns to end religious discrimination in school staffing and admissions, said: “This is a very welcome step that attempts to help rectify current policy, which means that religion and discrimination in schools have become almost synonymous.

“Schools should be inclusive and tolerant and no state-funded school should be allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religion for any of their teacher posts or any pupil places.”

Link: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23943839-church-school-admission-plan-hailed.do

The Telegraph, on the other hand, is not so vicariously enamoured. Their headline: “Bishop under fire over quota plan for church schools”.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8468583/Bishop-under-fire-over-quota-plan-for-church-schools.html

The British Humanist Association took the Bishop’s comments as a “welcome” step in the right direction, but – as members of Accord and as campaigners against ‘faith’ schools in their own right and on principle – said it doesn’t go far enough.

“Faith” has increasingly become the new way of constructing racial minorities, a trend that started under Tony Blair and continues under the Tory-led government. Secularism is seen as so intrinsically western that it is unimaginable for policymakers to conceive that it might be welcome within minority communities, especially the powerless among them.

A new report by Southall Black Sisters (SBS), called Cohesion, Faith and Gender, based on an in-depth survey of the women who use their centre finds that women, even those of deeply religious backgrounds, reject the limitations of that identity. They want a clear separation of their spiritual needs from their social needs. Most feel a primary loyalty to their gender identity and find that any attempt to assert their rights meets with the disapproval of religious leaders. They welcome an inclusive and secular space, such as the one provided by SBS because they carry memories of the gendered, caste-based and religious discrimination they had faced in their countries of origin.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/apr/19/secularism-minorities-faith-big-society

It’s a far cry from Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s astounding Easter sermon, in which he celebrates the life of Jesus (who is often thought of as a bit of a rebel against the church authorities, rendering unto Caesar and all that) by telling secularists that they are all evil.

The leader of the Catholic church in Scotland has used his Easter address to attack “aggressive secularism”, suggesting there were “those who would indeed try to destroy our Christian heritage and culture and take God from the public square”.

He made the address as David Cameron publicly endorsed the “enormous contribution” of Christian values to Britain, days before he welcomes senior churchmen to Downing Street for an Easter celebration.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who is known for his outspoken views, eschewed traditional Easter themes of resurrection and hope and instead set his sights firmly on the “marginalisation” of Christianity in the UK.

He told the congregation at St Mary’s Cathedral; “Christians must be united in their common awareness of the enemies of the Christian faith in our country, of the power that they are at present exerting, and the need for us to be aware of that right to equality which so many others cry out for.”

In the church’s case, that would be the right to discriminate against gay people. Again. And nothing else. Over and over again.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/24/cardinal-keith-obrien-aggressive-secularity

Also see: the BHA response.

Richard Norman, speaking at the BHA Philosophy and the Arts day conference, 2010

If ‘humanism’ means anything at all, it must surely embrace respect and concern for all human beings, whether they are members of our own family or group or society or are people on the other side of the world whom we do not know and will never meet.  It means a responsiveness to the needs of all with whom we share a common humanity.  As humanists we often invoke the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reflects and translates into political imperatives those shared human needs, and which includes these items:

Article 25:  Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Article 26:  Everyone has the right to education…

Article 28:  Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

But the sad truth is that we have a long way to go before we have an international order in which these rights are fully realized for everyone.  Here are some facts about the world in which we live.

• Around 1.4 billion people still subsist on less than $1.25 a day, the international poverty line defined by the World Bank.
• Around one billion people suffer from hunger.
• Almost nine million children die each year before they reach their fifth birthday.
• Hundreds of thousands of women die due to complications of pregnancy or childbirth every year.
• About 69 million school-age children are not in school. Almost half of them (31 million) are in sub-Saharan Africa, and more than a quarter (18 million) are in Southern Asia. (Data)

Humanists have always been actively involved in organisations dedicated to tackling the challenges of global poverty and injustice. The BHA encourages its members to continue that tradition of involvement, but has rightly avoided duplicating the organisations which are already active in the field.  For this reason there is no specifically humanist movement dedicated to combating poverty and promoting international development.  There are also good reasons, parallel to the ones which Marilyn Mason mentions in the case of climate change, why humanists have not organised as humanists:  we may legitimately disagree about the best way to deal with poverty and global injustice, and we are resistant to being told what causes to support.

But without creating unnecessary new organisations, it’s important that humanists are visible in their support for global justice.  Actions do speak louder than words, and if we’re serious in what we say about shared human values and about living a good life without religion, then we need to put those values into action.  The role of the new interest group ‘Humanists for a Better World’ should be to add a distinctive humanist presence and voice to existing organisations and campaigns.  It should act as a forum for humanists to pool news and information, and to alert one another to important events and campaigns.

Here are some of the issues which I think are currently important.

In the last few years, concern for international development and concern about climate change have become increasingly linked.  The problem of climate change caused by CO2 emissions has been created by the industrialised countries, but it is above all the countries of the global south which are already feeling the effects, with more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns, increased flooding in some areas, and changes in rainfall leading to crop failures and the drying up of pastureland in others.  Action on climate change has to take the form of ‘climate justice’ – enabling the poorer countries of the world to follow a low-carbon route to development and not being forced to pay the price for our failures.  Oxfam and the World Development Movement among others are campaigning for a global Climate Fund which is fair and effective.  See:

• http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get_involved/campaign/climate_change/
• http://www.wdm.org.uk/climatedebt

World poverty is being fuelled by the spike in food commodity prices, which have been artificially inflated by the irresponsible behaviour of commodity speculators.  We need international regulations to curb food speculation – see:

• http://www.wdm.org.uk/food-speculation

Development organisations have increasingly come to recognise that trade is the route out of poverty.  But this requires more than the free-marketers’ mantra of ‘free trade’.  It needs trade justice.  At the level of our daily lives and our own purchases, this is something which we can promote by buying Fairtrade products and raising awareness of the value of Fairtrade.  I’d like to see more Humanist groups committing themselves to using Fairtrade refreshments at their meetings and events.  But it also requires political action, because the scope for trade to benefit developing countries is severely limited by the unfair tariffs and subsidies maintained by the US and Europe.  The Fairtrade Foundation is currently running a campaign against American and European subsidies for their own cotton farmers, which lower world prices and hit cotton-producing countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali.  See:

• http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/products/cotton/default.aspx

If you share these or related concerns, do please make use of the ‘Humanists for a Better World’ web site at www.h4bw.org.uk to communicate news, ideas and actions, and to work with other humanists for global justice and a better world.

Richard Norman is Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy, founder-member of the Humanist Philosophers’ Group, and Vice-President of the BHA. His book On Humanism was released in 2004.

Yaaaay! Thanks dad.

Not only that, kids, it’s “EXTREME EASTER” at the park. And one of these lucky vicars, pictured during their auditions in my Daily Mail, will be leaading the EXTREME EASTER service. It’s EXTREME!

Vicars' EXTREME EASTER at Alton Towers - "is designed to address the problem of falling church numbers in the UK by offering visitors a chance to worship at the popular attractions."

Oh… Thanks dad. Actually, isn’t Doctor Who on?

* * *

Andrew “dodgy dossier” Gilligan does a bit more digging, this time bringing to the surface an old document from the occasionally described as moderate Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) stating that wearing the burqa is “not up for debate” (this quote appears in the byline but not in Gilligan’s article).

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that not covering the face is a “shortcoming” and suggested that any Muslims who advocate being uncovered could be guilty of rejecting Islam.

In a statement published on its website the MCB, warns: “We advise all Muslims to exercise extreme caution on this issue, since denying any part of Islam may lead to disbelief.

“Not practising something enjoined by Allah and his Messenger… is a shortcoming. Denying it is much more serious.”

The statement quotes from the Koran: “It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter.”

* * *

In an audacious move, Cristina Odone pulls a blinder in a bid to make it into our new “God delusions” round-up. First she  delivers surely the earliest THEY’RE BANNING CHRISTMAS comment of the year (a new record?). Then she dons the cloak of victimhood and whines unhappily… about how atheists will never be happy! With no sense of irony at all.

The two issues are linked, of course. You see, atheists won’t be happy until Christmas is banned and Cristina Odone has been driven into “the catacombs”.

Well, at least she’s half right.

* * *

Finally, in a beautiful conflation of multiple kinds of stupid, on the day that Cristina Odone also loudly protests the alleged claim by Discworld author Terry Pratchett that those against assisted dying are on the “far right”, Melanie “Mad Mel” Philips blames assisted dying on “the Left (and the BBC)”.

Serrano's "Piss Christ"

There have been weeks of protest at a gallery in France showing Andres Serrano’s famous – and infamous – work, Piss Christ. The artwork has now been “attacked” (say AFP) or “destroyed” (Guardian, below).

The controversial work Piss Christ by the New York photographer Andres Serrano has been destroyed at a gallery in France after weeks of protests.

The photograph, which shows a small crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist’s urine, outraged the US religious right in 1987, when it was first shown, with Serrano denounced in the Senate by the Republican Jesse Helms. It was later vandalised in Australia, and neo-Nazis ransacked a show by the artist in Sweden in 2007.

The work has previously been shown without incident in France, but for the past two weeks Catholic groups have campaigned against it, culminating in hundreds of people marching through Avignon on Saturday in protest.

Just after 11am on Sunday, four people in sunglasses entered the gallery where the exhibition was being held. One took a hammer from his sock and threatened security staff. A guard restrained one man but the remaining members of the group managed to smash an acrylic screen and slash the photograph with what police believe was a screwdriver or ice pick. They then destroyed another photograph, of nuns’ hands in prayer.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/18/andres-serrano-piss-christ-destroyed-christian-protesters

The gallery and the artist had been reporting escalating levels of harassment and abuse prior to the attack, which a French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand has condemned. The gallery says it will continue to show both works in their damaged state for all the world to see!

There is huge support for legalising assisted dying in the UK (ComRes) (also see Times poll and YouGov and Angus Reid for figures in Scotland, where Margo MacDonald’s pro-reform bill was recently defeated anyway). If nothing else surely this level of support for reform mandates the license-payer funded BBC to do a bit of coverage on it. But Care Not Killing said: “The BBC is acting like a cheerleader for legalising assisted suicide.”

However, Sarah Wootton, chief executive of campaign group Dignity in Dying, warned: “I believe it is irresponsible not to be discussing this issue. People are taking desperate decisions at the end of their lives; travelling abroad to die or attempting to end their lives at home, often alone for fear of their loved ones facing prosecution.”

Link: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/uk/Row-over-39righttodie39-film.6752687.jp

The BBC‘s commissioning editor for documentaries, Charlotte Moore, said: “Assisted death is an important topic of debate in the UK, and this is a chance for the BBC2 audience to follow Sir Terry as he wrestles with the difficult issues that many across Britain are also faced with. I hope this sparks a constructive debate that people across the spectrum of opinion can engage in.”

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/apr/15/terry-pratchett-documentary-assisted-suicide

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail is alarmed (for a change) that “Britons are travelling in record numbers to kill themselves at the Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland”. These “record figures” are based on a tiny sample – rates at which it only takes a few people to add a significant percentage – and compares the last three years’ average with the previous six years’ average, indicating that right or wrong the change probably isn’t so fast.

The number of British suicides at the Zurich clinic has risen from an average of 14 a year between 2002 and 2007 to a total of 76 – about 25 a year – from 2008-2010.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377924/Britons-die-Dignitas-suicide-clinic-record-numbers.html

Sir Patrick Stewart is the latest celebrity to back reform, becoming a patron of Dignity in Dying, alongside humanist Ian McEwan. Stewart said that choosing to die should be a human right:

Speaking publicly for the first time about his membership of Dignity in Dying, Stewart referred to a recent tragedy involving a friend, as well as his own diagnosis of having coronary heart disease five years ago. “I am reluctant to go into details. Enough to say this person was driven to an extreme situation of ending their own life in the most ghastly way,” he said of the friend. “There’s got to be an alternative when someone is suffering so badly and is ready to go.”

Asked if he believed that the choice of ending one’s life should be a human right, he replied: “yes”, adding: “Everything that medicine can do to keep somebody alive doesn’t automatically follow as the best option.”

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/apr/17/star-trek-actor-backs-euthanasia

Of course,  that would sound churlish. So she tries to blame the disagreement specifically on him attributing the no-to-assisted-dying position to the “far right”.

But ever since I heard Pratchett claim that only the “far Right” had any objections to assisted suicide [link in the original], I have loathed him. For a man blessed with such talent and success, who wields an influence on so many young people, to rubbish life so publicly is disgraceful. For him to misrepresent as “far Right” those who oppose legalising assisted suicide is downright dishonest.

Did you know Pratchett had said that? No? You’re not alone.

The article Odone links doesn’t contain this phrase, nor does the video embedded in the page, though Pratchett seems to have made the comment in an interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News. At the time when it was filmed and shown (early last year) this comment seems to have been taken as a fairly light-hearted accusation from a man who, as a sufferer of Alzheimers, has a very personal stake in the debate, and the comment was largely ignored, including during the interview by Jon Snow. A search does turn up one response to the “far right” comment by Dominic Lawson. Lawson is able to turn it into the basis of an entire article in which we learn about how those “fanatical” pro-assisted-dying lot are always painting the antis as far right extremists. There are no other examples given.

So Odone’s “loathing” is supposedly based on one comment from over a year ago, inflated originally by one commentator, and now picked over again by herself. “It is of course a favourite trick of the media-savvy Liberal Left,” she tells us, “painting their opponents on any issue as Right-wing extremists.” Again, no other examples are on offer.

Meanwhile, while loudly protesting about Pratchett’s single comic ad hominem and ostensibly writing about the rhetorical ploy of offering false attacks on those you disagree with, Odone goes on to offer several for Pratchett. She describes his position on assisted dying as being to “rubbish life”, says he suffers from an “emotional autism”, and finally decides that “For him, men (and women) are autonomous beings devoid of the connections that make life worth living.”

Anyone who’s heard Pratchett talking about why life, and the right for those suffering to end it, are important, would surely find it hard to support Odone’s interpretation of his position and motivation.

Moreover, it must be like waking up for a dream for Cristina Odone! Presumably she now regrets that her family wasted all that time reading all those life-denying, cold and un-funny, emotionally dead books full of disconnected characters in Pratchett’s meaningless world?

Link: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100084004/sir-terry-pratchett-poster-boy-of-assisted-suicide-has-the-bbc-doing-his-bidding/

The Daily Mail points out that Atkinson works for a “giant housing association”. That’s right: the giant, corporate whores who like to work for social housing organisations are crushing the little people, again. (The Daily Mail do like to stick it to da man in favour of championing the powerless working class, after all. That’s why their hereditary ownership by Conservative-supporting, non-domiciled Viscount Rothermere is so important to them.)

This time the massive international conglomerate housing association has been taking away the little people’s (non-existent) right to exhibit a religious belief while representing an employer.

Former soldier Colin Atkinson has been summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the giant housing association where he has been employed for 15 years because he refuses to remove the symbol.

Mr Atkinson, a regular worshipper at church, said: ‘The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical…but I will stand up for my faith.’

Throughout his time at work, he has had an 8in-long cross made from woven palm leaves attached to the dashboard shelf below his windscreen without receiving a single complaint.

But his bosses at publicly funded Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in West Yorkshire – the fifth-biggest housing organisation in England – have demanded he remove the cross on the grounds it may offend people or suggest the organisation is Christian. Mr Atkinson’s union representative said he faces a full disciplinary hearing next month for gross misconduct, which could result in dismissal.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377684/Electrician-Colin-Atkinson-faces-sack-Christian-cross-van-dashboard.html

The Telegraph manages to get as far as mentioning the Christian Legal Centre is “backing the case”, but also buys into the victimhood narrative…

Mr Atkinson’s battle follows a series of similar cases involving Christians who claim they are being victimised because of their faith.

… without noticing that all those similar cases are also “backed” by the CLC.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8456637/Electrician-faces-sack-for-displaying-Christian-cross-in-his-van.html

Lord Carey, whose anti-persecution campaign We Are Not Ashamed seemed to shame rather a lot of Christians last year, has also offered his two cents about the latest complaint. Atkinson is pictured, in the Daily Mail again (they love their pictures) wearing Not Ashamed t-shirts and embracing Carey’s unashamed backing:

[Carey] said it was ‘outrageous’ that Colin Atkinson had been told by the housing association he works for that he cannot show the Christian symbol of his faith on the dashboard.

… Lord Carey said last night: ‘It’s outrageous that anyone cannot display a small palm cross. This is political correctness gone mad once more.

‘I salute Mr Atkinson for his bravery and all Christians who quietly stand up for their faith…’

Quietly, and humbly. With pro bono assistance from Christian lawyers, an increasingly tabloid-friendly former archbishop, and a massive media campaign based on a handful of cases with no legal merit used to create the impression of widespread persecution. Quietly.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1377977/Former-Archbishop-Canterbury-Lord-Carey-says-Christian-cross-ban-outrageous.html

The problem of self-understanding is a perennial one. But even before you tackle it there is a prior problem: making sense of selfhood itself. What is a “self”? Given that we change physically and psychologically throughout life, what is it that somehow makes us remain the same person in spite of those changes? If I borrowed money from you 20 years ago, and in the interval much happened that drastically altered me, surely I still owe you that money nonetheless?

In this entertaining, educative and gracefully written book, Julian Baggini explores the question of the nature of the self and in what sense it persists through time. Ever since the philosopher John Locke devoted a chapter to the problem in the second edition of his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1692, these questions have been central to much philosophical enquiry.

But, as Baggini shows, they are not “merely” philosophical questions. Psychology, neurology, gender issues, brain tumours, head injuries and dementia, multiple personality, memory, social construction of personae, ideas about souls, reincarnation and the afterlife – all these are in some way relevant to the debate and Baggini considers them in pursuit of clarification, arguing that there are, indeed, answers to be found.

Continues: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/84eb910a-6165-11e0-a315-00144feab49a.html

The right to freedom of speech is one of the fundamental principles of democracy, and it is one which democratic societies are rightly very proud of. The right to freedom of speech includes the right, within limits, to say and write whatever we like about any subject. Putting aside the chances of being accused of slander, libel, or incitement to racial or religious hatred, the right to freedom of speech ensures that we are free to express ourselves and our opinions.

Treating all beliefs equally - Christina Martin's God Trump cards from New Humanist magazine

The right to free speech found its original justification in protecting people from authoritarian oppression because the concept enabled people to speak out against governments without fear of punishment. In addition to this and as a fundamental principle of liberalism, freedom of speech falls in line with other liberal rights as enabling the individual to do and say whatever they like as long as they don’t harm others. In other words, individual freedom is paramount. Furthermore, J. S. Mill thought that freedom of expression did not just ensure an individual’s freedom and happiness but that it might actually contribute to society by revealing better ways of living.

What is interesting about freedom of speech is that it is defended as being an important right of the person doing the speaking, writing or drawing (although Mill thought that free expression would eventually benefit society, this was arguably an added bonus and definitely came second to the idea of the right of the individual to be free). Is there another side to free speech? Can it be defended not only as a right of the speaker, but perhaps as a right of the listener also? If I have a right to say and write what I like, does it make sense to say I also have a right to hear and read what others say?

This sounds like a strange suggestion, but it may well turn out that free speech is important not only because of what it allows me to say and write, but because of what it forces me to hear and read as well. Consider the idea of religious offence.

Some religious believers find it incredibly offensive to hear criticisms of their beliefs, especially if these critiques take satirical or mocking forms. Perhaps the biggest example in recent history would be the Danish cartoon saga of 2005. Many Muslims, Christians and atheists found the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad deeply offensive, insulting and even racist. There was outcry; one side championed free speech and the other championed religious respect.

What was largely ignored in the debate however, was the possibility that satirical cartoons (and other forms of expression) of a religious figure or belief could be defended, not only on the principle of the individual’s right to express themselves, but because such ‘expressions’ demonstrate respect for the religious believer. This is not as bizarre as it sounds, although it does require a little more work than the simple free speech defence.

The case for this position can be made by understanding what “respect” means. There are many subtleties in the concept of respect but it can be stripped down to the fairly simple (and not so simple) idea that respecting something or someone means recognising what that object is, and recognising what characteristics make that object worthy of whatever we discern respectful treatment to be. So to respect a human being, I must recognise a ‘thing’ as belonging to the group ‘human being’, then I must acknowledge what aspect of being a ‘human being’ make such things worthy of being treated with respect. Then I must decide what respectful treatment actually entails. Crucially, the treatment we decide upon must make reference to the feature we found so respect-worthy. Phew.

So, what does that mean? Why do we think humans deserve this ‘respect’? Arguably, what marks humans out as beings worthy of the kind of respectful treatment we don’t think we owe to animals (few would claim it is equally disrespectful to mock a dog for example), is our rationality and our autonomy. This is the Kantian idea that what makes us worthy of certain treatment is our powers of reasoning and the ability to adopt and follow our own rules. It is true that many of our other features demand specific treatments or attitudes from others, for example our ability to feel pain means others are morally required to avoid (and protect us from) injury, but it is our features of rationality and autonomy that require others to treat us with what we call ‘respect’.

Deciding what respectful treatment of human beings actually entails must therefore recognise and refer to them as reasoning and autonomous beings. ‘Respectful treatment’ must therefore endorse and encourage the manifestation of reason and autonomy. Respectful treatment does therefore not entail backing quietly away from views which others might find offensive. In fact, exposing the potentially offended to these ‘offensive’ views is arguably the epitome of ‘respect’. A mocking, critical, offensive or challenging statement about religion requires the religious believer to use those powers of rationality and autonomy to either challenge in return, or assess and alter their own views. When we criticise anyone’s deeply held views in this way we are recognising that the believer has those rational powers and we are asking them to fulfil them. That is real respect.

Satirising religious views can therefore be defended not only because writers, artists, commentators and everyone else has the right to express themselves, but because the potentially offended have a right to have their powers of rationality and autonomy respected by those who disagree with them. The potentially offended have a right to see and hear material which simply by existing, recognises and respects the very features that qualify them as human beings.

Eve Hendrick is a Campaigns Volunteer at the British Humanist Association.

IHEU speakers at the conference included: president Sonja Eggerickx, vice presidents Andrew Copson, Mel Lipman and Roar Johnson, and international representative Matt Cherry. There was a great deal of enthusiasm for the work of IHEU and several groups expressed interest in joining IHEU, including new groups in the Philippines and Colombia.

Sonja Eggerick’s conference presentation on IHEU and its current activities and goals is available here:http://www.iheu.org/president-explains-international-humanist-work

The AHA conference featured awards to many distinguished Humanists. Writer and professor of philosophy Rebecca Goldstein was named the 2011 Humanist of the Year. Goldstein, a recipient of the Montague Prize for Excellence in Philosophy, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a MacArthur “Genius” Award, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. She has written many books, ranging from novels to philosophical biographies, including, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, and most recently, Thirty-Six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction.

Several other distinguished Humanists also received awards. Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers, received the Isaac Asimov Science Award. Judy Norsigan, executive director and founder of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, received the Humanist Heroine Award. Candace Gingrich-Jones, the Youth and Campus Outreach Associate Director at the Human Rights Campaign, was given the LGBT Humanist Pride Award. And Bart Ehrman, Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be receiving the Religious Liberty Award.

Link: http://www.iheu.org/american-humanist-conference-success

Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the man making the allegations, said he had been notified the papers were successfully filed through official diplomatic channels.

“Every time we make a step forward, as long as that takes, we are going in the right direction,” Anderson said. “And the direction we’re headed is a measure of accountability. We really believe that we need to put some heat on the Vatican to bring some light.”

The Vatican’s U.S.-based attorney, Jeffrey Lena, said Tuesday that he still has to evaluate the papers to determine whether they meet the requirements imposed by U.S. law.

“It’s premature to comment what will happen next in the case,” he said.

The lawsuit was filed nearly a year ago in federal court on behalf of Terry Kohut, now of Chicago. It claims Pope Benedict XVI and two other top Vatican officials knew about allegations of sexual abuse at St. John’s School for the Deaf outside Milwaukee and called off internal punishment of the accused priest, the Rev. Lawrence Murphy.

Full article: http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5icsvx0mcrbR3n3_u9KDl33BZ_iBw?docId=6546589

Overly religious elements in lessons about Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, and a planned trip to a Bible exhibition, had prompted the initial enquiries. The state-funded school is not even a ‘faith’ school, having “integrated community” status. But the school appeared, according to Mr Michael, inflexible in how it would handle his objections, unnecessarily extending his request to be removed from RE to other areas of school activities at a detriment to his son.

In a subsequent letter from Kirsteen Maclean, the school’s headteacher, he was told that removing his son, Anton, from religious education would have wider implications.

“Withdrawal from RE would also include him being withdrawn from all school assembly occasions and Christmas activities,” she said.

Link: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/council-pays-out-in-school-religion-row-1.1096037

The out-of-court settlement means that no liability has been accepted by the local authority and no legal precedent has been set.

Mr Michael has said he will donate the compensation money back to the school.

The burka and the niqab should be banned in Britain. They are a barrier to integration, a statement of hostility to the host country. Poor women who have been brainwashed into hiding their faces are victims, not martyrs. The burka is a not a sign of religion, but of subservience. When Atatürk outlawed the veil in Turkey in 1934 the result was a soaring rate of literacy among women and equality between the sexes was ushered in.

How dare Muhammad the Agony Uncle and his kind, all enjoying the benefits of a modern democracy, presume to give such advice as: “A female is encouraged to remain within the confines of her home as much as possible. She should not come out of the home without need and necessity.” Not in our country, mate.

The Islamist agony uncles and their imams should go somewhere where their musings on women will be more appreciated. Get on the A1, travel due south, gentlemen, and keep going for, oooh, about 1,000 years.

I have a final question for Muhammad’s problem page. What kind of a God would give a girl a voice, then keep her in a cage and never let her sing?

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/allison-pearson/8449101/We-too-should-ban-the-burka.html

* * *

A Catholic publication aimed at children  has been  slightly mistranslated, giving the impression that Catholics should use contraception. In a Q&A format on the subject of contraception the mistranslation accidentally rendered the text both laudable and reasonable (“a Christian couple can and must be responsible about their capacity of being able to give life”) forcing the publishers to withdraw it immediately.

* * *

Ricky Martin, a gay, is leading young people astray

Demonstrating astute moral sensitivities and a real sense of priority when it comes to the moral lives of young people, Cardinal Luis Aponte Martinez of San Juan, Puerto Rico, has told Ricky Martin that he should stop acting all gay, as his current persona will set a bad example for the yoof.

“Personally I admire Ricky for the great artistic gifts the Lord has given him,” the Cardinal opined, obviously a massive fan, perhaps obsessively so one might speculate, possibly attending his shows and putting up posters of ol’ Leather Pants on his bedroom wall, “but I implore him, for the love of his children …  to strive to be an example for our young people of the important values that we all share, including sexuality.” But not, apparently, including being true to yourself.

“In this way he will be thanking the Lord for the great gifts he has been given.” (God created Ricky Martin’s dancing abilities and singing talent, but had nothing to do with his sexuality.)

It’s okay though, because the Church “does not reject the homosexual person, but rather the actions and conduct that go against morality.” So being gay is okay in the abstract, it’s just acting gay or doing anything perceptibly gay that is wrong in the eyes of GOD Almighty.

* * *

Mental health is a personal attribute accruing to individual people. But is it possible for an organisation to be clinically insane? Bill Donohue’s “Catholic League” does it’s best to prove that it is. This week the League is very angry that the media-created sexual abuse scandal is still rolling on. The League complains that some of these so-called abuse claims go back years – shouldn’t these things just expire after a certain amount of time? – and has some excellent points to make on what’s really going on:

The refrain that child rape is a reality in the Church is twice wrong: let’s get it straight—they weren’t children and they weren’t raped. We know from the John Jay study that most of the victims have been adolescents…

Yeh, take that, all you critics of the Vatican cover-up. It’s adolescent rape, not child rape. Get it right.

In other, closely related news, a clergyman married to a divorcee being made a Bishop in the Church of England has never happened before.

And it’s the twenty-first century.

The Rev John Richardson tells concerned Telegraph readers why he’s all worried and stuff. (Stand by for some fretting of epic proportions.)

The announcement from Downing Street [for patently anachronistic reasons] that the Revd Nicholas Holtam, currently vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, has been nominated as the next Bishop of Salisbury poses great challenges for traditionalist Anglicans [who are expected to jump up and down and puff and blow and go red in the face] here and abroad, but it also raises serious questions about the functioning of the Crown Nominations Commission [serious questions such as: "Really, that's still the job of the Crown?!"], responsible for choosing Anglican bishops.

There have been rumours about Mr Holtam’s appointment for some time, principally because [Anglicans love to take tea and have a good natter, plus] he is married to a divorcee. Oddly enough, although the Church of England imposes certain restrictions on clerical ordination for those in that situation [okay I'll say it out loud again: being married to a divorcee... ooh, the thought just makes me shudder], there was no clarity about the consecration of bishops. At the last General Synod, however, such clarification was urgently sought and the suspicions of many people as to why seem now to have been confirmed. [Nice one, Sherlock.]

What is perhaps not realized is that the Church’s historical opposition to divorce goes back to the remarkably hard line taken by Jesus himself. Asked whether divorce was possible for any reason, he answered, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9, NIV).

[... blah blah Henry VIII blah the Pope blah pedantic point about the Apostle Paul blah blah ...]

For some people, therefore, the proposed consecration of Nicholas Holtam is a serious challenge to Church order. And indeed it may be — but the extent to which this is so clearly depends on the circumstances of his wife’s divorce.

This, however, took place in her teens, and it is obviously not for individuals to pry into why. [Despite which, I've obviously done a little bit of digging around myself, and I definitely am saying that her personal choices made as a married teenager some years ago essentially determine her moral worth in the eyes of me, the Church, Jesus and Almighty GOD Himself.]

The Rev John Richardson indeed presses on to rehearse the different categories of marital sin which may or may not apply to Mrs Holtam’s first marriage. It later transpires that the potential Bishop Holtam has previously expressed some sympathies (you guessed it) toward the idea that homosexuals might not be entirely devoid of the light of God; a radical thought which makes our author, Revd Richardson, feel he should like to have been more involved in the process of selection… of the gay-loving, radical, married-to-a-divorcee trendy vicar.

Some may feel it unfortunate or unworthy [and not very 'Christian'] that someone like myself [an important person] should be so critical of a man who has yet to take up his post on the very day his nomination is made public. My reply is simply [pish and posh, and] that if we’d been told earlier we could have had the proper discussions in a very different forum. [Instead of me speculatively dragging his wife's hypothetically tawdry past into the pages of the Telegraph, like I've just done.]

Ahh, isn’t the Church of England basically just all warm and fuzzy inside.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8446405/Bishops-married-to-divorcees-pose-serious-challenge-to-traditionalist-Anglicans.html

The event was co-hosted by the British Humanist Association, the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Centre for Inquiry UK, Oxford Atheists, Secularists and Humanist, Project Reason and Blackwell Books(!). A video from RDF will be available soon.

The BHA’s next event is the 2011 Voltaire Lecture. In the footsteps of Kenan Malik (2009) and Brian Cox (2010), this year classicist turned comedian, author and broadcaster Natalie Haynes will speak on what we modern folk have to learn from the ancients: “What the Romans and Greeks Did For Us”.

Science must consider atheism as naturalistically as it considers religion. The word describes a number of beliefs around which social structures may form, or may not. It clearly isn’t natural or any kind of human universal, since it is unknown in most cultures and at most times. But the same is true of any particular theological belief. They are all equally susceptible to sociological and psychological analysis.

The first two contributors, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (Institute for the Study of Secularism at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA) and Wendy M Grossman (Skeptic Magazine), paint a not unflattering picture of the evidence on the non-religious. Beit-Hallahmi notes that the non-religious are generally “younger, mostly male, with higher levels of education and income, more liberal, but also more unhappy and more alienated from wider society. Such findings have been reported in the US, Australia, and Canada.”

Irreligiosity is tied to greater political liberalism, and to being less prejudiced.

… The claim that atheists are somehow likely to be immoral or dishonest has long been debunked. Studies that looked at readiness to help or honesty showed atheists standing out, not the religious. When it comes to the more serious matter of violence and crime, ever since the field of criminology got started, and data collected of the religious affiliation of criminal offenders, the fact that the unaffiliated and the non-religious had the lowest crime rates has been noted.

Starting in 1925, LM Terman and his colleagues studied 1,528 gifted youth from California with IQ levels higher than 140 who were about 12 years old. Members of this group were followed up throughout life, and were found to be consistently irreligious. Studies on the religiosity of scientists and academics have shown consistently low levels of religiosity, and the prevalence of atheism. Moreover, the more eminent scientists were less religious than others.

… Can we speak about an atheist personality? A tentative psychological profile can be offered. We can say that atheists show themselves to be less authoritarian and suggestible, less dogmatic, less prejudiced, more tolerant of others, law-abiding, compassionate, conscientious, and well-educated. They are of high intelligence, and many are committed to the intellectual and scholarly life.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/apr/11/aetheists-research-scientists

Drawing mainly on research by one Jon Lanman, Wendy Grossman indicates that higher levels of irreligiosity are to be found when people are more “comfortable” and have less reason to start attributing agency and finding Fate where none exists.

[T]he US has massive inequality and a weak welfare state and a very small percentage of (open) non-theists. In the mid-20th century, Scandinavia built a very strong welfare state and now has a high percentage of non-theists.

Strong atheism, however, is a different matter: “Atheism can also be an identity,” [Lanman] said (just as religious beliefs can serve as markers for social groups), “though I wouldn’t call it a religion.” As an ideology, strong atheism tends to emerge under the threat of theocracy. Strong atheism found its public voice in the US under the twin stresses of George W Bush’s second term in office and 9/11′s demonstration of the worst dangers of fundamentalism.

“The UK,” Lanman concluded, “seems right in the middle between Scandinavia and the US.” The UK had Blair, and has blasphemy laws [ed: actually the blasphemy laws per se were abolished in 2008], a growing perception of the dangers of militant Muslims, and increasing numbers of faith schools – “but you don’t have Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee”.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/apr/12/strong-atheism-origin-religion

In the scheme, religiously and ethnically segregated children from different schools were brought together… for one afternoon. Half the children came from a Catholic school and were petty much entirely white, the other half from predominantly Muslim families and were all Asian, bar one black pupil. The second school is a community school, not a Muslim ‘faith’ school, but of course when pupils sharing some characteristics pool in one school in an area then there are always going to be corresponding effects on the remaining community schools, regardless of their admissions policies or “ethos”.

Manzoor accepts that “the very fact that Luton felt it needed this project suggests that the town has a real, and not only perceived, challenge on its hands”. But the overall tone is irony-free. Manzoor seems pleased with the “pioneering initiative” and talks about how the children quickly overcome fear and suspicion across a racial and religious divide by playing simple games (the article’s title is “Catholic and Muslim pupils find they have a lot in common”).  That the massive town-wide segregation of children by ethnicity and religion mandates something like the “Schools Linking Network initiative” in the first place seems to go entirely under the radar. There’s no explicit criticism of the fact that the school system itself is pulling the town’s children into perceptibly tribal camps from the outset.

Luton has become media shorthand for the failures of multiculturalism, having been both home to the Muslim extremists who jeered at British soldiers returning from Iraq and the birthplace for the extreme right English Defence League, which recently marched through the town. St Joseph’s, a faith school that is 49% white British, and William Austin, which is only 2.4% white British, are one of 10 pairs of contrasting schools that have been linked up.

… Hassan from William Austin admits he was a bit nervous at the start of the day because he has “never really met any Christians”. He is surprised to learn the children from St Joseph’s are more similar to him than he imagined. “I thought they’d be totally different – like a different kind of person, but actually they like the same football teams and the same food.”

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/12/school-twinning-catholic-muslim

The overall impression from the article itself is hopeful, in that the children are able to overcome divides that many adults wilfully allow to fester for generation after generation, but the impression from the wider context is tragic, in that these ten pairs of “contrasting” schools are ingraining such notions of alien people in the first place. How much harder will it be to bridge the gap between the same children again when they are teenagers, or later as suspicious adults, after years of their minds being narrowed by the social filters built into their very education?

If you’re going to cut something, why not abolish religious admissions criteria altogether, then you wouldn’t have to pay for sticking plaster “Linking” initiatives down the line after years of social disharmony.