~bma / journal / tags / religion

Ed writes that he finds atheists depressing when they throw away the "real message" of religion.

As an atheist, I have to agree – though it depends what "the real message" is. I grew up believing that Christianity taught that being a good person was what got you into heaven; it was only when I started university that I learned that actually, it’s believing in Jesus that gets you into heaven (or, more accurately, they redefine "good" to mean "believing in Jesus"). This is what put me off religion, long before I ever read The God Delusion.

You can’t even, unfortunately, argue that that’s an issue with the Church and not the religion, since it has its roots in a verse from the Bible, where Jesus is quoted as saying "nobody gets into heaven except through me" (more or less). The problem is, though, that despite the reasonable moral guidance provided by religious figures such as Jesus, they get overshadowed by the bits that give the Church power to control people, and that is why I object to religion.

Sure, you may say that the crappy church is not a good reason to avoid religion as a whole – but what other reason is there to pay any attention to it? Morality doesn’t require some Israeli carpenter/hippy to make it moral, or a Saudi merchant, Nepalese prince, or Prussian writer, and it’s perfectly possible to live a moral life without paying attention to some cosmic Jewish zombie and his imaginary friend.

So, serious question: what, exactly, is religion needed for? Answers on a postcard.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/06/all-time-classic-creationist-pwnage/

Biologist Richard Lenski recently published a paper describing the emergence of new traits in bacteria (they evolved the ability to metabolise new food sources when kept in an environment without food they could already metabolise). Andrew Schlafly, founder of that paragon of scientific endeavour Conservapedia [1] [2], got very upset by this and demanded to see the evidence. Lenski responded quite politely, but after further demands, threats, and insults, replies with an impressively snotty letter.

Wow, what an astonishing lot of bollocks this Cardinal Rouco has come out with. Typically for a Catholic spokesman [1], he manages to make a lot of claims (about how wonderful and perfect "God’s law" is) without even a shred of evidence – after all, why would he need evidence? He’s speaking on behalf of God!

I especially love the nonsense he’s spouting about "biological limits". Though he’s far from clear, I think he’s trying to make two points: a) that legal rights for gay people have come about because of "gender ideology" – feminism? – and b) that "gender ideology" is somehow opposed to human biology. I can’t be bothered commenting any further on this bigot.

So, if you hadn’t heard, the Californian Supreme Court recently overturned a law that banned same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, deeming any law that restricted the rights of homosexual couples to marry to be discriminatory. This is frankly excellent news, as apparently it’s inspired several other states to attempt the same thing.

The utterly predictable reaction of the conservative religious lot, of course, was to rant and rave about the need to protect the sanctity of marriage and defend the family and so on (incidentally, one of the bills attempting to make same-sex marriage legal, in Minnesota, was entitled the "Marriage and Family Protection Act" – oh, the irony). A fun quote from some conservative nutjob: "No matter how you stretch California’s Constitution, you cannot find anywhere in its text, its history or tradition that now, after so many years, it magically protects what most societies condemn," says Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel. Well, sorry, but a) the fact that most societies condemn it doesn’t make it wrong, and b) the fact that it hasn’t been interpreted specifically as protecting gay people in the past doesn’t mean that it doesn’t – or do you expect it to explicitly list every single group who’re entitled to equal rights? (I’d suggest that California’s constitution may be old enough not to explicitly list women and black people as deserving of rights, and ask if that means they should be considered inferior, but I’m worried he’d say yes.)

Then it hit me. Racist groups like the BNP say that it’s not that they hate people who aren’t white – it’s just that they want to help white people, to defend them in the face of the rampaging hordes of illegal immigrants (and legal ones, and people whose grandparents moved to England in the Fifties, and so on). Homophobic groups like the Catholic Church [1] say that it’s not that they hate gay people, it’s just that they want to protect straight people’s right to get married, and have all sorts of legal and financial benefits (if I remember correctly, married couples in the US get something like 1,000 different benefits that unmarried couples aren’t entitled to).

Bigotry is all the same, no matter who it’s directed at. Hopefully, one day people will learn to keep their neuroses to themselves, and allow the rest of us to live our lives without paying attention to what their imaginary friend tells them.

In reply to my last post, Rich points out that the "wizardry" wasn’t the only reason he was fired, but also things like failing to stick to a lesson plan, and so on. While that’s fair enough, and completely justifiable, that’s really not the point I was trying to make.

These people, in complete seriousness, described a simple conjouring trick as "wizardry". They are demonstrating serious craziness, of the "shouldn’t be allowed out in public" variety. When your religious strictures against "magic" and "witchcraft" and "wizardry" lead you to burn childrens’ books, ban conjuring tricks, and denounce Easter eggs as "satanism", then there’s really no help for you.

(Also, quite frankly, if he’s a crap teacher then fire him for that. Don’t blame it on "wizardry", it makes you look even more stupid than you already do.)

On a lighter note, a comment from Julian Elson made me grin:

Even if Piculas is a wizard, the toothpick trick described is probably, like, a cantrip at most. Maybe prestidigitation or something. Surely it’s not all that worth getting worked up about. It’s not as if he baleful polymorph‘ed a disruptive student or anything.

Apparently, a substitute teacher in America was fired for – wait for it – wizardry. Seriously. The exact word, "wizardry", was used. Apparently he’d shown the kids a magic trick where he made a toothpick disappear and reappear.

I’m really very scared right now.

Apparently, Muslim scientists (and clerics, of course) want to make Mecca, rather than Greenwich, the timezone around which the others are calculated. Their reasoning: Mecca is the "true centre of the Earth", because it’s in perfect alignment with the Magnetic North Pole.

Now, unlike the person who brought up that last point, I’m not a geologist, but even I know that the Magnetic North Pole moves. It just happens to be in line with Mecca now.

Aside from that, GMT no longer exists–the international time reference has been UTC since 1972, which is based on TAI (which you can blame on the French). I would expect "scientists" throwing a hissy-fit about it to at least get the terminology right.

The most pertinent question, though, is why? The article says that "it’s about time that [the situation] changed"–but why? What good would it do, other than making your religion feel important? The prime meridian isn’t just a case of time, but of geographical measurements too, and without a good reason to move it it’s easily more trouble than it’s worth. "Our way would be better" is not a good argument when a) it’s only subjectively better, and b) the benefit is minimal and the detriment is vast.

Also, I object to the flagrant misuse of the terms "English" and "Britain", though I don’t know whether this is the article’s fault or the fault of the person being quoted. England was never a "big colonial power"; Britain was, and so was the United Kingdom; GMT dates from 1847, so UK would be correct (the article tries both England/English and Britain/British, both of which are wrong). However, if you must be wrong, be consistent: make up your mind whether you’re talking about England and the English, Britain and the British, or the UK and the UKians.

Pursuant to this, I would like to recommend that Dr. Williams be removed from any and all positions of authority and seek psychiatric help. A perfect example of someone whose beliefs are crazy–suggesting that people should, basically, be able to pick and choose whether they follow the secular law or their religious law.

Uh, no. Everybody follows the laws of the country they are resident in. If they also choose to subject themselves to religious law, that’s their problem, but that doesn’t excuse them from also following the secular law. If I was to start a religion that required adherents to perform human sacrifice, even the most ardent proponents of religious tolerance would not try to prevent my prosecution, and rightly so. The fact that it’s a religious requirement does not change the fact that some things are just wrong and/or crazy.

(Note that I have no problems with anybody choosing to follow Sharia law, Jewish law, or anything else, assuming that it’s entirely within British law. However, given that Sharia law apparently requires the death sentence for certain crimes, I don’t believe that it’s possible.)

More generally, the fact that some people "do not relate to the British legal system" is something only an utter lunatic would use as justification for excusing said people from the law; usually, people who do not relate to the law are referred to as "criminals". (Of course, if the law is wrong, then it’s justifiable; an example would be laws against homosexuality. There is, however, no evidence given that the laws are in any way unjust; it’s merely that some people don’t want to follow them.)

In essence, it appears that although non-religious people have to respect Christian rules (the supposed "sanctity" of marriage and of life, as far as same-sex marriages, abortion, and euthanasia go), religious people don’t necessarily have to respect secular laws. This is heading worryingly close to noted Christian nutjob Mike Huckabee, and his claims that it’s necessary "to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards…".

Update: An interesting reply to Dr. Williams’s comments.

Okay, a few things that I’ve heard about recently have pissed me off.

First, Bruce Schneier talks about security versus privacy, making the point that the dichotomy is a false one. He argues the point very well, but it’s something he quoted that inspires me to rant:

"Privacy no longer can mean anonymity," says Donald Kerr, principal deputy director of national intelligence. "Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people’s private communications and financial information." Did you catch that? You’re expected to give up control of your privacy to others, who — presumably — get to decide how much of it you deserve. That’s what loss of liberty looks like.

Earlier in the article, Schneier uses the term "Orwellian" [1]; it’s this quote, though, to which the term could really be applied. Ignoring the poor grammar, what the director is doing is redefining a word to suit his (or rather, the US government’s) purposes. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is scary not because it’s a depiction of a totalitarian regime, but because most of the inhabitants don’t even realise it is; the Party’s eventual goal is to make rebellion literally unthinkable, by altering the meanings of, or removing altogether, any words that might lead to "thoughtcrime". This is exactly the same: redefining "privacy" so that people don’t even realise they no longer have the rights they did in past decades. The hypothetical future regime will argue that its citizens still have the right to complete privacy, and that it respects its citizens rights in this regard (and, it is entirely possible, others), and it will be absolutely true, for a given value of "private".

Leading on from this is a debate I had with Carl and Ed regarding the police’s powers to investigate someone without evidence. It started as a discussion of TV licensing, in which the point was made that, if I didn’t have a TV, I wouldn’t allow the TV licensing people into my house to confirm the fact; rather, I’d expect them to have actual evidence that I’d committed a crime, and to get a warrant first (since, if they have evidence, a warrant should be easy to get). The discussion went on to random breath tests; I’d consider myself perfectly within my rights not to submit to one unless the police had actual reason to believe that I might be drunk. The problem is not that the invasions of privacy are particularly onerous, but that there’s a slippery slope; accepting one invasion of privacy makes it harder to justify your refusal to accept the next.

My final point is unrelated, but I’ve just finished reading Dawkins’ The God Delusion (review forthcoming). It hadn’t really occurred to me before (though I’ve certainly encountered enough in the past few weeks) that people actually believe that the Bible is literally true. Respecting other peoples’ beliefs is all well and good, but there comes a point where it’s necessary just to say "No! You’re wrong! Your beliefs are crazy, stop it now!". That point is usually the point when the leader of an extremely powerful nation claims that God talks to him and tells him what to do.

Came across this news article, in which some random bishop is quoted as saying:

"Multiculturalism is stirring up lots of problems. This should be a country that is tolerant of other cultures but they should be minority cultures and not equal. To expect every religion to be equal to Christainity [sic] is dangerous.

"It stirs up resentment between many people and can lead to extreme political parties and far right movements which I don’t agree with."

Wait…what? Allowing people to be equal leads to groups like the BNP existing? So, to get rid of the BNP, all we have to do is make sure that white, heterosexual, Christian males have all the power, and everybody else is inferior to them. In other words, to get rid of the BNP we need to do exactly what they want.

Bloody hell. For your own sake, please, think before you speak.

(He does, of course, have a point. If white, heterosexual, Christian males had all the power, then the BNP wouldn’t have any need to exist, so in a sense, treating everybody as equal does lead to extreme far-right groups existing. However, the solution to that is to get rid of the extreme far-righters, not the equality. So, I’ll just point out that I think this bishop is an arsehole and be done with it. Hey, I bet that if the USA hadn’t abolished slavery, the KKK would never have existed either.)