Religion is not the source of morality

Letter to the Evening Standard, 5 July 2015

RE Melanie McDonagh’s article [Comment, June 1], any school that promotes values as uniquely “Christian” is giving their pupils a skewed and very poor understanding of ethics.

For too long we have ring-fenced religious ideas for privileged treatment in schools giving pupils the misleading impression that moral questions always need to be considered through a religious prism. They do not.

Replacing religious education with philosophy and ethics would enable future generations to take a more objective and religiously neutral approach to the consideration of moral and ethical issues.

Young people could still be taught about Christianity and other religious beliefs but not at the expense of all other ways of understanding the world in which they live.

Stephen Evans, National Secular Society

Creationism in action

See the crass, arrogant, ignorance bred by religious belief and pity her poor children.

Godblock

A Manual for Creating Atheists

 

 "Manual for Creating Atheists" by Peter Boghossian.

The Unicorn Delusion

Who has the burden of proof for an extraordinary claim? Those who make the claim or those who challenge the claim?

At first, it is quite reasonable to give benefit of the doubt to a man who makes a claim, such as "I have a unicorn in my garden". After all, we have not searched his garden and have no proof that he has no unicorn, and it seems reasonable to take the word of a man who has not been shown to lie. So reasonably, we take his word at face value and allow that he may indeed have a unicorn in his garden.

When we visit his home, we are interested to see the unicorn, but when asked the man says he has a big garden and the unicorn isn't around the house at the moment, but it is there nonetheless. We're disappointed, of course, but we have no reason to disbelieve him.

Later the man makes a moral judgement about our behaviour, such as "it is wrong to eat wheat on a Wednesday", and when asked why this is so, the man replies that his unicorn told him so. We are irritated by such judgement, and surprised that not only this man claims to have a unicorn, but that it can speak also. So we ask to see this unicorn and ask why it is wrong to eat wheat on a Wednesday. We search the garden with the man and find no unicorn, but have no proof that none exists. When challenged to produce the unicorn, the man now claims that the unicorn is invisible, and is in all parts of the garden at the same time.

Now the man's claim is looking extraordinary for a number of reasons:
1. We have never seen a unicorn, and they are popularly believed to be fictional;
2. We have never heard an animal speak, and most people accept that only humans speak;
3. The man changed his story to suit his needs as we enquired further about his talking unicorn;
4. We have never had experience of invisible animals, and invisibility has never been demonstrated; and
5. The concept of something being everywhere at once appears contradictory.

So we conclude that on the balance of probability, the man's claim is bogus and put the onus on him to prove the existence of his unicorn.

We tell the man not to be so silly and judgemental about our wheat eating habits, and go about our business, trying to avoid aggravating someone who appears not to have a firm grasp on reality.

Then we find that the man is a teacher is our children's school and is telling them that his unicorn is real, that they should not eat wheat on Wednesdays and other rules about how to live their lives which he cannot substantiate, other than by claiming his invisible unicorn told him so, and the children must believe him.

So now we are angry that our children are being indoctrinated and ask the school to stop him. When we find that the school governors are unicorn believers too, that none of them can prove the existence of unicorns either, but fully support the indoctrination of our children, we are outraged. We speak to local politicians and media, and mount a campaign to stop this silliness. But then the government, many members of whom turn out to believe in pixies or leprechauns, equally without foundation, object that we are trying to restrict people's right to believe what they choose to believe, and criticise us for being arrogant and intolerant.

We hold our heads in our hands, wondering how these people can be so deluded, and how we can have our children taught math, English and science, without all this mumbo-jumbo. We realise that it is we who are in the minority, and the world deluded.

~ Mark Beard

The Atheist's Tale

Petition for secular state education

This is a really important issue. We should just teach children to think for themselves and let them make their own minds about religion as they approach maturity.

http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/make-all-state-schools-secular-say-no-to-faith-run-state-schools

The Young Atheists' Handbook

Growing up in a strict Muslim community in south-east London, Alom Shaha learnt that religion was not to be questioned. Reciting the Qur'an without understanding what it meant was simply a part of life; so, too, was obeying the imam and enduring beatings when he failed to attend the local mosque. Shaha was more drawn to science and its power to illuminate. As a teen, he lived between two worlds: the home controlled by his authoritarian father, and a school alive with books and ideas. In a charming blend of memoir, philosophy, and science, Shaha explores the questions about faith and the afterlife that we all ponder. Through a series of loose lessons , he tells his own compelling story, drawing on the theories of some of history's greatest thinkers and interrogating the fallacies that have impeded humanity for centuries. Shaha recounts how his education and formative experiences led him to question how to live without being tied to what his parents, priests, or teachers told him to believe, and offers insights so that others may do the same. This is a book for anyone who thinks about what they should believe and how they should live. It s for those who may need the facts and the ideas, as well as the courage, to break free from inherited beliefs. In this powerful narrative, Shaha shows that it is possible to live a compassionate, fulfilling, and meaningful life without God.

The British Humanist Association would like to put a copy of The Young Atheist's Handbook (Reviews Here) in every secondary school library in England and Wales.
This means raising the funds to buy, package and post copies. and so make it available to students to read if they so choose.

Many young people are brought up in the faith of their family, without ever really having the chance to choose for themselves. School is where we go to learn how to ask questions. Making the book available through school libraries is a good first step in educating young people so that they can choose to exercise their freedom of choice. 

The costs over-all are heavily discounted thanks to Biteback Publishing, for each book to be packaged and sent to a secondary school library.

If you would like to help this BHA project there is an easy way of donating online through this JustGiving page. And please tell your friends and family about the campaign if you feel able. 

Charles Bukowski

Henry Charles Bukowski, 1920 – 1994, was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the ambience of his home city of Los Angeles and marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". (Wiki)

Women

"Here and now, everywhere, those with eyes to see can see for themselves that religion has for thousands of years perpetuated the oppression of half our species. Half of the great minds our peoples have produced have lived and died unknown and forgotten, their educations neglected, their lives spent doing laundry and other menial tasks for men — their merits unrecognized and buried under lies promulgated by religion, in cultures soaked in the destructive myths of faith which codify misogyny and give it a godly blessing.

Isn’t that reason enough to tear down the cathedrals — that with this one far-reaching, difficult change to our cultures, we double human potential?"~ P Z Myers

How religion survives . . .

Religion is a highly evolved idea that mimics the "Virus." It cannot survive on its own; it needs a host. It cannot replicate or perpetuate itself without this host and without taking control of the host. It infects the mind specifically and is so effective that it causes the host to defend it rather than reject it. 

It then gives psychological appeasement as it gestates and buries itself deep in the prefrontal cortex where it eventually builds a wall around itself with logical fallacies. It continues to barricade itself from any logic the host may try to use to uproot it until it is the core of its every thought; no thought will enter or leave the mind without the approval or refusal of the "viral idea." 

The prefrontal cortex is the seat of logic... so it destroys the very part of the brain that would be able to act as a "mental immune system." It is so effective at this that often times the host will make the declaration that it would rather sacrifice its life before sacrificing the ideology when confronted with evidence. It literally causes the host to defend it as its own invention; its own idea. 

Save your children from this psychological, predatory, self-defeating mental virus. Think of a prion; we do not know how to classify them on the scale of the living but the basic operation is understood - so is religion: perpetual by preying on weak minds. ~ Brandon Wiseman

Secularism

We could equally subscribe to exactly the same ideals in the UK especially with regard to the growing numbers of faith schools.

Eugenics

Poster on display in the Museum of London

With its espousal by the Nazi Party eugenics became almost  a  dirty word after WW2, but this was not always the case as this 1915 poster from the UK Board of Education shows. However no substantial government funding has ever gone into it, and the subject has now become subsumed into the bioethical debate. Some regard the modern techniques of genetic screening by prospective parents as a form of voluntary eugenics.

The arrogance of religion

"The fact that stares one in the face is that people of the greatest sincerity and of all levels of intelligence differ and have always differed in their religious beliefs. Since at most one faith can be true, it follows that human beings are extremely liable to believe firmly and honestly in something untrue in the field of revealed religion. One would have expected this obvious fact to lead to some humility, to some thought that however deep one's faith, one may conceivably be mistaken. Nothing is further from the believer, any believer, than this elementary humility. All in his power ... must have his faith rammed down their throats. In many cases children are indeed indoctrinated with the disgraceful thought that they belong to the one group with superior knowledge who alone have a private wire to the office of the Almighty, all others being less fortunate than they themselves." ~ Sir Herman Bondi

To Xmas and beyond . . .

Letter to the East Alien Dangly Times in response to some religious nuts

Reproduced from Flashmaggie's Posterous.

Dear Sir,

The responses that you’ve published to P J Davison’s assertion (26 September) that we should greet the decline of religious broadcasting with “Good riddance!” were predictable, but full of inaccuracies, particularly on science and evolution.

A R Wainwright of Halstead wrote, “You can’t always see electricity, nor touch, taste, hear or smell it – yet it can be powerful enough to kill you. What makes the spiritual world so different?” Evidence, Mr/Ms Wainwright, that’s the difference. There’s no evidence for any spiritual world, but try telling your energy supplier that there isn’t any for electricity; that’s what meters are for. And just try touching it if you dare!

Richard Martin asserts that “more and more scientists are abandoning belief in evolution.” More and more? In 2006, the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian “think tank”, published an anti-evolution letter signed by 514 “doctoral scientists”. However, a majority of those “scientists” were evangelical Christians without any expertise in the biological sciences, hence no more expert than any lay creationist, such as Mr Martin. The institute letter was published in response to another letter published the day before by the Alliance for Science, which was signed by over 10,000 clergy, scientists and educators who oppose the teaching of creationism in schools. A 1991 Gallup poll found that only 5% of US scientists identified themselves as creationists. Earlier this month in the UK, top scientists and educationalists, including Sir David Attenborough and a leading science educator who’s an Anglican priest, together with the Association for Science Education, the British Humanist Association, the British Science Association, the Campaign for Science and Engineering, and Christian beliefs and values think tank Ekklesia, have put their names to a statement calling for the teaching of evolutionary science, not creationism, in school science classrooms. Far from “more and more”, it’s fewer and fewer, Mr M.

Your correspondents who wrote to defend religious broadcasting are in a small minority. 5 years ago, media watchdog Ofcom asked viewers what types of programming they most valued on the terrestrial channels. Of the 17 genres identified, religious broadcasting came 16th. Considering that we all pay a licence fee yet very few people watch or listen to the religious output, I’d argue that we should have far less.

Margaret Nelson

The Magic of Reality

Richard Dawkins on BBC2 Newsnight.

The Magic of Reality

BHA campaign against Faith Schools

Help support the ongoing British Humanist Association's campaign to abolish Faith Schools in the UK.

 http://justgiving.com/nofaithschool

BHA petition to abolish collective worship in UK schools

Responsible department: Department for Education

"As it stands, the law requires all schools to hold an act of collective worship every day. Even in schools that aren’t ‘faith’ schools, this must be ‘broadly Christian’ in character. In a society which is increasingly diverse, this is an affront to the rights of young people to express their beliefs freely. Although there is the opportunity to opt out, this is reliant on parental permission and is not respected by all schools. The law is extremely unpopular, with opinion polls showing teachers don’t want it, parents don’t want it, and children don’t want it. As such, it is long past time for the daily act of collective worship to be replaced with inclusive assemblies that add to cohesion and a sense of community within the school. We petition the Government to repeal the requirement for compulsory collective worship in schools and to encourage schools to hold educational assemblies that will include all children, regardless of religion or non-religious belief."

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/2086

Teach evolution - not creationism

A new petition on HM Government's website:-

"Creationism and ‘intelligent design’ are not scientific theories, but they are portrayed as scientific theories by some religious fundamentalists who attempt to have their views promoted in publicly-funded schools. At the same time, an understanding of evolution is central to understanding all aspects of biology. Currently, the study of evolution does not feature explicitly in the National Curriculum until year 10 (ages 14-15). Free Schools and Academies are not obliged to teach the National Curriculum and so are under no obligation to teach about evolution at all. We petition the Government to make clear that creationism and ‘intelligent design’ are not scientific theories and to prevent them from being taught as such in publicly-funded schools, including in ‘faith’ schools, religious Academies and religious Free Schools. At the same time, we want the Government to make the teaching of evolution in mandatory in all publicly-funded schools, at both primary and secondary level."