"The purpose of this event is to set a particular day as a day to support free speech, support the right to criticize and satirize religion, and to oppose any resolutions or laws, binding or otherwise, that discourage or inhibit free speech of any kind. The focus on 'blasphemy' is simply because it is such a salient issue, and one for which a lot of consciousness-raising is necessary."
The tag line "Ideas don't need rights, people do" is an apt one. Blasphemy is irreverence toward holy personages, religious artifacts, customs, and beliefs.
A very powerful tool of social commentary is satire: "vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon."
No ideas should be above criticism, whatever the form - if they're good enough, they'll survive.
I'm sure we've all heard that in an American survey (full report), those that know the most about religion are atheists/agnostics.
You can take a shortened version of the test (I got 15 out of 15, but must confess, one answer was based on a guess, and another question I was fairly sure I was right, but thought it could have been another answer).
* Many atheists left religion in the first place because we learned too much about our faith.
* Atheists pay attention when we hear religious groups make ridiculous statements.
* Atheists tends to be better educated than the rest of the population.
Not much more to say really. Here are the results:
Question & % of survey respondents answering correctly
1. Which Bible figure is most closely associated with leading the exodus from Egypt? 72
2. What was Mother Teresa's religion? 82
3. Which of the following is NOT one of the Ten Commandments? 55
4. When does the Jewish Sabbath begin? 45
5. Is Ramadan…? 52
6. Which of the following best describes the Catholic teaching about the bread and wine used for Communion? 40
7. In which religion are Vishnu and Shiva central figures? 38
8. Which Bible figure is most closely associated with remaining obedient to God despite suffering? 39
9. What was Joseph Smith's religion? 51
10. According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to lead a class in prayer, or not? 89
11. According to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is a public school teacher permitted to read from the Bible as an example of literature, or not? 23
12. What religion do most people in Pakistan consider themselves? 68 (Wasn't 100% sure on this one)
13. What was the name of the person whose writings and actions inspired the Protestant Reformation? 46
14. Which of these religions aims at nirvana, the state of being free from suffering? 36
15. Which one of these preachers participated in the period of religious activity known as the First Great Awakening? 11 (Guessed this one)
He writes about assessing the true number of Catholics in the UK, no easy task. He gives three ways of finding out this figure. He starts by showing how baptism is not a good marker as people leave religions. Baptismal figures (estimated from “Religion one was brought up in” – this does seem a fair proxy) come out at 14% of the population baptised as Catholics. He then presents a false dichotomy. The remaining two ways, he says, are to ask people what their religion is, or to ask Catholic priests about the numbers of their flocks. I think there would be more than two ways to find out this figure – but before that, let’s first start with a definition. What counts as a Catholic? This isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds, the comedian Dara O’Briain puts it well:
He may be a “bad” Catholic, but I hope we can all agree, that for the purposes of counting the number of Catholics in the UK (yes, I know he’s Irish, but is a more entertaining and amusing way of illustrating my point), a “bad” Catholic like this shouldn’t be counted.
The blog post finishes:
"The wide range of answers is significant in two ways. The first is – to labour the point – that none has been obtained by counting baptisms. At the very least, they measure the people prepared to say, when asked, that they are Roman Catholics. The second is that this carries a wide range of meanings. It certainly doesn't mean that there are 4 or 5 million people who agree with the pope about everything. But that's not how religions work in any case. It's certainly not the way atheism works."
This is true, people may well call them selves Catholics (more on this in a bit) – but how much of the Catholic Churches teaching can be dropped before the individual stops being counted as a Catholic, along the lines in the video above? This is more a rhetorical question. It’s not going to be as simple as a checklist, with x% and above of belief in Catholic dogma meaning a “good” Catholic, and anything less a "bad" Catholic. I do think at the very least, however, there should be some sort of belief in God. Also, some practice of the religion. It’s a difficult one. I don’t profess to know the answer.
This is where we get on to my third option. We could ask: Do you regularly practice a religion? If so, which religion, and how often? This is, of course, won’t be perfect either. Many people may slip out of the habit of going to Church, praying etc but still regard themselves as “good” Catholics.
The two options of Brown’s are likely to give us higher answers. It’s a peculiarity of the UK, that whilst we are becoming one of the most secular countries in the world, we’re not quite up for leaving “Religion” blank on forms. The British Humanist Association recently highlighted this. People who nominally call themselves Catholics may not fit the definition of a Catholic. This is important, as for example, they don't believe any dogma; don't go to Mass; are happy for men to have sex with men; gay couples to adopt children; women to be ordained; contraception to be worn; and stem cell research to go forward, so would it really be meaningful for them to be included in the numbers?
Asking Priests the size of their congregations can also be tricky – is it just Mass attendance. Does he include the husband and children of the lady who comes to Mass each week, but the rest of the family are somewhat more lax with their Catholicism?
To be sure, it is hard to estimate the numbers of people that hold a belief system. But let’s not make it harder by restricting avenues of finding this out (like basing figures on active practicing of a religion), even if they give lower numbers than would be liked. Church attendance is falling across the board.
However, we must concede that when Richard Dawkins says:
"Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Or at least he was as much a Roman Catholic as the 5 million so-called Roman Catholics in this country today. For Hitler never renounced his baptismal Catholicism, which was doubtless the criterion for counting the 5 million alleged British Catholics today. You cannot have it both ways. Either you have 5 million British Catholics, in which case you have to have Hitler too. Or Hitler was not a Catholic, in which case you have to give us an honest figure for the number of genuine Catholics in Britain today – the number who really believe Jesus turns himself into a wafer, as the former Professor Ratzinger presumably does."
It’s not entirely fair, as if we do count the number of baptisms, we get a higher number of UK Catholics than the Catholic Church use. However, is it unfair to include Hitler among the number of the world’s deceased Catholics? Well, he never renounced his faith, and he did say stuff like this:
"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so" [Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]
So no, it's not unfair at all, here's maybe what Richard Dawkins should have said:
"Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Or at least he was as much a Roman Catholic as the 5 million so-called Roman Catholics in this country today. For Hitler called himself a Catholic, which was doubtless the criterion for counting the 5 million alleged British Catholics today. You cannot have it both ways. Either you have 5 million British Catholics, in which case you have to have Hitler too. Or Hitler was not a Catholic, in which case you have to give us an honest figure for the number of genuine Catholics in Britain today – the number who really believe Jesus turns himself into a wafer, as the former Professor Ratzinger presumably does."
Over at Nick Baines' blog, I was alerted to this quote from Terry Eagleton:
"Religion has wrought untold misery in human affairs. For the most part, it has been a squalid tale of bigotry, superstition, wishful thinking, and oppressive ideology. I therefore have a good deal of sympathy with its rationalist and humanist critics. But it is also the case… that most such critics buy their rejection of religion on the cheap. When it comes to the New Testament, at least, what they usually write off is a worthless caricature of the real thing, rooted in a degree of ignorance and prejudice to match religion’s own. It is as though one were to dismiss feminism on the basis of Clint Eastwood’s opinion of it."
Now, I might be rejecting the New Testament as I have only got a caricature of the real thing, but I don't think so. I have actually read the New Testament (not all of the Old. It's rather heavy going), and with the help of The Brick Testament, will explain why you can reject the New Testament too. (Yes, the Brick Testament is the Bible in Lego). Here we go:
...then you are disobeying Jesus, and are quite clearly following your own heart when it comes to morality, and not blindly following the Bible. I applaud you for this. Alas, your God does not, he will burn and curse you.
Now, these are actual parts of the Bible. If we are allowed to reject them, why not other bits? What is the basis for choosing which bits of the Bible are good and which are totally abhorrant?
You may see this as a caricature of the real thing, but this stuff is actually *in the Bible*. Are we to follow it or not? If not, why should we follow the other stuff? There are good bits in the Bible, to be sure, but then there are good bits in Bill and Ted (Be excellent with each other), and many other works of fiction (and non-fiction).
I hope we've already established that parts of the Bible can be taken out. Just to make sure though, here's a Jesus Original (TM) from the New Testament:
Luke 14:26 'If anyone does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.'
This may be a cheap caricature (that's been illustrated by passages from the Bible), but until someone can tell me why certain bits of the Bible can be rejected, and others not, then I shall continue to reject the New Testament, and the Bible (apart from the bits I like).
Well, Jack of Kent predicted that if any of the Terry Jones nonsense hit the UK, arrests would be made. He was right.
This is a disgrace. Burning books may be (in my opinion) a very silly thing to do, but, if you own a book, and wish to burn it, that is your right. Further more, posting a video on You Tube of the incident is not inciting racial hatred, as, from what I've seen reported, it was just a video of them burning the books.
Had they had a running commentry in which they were instructing people to go and cause violence and harm to Muslims, then that's another story.
Any Muslim reaction to a Koran being burnt is the fault of the Muslim. The correct kind of reaction would be to explain in a video of your own, a letter, a book, why such an act has upset. A video would be best - if people could see the genuine upset it has caused you, for it is very offensive to you, then people may think twice. Indeed, the very reason I have this blog, and don't use my name, is to avoid religious friends of mine reading it, and me losing them as friends. I value them too much to fall out over their silly superstitions. Here, I can express myself freely. You should try it.
If I had a Koran now, I would burn it and post the video here in protest at the infringement of free speech. But I do not. You will have to, instead, make do with Philip Pullman explaining that no one has the right to go through life without getting offended:
Well, now the Pope has thankfully left the UK, as is custom, he has summed up his visit saying that "Christianity is still strong and active" in the UK. Whilst I"m all for people changing their minds given the evidence (for, his initial address was on the threat from us nasty, Nazi, atheists), this isn't actually the case, though his conclusion is unsurprising given that he must have spent his time surround by sychophants.
With over 170 distinct religions counted in the 2001 Census, the religious make-up of the UK is diverse, complex, multicultural and surprising. Less than half of the British people believe in a God, yet about 72% told the 2001 census that they were Christian, and 66% of the population have no actual connection to any religion or church, despite what they tend to write down on official forms. Between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday. Religion in Britain has suffered an immense decline since the 1950s, and all indicators show a continued secularisation of British society in line with other European countries such as France.
The decline has been nicely visualised (do check out that link, it's report that goes with this graphic):
There was a picture of the pope holding a golden swastika, which the organisers apparently took down later, as offensive. I don't know why, since Richard Dawkins later published on his web site the speech he meant to deliver, comparing every Catholic in Britain to Adolf Hitler: "Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Or at least he was as much a Roman Catholic as the 5 million so-called Roman Catholics in this country today", although in the event he said something less gratuitously provocative: "Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic ... If the church wants to claim [5m Britons] as Catholics, then they have to claim Hitler as a Catholic".
Adolf Hitler was a Roman Catholic. Or at least he was as much a Roman Catholic as the 5 million so-called Roman Catholics in this country today. For Hitler never renounced his baptismal Catholicism, which was doubtless the criterion for counting the 5 million alleged British Catholics today. You cannot have it both ways. Either you have 5 million British Catholics, in which case you have to have Hitler too. Or Hitler was not a Catholic, in which case you have to give us an honest figure for the number of genuine Catholics in Britain today – the number who really believe Jesus turns himself into a wafer, as the former Professor Ratzinger presumably does.
This is quite different, I think you'll agree. If you've the time, read the whole piece, it's worth it.
A lot of people seem turned off by Dawkins, because of how he's reported (it's the impression that I get), which is a shame, as he is a superb writer, and has written some of my favourite books.
If people could read what he has to say, not what people have thought he's said, or, at the very least, take the full context of what he says, then that would be a good start.
It firstly makes the claim that religion and science are compatible, because there are religious scientists. But this is like claiming that peadophilia and religion are compatible because there are child raping priests.
It further takes about the flagella:
"Today, supporters of the Intelligent Design movement find evidence of the power and goodness of God in the rotating tail or "flagellum" of the E. coli bacterium.
For some it is a surprise, perhaps, to learn that the clearest sign of God's intelligence is to be found in a nasty vomiting bug."
If this is the clearest sign, then, well case closed on God.
The BBC should know better than push a creationist canard like this.
"Science and religion have had the kind of close and troubled relationship you would expect between siblings or even spouses. They share not only wonder at the majesty of the world we can see, but also a desire to find out what's behind it that we can't." Really? I always thought religion had the answer for everything - "God did it". Science always asked questions, religion stops them, precisely because, if it doesn't understand something, it will claim that God did it. Rather neatly summed up here.
It finishes:
That emotional and intellectual hunger will endure longer than Professor Hawking's M-theory, and those wishing to take a truly scientific attitude may be better advised to follow the lead of the great Victorian agnostic Thomas Huxley who, in one of the last things that he wrote before he died asked "Is it not better to keep silence about matters which speech is incompetent to express; to be content with revolving in the deeps of the mind the infinite possibilities of the unknown?"
I think instead, we can go with Christopher Hitchens:
I've created this blog to vent my frustrations at religion, I hope you enjoy reading it, but this is more just an out let for my thoughts. The Pope's visit, and this particular BBC Thought for the day tipped me over the edge. I know it's a bit old, but I've only just had the time to get this blog going. I've posted the whole text, as I'm not sure if these are kept indefinitely.
Thought for the Day, 8 September 2010 Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks
"Tonight is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the Festival that celebrates the anniversary of creation, the moment God said "Let there be," and there was. So it was with a wry smile that I read the headline last week about scientist Stephen Hawking who said: we don't need God to explain creation. The universe created itself. If this sounds like a new challenge to religion, it isn't. It is one of the oldest of all. For more than 2000 years until relatively recently, there was a much bigger challenge to the idea that God created the universe. It came from the philosopher Aristotle, who held that there was no creation, because matter is eternal. There never was a beginning to the universe. It was only in 1964, that Arno Penzias, who as a Jewish child was rescued by the British from Nazi Germany, identified with Robert Wilson the cosmic microwave background radiation that finally established what we now call Big Bang. The universe did have a beginning after all. But there's something surreal about this whole line of thought. Religion isn't science and science isn't religion. And the best way of seeing this is through Rosh Hashanah itself. Try this thought experiment. Suppose scientists could determine exactly the moment the universe sprang into existence. Would that change your life? Would it make any difference at all? Would you celebrate? Would you hold an annual holiday to commemorate that moment? Can you even remember the date the human genome was decoded? And that was only ten years ago. No. Religion and science are different things and we need them both. Science is about explanation. Religion is about meaning. There's a view expressed by Epicurus, Nietzsche and Nobel Prize winning physicist Steve Weinberg, that life is meaningless. I don't mean individual lives. We each live, and dream, and pursue our dreams. But on their view, the universe is blind to our existence, indifferent to our suffering. We are born, we live, we die, and it is as if we had never been. On Rosh Hashanah we dare to believe otherwise: that life does have meaning; that there is a Presence, vaster than the universe yet closer to us than we are to ourselves, who lifts us when we fall, and forgives us when we fail. Can I prove this? No. But this I know, that the mightiest empires have come and gone. The tiny people whose faith I share is still here, still bearing witness to the living God."
Well, firstly, let's try the thought experiment: Suppose scientists could determine exactly the moment the universe sprang into existence. Would that change your life? Possibly not, but I'm not religious. It may very well change some religious people's lives (but not all, look at creationists). I don't see that this matters. Would it make any difference at all? Only in so far as ground breaking science makes a difference to us all. Would you celebrate? Yes - cracking excuse for a party. Think of the fancy dress options! Would you hold an annual holiday to commemorate that moment? I would welcome another national holiday. This could be dedicated to a celebration of scientific advance. Can you even remember the date the human genome was decoded? No. So?
And that was only ten years ago. No. Religion and science are different things and we need them both.
Yes they are different, no we do not need them both.
Ah, yes, and here's this old chestnut "Science is about explanation. Religion is about meaning."
The universe is indeed cold and indifferent to us, but why does that matter? Why does one need religion to bring meaning to one's life? Does that statement mean, that, without religion, my life has no meaning; or, that without having a religion, I can't find what the meaning of my life is? It's a little offensive.
We all see meaning where there is none. For example, this links to a moving circle, two triangles and some lines. Some people find it horrific and harrowing viewing. We may want to see meaning everywhere, but we must understand that wanting there to be meaning all the time is just a psychological product of our mind.
The universe is blind to our existence, indifferent to our suffering. We are born, we live, we die, but it is not as if we had never been. Alan Turing. His life had meaning. He was an atheist, sadly driven to suicide by religious-inspired laws against homosexuality. The fact you are reading this is proof that it is not as if he had never been. Now true, Lord Sacks did say "I don't mean individual lives. We each live, and dream, and pursue our dreams.", but he did follow that up with "We are born, we live, we die, and it is as if we had never been." I'm not sure what he means by "we" here.
If we are to take "we", as a species, then we've been here (give or take) take 200,000 years. What meaning did their lives have back then, before his God? It's not as if they had never been, they are our ancestors, and we wouldn't be here if they weren't. But on an individual level, it's as if they had never been.
"But this I know, that the mightiest empires have come and gone. The tiny people whose faith I share is still here, still bearing witness to the living God." Their religions have gone with them. Granted, yours has survived until now, but does that mean it will survive forever? Look at Zeus and the rest.
Life does have meaning, but we have to make that meaning. Whilst your religion may very well comfort you, from my point of view, they are but silly superstitions, meaningless.
