Religious privilege? What religious privilege?

It’s no secret that critics of religion are often made out to be mean curmudgeons with inflated grievances. They exaggerate the harms of religion while downplaying or ignoring the good that faith and the faithful contribute to society. Whether they are atheists, humanists or secularists, strident critics of religion all have a vendetta against any public expression of religious ideals, and are not above bully tactics to get their way.

This caricature omits one important detail: religion enjoys an unjustified and anachronistic kind of privilege that is denied – for good reasons – to secular ideologies and institutions. This religious privilege manifests as the automatic assumption of moral rectitude, and as special treatment from the government, like churches being exempted from both taxes and certain secular laws. It is this very privilege that allows religious groups in countries like Australia to discriminate against homosexuals, unmarried couples or anyone perceived to be egregious ‘sinners’. Given this, it is dishonest of its sympathisers to paint religion as the disadvantaged victim in any confrontation with its critics.

Our PM Julia Gillard may be an atheist, but her government is clearly committed to upholding the privilege of religious groups to break anti-discrimination laws simply because they believe that a sky-fairy would be quite cross if they had gays on the payroll. Labor’s new Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill aims to consolidate existing anti-discrimination acts into one comprehensive law, but god-believers needn’t worry, the bill won’t remove their right to deny the rights of their fellow citizens. As David Marr wrote in The Age, the bill is a “bigots’ charter.”

Of course, religionists like Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby beg to differ. Wallace doesn’t think he’s a bigot because discriminating against, say, homosexuals is simply “a case of looking for people in employment of staff who represent your same philosophy of the organisation that’s employing them.” He goes on to compare religious prejudice with how an environmental group wouldn’t hire someone who was pro-logging, a false equivalence since the latter discriminates on purely ideological grounds while the former discriminates on things like sexuality, which is hardly a matter of choice.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon seems a tad peeved with criticisms of the new bill. After all, the government’s aim was just to “simplify and consolidate the law, not completely re-invent the anti-discrimination system.” Because reinventing the system would mean ensuring that the rules apply equally to everyone, thereby removing any special treatment for religious groups. Roxon goes on to remind, and chide, us:

Labor is proud to have developed the sex, race and disability discrimination acts and established the Human Rights Commission. And we are proud now to be developing these important new protections from discrimination on the basis of sexuality… The fact that these new protections are being glossed over by some commentators is regretful.

Nice work Labor, except that religious organisations can still ignore these protections. And they are allowed to do so because of the divine mandate they supposedly possess, a mandate that they have convinced the public and government of Australia (and elsewhere) to be worthy of privilege. This is the same privilege that gives taxpayers’ money to Christian Evangelicals for them to proselytise to schoolchildren. It is the same privilege that equates religiosity with moral authority. And it is the same privilege that makes criticism of religion, unlike criticism of political, economic or scientific ideas, a specifically vulgar act.

HT: Grant Joslin

16.1.13

A quarter of Brits are non-religious

The UK’s 2011 census results are in, and they contain good news for humanists, atheists, agnostics and other non-religious people. You may remember the high-profile campaign ran by the British Humanist Association last year encouraging non-religious citizens to tick the ‘No religion’ box on the census. The campaign may have had an effect after all, as the results below indicate:

• The number of non-religious people has increased from 15 percent in 2001 to 25 percent in 2011.


• The number of Christians has dropped from 72 percent in 2001 to 59 percent in 2011.


• The number of Jedi Knights has more than halved, dropping from approximately 390,000 in 2001 to 176,632 in 2011.

That’s a dramatic decrease in the number of self-identified Christians with a corresponding large jump in the irreligious population. The BHA’s campaign urging so-called Jedi to stop being silly and just put themselves down as ‘no religion’ may have played a part in the massive drop in Jedi numbers. BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson responded to the census data with the following comments:

This is a really significant cultural shift. In spite of a biased question that positively encourages religious responses, to see such an increase in the non-religious and such a decrease in those reporting themselves as Christian is astounding. Of course these figures still exaggerate the number of Christians overall – the number of believing, practicing Christians is much lower than this and the number of those leading their lives with no reference to religion much higher.

Religious practice, identity, belonging and belief are all in decline in this country, and non-religious identities are on the rise. It is time that public policy caught up with this mass turning away from religious identities and stopped privileging religious bodies with ever increasing numbers of state-funded religious schools and other faith-based initiatives. They are decreasingly relevant to British life and identity and governments should catch up and accept that fact.

The UK is not yet as secular as countries like Japan, Sweden and Denmark, but amazingly it has become less religious, even less Christian, than Australia: 22 percent of Aussies have no religion (compared with 25 percent of Brits) while 61 percent of Aussies are Christian (compared with 59 percent of Brits). Still, both countries are much less religious than the US, which remains an anomaly among rich, developed countries with 73 percent of Americans identifying as Christians (though the number of non-religious Americans is rising).

The steady increase in the non-religious demographic in not only the UK, but Australia and the US also, is an encouraging sign that secular ideas and values are being embraced by more and more people in these countries. Religion will still be around for a while, and may even pull off a modest comeback, but social trends in the developed world are evidently not in its favour. Let’s celebrate that.

12.12.12

Good call from an Aussie judge

Here’s a fine example of scientific literacy, or at least a proper respect for medical science, in our legal system. An Australian judge refused to accept a mother’s belief in homeopathy and ordered that her 8-year-old daughter be vaccinated with real vaccines.

From the news report:

A doctor in homeopathic medicine told the court that homeopathic vaccination was safe and effective, whereas traditional vaccination had short- and long-term risks, including a link to ADHD and autism. 

But Justice Bennett accepted the evidence of a doctor at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, who said there was insufficient evidence of the effectiveness of homeopathic immunisation to justify its replacement of traditional immunisation. 

The links to ADHD and autism had been disproved by studies in Scandinavia, France and the United States, the doctor said. 

Justice Bennett said the risks associated with traditional immunisation did not outweigh the risks of infection. 

“It appears to me that the efficacy of homeopathic vaccines in preventing infectious diseases has not been adequately scientifically demonstrated,” she said.

Science = 1. Woo = 0.

I do have one quibble though: the reference to “traditional” immunisation makes it seem like vaccination is merely a ‘tradition’ passed down uncritically, rather than the scientifically proven practice that it is.

Even though a poorly-designed government scheme makes taxpayers subsidise anti-vaxers, the judge’s decision gives me hope that Australians are generally unsympathetic to anti-vaccination ideology. The poll included in the article and the comments below it are also encouraging. Great to see so many people showing strong critical thinking skills and an understanding of epidemiology and immunology. Homeopathy also gets the drubbing it deserves.

It’s sad that the legal system has to intervene in order to protect children from their own parents. But when those parents swallow dangerous ideas hook, line and sinker, this intervention becomes necessary.

29.11.12

When a medieval law protects child abusers

In the wake of PM Julia Gillard’s announcement of a royal commission to investigate allegations of institutional child sex abuse, Cardinal George Pell bleated about how the Church was the victim of a smear campaign by the media. He also went on to defend the Seal of Confession, a Catholic sacrament whereby priests are forbidden to divulge the confessions of penitents, calling it “inviolable”. Here is Pell’s suggestion for how priests can avoid being caught between a rock and a hard place:

If the priest knows beforehand about such a situation [of sexual abuse], the priest should refuse to hear the confession. […] That would be my advice, and I would never hear the confession of a priest who is suspected of such a thing.

What an odious, and utterly impotent, piece of advice. Pell is basically telling his underlings that they’re better off turning a deaf ear to possible cases of sexual abuse rather than ‘violating’ a Catholic injunction against snitching. How does refusing to hear the confession of a child abuser help to bring him to justice? To protect innocent children?

Cardinal George Pell

 

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has called the Seal of Confession “a medieval law that needs to change in the 21st century”, and stated that “Church law, canon law, should not be above the law of the land.” Others agree, as the ABC reports:

New South Wales Premier Barry O’Farrell, who is a Catholic, says he cannot fathom why priests should not be required to pass on evidence of child abuse to police.

“I think the law of the land when it comes to particularly mandatory reporting around issues to do with children should apply to everyone equally,” Mr O’Farrell told AM.

“How can you possibly, by the continuation of this practice, potentially continue to give... a free pass to people who've engaged in the most heinous of acts?”

Federal Liberal frontbencher Christopher Pyne, who is also a Catholic, believes criminal law should take priority over church rules when it comes to child abuse.

“If a priest hears in a confessional a crime, especially a crime against a minor, the priest has the responsibility in my view to report that to the appropriate authorities,” Mr Pyne told ABC News.

“In this case the police, because the church nor the priests should be above the law.”

If Australia is to remain true to its secular principles, the laws of any religious body must not take precedence over civil laws. The Catholic Church in particular is notorious for its primary allegiance to the dictates of the Holy See in Rome, and will often give those dictates priority over the laws of the country in which the Church operates. Whether it concerns abortion, contraception or gay marriage, the Church holds its laws to be above those enacted by civil, secular society. Such insolence must not go unchallenged.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that the very idea of the Seal of Confession depends on the belief in ‘sin’, a ludicrous concept that underpins almost every Christian doctrine. Without it, there would be no need for a formal rite of ‘confession’, no need for priests to wrestle with both the demands of morality and the demands of the Church, no need for Pellian loopholes where terrible crimes are ignored to avoid ‘sinning’ by breaking the Seal of Confession. It is the idea of ‘sin’ itself, among other religious dogma, that is the cause of much harm inflicted by the Church.

14.11.12

The Catholic Church deserves to be targeted

PM Julia Gillard has announced that there will be a royal commission set up to investigate allegations of institutional child sex abuse in Australia. This has been a long time coming, and it’s certainly welcome news. Even though pedophile Catholic priests immediately come to mind, the Australian reports that “[t]he inquiry will not be confined to the Catholic Church, but extend to all religious organisations and to children in state care, and into other institutions including schools.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. The commission should indeed investigate allegations of child sex abuse wherever they may have occurred. But when Opposition leader Tony Abbott and Cardinal George Pell whine about how the Catholic Church is being “targeted” and that the commission should be “wide-ranging” and not “focus solely on the Catholic Church”, they are being obscenely disingenuous. Abbott, who is Catholic, and Cardinal Pell are high-status members of a global organisation that has aided and abetted child molesters and sexual predators within its ranks for decades, an organisation that often shows outright contempt for civil laws because it considers itself subject only to the laws of its own theocracy.

As Labor backbencher Senator Doug Cameron observed, if the “extremely powerful and politically influential church was confident abuse was no longer occurring, it had nothing to fear from a royal commission,” and also that the church should rightly be the focus of any commission because “that’s where the major problem seems to be.”

Julia Gillard’s assurance that the commission will not discriminate is simply political correctness. Many of us are not fooled by the false equivalence being made. The Catholic Church’s role in child sex abuse and its subsequent cover-up is proportionately large enough to warrant a commission of its own. That the government has decided on a more extensive investigation should be considered an undeserved courtesy by petulant Catholics like Tony Abbott and Cardinal Pell.

13.11.12

Why are we giving our tax money to anti-vaxers?

Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are exploiting a loophole in the recently scrapped Maternity Immunisation Allowance (MIA) scheme that lets them receive government payments despite not vaccinating their kids. The MIA was axed by the Gillard government at the start of this month, but parents who are eligible for it can still claim payments until 30 June 2013. Part of the criteria for eligibility is that their child “is fully immunised or has an approved exemption by 30 June 2012.” And one type of ‘approved exemption’ is for parents who are ‘conscientious objectors’ to child vaccination.

Why are Australian taxpayers giving their tax money to parents who insist on exposing other children to the risk of (totally preventable) disease? Anti-vaxers and organisations that promote their cause like the misleadingly named Australian Vaccination Network are ignorant populists who spread lies and misinformation about vaccines. Their attitude towards child vaccinations, far from being simply a matter of personal choice, has a harmful impact on others. By choosing not to vaccinate their kids, these irresponsible parents compromise the herd immunity effect that protects the larger population from diseases like whooping cough, meningitis and measles. That they are demanding to be paid by the government for doing this is utterly disgraceful.

Anti-vaxers are usually not qualified to speak with any authority on the subject of vaccines and their effects. Yet medical experts who are qualified to discuss the issue are constantly having to defend their position from ‘concerned parents’ who haven’t got a clue about immunology or epidemiology, and also lack good critical thinking skills. Anti-vax arguments rely on appeals to emotion, appeals to nature, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, cherry picking of facts and using anecdotal evidence rather than hard data and solid statistics.

Steven Novella has written about the problem of anti-vax attitudes among the general public. It’s a US-centric perspective, but Novella’s points apply to anywhere in the world where science and reason are meeting resistance from ignorance, lies and irrationality.

HT: Pen Penh

17.7.12

Sex, porn and moralism

As someone who is sex-positive and polyamorous, my views on sexuality and relationships can be at odds with those of the largely monogamous, sex-negative mainstream. So it was encouraging to read Jennifer Wilson’s critique of anti-porn, anti-casual sex advocates and their self-righteous moralising. Wilson’s essay is set within the context of Australian pornography laws (which local anti-porn campaigners deem insufficiently censorial), but her cogent arguments are not restricted to any one country or culture. Take these for example:

In my opinion some campaigners are engaged in a moral battle to control who may desire whom, when and how. Their arguments are founded on conservative moral assumptions about what sex is or ought to be, how it can and can’t be performed, and by whom. To this end they define pornography as not about sex, but solely about violence against women.

Anti porn campaigners conflate sexual violence and exploitation with pornography to strengthen their argument against it, even though there’s a variety of porn available, from the inoffensive to the frightening. They allow no exceptions: their position is that all porn is bad because all porn is inherently violent and exploitative.

Wonder why atheists are so rude? Here’s why

University courses have resumed for the year, and unis have been holding their customary Orientation Day (or O-Day) for new undergrads. Daniel from Perth recently had this conversation at the O-Day for the University of Western Australia.

Incidentally, it’s not just religious folks who get their smallclothes in a twist over irreverent, straight-talking atheists. Even within the ranks of the godless, there are those who think that some atheists are unnecessarily antagonistic. I have expressed my views on the matter, which can be summed up thus: we need different approaches in the good fight against the pernicious aspects of religion. One person’s ‘rude’ can be another person’s ‘bluntly honest’.

But I would suggest to those atheists who prefer to play good cop that they don’t accuse the bad cop atheists of being ‘smug’, therefore implying some sort of moral superiority in being the nice guy. You want to take the softly-softly route, more power to you. But it’s kinda hypocritical to be smug about being unsmug, don’t you think?

HT: PZ Myers

27.2.12

“Our State Schools are not Church Playgrounds”

Victorians concerned about the erosion of secularism in state schools are running a campaign called Fairness in Religions in School (FIRIS). The above graphic is from a FIRIS billboard put up in the suburb of Bulleen. FIRIS was launched in response to current government policy that allows religious volunteers to take up a part of the school day to proselytise their faith to schoolkids. Here are the campaign’s points of contention taken from the FIRIS website:

FIRIS is a parent run campaign that aims to change the way children experience religion in Victoria State schools.

Churches have no right to set school curriculum policy.

The current policy is designed to favor ACCESS Ministry, and only ACCESS Ministry. This group runs a Ministry with government authority and funding.

We support education about religion consistent with Australia’s multicultural character and believe that families can be trusted to attend to the religious formation of their children. The current school policy is a result of political intimidation by a small number of church activists.

This policy divides children and school communities by requiring families of minority religions, or of no religion to withdraw their children from school time.

Ah yes, ACCESS Ministries, that group of evangelical Christians who have no qualms about tearing down the wall separating religion from state for the sake of winning young converts to their One True Faith. Not surprisingly, those with a vested interest in promoting their particular brand of sky-fairyism are hostile towards the idea of secularism. Secularism constraints them – it limits their ability to impose their religious values on non-believers and indoctrinate a mass of impressionable minds, many of which are of school age.

The FIRIS campaign calls for the Victorian government to do the following:

1. Maintain an inclusive school curriculum that does not require any student to withdraw from class on account of different religious beliefs

2. Formally cease the practice of volunteer-run special religious instruction (SRI) during school hours

3. Follow an objective, fair and balanced comparative syllabus for education about religions and beliefs

4. Treat all religious organisations who wish to use the school facilities outside of the school day with transparent and equitable policies

Point number 3 serves to clarify that secularism isn’t about banning religion from the public sphere, but about ensuring that no specific religion is privileged over others. Not “teach no religion”, but “teach all religions” as different belief systems with no single one having a claim to ultimate truth or authority.

Parents and the organisers of FIRIS are taking their case to the Victorian Administrative and Civil Tribunal. FIRIS chairman Tim Heasley made this statement:

“We would like to see religion taught in a fair way that reflects Australia’s multi-cultural commitments and we’re asking our schools to do this in a way that does not violate the `secular principle’ of public education. This needs to be done by closing the door to activists from all religions who want to use our schools to get at kids”.

“Our State Schools are not Church Playgrounds and it is deeply concerning to me as an Australian and as a parent, that I should need to put up a billboard to make this case to the Minister of Education. The Minister could easily change this policy, and that is what we intend to see him do”.

While there has been some progress in the fight against religious encroachment into state education, campaigns like FIRIS are vital to remind the government and the wider public about the secular principles this nation was founded upon, principles that must be upheld if Australia is to remain a progressive, liberal, diverse country. Please show your support by liking the FIRIS Facebook page and spreading word of this important campaign.




3.2.12

A Celebration of Reason: Global Atheist Convention 2012

It was my birthday on Wednesday, and my brother gave me an especially wonderful gift: a ticket to ‘A Celebration of Reason’, the global atheist convention being held in Melbourne this April. I wasn’t going to miss this awesome event, and now thanks to my brother’s generosity it’s going to cost me neither money nor effort to grab a ticket. Epic win!

The GAC 2012 will be a three day mental orgy of intellectual stimulation, provocative discourse and irreverent entertainment. The rock stars of atheism will be there: Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, PZ Myers. One star will be conspicuously absent – Christopher Hitchens was expected to grace the GAC with his eloquence and erudition, but sadly the great man has left us. No doubt the Hitch and his valuable contributions to freethought will be recognised and celebrated at the event.

It makes me feel incredibly proud that my home city is hosting the GAC. I take this as a positive sign that Melbourne is predominantly secular, liberal and progressive, a sign that the world’s most liveable city is indeed worthy of that description. Of course, an atheist convention of the scale of the GAC will ruffle religious feathers. There will be pushback from those who subscribe to various brands of sky-fairyism. While some of that pushback will be hilarious, some of it will also be unpleasant, even threatening. Key speakers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali have received death threats from religious fanatics in the past, so security at the event should be a top priority.

I encourage my fellow Melbournians to attend ‘A Celebration of Reason’, whether you’re an atheist or not. Regardless of your personal beliefs, I assure you that you will come away from the convention with greater knowledge and understanding of the issues affecting society, culture, politics, civil liberties, human rights, ethics, education, science and the humanities. You will leave the GAC a more informed, more enlightened person.




27.1.12

Attention all you tennis fans

The Australian Open starts this week, and tennis fans attending the matches are probably going to see lots of rainbow flags flying at the Margaret Court arena in Melbourne Park. The reason? The arena is named after Australia’s greatest female tennis player, who also happens to be a conservative Christian pastor opposing homosexuality in general and gay marriage in particular. Gay rights activists and their supporters are going to fly their colours proudly at the Open in protest against Margaret Court’s homophobia.

Court’s views on homosexuality and gay rights are informed by her (surprise, surprise) religious beliefs, as she has made clear:

I think I have a right, being a minister of the gospel, to say what it says from a scriptural side. I have been married for 44 years this year and, to me, marriage is something very special, wonderful, ordained by God. I look at the children of our next generation and think of the problems they are having in America with all this – we don’t need it in our nation.

So Court thinks that being well-versed on a man-made collection of history, myths and morality tales gives her the right to discriminate against gays. Chalk that one down as another example of physicist Steven Weinberg’s maxim: religion gives good people a reason to do bad things. Court also implies that Australia needs more religious (i.e. regressive) values, otherwise we’ll end up like those depraved Americans wallowing in godless gayness. Even America isn’t God-fearingly homophobic enough for Court!

Both Tennis Australia and the Women’s Tennis Association have stated that they do not share Margaret Court’s views. Tennis Australia posted the following on its website:

Margaret Court has won more grand slam titles than any other player and has been honoured for her achievements in tennis and she is a legend of the sport. We respect her playing record, it is second to none.

But her personal views are her own, and are definitely not shared by Tennis Australia. Like the [Women’s Tennis Association], we believe that everyone should be treated equally and fairly. We concur wholeheartedly with the WTA who stated that “all human beings, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or otherwise, should be treated equally. This is a fundamental right and principle, including within the world of sport. Anyone advocating otherwise is advocating against fundamental and essential rights.”

TA does not support any view that contravenes these basic human rights.

Every year Court is invited to the Australian Open as a guest of honour. Her presence at the tournament this year will be more... exciting than in previous years. Those of you who are going to the Open may want to bring along a rainbow flag to add to the festive, even gay, atmosphere.




HT: Martin




16.1.12

Small victory for Australian secularism

The Canberra Times reports that 208 schools around Australia have decided to replace religious chaplains with secular welfare workers instead under the National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP). That’s awesome news. The not-so-awesome bit however is that 2236 schools, or 89 percent of schools, are sticking with religious chaplains in their reapplication for NSCP funding.

It looks like the government has considered the “strong feedback” (read “criticism”) on the NSCP’s religious bias, so they have extended the program to include qualified secular welfare workers. This is something that secularists should celebrate, even if the initial uptake of secular welfare workers in schools is modest. In my home state of Victoria only 16 percent of schools with government-funded chaplains have said they would prefer to have secular welfare workers. There’s definitely room for improvement.

While we should welcome the inclusion of secular welfare workers in the NSCP, the point remains that religion should not receive special government favour. Taxpayers should not be forced to fund ideologies that make supernatural, unsubstantiated claims, that reject science, that encourage divisiveness and cultural insularity, and that in their more toxic forms promote prejudice and bigotry. In fact, forcing Australian citizens to indirectly support the religious indoctrination of schoolchildren may be unconstitutional. One such citizen, Ron Williams, took legal action against the NSCP last year, a case that went to the High Court where it still awaits a decision.

Overall, this perhaps isn’t the best news for Australian secularism. But at least the Gillard government is taking criticisms of the NSCP into consideration. Hopefully those percentage figures of schools opting for secular welfare workers over chaplains will continue to rise.




10.1.12

There should be more bookshops like this

Given the despondent bookstore scene in Melbourne, the arrival of Embiggen Books is glad news. Formerly based in Noosaville on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, this independent bookstore packed up earlier this year for cooler climes southward, making its new home right in the Melbourne CBD (central business district).

But you know what’s more awesome, by orders of magnitude, than a mere indie bookstore? An indie bookstore that has “the biggest range of popular science titles in stock in the observable universe” and also sells scientific equipment and giftware, that deliberately refuses to sell books promoting pseudoscience, mysticism and irrational, baseless nonsense, and that is active in the skepticism movement.

An excerpt from the Embiggen Books website:

[The bookshop’s] parents Mr and Mrs Embiggen have had long interests in evidence based understanding, reason and life, the universe and everything. They have sieved out pseudoscience wherever they smell it so you won’t find new age malarkey in the stock list.

Imagine that, a bookshop with no self-proclaimed spiritual gurus, no anti-science screeds, no outright con jobs like The Secret, maybe even no section on religion (I haven’t visited the store yet). There will most likely be books on the history and philosophy of religion, perhaps of a comparative nature, but it would be wonderful to note an absence of books hawking one brand of sky-fairyism or another.

Fellow Melbournians who appreciate science, reason and skepticism, and books promoting them, while also having a sentimental fondness for brick-and-mortar bookstores are duly exhorted to pay Embiggen Books a visit, and support them with your custom. You can also buy books online and have them delivered to you, so even non-Melbournians can support a business dedicated to science, reason and skepticism.

The address and contact number for Embiggen Books:

197-203 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne, 3000

Phone: (03) 9662 2062




HT: Russell Blackford




13.10.11

The end of print?

Sam Harris’s latest blog post spells out in brow-furrowing, lip-chewing detail the gloomy future of the printed book. Fellow bibliophiles are going to find it a depressing read. I do.

Martin at Furious Purpose has commented on the rather dire Melbourne bookshop scene. Borders and Angus & Robertson are gone. My regular supplier of ink-on-dead-trees, Reader’s Feast, is now a famine – they shut shop a few months ago. The only bookstore left that is likely to stock the kind of books I’m willing to pay grossly inflated prices for (thanks Australian government! /sarcasm) is Readings in Carlton. If (when?) that place shutters, I’m going to need therapy.

In this digital, Amazonian age we currently inhabit, book lovers need to somehow make the printed word indispensable, hip even. John Waters has an idea on how to do just that.

HT: Martin




28.9.11

Blackford on how religion disparages the good things in life

Earlier this month Russell Blackford participated in a debate organised by Intelligence Squared Australia, with the motion ‘Atheists are wrong’. Blackford along with Jane Caro and Tamas Pataki made up the ‘against’ team, which won the debate (insert smug smile here). In a recent blog post, Blackford comments on how the debate arguments of Tracey Rowland – who was for the motion – reflect a common characteristic of religion: its propensity to “[do] dirt on everything good in life”. Whether it’s social relationships, politics, trade or sex, religion preaches that without God, these things lose their value, or become corrupted. As Rowland, informed by her Catholicism, sees it:

Sexual relations hollowed out into their materialist shell become mutual manipulation; political relations hollowed out into their materialist shell become brutal power; and market relations hollowed out into their material shell give us consumerism and status anxiety.

Blackford disagrees. The presence or absence of a supernatural divinity is irrelevant to the goodness or badness of things like politics or sex. In fact, the religionist insistence that their goodness depends on the existence of a supernatural divinity belittles their inherent worth, as Blackford argues:

Religionists cannot explain how the supernatural makes things that are not otherwise good become so, or how good things are any less so in the absence of some sort of supernatural power. No one has ever shown how that is a coherent way of thinking about the issues. If something has the properties that are required to satisfy certain human needs, desires, interests, etc., then we are quite entitled to judge it as "good" ... whether a supernatural power, such as God, exists or not.

The sort of ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims made by Rowland and her sky-fairyist ilk are rooted in the same emotive soil that feeds anti-scientific criticisms accusing science of ‘disenchanting’ the world. According to its detractors, science sucks the fuzzy-wuzzy, warm gooey caramel centre out of things like love, beauty and ‘spirituality’ (an ambiguous term) with its cold, unromantic, materialist ideology. What tosh. If any ideology is sucking the life-affirming goodness out of human preoccupations, it’s religion, with its perverse delight in seeing corruption, shame and taint in what are actually natural, pleasurable and even beneficial aspects of our humanity.

Blackford rightly asserts that “the religious mind thinks little of human pleasure and desire, and so disparages ordinary kinds of goodness.”

Religion is not the root of all evil, but it is far from being the source of ordinary goodness in our lives. On the contrary, it is an enemy of ordinary goodness. We can lead good and fruitful lives without God or any belief in the supernatural, and that's what I suggest we all do. Life without God is not thereby way diminished or hollowed out. That's an unsustainable claim. It is pathological to think of the world that way.

Quite so.




27.9.11

Think Inc. - a science and rationalism conference in Melbourne

The Think Inc. science and rationalism conference is just one month away, on 18th September. The three guys behind the Melbourne event have somehow managed to sign on heavyweights like Christopher Hitchens, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Michael Shermer to give talks on the following topic – In the next 10 years, what does the global community need to do in order to survive and flourish?

Apparently Think Inc. is the first large scale science and rationalism conference put together by the young organisers (James and Sean are 24, and Desh is 30). The three have had some experience in organising large music events, but it’s impressive that they’ve convinced such intellectual giants to come all the way down to Melbourne to edify us antipodeans. Being at the arse end of the world and thus so far removed from all the rationalist action in the US and Europe, having Hitchens, Hirsi Ali, deGrasse Tyson and Shermer gracing our sunburnt country is like receiving drought-breaking rain. There’ll also be Aussie speakers representing, but let’s face it, the foreigners are the main crowd-pullers.

Sadly, Hitchens and Hirsi Ali will only be figuratively gracing this wide brown land. Hitchens’s cancer treatment has made him too ill to travel, and Hirsi Ali won’t be physically attending the conference for security reasons (she has received death threats from local religious fanatics. Oh the joys of being a hunted woman simply for opposing Islam). They’ll both be giving their talks via live video link. Yes, it’s a disappointment, but their oratory power will be little diminished. It’s still going to be the Hitch directly addressing us in that inimitable way he has with words.

Tickets are selling fast, so be sure to grab yours ASAP. And if you’re a science teacher, those generous Think Inc. lads are offering you a FREE seat! How awesome is that!

Here’s the suitably blockbuster-esque promo video for the conference.





I look forward to meeting my Melbourne readers at Think Inc. You folks are going to be there, yes?




17.8.11