Blasphemy Matters

A few months ago the Irish Government passed a law making blasphemy illegal and blasphemers liable for a fine of €25,000.

The law officially went live on January 1, and Atheist Ireland have come out of the gate swinging, publishing a list of their favourite 25 blasphemous quotes.

Fun fact: the first two quotes on the list are by Jesus Christ himself.

Let’s be clear about this … protecting the right to blaspheme is not about protecting atheists’ right to poke the bear and make fun of religion.

The point is that free speech is sacred; so much more sacred than any religion.

And what’s more, the right to blaspheme is a cornerstone of freedom of religion. It protects religious believers.

All you Christians … don’t you realise that proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah is a blasphemy against Judaism?

All you Muslims, don’t you realise that elevating Muhammad above Jesus is a blasphemy against Christianity?

And Scientologists, don’t you know that L.Ron’s stories are a blasphemy against all the truly great science fiction writers out there?

Blasphemy is important. Blasphemy matters.

And this law needs to be repealed. Now.

Discrimination In Religious Schools

A review of Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Act has made some interesting recommendations.

At the moment, religious schools in Victoria have the right to discriminate on the basis of faith. For example, a Muslim school can refuse to employ a Jewish cleaner or a conservative Christian school a woman who is unmarried and pregnant.

A parliamentary review has recommended broadening the definition into “core” and “non-core” roles, so discrimination would only be applied to roles where it actually matters. Under this model the school chaplain can’t be a Satanist but it doesn’t matter so much if the maths teacher is (although he does go on about pentagrams a fair bit … ).

People running religious schools obviously think it’s a bad idea. And I agree.

This is just too one-sided. Even now, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find any number of atheists teaching in Christian schools, where their atheism is overlooked just because of their teaching ability.

This proposal takes us in completely the wrong direction. We should give more discriminatory power to these schools, not less.

In fact, let’s go the whole hog. Religious schools should be obliged to only employ people who share their faith.

Before being appointed, applicants must prove their allegiance by swearing on their particular holy book and passing a detailed examination on the tenets of their doctrine.

All staff must be monitored constantly to ensure their behaviour is in line with the appropriate religious doctrine. Any breaches of protocol, whether on school grounds or in the person’s home, will result in immediate dismissal.

Of course religious schools might struggle to retain staff under such a regime, and student numbers would drop off as teaching standards fell.

And Government funding would have to be cut because they’d now be straight religious institutions rather than educational institutions.

And in fact, after a while we’d probably see very few religious schools remaining.

That’d be a shame.

But keeping the schools’ religious values pure is obviously critically important, so surely that’s a small price to pay.

Homo-Christianity

Over at the blog “Apologia” I’ve been debating self-described Christian apologist Eric. The discussion has ranged over a wide spectrum, which was surprising given that Eric’s original post said he was sick of debating atheists.

Still, a few issues were passed over for lack of time, so I though I might pick them up here.

At one point in the discussion Eric made the comment

“It’s obvious to anyone who reads the Gospels that Jesus considered homosexuality to be a sin.”

This stopped me in my in my tracks for a moment, because it should be obvious to anyone who reads the Gospels that Jesus had precisely nothing to say about homosexuality.

Zero. Zip. Nada. Not a word.

And yet strangely, Eric’s view is very common. For so many Christians in the world today homosexuality is Public Enemy No. 1 when it comes to the nebulous field of “sexual immorality”.

And this is despite the fact that Jesus himself, the man supposedly at the centre of their religion, didn’t think it was important enough to mention.

Further damaging the Christian position is that the most common biblical quote thrown around (you know . . . “homosexuality is an abomination”) is from the Old Testament; that bit of the Bible that Christians mostly ignore.

Supposedly Christians are all about the New Testament. Or they’re supposed to be. That’s where Jesus came along and did away with all the old laws. This is, for example, why Christians don’t eat kosher.

But back to the Old Testament.

In the same section in which homosexuality is denounced we also have prohibitions against wearing clothes made from two different types of material (Lev 19:19), cutting the hair at the sides of your head (Lev 19:27) and sleeping with a menstruating woman (Lev 18:19 and 20:18).

These other things are obviously no longer important. But for some reason, homosexuality is an exception.

So what about the New Testament?

There are four references in the New Testament which could be regarded as relating to homosexuality. These were all made by Paul, the guy who took control of the nascent church after Christ’s death (and alleged resurrection) and in my mind, royally screwed up the humanist message Jesus was trying to deliver.

Each of these references is no more than a throw-away remark put in as a sideline to a different point he was making. None of them are decisive condemnations, and there’s a nice summary here (from a Christian website) of why they shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Modern Christianity’s obsession with and bigotry against homosexuals is one of the main causes of continued discrimination in our culture. The passing of the noxious Proposition 8 in California (largely because the Christian community mobilised to support it) is just the most recent example.

The sooner this attitude is seen as the irrelevant cultural relic that it is, and the sooner it’s recognised that even those who propound it have no reason to do so, even within their own doctrine, then the better off we’ll all be.

Chuck Weighs In

Oooh, now it gets interesting.

Entering the latest War on Christmas debate, sparked recently by that sign erected in Olympia, Washington, is none other than Chuck Norris.

Yes, the rough, tough, roundhouse kicking Walker Texas Ranger has decided it’s personal, and he’s taking it to the man.

His argument is pretty straightforward, as you’d expect from the man who destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

It basically boils down to “Yes, yes, First Amendment and freedom of speech is fine, but NOT IF IT OFFENDS ME”.

Which seems to be typical of your modern US Christian.

Then he proceeds to list all his grievances (both real and imagined) against atheists, while pretending that he’s not really complaining because there would be no point doing that. Or something.

It’s all a bit muddled, to be honest. But in the end, it’s just a plug for his new book.

I recommend this one instead. It’s hilarious.

Humanism in schools. Hooray.

The Humanist Society of Victoria has developed a curriculum for primary school students based on humanist ethics.

Their focus is the wonderful idea that ethics can be derived without reference to any religion; that you don’t need to defer to some magical God or ancient book or (more often) the authority of the clergy to know what’s right.

This is a really important idea, and absolutely the sort of thing we should be instilling in our children.

But of course that’s not the way it’s being reported.

Instead, we get headlines like this:

Religion in schools to go God-free

Students to be taught there's no God

This angle completely misses the point. But that’s to be expected in a culture with such an entrenched religious tradition.

And the predictable backlash from religious, particularly Christian, vested interests has begun.

This is my favourite quote, from fundamentalist godbot Jenny Stoker of Christian lobby group Salt Shakers:

"If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism? If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools."

Wrong, Jenny. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

If you teach Christianity in schools then all those things have an equal claim. They’ve all got precisely as much evidence as each other to support them.

Our government should never promote any one religion over another, and certainly not in our government schools.

So, Jenny, unless equal time is given to all religions (and that includes Wicca and Satanism and Scientology and The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) then no time should be given to any of them.

Won’t Someone Think of the Cartoons?

There comes a time in every moral panic when common sense completely takes a holiday.

Case in point: the ludicrous ruling by NSW Supreme Court Justice Michael Adams that pornographic cartoons of Simpsons characters constitute genuine child pornography.

Now, tell me: when did the crusade against child pornography stop being about protecting children?

Because that has most definitely stopped. At some point it become all about political point-scoring, puritanical moral grandstanding and theocratic thought-policing.

And that’s where we are now.

If our judges can consider stupid pictures of cartoons having sex as anywhere near equivalent to actual child pornography, then quite frankly we’ve entered the Twilight Zone.

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sinister.

What’s next? Well, The Simpsons Movie will obviously have to be banned, because we got a glimpse of Bart’s cartoon willy.

Then we’ll have to ban all TV shows and films that feature crime of any sort. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t real . . . because it might encourage someone to really do it!

Then we’ll have to ban any books that describe crimes. It won’t leave us with much in the way of literature, just a selection of Dr. Seuss books (although obviously not The Cat in the Hat . . . he’s a bad influence on children) and Miffy by Dick Bruna.

And how many otherwise-abused children will be protected by all this nonsense? Precisely none.

But of course, that’s not the point is it? This isn’t about protecting children anymore. It’s about policing morals, even when those morals affect no-one except the individual.

And when the judiciary starts deciding they have the right to do that, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.

Why Intelligent Design is Not Science

Intelligent Design is the theory that life as we know it is too complex to have come about by random chance, and therefore implies the presence of a Designer.

Not surprisingly, it's a theory heavily promoted by groups with a religious agenda, who will then go on to say that the Designer is the God they happen to worship.

Attempts were made a few years ago to introduce Intelligent Design theory into science classes in the USA, to be taught alongside Evolution and Natural Selection as an explanation for the origins of life.

In late 2005 the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial found, quite rightly, that Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, and therefore should not be taught in science classes.

But why, you may ask, is it not a scientific theory? It's a statement about our origins. Surely it's just as valid to say that it was God as to say that it was Evolution?

No, it isn't. And here's the difference:

A fundamental principal of the scientific investigation of nature is that nature is assumed to be a closed system.

That is, the only influences on the system that are to be considered are those that come from within the system itself.

Any supernatural influences, such as Intelligent Design's hypothesised Designer, are outside the system and hence outside the realms of science.

Supernatural = Not Science. QED.

There are two important points about this:

1. This is not the same as saying that there is no Designer. It merely means that the hypothesis that there is a Designer is not a scientific one. Christians are welcome to postulate a Designer all they like on their own time and in their own churches.

2. This definition of scientific investigation was not made up by atheistic scientists in an attempt to prove the non-existence of God.

This basis for scientific research actually dates back to the late 17th century and the very earliest days of the Enlightenment. It was put in place by people like Sir Isaac Newton, a man known as much for his piety as his science.

Separating the investigation of the natural from the supernatural was seen simply as the most efficient way to advance knowledge.

And history has clearly shown this to be the right approach. From that very point we have seen an explosion in our understanding of the world.

Passing Intelligent Design off as science is just a throwback to pre-Enlightenment thinking.

It's a throwback to a time when religious leaders controlled the state, when the masses of the world lived in fear and poverty and repression, and knowledge was restricted to that which would not offend the reigning dogma.

I don't think we want to go back there.

Belief

It's been pointed out that my previous posts on religion are somewhat hostile.

Indeed they are. And I don't apologise for that.

But in the interest of openness and rational debate, I would like to clarify precisely which aspects of religion I am hostile towards. It's not the whole thing.

Once that's done, I lay myself open to your slings and arrows.

As a society we gain a great deal from religion. Studying our ancient myths and writings can give a real and genuine insight into morality and ethics, and it can teach us ways to build and sustain our communities. I don't for a moment question the great value of this.

But I want to make a clear distinction between this philosophical side of religion, and the belief side of religion, which is a very different thing.

Religious belief, specifically unfounded belief in the supernatural, is something that I have a very real problem with.

Now let me be very clear on this point: I am not talking about the spiritual beliefs of individuals. If a person chooses to believe that a deceased loved one is still present in their lives, or believes that Jesus is their saviour, and from that derive meaning and comfort, then I have no problem. These are personal views and no-one can tell anyone what they should think in that arena.

What I'm talking about is the Church's institutionalisation of supernatural belief, where preaching and dogmatism changes a belief from being a mere framework for discussion and comfort, into edict and law and an irrational basis for discrimination and punishment.

Let me use my own experience of Christianity as an example.

Christians claim, as I claimed once upon a time, that there is an entity called God that watches us and cares for us and listens to our prayers. That's fine and comforting and harmless.

Then, they go on to claim that this God has a purpose for us and that we need to follow the instructions he's laid down. Anyone who doesn't follow these instructions is damned to an eternity of hellfire or to a harsh sentence on Judgement Day, depending on which flavour of Christianity you prefer.

In individuals, this kind of belief might still be harmless. But propped up by the authority and ritual of the Church, this kind of supernatural carrot-and-stick starts directing the actions of people who wouldn't come up with this stuff on their own.

I know this from firsthand experience. When you're focused on an apocalyptic endgame, particularly what God will say to you on Judgement Day, then treating someone well here on Earth quickly becomes secondary to helping them, or helping yourself, secure a place in Heaven.

At a personal level, the worst thing it generally does is lead to obnoxious behaviour, of which I was as guilty as anyone.

If anyone annoyed me by saying my beliefs were bogus, I'd get a twinge of anticipatory schadenfreude from the thought of them burning in hellfire. I even said as much to some people. Charming, I know. And far from charitable.

At a community level, I’ve seen this sort of fixation overwhelm all the very valuable social justice teachings in the Bible. I've seen friendships and families torn apart because of disagreements over meaningless supernatural minutiae.

Ironically, this fixation means that a lot of Christians, and I was included in this group, don't end up following the core teaching of Jesus at all, which was to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

But, you might say, people do so many good things because of their beliefs. They act charitably and selflessly because they believe that's what God wants and there's the promise of a greater reward after death. Surely, on balance, the good outweighs the bad?

No, it doesn't. Of course religious people do good things in the name of God. But without God, these people would do good things anyway.

We don't need to conjure a mysterious God to make people be nice to each other. It's just not necessary. The benefits of co-operative behaviour are self-evident to all but the sociopathically insane.

We can see around us a functioning society built on the secular values of mutual respect and community spirit and basic common courtesy. Most of us don't do it because we believe it'll get us into Heaven. We just do it because it's the easiest thing to do.

Of course there are sociopaths among us, but for the extremes of bad behaviour we have a secular system of laws and punishments. And that's all we need.

There is no inherent upside to making rules based on supernatural beliefs.

But there is a genuine downside. It can make good people do evil things, and often with the best of intentions.

There a thousand examples of this, but to take just one: Mother Teresa refused to provide contraception to women in third-world countries. This caused unnecessary pain and suffering for thousands of women, through infection and unwanted pregnancies. And why? Because the Catholic Church teaches that God doesn't want people to use contraception, and will punish anyone who does.

Mother Teresa, driven by love and compassion and genuinely believing it was the right thing to do, followed this irrational rule and it achieved nothing but suffering.

My point is that taking a hard moral stance about anything because it's 'what God thinks', is nonsense. Stating that a particular behaviour is wrong because ‘God says so’, is just nonsense.

When we think about morals and ethics, we should only consider how our behaviour affects ourselves, how it affects others, and how it affects our communities and our world.

The opinions of our religious leaders are very valuable here, because they think about this stuff a lot. But we must never bow to an invocation of 'God's will' as a reason to do anything.

If following what we believe to be God's teachings leads us into doing good works, then that’s a great thing. But we need to realise that those good things are worth doing because of their own inherent value. That we can come to the same conclusion without invoking God.

And we need to realise that if an idea doesn’t stand on its own earthly merits then we don't need it, regardless of how many people believe God said it was so.

Doing anything purely to please God is irrational and dangerous, and can lead to arbitrary acts that are really damaging.

This is the part of religion that I'm hostile towards.

And when I talk about religion being evil, this is what I mean.

Scientology

The recent focus on the Church of Scientology has got me thinking.

Where has all this vitriol come from? There seems to be a perception that the Church of Scientology is somehow fundamentally (ahem) different from other religions and that unlike, say, Judaism, mocking them incessantly is perfectly acceptable.

I'm not defending Scientology in any way. As you know, dear reader, I'm no fan of any religion. But it seems that Scientologists attract a particularly brutal heaping of bile that mainstream religions do not.

And I genuinely don't understand why this is.

Is it that their beliefs are way out there, and clearly the work of a failed science fiction writer? Give me any one belief of the Church of Scientology and I can name five wackier ones belonging to mainstream faiths.

Is it because they require large cash donations to advance in their organisation? So do a lot of other churches. The only difference is that Scientologists publish their fees.

Is that that their practices result in the breakup of families? This is a regular story from people who've had friends or family members join groups like Hillsong. And I saw of a lot of this myself in my evangelical Christian upbringing.

Is it that they target the vulnerable with their 'stress tests'? Vulnerable people seeking guidance and support are the backbone of mainstream religions, and have been for years.

Is it because they influence politicians and try to enforce their moral code and beliefs on people who don't adhere to their faith? Actually, they don't do that at all. That's Hillsong again.

Is it because it's a 'cult'? I'll leave aside the fact that this word is not well-defined, and simply say that every definition of cult (and there are a lot) that might apply to Scientology, applies just as well to the Catholic Church.

Is it because they use strong-arm intimidation tactics in denouncing any opposition (as seen in the fascinating short documentary Scientology and Me)? This also happens at Hillsong, and similar allegations have been made against members of the Catholic church, particularly in the latter's tactics used to cover up child sex abuse cases.

Now I'm not disputing any of these accusations. I think the Church of Scientology is genuinely scary and weird and probably a cult (whatever that means).

I just don't see how it's that different from mainstream religions.

In fact, I find them significantly less obnoxious than the Westboro Baptists. I'd like to see a lot more column inches dedicated to denouncing them.

So what's actually going on here? Why are Scientologists being singled out as the freaks of the religious community?

Am I missing something?

Mohammed the Teddy Bear

In the Sudan, British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons has been sentenced to fifteen days in a Sudanese jail for insulting the prophet Mohammed. Her "crime" was letting the seven-year-olds in her class choose the name Mohammed for a teddy bear.

Apparently the good news is that she was cleared of the charge of blasphemy, which would have resulted in forty lashes.

For anyone outside looking in, this is just another example of the pernicious nature of religion.

Yes, this is an extreme example, and could be argued as being solely a case of religious extremism, not religion per se. But really, it is different only in scale, not in type, from the religions we supposedly feel comfortable with.

At its core, religion is about denying the evidence of your senses in favour of a way of thinking that you have been taught.

Further, religion is about denying your own moral compass (which contrary to what many Christians will tell you, has evolved quite independently from any religion) in favour of a prescribed set of arbitrary rules.

So under Islam, the rule is that you're not to insult the prophet Mohammed. Because it's the state religion, to do so is to risk jail and the lash. And to someone-or-other in power, naming a teddy bear Mohammed is an insult.

Under our Western version of Christianity, you're not to be gay. To do so is to risk isolation from your family and community.

These examples really amount to the same thing. The point is that religion makes otherwise good people reject what they themselves think is correct, in favour of edicts coming from the pulpit.

The practical difference here in our Western culture is that a secular decision has been made to keep state and religion separate. Here you don't get thrown in jail for being gay.

This teddy bear nonsense is the best example we've seen recently of why this is so important.

There are many fond of saying that our nation is founded on Christianity and Christian values. Thank goodness it's not.

If it really were, have no illusions that we would have very similar scenes being played out here.