Life beyond belief: 30 minutes on "Heaven"

BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief recently covered "Heaven and the Afterlife":

The question of what happens after we die is central to the world's faith traditions. How has the belief in an afterlife developed across the religions? And what does Heaven mean to people of faith today?

Ernie Rea discusses the concept of the afterlife with Shaunaka Rishi Das, Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies; Dr Shuruq Naguib, lecturer in Islamic Studies at Lancaster University; and the writer and broadcaster Peter Stanford.

Producer: Amanda Hancox

Ernie Rae's studio guests asserted a great deal about stuff they couldn't possibly know, and as usual with this half-hour programme and several guests, nothing could be considered very deeply. Just enough time for someone to state that "studies have shown" that people who have a belief in an afterlife face death more peacefully than those who don't, plus the assumption that of course someone who believes in an afterlife will act more morally in their life before death.

There was also an inserted interview with resuscitation researcher Dr Sam Parnia who claimed that the scientific consensus was that the soul is something apart from the brain.

All far too superficial and unsatisfactory — I wonder why they bothered.

UPDATE 2015-01-04: Further comment by Stewart Lee at the Guardian here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/03/out-of-the-mouths-of-babes-stewart-lee-nicky-morgan-religious-education

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The mp3 audio of this programme can be downloaded here:
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p03csh25.mp3

Wanna buy some 'E'? Sure you do!

No, not that 'E' — this is The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson, a feature length documentary film by Julien Temple, previously shown in BBC1's Imagine series, and which until Christmas Eve 2015 was available to view on iPlayer.

Now you can buy it on DVD:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ecstasy-Wilko-Johnson-DVD-y/dp/B017DFEBEK/

Anyone who enjoyed the two-part BBC Radio 4 Mastertapes on Wilko Johnson will absolutely want to see this extraordinary documentary shown on BBC1 in November. Superlatives escape me — this is probably the best biographical documentary film about a living artist I have ever seen. Truly brilliant, uplifting, and surprising on so many levels.

"Humanism" up for grabs?

Catching up on my podcast-listening backlog I came upon this episode of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief, hosted by Ernie Rae. It features Stephen Law, Nick Spencer and Marilyn Mason, and a separate interview with Rory Fenton. The first half is amicable enough, but considerable disagreement surfaces as the programme proceeds. This isn't surprising, given that Nick Spencer co-wrote a Theos paper entitled "The Case for Christian Humanism" which attempted a proprietorial land-grab of the term "humanism".

What is also not surprising is that such an attempt should be made. Christianity in its many guises has survived to the present day by co-opting and subsuming other belief-systems. Humanism is simply grist to its mill. Stephen Law, however, was having none of it.

Ernie Rae, host of Beyond Belief

Here's the programme page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05vx635

And here's a direct link to the mp3 audio (available indefinitely, as far as I can tell):

http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p02rwh0y.mp3

Blurb:

Can Humanism include belief in God?

Last year Pope Francis, addressing the European Parliament, pleaded for a rediscovery of the ideals of humanism centred on respect for the dignity of the human person. He said, "A Europe which is no longer open to the transcendent dimension of life is a Europe which risks losing its own soul and that "humanistic spirit" which it still loves and defends." The Pope was clearly trying to reclaim the humanist tradition from atheism. But was he waging a futile battle? Is humanism by its very nature opposed to religious belief?

Joining Ernie to discuss Humanism are Stephen Law from the Centre for Enquiry and author of "A very short Introduction to Humanism; Nick Spencer Co-author of "The Case for Christian Humanism;" and Marilyn Mason, former Education Officer for the British Humanist Association.

When the Theos paper was published it was discussed on Unbelievable? — my as-it-podcasted reactions are archived here:

http://www.evilburnee.co.uk/2015/01/does-humanism-require-god-doesnt.html

Will Self collides with science

I've just listened to the first episode of "Self Orbits CERN":

Will Self embarks on a 50 kilometre walking tour of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN just outside Geneva.

Following the course of the Collider through the French and Swiss countryside, Will stops at regular intervals to descend to the tunnel and view the experiments below. He aims to complete the circuit entirely on foot.

Invited to 'feel the wonder' of particle physics, Will is unconvinced. At lunch with his CERN hosts, he questions them closely on the rationale for their work.

And as Will's journey gets under way, far from wondrous, he very soon finds himself wondering about his own capacity for misunderstanding - expressing concerns that his walking tour may be a complete waste of time.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.

"...Will is unconvinced." This isn't surprising. Disdain for scientific endeavour drips from every sentence. Will Self has made "being an arrogant prick" something of an art form, and he's very good at it. We'll see if his "concerns that his walking tour may be a complete waste of time" are applied to the LHC itself. They might not be, but I don't hold out much hope in this regard, given the distinctly deaf ears he turns towards those who would enlighten him.

Not an auspicious start to this series of five 15-minute episodes airing on BBC Radio 4 all this week, available on iPlayer/RadioPlayer for ... ages, and also available as a podcast:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/selforbitscern

The Power of Prayer

In light of Kevin Friery's and Hayley Stevens' joint appearance on last Sunday's The Big Questions on BBC1, I'd like to draw attention to the final episode of the second series of BBC Radio 4's Out of the Ordinary, in which Jolyon Jenkins (no relation) investigates "The Power of Prayer". It's available on iPlayer until (almost) the end of the century:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03xd3hl/Out_of_the_Ordinary_Series_2_The_Power_of_Prayer/

Jolyon Jenkins

This sober and essentially skeptical investigation of the phenomena is hampered by the lack of hard evidence — a lack that in my view indicates the true nature of miracle healing.

Relevant also is a recent Unbelievable? episode from Premier Radio featuring Robby Dawkins and David Beebee:

http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={FE862DAB-D422-40C6-B684-E98EC81DD15F}

The title of the above programme is "Do healing miracles happen?" Given that I think the supernatural claims of religion are untrue, you can guess my answer to that question.

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EDIT: David Beebee blogs about his appearance on Unbelievable? here:
http://www.manofcarbonnanotubes.com/blog/2014/3/14/reflections-on-my-unbelievable-debate-with-faith-healer-robby-dawkins

Chris French bites his tongue

Chris French

It's not the first time that Professor Chris French has appeared on Beyond Belief — Ernie Rae's religious discussion programme on BBC Radio 4. I remember the Prof's contribution to a previous Beyond Belief discussion about guardian angels, and I remember my amazement that he made said contribution in a calm, level tone, eschewing the mockery such a subject clearly deserved.

This time the subject was near-death experiences, and though I consider it deserving of equal mockery, many of a religious bent (and even some who are not so cognitively misshapen) give the idea that NDEs are evidence of an afterlife disproportionate credence. To me, however, the issue couldn't be more clear-cut: near-death experiences are evidence of being near death, nothing more. Anything that you perceive when you are near death — when your brain is shutting down (aka dying) — cannot be relied upon as accurate representations of reality. Why isn't this obvious?

Listen to Prof. French's voice of reason amongst the pseudo-respectable woo here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b039pdtj/Beyond_Belief_NearDeath_Experiences/

Or download the podcast version here:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/belief/belief_20130909-1700a.mp3

The blurb from the iPlayer:

Beyond Belief debates the place of religion and faith in today's complex world. Ernie Rea is joined by a panel to discuss how religious beliefs and traditions affect our values and perspectives. Near-Death Experiences often seem to include bright lights, the presence of benevolent spirits and a sense of peace - in other words a very positive experience. However, more unusually, there are others whose experience is very different, some cite overwhelming fear and visions of being chased by demons. Do these have a rational scientific explanation or are they indications of a life beyond this one? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss the nature of Near-Death Experiences are Dr Penny Sartori of the University of Swansea, whose book 'The Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences' is due to be published in 2014; the Very Reverend Professor Gordon McPhate, the Dean of Chester Cathedral who is also a trained Pathologist and a member of the Royal College of Physicians and Chris French, Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths College, the University of London.

Producer: Liz Leonard.

Philosophy in the pub on the radio

One of my favourite Radio 4 programmes is back for a new series. This week's episode of The Philosopher's Arms was on "Free Riders". Half an hour isn't enough time to go very deeply into a philosophical subject, so the treatment is necessarily superficial. Nevertheless, the light-hearted treatment and brisk pace is enough to whet one's appetite for more thorough study (or just studious contemplation).

BBC Radio 4 - The Philosopher's Arms

Here's a clip:



From the programme's website:

Free Riders

Series 3 Episode 1 of 4

Duration: 28 minutes

First broadcast: Tuesday 30 July 2013

Pints and philosophical puzzles with Matthew Sweet. Each week Matthew goes to the pub to discuss a knotty conundrum with an audience and a panel of experts. Free will, exploitation, sex, sexism, blame and shame are just some of the topics to be mulled over in this series of The Philosopher's Arms.
We look at the issue of 'free-riding', with Oxford philosopher Roger Crisp.
Producer: Estelle Doyle.

Here's a link to the first episode (streaming audio available for about a year):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037hmy3

Jon Ronson on ... something critically important.

Jon Ronson's low-key laid-back documentaries are marvels of understated profundity. He's just started a new series of his long-running BBC Radio 4 programme Jon Ronson On... and the first episode is all about confirmation bias. Not to be missed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01rlrjz/Jon_Ronson_On_Series_7_Voices_in_the_Head/
(available until 11th April)

Brilliant stuff, featuring Uri Geller (who admits to confirmation bias, but doesn't seem to realise that's what he's doing). Here's a clip:



Here's the blurb from the BBC website:

Writer and documentary maker Jon Ronson returns for another five-part series of fascinating stories shedding light on the human condition. 

In the first programme, he investigates confirmation bias - or why so many people look for evidence that confirms their pre-existing beliefs. 

Jon believes he may be susceptible to confirmation bias himself. Over the last two years he has kept noticing that the time on his phone is 11.11. After looking on the internet, he found out there are many other people also doing this, including Uri Geller who first started noticing the number 11 over twenty years ago. Jon has also discovered that a particular community of people believe 11.11 is a sign for a new spirit guide who will come to earth, coincidentally known as Monjoronson. He speaks to the owner of the Monjoronson web domain, Ron Besser, and asks if it is possible that Jon himself is the spirit guide they're looking for.

Jon talks to other people who have been affected by confirmation bias, including an Oxford academic who believes her fate can be determined by looking at two lip balm pots. 

The journalist David Aaronovitch says he believed the delusions he had while suffering intensive care psychosis after a routine operation were real. 

Lotfi Raissi, the first person to be charged in connection with the September 11th attacks, tells Jon he believes his arrest was down to confirmation bias because he fitted a certain profile. A judge found there was no evidence to link Raissi to any form of terrorism. 

Finally Jon speaks to the lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who believes people who are prone to confirmation bias are more likely to be recruited to police forces.

Producer: Lucy Greenwell
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.

Giles Fraser speaks the truth

I've said some things about Giles Fraser on this blog in the past, but recently — since his resignation from St Paul's — he's been pleasingly unpredictable, and my previous minimal respect for him has grown. He still says stuff I disagree with, but his performance on this morning's Thought for the Day makes me want to put previous disagreements aside. As I soaked in the bath I could hardly believe what was coming out of the radio: no-nonsense speaking of truth to power — and on Thought for the Day!

Well done Giles.

Downloadable mp3 from here, for 30 days:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/thought/thought_20130304-1117a.mp3

Streaming audio here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p015vmw9

Text transcript from BBC website:

This morning the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland is waking up to one of the biggest crises in its modern history. A few weeks ago, Cardinal Keith O’Brien was expecting to be in Rome electing the next Pope. Now he’s in disgrace, vowing that he’ll never again take part in public life.

We still don’t know the details of what he did, simply that he’s admitted to sexual misconduct amongst his fellow priests. Charges of hypocrisy have been swift to follow. This month last year, the Cardinal was on this very programme attacking gay marriage as evidence for the “degeneration of society into immorality”. Indeed, he insisted: “if the UK does go in for same sex marriage it is indeed shaming our country.”

So why is it that all the churches - and not just the Roman Catholic church - seem to attract so many gay men who are themselves so virulently hostile to homosexuality? Perhaps it has to do with a misplaced sense of shame about being gay, a sense of shame that they go on to reinforce by being vocal supporters of the very theology that they themselves have been the victims of. As the novelist Roz Kaveney tweeted yesterday: “I feel sorry for O'Brien. I hope one day he realises that the sense of sexual sinfulness the Church forced on him was an abuse.” And that “O'Brien needs to distinguish between his sexual desires and his bad behaviour and not see all of it as sin.” I totally agree.

The election of a new Pope provides an opportunity for real change. The culture of secrecy that fearfully hides this bad behaviour – and not least the clerical abuse of children – needs dismantling from its very foundations. Inappropriate sexual relationships, relationships that trade on unequal power and enforced silence, are the product of an unwillingness to speak honestly, openly and compassionately about sex in general and homosexuality in particular. The importance of marriage as being available to both gay and straight people – and indeed to priests – is that it allows sexual desire to be rightly located in loving and stable relationships. I know there are people who see things differently, but I’m sorry: the churches’ condemnation of homosexuality has forced gay sex into the shadows, thus again reinforcing a sense of shame that, for me, is the real source of abuse.

Things may now be changing. It is encouraging that four priests have had the courage to speak out against a Cardinal – though one of them has expressed the fear that the Catholic church would “crush him” if they could. This is precisely the climate of fear that does so much to create the conditions of clerical abuse.

“It seems to me that there is nowhere to hide now,” said Diarmaid MacCulloch, the professor of the history of the church at Oxford University in a recent interview. He goes on: “We have had two Popes in succession that have denied that the church needed to change at all. The Roman church has to face realities that it has steadily avoided facing for the last thirty years.” And I might add, not just the Roman church, but my own church too.

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Clearly I'm not alone in my assessment of this particular TftD:
http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php?entry=entry130304-081648

Confessions of a Medium — BBC Radio 4

This was on BBC Radio 4 a couple of days ago and should be available for the rest of this week. It's a radio drama by A. L. Kennedy about a spiritual medium in the 19th century (played by the inimitable Bill Nighy). He's not quite what he seems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pn34n/Saturday_Drama_Confessions_of_a_Medium/

From the iPlayer:

Confessions of a Medium

Starring Bill Nighy as Thomson and Robert Glenister as Mr. Parker. A gothic, shadowy, and darkly comic drama about illusion, delusion and desire. Based on a true story in 1870's London. Mr. Parker is a sincere and kind man in search of a higher meaning to life. He has moved from conventional religion to séances and spiritualism. He believes he's met his saviour in the guise of Mr. Thomson - a charming, erudite, and utterly mesmerising medium, but unbeknown to Parker, Thomson is a complete and utter fake.

DIRECTED BY PAULINE HARRIS BBC DRAMA NORTH

Credits

Thomson Bill Nighy
Parker Robert Glenister
Morton Jonathan Keeble
Mr Gordon Jonathan Keeble
Gentleman Jonathan Keeble
Wilson Jonathan Keeble
Waiter Jonathan Keeble
Mills Andrew Westfield
Butler Andrew Westfield
Miss Foster Fiona Clarke
Mrs Gordon Fiona Clarke
Lady No.1 Fiona Clarke
Miss Blackstone Daryl Fishwick
Woman Daryl Fishwick
Pianist Daniel Browell

The ontobollocksical argument is not one of my favourites

A link to BBC Radio 4's In Our Time was posted in the Unbelievable? Facebook group, as it dealt with the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God. In a fit of snarky dismissal I posted the following comment:

• 
  
• 

  Paul Jenkins The ontobollocksical argument is not one of my favourites.

  28 September at 19:16 · Like · 1

This was followed by some disingenuous (I felt) puzzlement, which led me to expand on my remark:

• 
  
• 

  Paul Jenkins My objection to the ontobollocksical argument is that it's entirely about concepts. A concept is something that exists only in minds, and no matter how much you conceive of an entity — or its maximal greatness — there's nothing to make that magical transition from concept to reality.
  
  Of course it's possible for something to exist as a concept as well as existing in reality, but these are two different things than can be causally related in only one direction: from the real thing to the concept of that thing — not the other way around. For a concept of an entity to have a causal relationship towards an actual entity something else has to be involved. The concept alone is not enough.
  
  The ontobollocksical argument is no more than a fancy and roundabout way of saying, "I can imagine something, therefore it must exist."

  30 September at 00:10 · Like · 1

Yet further responses asserted I was wrong about this, and suggested I should deal with the premises of the argument — something I felt disinclined to do at the time, given that attempts were being made to shift the burden of proof on to me by mere assertion.

Nevertheless I stand by what I posted, and in case anyone's still interested here's how I deal with said premises. The ontological argument goes like this (from Wikipedia):

1. Our understanding of God is a being than which no greater can be conceived.
2. The idea of God exists in the mind.
3. A being which exists both in the mind and in reality is greater than a being that exists only in the mind.
4. If God only exists in the mind, then we can conceive of a greater being—that which exists in reality.
5. We cannot be imagining something that is greater than God.
6. Therefore, God exists.

Premise 1 is fine as far as it goes — you can conceive of God any way you want. But is it really possible to conceive of ultimate greatness? I think not, other than as a label for what is frankly an inconceivable nebulosity. Can you, for example, conceive of infinity? You can have the idea in your mind of a very big number, a number so big that there isn't any number above it — but can you hold that concept in your mind as a number, rather than as a label for something that is, in actuality, inconceivable? Saying — in the St. Anselm formulation — that God is a being than which no greater can be conceived is of no use because you can't actually conceive of even that. You can give it a label, but it's a label that cannot be attached to anything.

So the ontological argument falls at its first premise, proving only that it is — as it has always been — bollocks.

Animal liberation and the problem of induction

Socratic dialogue and dramatised reportage seems an odd combination for radio comedy, but that's what BBC Radio 4 is giving us with the current series of Brian Gulliver's Travels. This week, in "Anidara", the hapless travel writer is forced to confront the vegetarian question, aka "Is it wrong to eat meat?"

Neil Pearson, playing the eponymous traveller, is just right for this role — his worldly familiarity coupled with a hint of erudition hits exactly the right note. The series (this is the second) comprises six half-hour episodes, with two more to come. Streaming audio of this week's episode is available until 12:02PM Wed, 12 Sep 2012:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mdg8l/Brian_Gullivers_Travels_Series_2_Anidara/

Here's a clip:



The series is written by Bill Dare, who explains that the show was a way of putting his philosophy degree to good use(!):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m29vt/features/bill-on-brian

Cartesian dualism assumed; proximate metaphor discouraged

In his Thought for the Day this morning Akhandadhi Das commits the linguistic infelicity I've noticed far too often recently (noticed presumably because we're getting so much Olympic coverage at the moment), that of using a metaphor from sport to describe something in ... sport. The "level playing-field" is its most prevalent form, and to me it shows laziness. It's inappropriate because it's confusing. If you use a metaphor from sport (such as "a level playing-field") to describe something else in sport (such as methods of ensuring sporting contests are fair), how are we to know that it's a metaphor, and that you're not talking about the actual — rather than metaphorical — thing?

If you refer to a "level playing-field" when talking about ensuring fairness in sporting contests, the fairness aspect of a level playing-field is likely to get lost in concerns about whether the sport in question actually takes place on a playing-field. If it does, and the slope of the field isn't what you're talking about, your meaning will diffuse into uncertainty. If the sport doesn't take place on a playing-field, people will — for at least a moment or two — wonder what on earth you're talking about.

In summary, if you want to be understood clearly and quickly, don't use metaphors that are too close to the actual subject you're explicating. But that's not why I'm writing about Thought for the Day (again).

Akhandadhi Das refers to research done at Bristol University on "innate fairness" in young children. This is fine — I'm all for looking at the science when considering such questions — but Das immediately takes an unjustified leap to talk about "psychological traits which arise from the physical embodiment of the soul." He bases this on nothing more than religious dogma, going on to make more bald assertions about how the soul is affected by which particular body it's embodied in. Somehow he connects this to scientific explanations of thoughts and motivations, but claims that science cannot explain altruism, sacrifice, love or fairness. If he did a bit more research he'd find that science has quite a lot to say about all four. (Indeed he's already mentioned a scientific study of fairness.)

Das refers to the Hindu belief that "ultimate fairness" is a "spiritual insight", and then goes off into uncharted woo-woo land, talking about "the soul's remembrance of its own spiritual origin", and "the dual nature of our existence".

Never mind the level playing-field — Akhandadhi Das isn't even in the same ball-park.

Podcast of Thought for the Day available here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/thought

Direct link to mp3 audio available here:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/thought/thought_20120905-1038a.mp3
(available for 30 days)

Private beliefs lead to public harm

Religious belief is a private matter. If people want to believe in some kind of god, that's their affair, and nobody else's business.

Unfortunately it doesn't work out like that. Listen to this edition of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief, in which Ernie Rae talks to two people who believe in witchcraft (and, incidentally, one who doesn't).

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/belief/belief_20120820-1700a.mp3

Here's the blurb from the BBC website:

Ernie Rea explores the relationship between African churches, witchcraft & child abuse with expert guests: Pastor Mahele Tangata, pastor of a Congolese Church in North West London; Romain Matondo, Co-ordinator for the Congolese Family Centre; and Dr Richard Hoskins, an expert on witchcraft-based child abuse cases. The Metropolitan police reports that it has investigated 83 'faith based' child abuse cases involving witchcraft in the last ten years. A belief in witchcraft is common to some traditional African religions and to some elements of Christianity; but accusing children of witchcraft seems a comparatively modern phenomenon. Where does it come from? What can be done to prevent it? And are the churches concerned doing enough? 

It's horrifying to hear Mahele Tangata's unsubstantiated assertions. Richard Hoskins attempts to counter him on his own ground by questioning the pastor's interpretation of scripture, but it's clearly not working. Here we have yet another instance of unsupportable beliefs leading to serious harm, which then gets soft treatment because the whole business is insulated by faith.

Asking "...are the churches concerned doing enough?" is a bit pointless. The churches concerned are peopled by those who believe witchcraft is real, otherwise this problem wouldn't exist. The other churches — the ones that are not concerned — are just that: not concerned.

Children are being abused and in some cases killed because of irrational, unsupported beliefs. This is one of those instances when it isn't enough to point out the illegality of actions derived from wrong-headed beliefs. The beliefs themselves need to be called out, and those religionists citing them as justification for abuse should be hauled before the courts.

In our universe, nothing beyond physics

This is from last month, the final episode in the current series of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief, with host Ernie Rea and three studio guests: John Lennox, Usama Hasan and Mark Vernon. The subject they're discussing is the origin of the universe, apparently triggered (the discussion, not the universe) by the success of Lawrence Krauss's new book, A Universe from Nothing. It's a shame they didn't get Krauss himself on the show, as he might have pointed out the elementary error Lennox commits in his very first comments. Here's the blurb from the BBC website:

When asked to defend their belief in a Creator God, people of faith often turn to the argument that there must be a First Cause - you can't create something out of nothing they say, therefore right at the beginning, someone must have been responsible for the first element from which sprang life.

A new book, "A Universe from Nothing", by the American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, turns this argument on its head. Not only can something arise out of nothing, but something will always arise out of nothing because physics tells us that nothingness is inherently unstable.

The book has made an enormous impact in the States, making the New York Times' best sellers list, and it prompted Richards Dawkins to observe that it was "Potentially the most important scientific book with implications for atheism since Darwin".

So does it knock the argument for God on the head? Are physics and God irreconcilable?

Joining Ernie to discuss whether modern physics leaves any room for God are Dr John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, Dr Usama Hasan, Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University and a part time Imam, and Dr Mark Vernon, Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, London who has degrees in physics, theology and philosophy.

And Lennox's error?

"Having looked at Lawrence Krauss's book, I think the title from the start is very misleading, because the nothing he claims that is a nothing, is not actually a nothing."

Other theists have jumped on this bandwagon, despite Krauss being very clear precisely what kind of nothing he's discussing. The problem with Lennox's objection is that the nothing he thinks Krauss should be addressing — the total absence of anything whatever — is merely a philosophical construct with no possibility of being real in any sense that makes any sense. Lennox presumably believes that God exists, and is not nothing, and is eternal. If God — or indeed anything at all — is eternal, then Lennox's "nothing" is clearly an impossibility. Such being the case, it's disingenuous of him to complain that Krauss is studying some other kind of nothing.

Streaming audio of this episode of Beyond Belief is available here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01gf5w7

Not for the first time Lennox comes across as a barely disguised old-earth creationist, while Mark Vernon's mild atheism is reasonable but diffident (maybe he's being careful to avoid being labelled as "gnu"). Usama Hasan claims atheists cannot say where the laws of physics come from, as if they ought be inscribed on stone tablets somewhere up a mountain. In the middle of the episode Ernie Rae plays an interview with Graham Swinerd, an agnostic astronautics engineer who found Christ as a result of the fine-tuning argument — though as he also credits attending an Alpha Course one might perhaps consider him as already on the brink.

As is usual at the end of an episode Rae asks all three of his guests one question; this time it's whether the universe has a purpose. Hasan claims it's to declare the glory of God and to produce conscious beings able to choose between good and evil. Vernon doubts that the universe has an overall purpose, except as a container for people who have their own purposes. Lennox, however, goes into eccentric preacher-mode:

"The Universe is a temporary home for human beings created in the image of God. He's conveyed on us that immense dignity, and ultimately, for me, the whole purpose of life in the universe is to enjoy the fellowship of the creator that invented the atom."

A Thought for the Day — any day soon, please?

Evan Davis, one of the hosts of Radio 4's morning news radio show, The Today Programme, shared his views about Thought for the Day in a brief profile article in the Independent recently, subsequently picked up by the British Humanist Association, which has long been campaigning for the daily four-minute slot to be opened up to non-religious speakers:

Today programme host: ‘Thought for the Day’ should have secular voices

This is so obvious it should have been done years ago, but the BBC have a blind spot about their religious programming. They even claim that the "faith" content of TftD is balanced by the "non-faith" of the rest of the Today Programme. It's just part of an insidious insistence that morality is the exclusive preserve of religion, which is not only false but profoundly so. An excellent case can be made that religious considerations of moral questions are inherently lacking in morality, and that the only truly "moral" approach to such questions is a secular humanist one.

Nelson Jones (aka "The Heresiarch") took up the matter in New Statesman:
New Statesman - God's Morning Monopoly
...giving a comprehensive overview and a reasoned argument that, today, thoughts don't have to be religious.

New Humanist chimed in with the following:
New Humanist Blog: Time for atheists on Thought for the Day?
Not just time. It's long overdue.

Guy Stagg

So far, so unanimous. But then Guy Stagg penned this staggering drivel in the Telegraph:
Secularists on Thought for the Day will expose the loneliness of atheism – Telegraph Blogs
(Via HumanistLife.) 

There’s so much wrong with Guy Stagg’s article one hardly knows where to start. We'll try the beginning:

Evan Davis has called for Thought for the Day to be opened up to secular contributions. The Today programme presenter thinks that the show is discriminating against the non-religious. Davis probably thinks this would strengthen the role of secularism in society, but in fact the opposite is true.

Naked assertions do not an argument make.

Thought for the Day is one of the better things about the Today programme. In comparison with some of the indulgent and irrelevant slots that fill up the three hours, Thought for the Day is consistently focused and intelligent.

Stagg obviously misses the ones I hear, which are mostly woolly and platitudinous.

What is more, as most atheists recognise, faith has plenty of lessons for religious and non-religious alike.

Secularism has plenty of lessons for people of faith (and no faith), so let's hear some of those too.

Finally, Radio 4 gives lots of space to secular contributions – a few minutes of God in the middle of the morning is hardly a victory against the Enlightenment.

But this is exactly the point — where else in the Today Programme's three hours can we hear secular views on ethics and how-we-should-live? Restricting TftD to only God-based views is clearly discrimination.

There are also practical problems with Evan Davis’s idea. Who would be invited onto the new Thought for the Day? Davis suggests “spiritually minded secularists”. I guess that would include philosophers and academics, but presumably poets and lifestyle coaches as well. The question is: who does it exclude?

Why should it exclude anyone?

There is something a bit immature about the idea, like a schoolboy trying to get off chapel. It belongs to the same category of silly proposal as Alain de Botton’s secular temples, or Dawkins's rebranding of atheists as “brights”. It shows that, although secularists have realised that they cannot simply be defined by opposition to religion, nevertheless they have little to offer in its place. Crucially the secular tradition has no successful institutions to preserve and spread its principles.

Stagg hasn't done his homework. "Brights" did not come from Richard Dawkins, though he and Dan Dennett have promoted the soubriquet, which hasn't found much favour among secularists. Secularists, however, have plenty to offer the Today Programme's listeners, if given the chance. As for replacing religion, if one has a cancerous tumour surgically removed, one does not seek to insert something in the body to replace it. And what does Stagg mean by "the secular tradition", if he's claiming secularists have no successful institutions? Is he not aware of the well-established British Humanist Association? The National Secular Society?

This is something that few secularists admit: atheism is quite lonely. Not just existentially, but socially as well. Secularism does not offer the sense of fellowship you find in religion. Watching old Christopher Hitchens debates on YouTube with a like-minded sceptic is entertaining, but I doubt it's as nourishing as Sunday Mass.

There's a reason secularists don't admit that atheism is lonely, at least not in Britain today. Because it isn't, neither existentially or socially. (On the global scale, is Stagg unaware of the Reason Rally? If so, he seems quite unqualified to write this article.) And I've no idea why Stagg thinks a secularist would find Sunday Mass in any sense "nourishing".

This doesn't make the claims of religion true.

He gets that bit right, at least.

For what it’s worth, I doubt them as much as Evan Davis. But I recognise that atheism has a long way to go to provide a complete and compelling alternative to religion. And it will take a lot more than inviting some yoga teachers onto the Today programme.

There's no reason why atheism ("lack of belief in a god or gods") should be an alternative to anything other than god-belief. Secular humanism, however, holds that it is possible to lead an ethical, fulfilling and meaningful life (the only life we have) without religion. I am without religion, and I see no need for anything in its place. And it may well take more than yoga teachers on TftD to convince people of that fact. So let's do it.

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As mentioned above, the BHA has an ongoing campaign about Thought for the Day, and they are once again urging secularists, humanists and others to write to the BBC trustees. Here's my effort, sent on 2 April:

BBC Trust Unit
180 Great Portland Street
London
W1W 5QZ

Dear Sirs,

In today's Independent, Evan Davies, one of the presenters of Radio 4's Today Programme, is quoted thus:

===
Davis, an atheist, feels strongly about Today's "Thought for the Day" slot. A decade ago he complained that it was "discriminating against the non-religious". Now he says: "I think there's a very serious debate about whether the spot – which I would keep – might give space to what one might call 'serious and spiritually minded secularists'. I don't think "Thought for the Day" has to only be people of the cloth."
===

The BBC has over the years received many calls to restore balance to this slot but has not done so. The calls keep coming.

As a listener to the Today Programme for several decades I would like to add my own strong feelings that "Thought for the Day" should include secular views. The consideration of ethical questions is not the sole purview of the religious, and given that the slot is not called "Religious Thought for the Day" its content remains unbalanced. I urge the trustees to rectify this as soon as possible, in line with what is likely to be the majority view of the programme's audience.

Yours faithfully,

Paul S. Jenkins

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I sent this via email, to trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk
(...and only now, on pasting this in, do I realise I spelled Evan Davis' name incorrectly.)

"Nature Deficit Disorder" is not a medical condition

The Today Programme is the BBC's premier morning news radio show. It lasts three hours (from 6 till 9) but inevitably some its subjects are given minimal coverage. One such was this morning's discussion about a report recently released by the National Trust. "Natural Childhood" is authored by Stephen Moss, who was on the programme to support his contention that children are missing out by not spending enough time outdoors. This is all very fine and dandy — I'm in favour of kids getting up close and personal with nature — but unfortunately the National Trust have fallen into the all-too-common view that the way to promote their services (and providing services is what they do by charging admission to their properties) is to spin the reduced outdoor-time as some kind of medical condition.

Taking up an invented syndrome and running with it is a bad way to promote yourself; as a member of the National Trust myself I find this tactic regrettable. "Nature Deficit Disorder" is not a recognised medical condition — Stephen Moss's report even acknowledges this, so why is he using it to spin the statistics to indicate that children are being harmed?

Aleks Krotoski has ably covered this in the Guardian, and she was on the Today Programme to debunk Stephen Moss's disingenuous PR:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9709000/9709957.stm

The report itself is available here:

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/servlet/file/store5/item789980/version2/natural_childhood.pdf

It has over 100 references and notes at the end, appearing appropriately scholarly for its 28 pages. I noticed, however, that one of those references was to something by Aric Sigman, which did not inspire confidence (it prompted a search for the word "Greenfield" — though thankfully that yielded no results).

Religious comfort at my expense

"As the NHS looks to find at least £20bn of savings between now and 2015, could the provision of chaplains be one area where the service could save money? Edward Presswood, a doctor of acute medicine based in North London, and Rev Debbie Hodge, chief officer of Multi Faith Group for Healthcare Chaplaincy, debate whether there is a place for spirituality on hospital wards."

This was a brief discussion on BBC Radio Four's Today Programme this morning, and though four and a half minutes isn't enough to explore the issues in detail, it proved sufficient to reveal the underlying concerns of both sides. Edward Presswood made the point that a religious chaplain could not cater for the "spiritual needs" of someone who was of a different or no religion, though he stated he wasn't against hospital chaplains on principle — only their being funded by the National Health Service.

Debbie Hodge offered a similar argument to that used by the Lords Spiritual when attempting to justify seats in the House of Lords for Anglican bishops: that "religious" care isn't the forefront of the care they provide, but their religiosity gives them unique expertise. This ties in with the suggestion that clerics have some special spiritual power that only they have access to, perhaps because they have a hotline to the Almighty. Unjustified assumptions like this lead to taxpayers funding hospital chaplains to the tune of £29 million per year. Edward Presswood ably skewered the assumption with his football-fan analogy.

Listen to the discussion here (fast forward to 2h45m — available for a week):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01dhqfb/Today_22_03_2012/

Given more time, I'd like to have heard the Rev Hodge explain precisely what she means by "spiritual care" as it seems this is a term bandied about with little idea of what it's actually supposed to be.

Am I no true atheist?

I'm a bit worried about my credentials as an atheist ("gnu" or otherwise). I know who the Four Horsemen are, but I couldn't tell you which came first (was it Dennett or Harris?). Off the top of my head I can't give you the entire URL for Pharyngula, nor can I reliably list all the hosts of the Atheist Experience TV show. I know there were lots of historical figures who professed atheism, but I certainly couldn't list them.

As if these failings weren't serious enough, I find I'm also unable to recite the full title of Charles Darwin's seminal work known for short as The Origin. Surely no true atheist would fail so miserably at declaring atheism's central dogmas?

Oh wait. Atheism has no dogmas, so I've nothing to declare but my lack of belief in a god or gods.

In an amusing but spurious bit of table-turning, this morning Richard Dawkins found himself being put on the spot by Giles Fraser on the Today Programme. Dawkins was unable to reel off the The Origin's full title when challenged to do so, and for this embarrassing blanking of mind in the heat of a live radio discussion some Christians have unjustly accused him of hypocrisy.

To those Christians I would say you're missing the point. Listen to the radio piece itself:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9696000/9696135.stm

Here's the Today Programme's page on it:

Research carried out by for a secularist foundation has suggested that most of those who describe themselves as Christian in Britain have only a low level of belief and practice of the religion.

A poll carried out by Ipsos-Mori for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science indicated that half of those in Britain who say they are Christian rarely go to church while nearly 60% do not read the Bible.

Prof Richard Dawkins, founder of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, told the Today programme's Justin Webb that most people who call themselves Christian merely "tick the Christian box".

When asked whether the figures told us anything of use, Professor Dawkins insisted it "told us an awful lot" because it puts into doubt the place of Christian practices in society such as bishops in House of Lords and the presence of faith schools.

However Reverend Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's, called the findings "extraordinary" and maintained that it was not fair to trump people's "self identification" as Christians.

He said that "there are all sorts of ways to express Christianity" and that we should not be "purging religion from the public square".

Dawkins' fumbling with The Origin's full title was cringe-making but irrelevant, and here's why. Charles Darwin's On The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection — Or The Preservation Of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life is not a sacred text. Dawkins might have been expected, given his area of expertise, to rise to Fraser's challenge, but the fact that on this occasion he was unable to do so means nothing more than that he had a temporary memory lapse. Such lapses are not unusual — most people have them. This particular lapse doesn't mean that Dawkins isn't a "true atheist", nor does it mean the points he was making aren't valid.

Giles Fraser tried, as religionists often do, to make atheism and Christianity somehow equivalent — two sides of the same coin. They're not. Christianity has sacred scripture containing common beliefs about supernatural events and persons, along with "moral" laws and "moral" guidance. Atheism has none of these things. All atheism has is lack of belief in any deity.

The survey in question, however, shows that a majority of people who self-identify as Christians don't meet the criteria that Christianity is commonly taken to involve. They don't know the scripture, they don't hold the beliefs and they don't follow the guidance. Their self-identification should not, therefore, be taken by policy-makers as an indication that a majority of people hold to Christian beliefs, when clearly they don't. There are religious factions in government, however, who seem so desperate to preserve religion's disproportionate influence, they are willing to misrepresent what people believe.

Giles Fraser claims it's unfair to say that people who self-identify as Christians are not really Christian just because they don't know the scripture, don't hold the beliefs and don't follow the guidance. In effect he's saying that just because people who are atheists in all but name still self-identify as Christian, it's unfair to describe them as not Christian. Maybe he's right; people should be allowed to call themselves whatever they want. But this shouldn't give the government an excuse to impose "Christian" laws on a population who, despite what they say, are clearly not Christian in the generally accepted meaning of the term.

And if atheists have no dogmas, can't recite a creed, and don't read Darwin — this too is no excuse for imposing "Christian" law.

Illustrating a bad influence in American politics — BBC Radio 4

Beyond Belief, BBC Radio 4's discussion programme about faith matters, was this week about the Republican nomination for US presidential candidate. Here's the blurb from the Radio 4 website:

What role does religion play in the race for the Republican nomination for the White House?

Ernie Rea is joined by Bob Vander Plaats, head of "The Family Leader" pressure group, Boo Tyson from "Coalition Mainstream" and Dr Alexander Smith from Huddersfield University. Together they assess the influence of the Religious Right on Republican politics, and whether Americans might be ready for a Mormon president.

Some of the talk was sensible, and some was just idiotic. The dire straits of America's so-called "separation of church and state" was amply illustrated by this final exchange in the programme's closing minute, when host Ernie Rae asked each of his guests the same question:

ERNIE RAE: Do you think that a publicly declared atheist could win the presidency at this point in time?

BOO TYSON: No. No I don't, and I think you would be hard pressed to win "dog-catcher" for County Commissioner, much less be the president of the United States, who takes an oath with "under God" in it, and on a Bible.

ALEXANDER SMITH: I suspect not. No. And in fact interestingly, I mean, Ron Paul, who we haven't talked about in this discussion, is probably the closest candidate you could come to who might be described as something of an agnostic. But you know, he's trailing well behind, and obviously isn't much of a prospect.

BOB VANDER PLAATS: I certainly hope not. For us to say that an atheist could lead this country, I sure hope we're not at that point. If we are, I believe God would have every right to remove his blessing from this country.

That last response is precisely what's wrong with religious influence in American politics.

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The audio of this programme is available for streaming until the end of the century (or thereabouts):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01blgp2