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

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)

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

---

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.

Giles for the Day

The Rev Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral has come up with some weird suggestions for appropriate responses to crises in the past, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at his advice for dealing with the outbreak of rioting and looting throughout the country last week.

While the media and the Government pondered the correct action to take to stem the lawlessness, Giles Fraser had an altogether "alternative" solution:

Do nothing.

I'm surprised he didn't suggest lighting a candle, as he has before. Presumably this crisis was so serious it required the full force of moral action to nip it in the bud. You might think it was a bit late for that, but when the action suggested is in fact inaction, it doesn't really matter precisely when you don't do it.

Glory in the the advice of the Giles here, for a limited time:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jq9jw

Or read the transcript:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00jq9jw
(Yes, it's the same link — streaming audio and text on the same page.)

Or if you're a glutton for punishment, get the podcast:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/thought

(It's been suggested to me that I'd be a lot happier if I avoided Thought for the Day in general, and Giles Fraser in particular. But I listen to the BBC's premier morning radio news programme — Today — and sometimes I just can't avoid the Godspot. Fortunately my blood pressure is commendably normal, so a bit of witless pomposity does no more than limber up the critical faculties at the start of the day.)

A Secular Bible — and barely disguised disdain

The Today Programme this morning featured a discussion between "famous atheist" A. C. Grayling and Thought for the Day regular the Rev Canon Dr Giles Fraser. Grayling was on to plug his latest book, The Good Book: A Secular Bible — characterized as an atheist version of the Christian Bible. He's an accomplished philosopher with a knack for plain speaking without rancour, and so this is one I'll be checking out.

Giles Fraser — he of woolly theology — was apparently on as "balance". Despite his remarkable claim that very few Christians hold to the idea that belief in God is a necessary precondition for morality¹, he could not restrain the typical disdain theists reserve for anyone of a godless persuasion who dares to imagine that a fully engaged life can be lived in the absence of a god. It was all jolly banter in the studio, but with a noticeably condescending subtext.

I doubt, however, that any of this will have put off Grayling from his book-promotion — nor should it. Compared to him, Fraser comes across as an intellectual midget whose jovial ripostes may make for a mildly entertaining end to the BBC's flagship morning news radio programme, but beyond that they are of little consequence.

Incidentally the Guardian has an extensive interview with A. C. Grayling that may serve as an antidote to the foregoing Fraser-frustration:
AC Grayling: 'How can you be a militant atheist? It's like sleeping furiously' | Books | The Guardian

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1. So few Christians hold to this belief, and yet atheists debating theists encounter it all the time.

"On Being" a scornful atheist on the Today Programme

Peter Atkins has a new book out. On Being is apparently a rallying cry for the virtues and reliability of science in a solely materialist, naturalistic universe. Professor Atkins was on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme yesterday morning, along with philosopher Mary Midgley. The 6'34" streaming audio clip is available here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9427000/9427512.stm

Does science have all the answers we need to the big questions of life, like why are we here and where did we come from?

Oxford scientist Prof Peter Atkins and philosopher Mary Midgley discuss whether there is anything more than facts, facts and more facts.

There's an accompanying article by Tom Colls on the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9410000/9410486.stm

I dislike the term "militant atheist" because as applied to people like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens it degrades the meaning of "militant", but I think "scornful atheist" or "disdainful atheist" could accurately describe Peter Atkins. He's very clear about his naturalistic approach to the whole of existence and doesn't moderate his language when speaking to those who have a more transcendental take on things. Some may see his approach as lacking in nuance, though I suspect he would maintain nuance on these matters is superfluous.

Stephen Law also heard the Today clip, and posted about it on his blog:

Funnily enough I had exactly this debate with Atkins a couple of weeks ago in Oxford over about 2hrs (part of THINK week). Dawkins sat right in front of me and chipped in too. I believe there will be some sort of recording available shortly...

I look forward to hearing that recording.

Being religious does not confer special rights

From last Thursday's Today Programme on BBC Radio Four:

A Christian couple who were refused permission to be foster parents on the grounds that they are homophobic, have been advised that appealing against the decision would be "futile". Barrister Paul Diamond and former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer debate if anti-discrimination laws should take precedence over the rights of the couple to express their religious views.

Ten-minute streaming audio clip available here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9420000/9420781.stm

Once again we have someone (Paul Diamond in this case) bleating that religious people should be allowed to discriminate unfairly against certain sections of society, and that being religious gives them special rights that the non-religious don't have. Lord Falconer is having none of it, pointing out that the judgement in the Eunice and Owen Johns case was very fair and applied not to the fact that the Johns' were religious, but that their views regarding homosexuality might prevent them from treating their foster children in a non-discriminatory manner.

Sure, the Johns' are decent people, but if their views prevent them from caring for foster children in a manner required by law, then they should not be allowed, by law, to be foster parents. The remedy, as in all these cases, is in their hands. In a previous Today Programme interview Eunice Johns claimed that all they are asking for is "a level playing-field in society". Thanks to recent laws against discrimination, that's exactly what they've got.

Two from Today: 1) Fostering with equality; 2) Paranormality

From the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme this morning come these two snippets. First is an interview with Eunice and Owen Johns who are no longer allowed to be foster parents because they are unable, due to their Christian faith, to (as far as I can gather) refrain from condemning homosexuality. Listening to this interview is frustrating because try as he might Justin Webb cannot get out of either of them what it is they've done, or are prepared to do, that has caused them to be barred from fostering.

Eunice claims that all they are asking for is "a level playing-field in society" — when what they clearly want is a field that slopes towards the condemnation of anything that is contrary to their faith. If they are providing a public service such as fostering, it is right that they should not be allowed to discriminate by condemning (presumably within earshot of their foster-children) certain sections of that public. (It's a bit of a weird case and I've not read a transcript of the judgement.)

From the Today website:

Eunice and Owen Johns have been foster parents and have provided a secure loving home to vulnerable children. But because they are Pentecostalists who believe that homosexuality is wrong, in a landmark ruling yesterday the High Court sided with the local authority view that these beliefs disqualify the Johns' from any future fostering.

The five-minute streaming audio is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9410000/9410365.stm

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And just before the 9 am news we had Professor Richard Wiseman promoting his new book Paranormality. (I have a copy, and I can vouch for the fact that it does indeed contain Normal Paragraphs.)

From the Today website:

According to a new book by Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire, the paranormal is a form of illusion. He examines the psychology of the paranormal and why people believe what they do. Robert McLuhan, author of Randi's Prize, disputes Professor Wiseman's claim and explains why.

The five-minute streaming audio is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9410000/9410492.stm

If Robert McLuhan thinks near-death experiences are "extraordinary" I hope he's got better evidence than Gary Habermas. This seems unlikely, however, judging by his response today at the Guardian Comment is Free website:

Response Precognitive dreaming should not be dismissed as coincidence | Comment is free | The Guardian

Robert McLuhan's "response" contains some choice nuggets:

Where dreams are reported that match future events on a number of specific details – as is often the case – statistical probability is not particularly useful.

Not particularly useful? I would have thought statistical probability was absolutely crucial in distinguishing actual phenomena from random noise. He goes on:

One such case, recorded in JW Dunne's 1930s bestseller An Experiment With Time, involves someone dreaming of meeting a woman wearing a striped blouse in a garden and suspecting her of being a German spy. Two days later the dreamer visits a country hotel where she is told of a woman staying there who other residents believe to be a spy. She later encounters the woman outside, and finds the garden and the pattern on the blouse exactly match her dream. Such reports – where the dream is recorded immediately afterwards and prior to the event it appears to foretell – cannot be dismissed as anecdotal.

Does Robert McLuhan know what anecdotal means? I read Dunne's book decades ago, and my recollection is that though it was fascinating, Dunne's experiment could hardly be described as rigorously scientific, relying as it did on a good deal of interpretation by the experimenter. McLuhan's example above is indeed, therefore, anecdotal.

Richard Wiseman's original article in the Guardian is here:
Can dreams predict the future? | Science | The Guardian

"Grill a bishop" and you'll get undercooked answers

A revealing segment on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme yesterday seemed to confirm (anecdotally at least) that young people are by no means apathetic about the god question. Bishop Graham Kings has taken it upon himself to answer secondary school pupils' questions about God. From the BBC website:

A Church of England bishop has called on Anglican clergy to take the Church's message to young people by trying to address the fundamental questions of life and death

Dr Graham Kings, the Bishop of Sherborne, in Dorset, says a lack of religious knowledge is one of the causes of religious doubt. Robert Pigott reports

The four-minute audio stream is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9367000/9367602.stm

The questions and answers that the Today editors included in the segment are transcribed below:

Q: "Do you think God planned the creation of nuclear weapons? Because seeing as he's supposed to be loving, that doesn't seem like a very loving thing to do."

A: "Not everything that happens in the world is God's design, so I don't think rape and racism and apartheid and smashing people up is God's design. But he has given us free will, either to respond to him and to other people lovingly, or not."

Q: "You say that God doesn't command everything, yet in the Bible it does, so surely somehow he did command that person to create nuclear weapons. Because in the Bible it says that God commands everything."

A: "It doesn't say that in the Bible."

Bishop Kings apparently blames young people's estrangement from the church partly on declining knowledge of the Bible. You may detect a recurring theme here. When asked how he knows there's life after death, the bishop replies, "I give the illustration of someone who's come back from the dead. Someone's come back and said, yes there is life after death, and that's Jesus of Nazareth himself. So I just have to be honest and say, well I believe in the afterlife because someone's come back and reported back."

Q: "You said a moment ago that homosexual relationships fall short of the glory of God." 

A: "I think we are designed for the glory of God. Paul says that in Romans 3, but he also says that just everybody falls short of the glory of God." 

Q: "If people are accepted exactly how they are, then surely God will accept them if they are homosexual. Why is it wrong, in that respect?" 

A: "God accepts them exactly as they are. What sometimes happens, and it doesn't always happen, is that sometimes they think, is this right, do I continue in a sexual relationship, or do I become celibate?"

Bishop Kings clearly bases everything on the Bible, but we didn't hear his answer to the obvious question, "How do you know the Bible is true?" (The answer is likely to have involved some circularity.) Note that Bishop Kings' answer to the question about homosexuality did not reference the Bible's unequivocal condemnation. This is probably because such a response would expose the Bible as a repository of repugnant immorality.

As if to emphasize the desperate disconnectedness of religion, Robert Pigott's report was immediately followed by Thought for the Day, in which Rhidian Brook gave us his take on Blue Monday (also available as a transcript). I would hope Mr Brook knows that Blue Monday is entirely made up by a PR company to sell holiday bookings, but I suppose if you subscribe to a belief for which the only "evidence" is fictitious scripture, it's difficult to tell these things apart.

Claire Rayner (1931-2010)

Claire Rayner died yesterday. I heard the announcement on Radio 4 this morning, and remembered she had recently contributed (as I did) to the "Humanist Heroes" series at the British Humanist Association's Humanist Life website. (She was a former President of the BHA.)

The Today Programme had her son Jay Rayner on, and I was struck by what a superb advertisement his interview was for the humanist attitude to rites of passage and life in general. No regrets, but fond remembrances and laughter.

Here's the audio:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9083000/9083017.stm

And here's the BHA's tribute:
http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/672

Penn and Teller: Magic on the radio - BBC Radio 4 Today Programme

A short interview with Penn Jillette on the Today Programme this morning...

"US magicians Penn and Teller are performing in the UK after a 16-year absence. The two spoke to presenter Evan Davis ahead of a performance in the Westfield shopping centre, although Penn does all the talking. They discussed how they write new material, the relationship between their ardent atheism and magic, and the power of live performance."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8818000/8818981.stm
(3'56" streaming audio)

A snippet from Penn : "We're big fans of Dawkins and Hitchens...." 

The ultimate quack remedy — David Tredinnick & Simon Singh — Today Programme, BBC Radio 4

Question: Does homeopathy work?

Answer: No.

This matter is settled. We don't need more research — the research has been done. It clearly shows that homeopathy is no more effective than placebo. Taxpayers' money that has heretofore funded homeopathy on the National Health Service should therefore be redirected to medical interventions that have been shown to have demonstrable effect. This was essentially the finding of the recent Parliamentary Science & Technology Select Committee Evidence Check on homeopathy.

Some people, however, refuse to take "no" for an answer. On this morning's Today Programme, Conservative MP David Tredinnick called for still more research on this failed magic:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8757000/8757810.stm
(Streaming audio, 4'41")

Simon Singh was also on the programme, and he summarily demolished David Tredinnick's best evidence. Neverthless the MP went on to call for yet more research, because homeopathy is "popular" with doctors and patients. Fortunately (given the time constraints of the Today Programme) Simon Singh was quick enough to give a highly amusing example of homeopathy's lack of plausibility, along with the financial motives behind the manufacture of its remedies.

David Tredinnick wants more research because he knows that the aggregate of research done so far fails to show that homeopathy is effective. He will continue to call for more research until it stops giving him answers he doesn't like.

That's not going to happen. Homeopathy has been fully tested — it doesn't work. There's nothing in it.

The theodicy of Haiti doesn't bear thinking about (so let's not)

I get my first news of the day from BBC Radio 4, specifically the Today Programme. Yesterday regular host John Humphrys asked¹ the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, why God allowed such terrible suffering to be inflicted on the innocent people of Haiti. The Archbishop didn't have a coherent answer, though he did at least condemn Pat Robertson's ugly accusation (that the Haitians had it coming because their ancestors made a pact with the devil):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5TE99sAbwM



The Today Programme  audio stream for Thursday, January 14th is available here (scroll down to 0831):
http://news.bbc.co.uk//today/hi/today/newsid_8458000/8458361.stm

Or download an mp3 of the relevant clip from RapidShare here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/335314721/Today_JohnSentamu_Haiti_BBCR4i-20100114.mp3

"Stories of survival are emerging from the rubble in Haiti. Troy Livesay, of the Christian charity World Wide Village, lives with his family in Port au Prince and has written a moving account in the Guardian about his family's survival. He begs people to prey for Haitians. Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, comments on how people turn to God during times of disaster."

( Troy Livesay's Guardian account is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/13/survivors-tale-haiti-blog-extract )

When disaster strikes the innocent, theodicy is revealed as the empty wailing of those who know they have no excuses for their supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God, but this morning on Thought for the Day theodicy's guilty vacuity was brought to a new low by Giles Fraser:

"...at a moment like this, I prefer to leave the arguments to others. For me this is a time quietly to light a candle for the people of Haiti, and to offer them up to God in my prayers. May the souls of the departed rest in peace."

Well thanks a bunch Giles! I'm sure your candle and prayers will be so effective in helping the Haitians in their dire plight, and might even convince them that — despite appearances — God loves them after all! (I'm sorry, but when I heard this execrable peroration this morning I uttered an extremely audible profanity.) This isn't the first time the Rev. Dr. Giles Fraser has used Thought for the Day to hide behind verbal obfuscation, and it illustrates precisely why the slot should be opened up to secular humanist viewpoints.

RealMedia audio stream:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/realmedia/thought/t20100115.ram

Podcast audio:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/thought/thought_20100115-1008a.mp3

Download mp3 from RapidShare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/335825978/Thought__15_JAN_10.mp3

The script for Giles Fraser's thought should be is now available soon; meanwhile you can read an alternative interpretation at Platitude of the Day.

UPDATE 2010-01-19: On Saturday's Today Programme, atheist philosopher A. C. Grayling was asked to respond to both John Sentamu and Giles Fraser. He was calmly rational (as always), but scheduled at the very end of the programme he had insufficient time to deal in full with the idiocy that is theodicy. The vacuous blatherings of Messrs Sentamu and Fraser last week have been rightly castigated across the blogosphere — Manic Street Preacher's recent post contrasts similarly reprehensible, knee-jerk statements in response to tragedy with those displaying a more compassionate outlook.

The audio stream of A. C. Grayling's valiant but time-constrained effort is available here (scroll down to 0854):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8462000/8462906.stm

Or you can download the clip from RapidShare as an mp3:
http://rapidshare.com/files/337961781/Today_ACGrayling_Haiti_BBCR4i-20100116.mp3

¹UPDATE 2010-01-22: A transcript of John Humphrys' conversation with Archbishop John Sentamu is available at the JREF Swift blog.

"News Quiz" discusses "Thought for the Day"

Friday's "News Quiz" on BBC Radio 4 had a couple of minutes on the BBC Trust's decision this week not to allow non-religious viewpoints on the Today Programme's "Thought for the Day" segment. The participants are Francis Wheen, Carrie Quinlan, Jeremy Hardy (who has a go at Richard Dawkins) and Sue Perkins, with Sandi Toksvig in the chair.

Relevant excerpt (2'46" 1.3 Mb mp3):
http://rapidshare.com/files/309794336/NewsQuiz_excerpt_BBCR4i-20091120.mp3

Podcast episode (28'06" 25.8 Mb mp3) downloadable for seven days:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/fricomedy/fricomedy_20091120-1855a.mp3

Audio stream from iPlayer for seven days:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00nws6r/The_News_Quiz_Series_69_Episode_9/

For iPlayer-deprived listeners, download the relevant episode's mp3 here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/310177682/FriComedy__The_News_Quiz_20_Nov_2009.mp3

Indoctrination, moi? - secular alternatives need more publicity

In much of the mainstream media coverage of Camp Quest UK one can detect barely concealed false puzzlement, if not actual contempt, expressed with the merest hint of a sneer: "Why on earth would you want to send your kids to an atheist summer camp?" - as if the very idea of a summer camp with some kind of agenda is totally new and distinctly weird.

This knee-jerk reaction is symptomatic of the blind-spot in media treatment of religious issues - like the water in which fish swim, religion is everywhere, so people don't perceive it as anything special (when in fact much of religion is profoundly disturbing). As for summer camps, Christians wouldn't dream of setting up anything remotely similar, expressly to inculcate children with religious beliefs, would they?

We know, of course, that this is exactly what they do. Case in point, click the link below to hear a four-minute audio clip from this morning's Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, about Christian Skaters:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8180000/8180962.stm

Such blatant indoctrination is endemic in the US. As a further example I commend to you the documentary film Jesus Camp, though it's advisable not to have any heavy objects within reach - unless you were already planning to buy a new TV.

Camp Quest UK has received plenty of media coverage, thanks to Samantha Stein (camp director) and Crispian Jago (whose children attended the camp this year), and despite media hostility the public support - as indicated by the majority of comments on one particularly egregious online article - seems to be favourable. All such efforts to provide secular and freethought alternatives - devoid of the taint of religious faith - need to be publicised to the maximum extent, simply to let people know that alternatives exist, and that their choices, contrary to what they might have believed, are not limited only to faith-based options.

If the BBC's flash player misbehaves, a 4'11" 1 Mb mp3 can be downloaded from RapidShare:

http://rapidshare.com/files/341823646/Today_ChristianSkaters_BBCR4i-20090803.mp3

Moon-hoaxer on BBC Radio 4 Today Programme

BBC Radio Four's Today Programme this morning had a five-minute segment on what has become known as the "moon hoax". There are some people who don't believe that NASA sent men to the moon; they maintain that it was all a hoax, a massive special effect set on a sound stage somewhere.

"On the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, Marcus Allen, the British publisher of Nexus - a magazine which deals with the paranormal - and Professor Martin Ward, Head of physics at Durham University, discuss the conspiracy theories that have plagued this event."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8158000/8158602.stm

Interesting to hear Marcus Allen, the moon-landing denier, maintain his denial about the specific things he raised (the excellent quality of the photographs taken by the astronauts in extremes of temperature, and the fact that their film wasn't fogged by radiation). Even after Martin Ward debunked those two "anomalies" with obvious ease, Allen stated, "You can dismiss the radiation, you can dismiss the temperature - these things still exist. Photographic film is affected by radiation."

At the beginning of this segment Allen said he hadn't seen the evidence for the moon-landings. Prof. Ward, in response to his specific points, presented the evidence, but the moon-landing denier refused to hear it.

If the BBC's flash player doesn't work for you, download the 1.2 Mb 5'06" mp3 from RapidShare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/257891228/Today_Allen_Ward_MoonHoax_BBCR4i-20090720.mp3

A secular Thought for the Day? - I'll believe it when I see it

The BBC Trust is apparently considering calls for Thought for the Day to include non-religious speakers, and this morning the call was discussed on Today, the programme on which TftD airs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8151000/8151168.stm

"Christina Rees, a member of the Church of England's General Synod, and AC Grayling, a philosopher and atheist, discuss the future of Thought."

Christina Rees perpetuates the misunderstanding that godless people have nothing to offer in commentary on the ethical aspects of current affairs. She also seems to think that the call for TftD to be opened up to secular speakers is a call for theists to be excluded from the slot. What we are complaining about is that TftD is monopolised by theists, when there are equally valid non-theist viewpoints that are entirely appropriate for this brief segment of the Today Programme. It's called "Thought for the Day", not "Religious Thought for the Day", so I think our protests are valid.

The argument isn't new - it comes up every six months or so, is chucked around a bit, and then forgotten until the next time. I'll be very surprised if the BBC does an about face on this.

If the flash player doesn't work for you, download the mp3 from RapidShare:
http://rapidshare.com/files/341825485/Today_ACGrayling_ChristinaRees_TftD_BBCR4i-20090715.mp3
(2.6 Mb, 5'34")

Later:

Perhaps there's hope after all. Check out this post by the National Secular Society:
New hope for an end to religious monopoly on Thought for the Day | National Secular Society