Protest the Pope — speeches roundup

Here are some links to recordings of the "Protest the Pope" rally that took place in London last Saturday. The first video (for the attention-challenged) is edited highlights, beginning with Geoffrey Robinson and including Richard Dawkins, Barbara Blaine, Peter Tatchell, Maryam Namazie, Andrew Copson and Johann Hari:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPhKKutehyk


The rally was opened by Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6YOhuVH1jY


Johann Hari:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AASspr178ZY

 

Richard Dawkins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjUZcf9ziIQ


Peter Tatchell (incomplete):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NybcM0vDCe0


Geoffrey Robertson (from the rear):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRZJ4k86Jds


Another view of Geoffrey Robertson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBA5Pv-yb2s


Terry Sanderson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDg39js9Djg


Maryam Namazie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprF15iAIT4


Ben Goldacre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtHySxuAo1k


Father Bernard Lynch (from the rear):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-4-aaqmFWQ


The Pod Delusion folks have made available an unedited audio recording of the speeches. While the sound quality isn't great, for those like myself who did not attend the rally the recording does serve to put all of the above clips in sequence and context:



Thanks to the Pod Delusion and all those who made their recordings available. Click on each video to go to YouTube for more information on the recording.

Book review: Don't Get Fooled Again by Richard Wilson

On 23^rd February 2010 Richard Wilson spoke at the second Winchester Skeptics in the Pub, and he was selling copies of his book. I had previously checked out the book on Amazon, so when his price on the night showed a considerable discount, plus the opportunity to have the authorial signature, I snapped it up.

I'm glad I did. The book's subtitle, The Sceptic's Guide to Life, may be a bit ambitious as an aim, but the content offers excellent advice on how to check if what you're being told can be believed.

He covers dubious advertising, news stories that are no more than uncritical rehashes of press releases, manufactured controversies and much else besides, all with examples and copious footnotes (so if you have any doubt you are free to check his sources — many of which are available for free on the web).

By way of example he goes into detail about Trofim Lysenko's bogus attempts to reform Soviet agriculture — a subject he dealt with in his SitP talk — as well as examining Clarence Cook Little's initially successful efforts in the 1950's to obfuscate the growing concern about a link between tobacco and lung cancer.

There's a chapter about AIDS denialism — the claim that there's no evidence HIV causes AIDS, and that anti-retroviral drugs actually cause AIDS. He deals with the tendency to invent neologisms to disguise and defuse serious problems, whether factual or ethical, and he even goes into some detail on the religious question, in response to the "new atheist" publishing phenomenon.

He touches on corruption in high places, mentioning the secrecy surrounding MP's expenses (the book was published before the recent widespread scandal — which is probably a good thing, else it would  be twice the length and dominated by a single issue).

This is a comprehensive overview of matters that should concern us all, by someone who appears to be of a generally liberal/left persuasion (something that he doesn't conceal — nor should he). It covers a selection of sceptical subjects, but gives the overall impression that these are but a fraction of what's going on, and with which we should be engaged. In the modern world he could probably write another book with entirely different examples, and we should therefore be eternally vigilant.

Richard Wilson's blog of the same name, Don't Get Fooled Again, can be found at http://richardwilsonauthor.wordpress.com/

Richard Wilson, Don't Get Fooled Again: The Sceptic's Guide to Life (Icon Books Ltd, 2008), Hardcover, £12.99
ISBN-10: 1848310145, ISBN-13: 978-1848310148

Burnee links for Saturday (any Saturday, or indeed any day)

Given the (lack of) frequency with which the Burnee links have recently (not) appeared, perhaps this should be called Burnee links for August.

Topic of Cancer | Culture | Vanity Fair
The Hitch — down but not out.

Science and Rationalism: The argument from Sye
Via a various and intricate route that's not worth elaborating here, I came across this excellent refutation of Sye Ten Bruggencate's presuppositionalist website, "Proof That God Exists". (I was going to subscribe to "Science and Rationalism" but it appears that this post — from June 2009 — is the only one there.)

The slow, whiny death of British Christianity : Johann Hari
The secularisation of Britain is well under way, but the religious are kicking up a fuss.

The onward march of secularism | David Pollock | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
While secularism appears popular, the state appears to be ignoring popular opinion.

OVERCOMPENSATING: The Journal Comic With a Seething Disdain for Reality.

Especially read Jeffrey Rowland's comment below the comic.

Last Night's TV: Faith Schools Menace?/More 4 - Reviews, TV & Radio - The Independent
Tom Sutcliffe reviews (favourably) Richard Dawkins' latest TV programme — the first in More4's series entitled Richard Dawkins' Age of Reason (though I believe that those to come are all repeats).

The Atheist Experience™: On the difference between religion and woo
Matt Dillahunty skewers religious special pleading.

The End of Religion - Jeff Schweitzer - www.richarddawkins.net - RichardDawkins.net
Jeff Schweitzer embraces "blind, pitiless indifference" in an essay that could almost be a manifesto for atheistic humanism. Highly recommended.

Daylight Atheism > Are Evolved Minds Reliable Truth-Finders?
As a result of some discussion in the Premier forum I've been researching some of Alvin Plantinga's ideas on whether naturalism is warranted — and this post from 2006 turned up.

[Updated] Transcript from The God Debate - Richard Dawkins - The Times - RichardDawkins.net
Following Stephen Hawking's recent pronouncement about the universe not needing a creator, TimesOnline ran a debate "chat". Richard Dawkins was one of the participants, and he did well to keep calm in the face of the same old wishy-washy. Ruth Gledhill in particular seems not to care whether what she believes is actually true.

Unanswerable Prayers | Culture | Vanity Fair
He's such a card, that Hitchens.

Julian Baggini: If science has not actually killed God, it has rendered Him unrecognisable - Science, News - The Independent
Is the magisterial overlap widening?

Three sinners and an agnostic walk into a recording studio… Unbelievable? — 28 August 2010

In response to last Saturday's Unbelievable? programme hosted by Justin Brierley on Premier Christian Radio I have started a discussion on the Premier Community Forum. Here's my initial post:

…and the four of them discuss the "Fall", which must be one of the most depressing and disempowering aspects of Christian theology. 

(I'm reminded of my paternal grandfather — probably the first independent thinker I encountered. He objected to being labelled a "miserable sinner". He was prepared to accept he was a sinner, but he declared he was far from miserable.)

The concept of the Fall is supposed to be based on the story of Adam and Eve, which is obviously allegorical. The author of Genesis could not have known it as fact as he wasn't there. Norman Nevin's claim that Adam and Eve were actual historical figures because Jesus said so was like saying the Old Testament is true because it says so in the New Testament. It must be obvious (that word again!) that the New Testament authors took the truth of the Old Testament as a given. But then to say it must be true because otherwise the rest of New Testament teaching wouldn't make sense, is just wishful thinking.

Apart from the story's manifest status as myth, there's something seriously adrift with using it as the basis for the species-wide guilt-trip of original sin. According to the story Adam and Eve are shamefully set up. They are created without knowledge of good and evil, and forbidden to obtain that knowledge. Yet without that knowledge they have no way of knowing that disobedience is classed as belonging to one of those two categories. When they disobey, they are punished (along with all of their descendants) for a crime they didn't know existed. Ignorance of the law is no excuse of course, unless — as in this case — the obtaining of knowledge of the law is the actual crime. In effect God told Adam and Eve, "Heads I win, tails you lose — suckers!"

The doctrine of the "fallen" nature of humankind is a despicable slur. I'll have none of it.

Early in the thread I was asked to state where my own moral standards come from. I posted the following:

My views on the origins of morality are straightforward: we evolved in social groups, by co-operating with kin for common benefit. Similarly, individual social groups evolved within the larger human race as a whole, and while there are different moral values particular to specific groups within the whole, the individual humans, and the individual groups, are all part of the entire human race sharing essentially the same DNA. Moral values cover a spectrum within humanity, but generally fall within a bell-curve. Keeping the extremes of that bell-curve within limits is the job of mutually agreed moral law.

The discussion is ongoing. You can follow it (and join in!) here:

http://www.premiercommunity.org.uk/group/unbelievable/forum/topics/three-sinners-and-an-agnostic

The relevant Unbelievable? programme is available as an mp3 download here:

http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/8672702d-bd46-4d6e-a5b9-b49ab8b74fbf.mp3

A creationist bleats about Dawkins (again)

In the light of Richard Dawkins' latest TV programme on More4, Faith Schools Menace? the Creation Science Movement has posted an article about Dawkins and the British Humanist Association on its website: "Richard Dawkins, the BHA and a New Inquisition".

Dawkins in fact wishes to abolish faith schools, but he acknowledges that their teaching standards are often better than secular schools. So good in fact that he would be willing to lie to get his children into one. He comments that he does not blame those atheists who pretend to be religious in order to get their children into the best faith schools, and comments that as he has 'absolutely no belief at all, I wouldn't be betraying anything' by lying and pretending to be religious.

Dawkins' point was that he would be prepared to lie about his lack of religious belief in order to counteract the inequitable availability of state schools. Faith schools discriminate against children whose parents have contributed to the funding of these schools. It's wrong that such children should be arbitrarily excluded.

What Dawkins fails to understand is that the quality of the education in faith schools is to do with their ethos.

What the (anonymous) author of this article fails to mention is that the "ethos" of the school is only part of the story. Faith schools practice selection on the basis of parents' religion. As was made clear in the programme, such selection tends to filter out less able children due to their background (their parents' willingness to do what it takes to gain admission for their offspring is a major part of that background).

Dawkins own words reveal that he is willing to destroy the very thing, the inherent values, that make faith schools so good.

As outlined above, it's not the inherent values that are the cause of good league-table performance.

The BHA has lobbied the Education Secretary Michael Gove and reports suggest that the policy developed will seek to exclude 'extremist groups' from taking over schools, and furthermore there would be no creationism taught in science classes.

Quite right too.

Andrew Copson of the BHA is concerned about the 'dangers of the influences of fundamentalist groups in our school system.' Presumably he doesn't mean to imply that the BHA owns the school system by use of the word 'our', but the faux pas is evident nonetheless.

This is a telling criticism that exposes CSM's misunderstanding (or deliberate misrepresentation) of the state school system. Voluntary aided faith schools are state schools. Over 90% of funding for these schools comes from the taxpayer — they are indeed our schools.

He is perhaps too blinkered to know that true pluralism must respect those who have different religious beliefs to his own and allow them to have an equal voice in education.

Andrew Copson is not the one who is blinkered. In the matter of education funded by the taxpayer, "those who have different religious beliefs" are not entitled to "an equal voice". In the case of voluntary aided faith schools, they are entitled to — at most — 10% of a voice.

The BHA wants us to believe that secular humanism is religiously neutral, but it is not. It is instead biased in favour of atheism.

First, atheism is not a religion. Second, the author of this article clearly doesn't know the definition of "secular" (1. not religious, sacred or spiritual; 2. not subject to or bound by religious rule; Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed).

So the BHA's claim that it seeks to develop 'totally inclusive schools for children of all faiths and none' is entirely bogus. The BHA wants atheistic humanism to have a dominant position in schools and by its actions wishes to treat those who have religious and scientific convictions about creation as second-class citizens.

Not "atheistic humanism", secular humanism; there's a difference — see the definition above. It's entirely right that state-funded education should be secular in nature, without giving preference to any religious belief over another. As for scientific "convictions" — these need to be ratified by the scientific community before they are included in the school curriculum.

We wonder why the BHA should have such influence in society that greatly exceeds its popular mandate, especially when advocating such extreme views. Christians and other religious groups greatly outweigh the membership of the BHA.

Popular mandate? BHA members are not elected by the British public, but neither are Christians and other religious groups. The BHA, however, recognises that Christians and other religious groups have disproportionate influence in society, and therefore seeks to bring that influence down to more equitable levels.

Children must be given the opportunity to learn skills in the critical analysis of complex arguments and data; skills that are the hallmarks of true education.

This is precisely what the BHA is campaigning for.

We would ask that children and students be allowed to learn skills in critical thinking within the science class and be allowed to question the problems with evolution while respecting their faith. Anything less is not science, but humanistic, religious dogma of a fundamentalist nature.

Children and students should indeed be encouraged to learn critical thinking skills, but primary and secondary education science classes are not the places to discuss theories that have no evidential base. Creationism is not science, it is religious dogma of a fundamentalist nature.

Book Review: Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Philip Pullman states clearly that his latest book is not intended to be an accurate portrayal of historical events. The back cover of his novel proclaims "This is a STORY."

But it's a story that could, given the historical events on which it is based, be one account of the possible truth. It's the story of Jesus, and of Christ, and in Pullman's narrative these are two distinct people — twin brothers, in fact. Jesus is the preacher, Christ is his unacknowledged public relations man. It's told from the viewpoint of Christ, who is constantly in awe of his brother and his wise preacherly ways.

Only once, near the end of the book, do we get to hear the thoughts of Jesus himself, when he goes into the garden at Gethsemane to commune with his God. And we learn that the wise preacher has doubts — doubts so deep that he can be safely described as an atheist.

The character of Christ is by far the more interesting of the two. It is to Christ that the business of recording the historical events falls, and like any good PR man he knows that the facts will need to be spun. We see the process of myth-making, sometimes deliberate, sometimes fortuitous. It remains a mystery, however, who the stranger is who occasionally comes to instruct Christ in his endeavours. Christ never learns the stranger's name, and believes he is an angel, but the stranger could just as easily be Satan, or more prosaically, a subversive fixer from an organisation that sees the cult of Jesus as beneficial.

The book is written in a simplistic, almost childlike style. No echoes of the King James authorised version of the Bible penetrate the flat narrative. Because it's so transparent, the framing and blatant spin of the facts at hand are seen for what they are: we are left with a simple story retold many times, incorporating the necessary features for making the myth.

Philip Pullman

Pullman clearly demonstrates that The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ is not holy writ. It is, as he says, a story. But it fits the known facts, and raises a question: if a story like this can be made up to fit the facts as we know them from history, how do we know that the other stories that fit the same facts aren't also made up? The answer is, we don't, and while that's an interesting literary question, it's not something on which the moral imperatives of a huge percentage of the world's population can be legitimately based.

[Pullman, P. (2010) The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Edinburgh: Canongate; ISBN 978 1 84767 825 6 hardcover £14.99]

Philip Pullman was a guest (by 'phone) on Premier Christian Radio's Unbelievable? programme in May. The mp3 audio is available for download here:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/558de763-5bbb-4759-a6d7-f4e5b4261601.mp3
Streaming audio available here:
http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1439D3F4-FB20-4658-892E-3992F94C5FFD}

Should Christianity be silent? Ann Widdecombe projects

Once again I'm reacting to a post on the New Humanist blog — this time it's about a Daily Express article by Ann Widdecombe. I responded in the comments to the Express article, but apparently their commenting system accepts plain text only, so my carefully formatted HTML appears very untidy. (I've pasted the properly formatted version below.)

Has anyone noticed that what the opponents of religion really want is that Christianity should be silent?

What I have noticed is that Christianity is definitely not silent, and that as soon as opponents of religion raise any objection to Christianity's lack of silence on matters with which it has no business to be concerned, they are labelled "strident" or "shrill" or "militant" (or in this case, "bigoted").

Those who run the zoo have established workshops which cover the national science curriculum but do not include discussion of religion and do not promote the extreme creationist view that the world was created 6,000 years ago. In other words it is a moderate, education-focused organisation that challenges children’s minds and produces evidence from fossils.

That the zoo promotes a slightly less extreme version of creationism does not make it "moderate". It may be "education-focussed", but that's because it has a religious agenda it wants to get into British science classes. Creationism and "intelligent design" are not science.

In short the British Humanist association does not believe that children should be allowed even to discuss creation or to be exposed to any evidence that might support it.

I'm a member of the BHA myself, and I'm not aware of any prohibition on children being allowed to discuss any subject at all. As for children being exposed to "evidence" for creation, there isn't any. The only authority for creationism is in scripture, but the Book of Genesis is not a science textbook.

With regard to scientific testing of the efficacy of prayer, most properly conducted tests are negative, but this is a distraction anyway because whenever negative results are obtained, the religious can explain them away (God is not susceptible to testing; it's impossible for an omniscient deity to conform to the protocols of a randomised double blind clinical trial; how do we know that other people who are not part of the trial aren't praying for opposing results. And so on.) I'm not surprised that Ann Widdecombe should cherry-pick a supposedly positive test of prayer while failing to mention the many that have shown no effect — her grasp of scientific method was exposed in her TV programme about Mosaic Law: she prefers to believe the Exodus took place (because it's in the Bible) despite there being no archeological evidence for it.

She is probably right in saying that the BHA and NSS will be vocal during the Pope's visit in September.

It is as well therefore to understand their bigoted approach from the outset.

I believe the bigotry of Ann Widdecombe's church of choice was clearly displayed in her debate with Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry in October last year.

That Ann Widdecombe accuses opponents of religion of wanting Christianity to be silent is a classic piece of projection.