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I feel that we need to become more catholic in our musical tastes. ScientificGospel.com is a music gerne created by Dr. Stephen Baird to spread scientific knowledge and argue for rational enquiry and thought. Here is an example of their work.
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Oh look, the Muslims-extremists are vociferously offended, again…
Is the world going mad? Johann Hari, the British human-rights campaigner and columnist, wrote a passionate defence of enlightenment principles in an opinion-piece for the UK Independent which was subsequently re-printed by the liberal Indian-daily, the Statesman. The article was titled “Why should I respect oppressive religions?” As usual with Hari’s writing, it pulled no punches and was both accurate and thought-provoking, and alarming for those of us that respect universal human-rights and freedom of speech.
The Statesman’s editor Ravindra Kumar and publisher Anand Sinha were detained in Calcutta after complaints and a week of rioting. The Statesman wrote the following in defence of publishing the article.
The Statesman had reprinted Hari’s article because “it mourned the marginalisation of the middle, liberal path in modern society”. It added: “The Statesman has always upheld secular values and has a record of providing space to all viewpoints, even contentious ones. If we were unable to fulfil this role, we would rather cease publication with honour than compromise our basic values.
Just how far are the ideals of the enlightenment being eroded by militant religion? Perceived offence, and our inability to fight for what we believe in, is being used against us to become the modus operandi of the ignorant and the reactionary. We should be outraged by the dissemination of our freedom of expression. As Hari wrote.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that “a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people”. It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it “Western”, Robert Mugabe calls it “colonialist”, and Dick Cheney calls it “outdated”. The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to “respect” the “unique sensitivities” of the religious, they decided – so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within “the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community”.
In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists.
Clearly they are succeeding – we are inexorably giving up our freedoms in the name of unwarranted respect for stone-age myths and intolerance and we should all be disgusted and angry. It seems clear to me that respect for Muslims only applies to the oppressors, respect will certainly not be afforded a female Muslim, or a gay Muslim, or a Muslim who has the temerity to disagree. Hari has defended his position and I salute and respect the man for taking a stand for us all.
Filed under: humanism | 4 Comments »
A theocracy can loosely be defined as ‘A government ruled by or subject to religious authority.’ It seems clear that Italy is, in fact a theocracy by proxy.
Eluana Englaro has been in a vegetative-state since a car crash in 1992 and Italy’s top court ruled last year that she should be allowed to die. Eluana has severe brain-damage and last Friday her doctors began the process of allowing her to die with dignity at the behest of her suffering family. Her father has fought for 10 years based on his assertion that Eluana made it clear prior to the injury that she would prefer death, as opposed to the living-death she has endured for the past 17 years. This tragedy shares the same sordid and appalling link between religious interference and secular government as the Terri Schiavo case in the 2005. In a bid to keep Englaro alive, Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s (who is so confused about Eluana’s medical condition that it his contention that she should be kept alive as she is still able able to have children!) center-right government passed an emergency decree Friday saying that feeding and hydration cannot be suspended for patients who depend on it. There are even stories in the Italian press that Berlusconi embarked on a frantic phone call with the Vatican prior to the decision. President Napolitano, showing both empathy for family, and respect for secular law, informally expressed perplexity regarding the decree, stating that he would not sign it. There is now a race for Berlusconi to race the bill through the Italian Parliament so that the wishes of Eluana, and her family can be sacrificed on the alter of religious-inspired righteousness.
So here again we have religious dogma distorting secular government. It is true that euthanasia is illegal in Italy, but after a long battle Eluana’s father has managed to persuade the Italian court system that she should be allowed to stop keeping her alive via hydration and food. Clearly then, the legality of euthanasia in Italian law is now a moot-point. Eluana should be allowed to die with dignity, and not to linger with no hope of recovery – against her, and her family’s wishes.
Enter religion. The Catholic church, exercising all the skills of hyperbole at it’s disposal ensures us that Eluana has been ‘condemned to die of hunger of thirst’, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, the pope’s health minister, told La Repubblica that removing Englaro’s feeding tube “is tantamount to an abominable assassination”. Cardinal Antonelli said, “Eluana is in a ‘vegetative state,’ but she is not a vegetable. She is a person who is sleeping,” he said. “The person, also when she is sleeping or disabled, retains all of her dignity. The person is valuable in herself, not for what she produces or consumes, or for the pleasure or satisfaction she gives to others.” So this poor woman is only sleeping? I have been unable to find any neurological credentials in the good cardinal’s education resume, so it seems that he is not talking from an informed position – as an expert on cognitive function, and neurological damage, but from an ignorant position of religious dogma, a dogma that deals in absolutes. I would also invite the good Cardinel to sit besides a patient who cannot communicate and is only waiting for death, so he can enjoy for himself the dignity and mystery of the suffering. He might also ask Eluana’s family to describe to him the ‘pleasure and satisfaction’, they have enjoyed over the past 17 years before making such offensive comments.
But let us look for a moment at contemporary position of the RC ‘sanctity of life’ – which, when you consider that Christianity is nothing more than a death-cult is laughable. The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique told the BBC in 2007 that he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately. Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retro-viral drugs were also infected “in order to finish quickly the African people”. How many have died, (in a country where about one in six of the 19 million citizens are HIV-positive and about 500 people are infected each day) – how many children have been orphaned as a result of the Vatican’s position on contraception in sub-Saharan Africa? The sanctity of life was not a position to be concerned with when the RC church had control over Europe and routinely tortured and murdered for – well whatever the current superstition was.
Religious dogma should not still be infecting liberal, secular politics – just as I believe everybody has a human right to life, everyone also has a right to a dignified death. Euthanasia is an emotive subject. I would accept that people can have a reasonable,secular position on euthanasia both for and against – and we should engage in the discourse. But whatever moral authority religion deems itself to have is a well-documented myth, and religion has no right to dictate to a suffering family or a secular state – there can be no legitimate argument who’s central thesis comes from the bible and dogma. I think it clear that the ‘pro-life’ (when is suits) lobby is religious in nature and dogmatic in doctrine. It is not amenable to rational discourse or a change in position (except when it suits) – and the Italian government would be well-advised to keep their sanctimonious posturing closer to home. Berlusconi’s moral authority is at the very least, questionable, and I would have thought that the Italian government would have far more pressing things to worry about than intruding into the private misery of an already devastated family.
An excellent article on this subject can be found here.
Filed under: humanism | 3 Comments »
I am currently learning to play the piano – inspired largely by this man, and the music of the great German Beethoven. Enjoy
Filed under: humanism | 1 Comment »
Last night, I had a dream.
It was a beautiful summer morning. The birds were chirping, the sun was just finished rising, and I was standing in a pristine field of green. I looked up at the sky and saw fluffy clouds lazily drifting by.
All of a sudden, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, something red in the sky, and I slowly spun to gaze at it. It seemed to evade my eyes every time I tried to focus on it, and see what it was. It was like a blob of red paint, hanging in the sky, and it was getting bigger. The sky began to get darker, the clouds spun away at frightening speeds as if chased from the sky. The sun reversed it’s course in the sky and began to set, defying all logic. As the red blob slowly got bigger, I could see a sickly patch of black emerge from within it.
I was terrified, rooted to the spot, jaw gaping, barely able to breathe, watching this horrific thing unfold from the sky itself. The form emerging from the sky began to take shape. A ball? A fist? Some fingers? A hand!? An arm was emerging from the sky, as if someone was trying to reach out from some other world into ours. My mind shook with the realisation that this was exactly what was happening. Some…Thing was pulling itself through a hole in the sky! It was impossible! I could not believe what I was seeing, but seeing it I was, and it felt so surreal and yet so wholly real at the same time that I could do nothing but watch in horror as this thing slid another arm through the sky, and forced it open wider, making an awful tearing sound that bore deep inside of you and made you feel like a tin can being ripped apart inside a car as it crashes head-first into a wall.
The ground shook. My heart pounded. The Thing pulled what could only be described as it’s head through the rent in the sky. It looked like a disgusting mass of tentacles where it’s face should be, but as it shrugged them back they resolved into strands of hair, and it’s face emerged from behind the mass of hair. It looked human, dark-skinned and surprisingly normal, for a being ripping it’s way through the sky. The being laughed, or made a sound that could reasonably be approximated to a laugh, and the ground shook with a vicious tremble, forcing me to the ground.
I gazed up at the sky, and saw it turn blood red in the matter of seconds. Things were beginning to fall from the sky and all of the animals around me in the fields began falling over stone dead. The things resolved into flaming fireballs, and rocketed into the ground, shaking me to the core as I gripped the grass trying to steady myself. The Thing laughed it horrible laugh once more, and as I looked up, I could a vicious evil grin on it’s face.
It then reached it’s enormous hand towards me, and before I knew what was happening, I was enclosed in an enormous fist which was pulling me at an impossible speed towards the sky. I screamed and struggled, trying everything to break free of this being’s grip, but all to no avail. Flames rushed past my head as the fireballs streaked towards the earth. The being lifted me close to it’s face, and I struggled to push all of it’s features into focus, but it was simply too massive for that to work. The being eyed me with it’s evil grin, and spoke in a voice that felt like it could rip the skin from my bones. It seemed to scream past me towards the ground as it said “Here’s Jesus!”. I looked up at one humongous eye in pure terror. It blinked at me. I screamed.
I woke up bolt-upright in my bed, screaming at the ceiling as I slowly realised that the dream was over, and I was alone again. My heart pounded inside my chest, threatening to break free. My breath came in whispery gasps, and I struggled to regain my sanity as the door exploded open in a shower of splinters. A burly, indescribably hairy man burst through the now empty doorway wearing a burnished bronze chest-plate and a horned helmet. He towered over me as I quaked with fear and said, rather casually in an Australian accent, further accented by a severe lisp, “G’day mate. My name if Fhor!”. He blinked at me. I screamed.
I woke up bolt-upright in my bed, screaming at the ceiling as I slowly realised that the dream was over, and I was alone again. My heart pounded inside my chest, threatening to break free. My breath came in whispery gasps, and I struggled to regain my sanity. I stared at the door, willing it to stay complete and splinter-free. Thankfully it complied.
I threw myself against the bed.
Never again will I read the Bible before going to sleep while eating cheese covered chocolate biscuits.
NEVER!!!
Filed under: atheism, humanism, humour, religion, skepticism | 2 Comments »
Geert Wilders is to be tried for making the film Fitna.
A European politician is to be tried for making a film.
I’m tempted to say “Has the world gone mad?” but I don’t want to sound like a Daily Telegraph reader. The most telling line in the judgement handed down by the Dutch court is, “[Wilders’ statements are] so insulting for Muslims that it is in the public interest to prosecute”. This seems to suggest that the reason for the prosecution is fear of a Muslim backlash. Exactly the sort of violent tendencies Fitna criticises.
Don’t get me wrong I understand that Fitna offers a simplistic explanation of a complex problem. Muslim violence isn’t just religious in origin, there are political, economic and historical reasons too. I do think that Islam makes these problems worse though. It makes finding solutions harder and shapes the nature of the violence. The fairy tales of divine sanction and eternal reward make actions like suicide bombing possible.
I don’t want to rhapsodise Western values or to pretend our culture doesn’t have problems but it’s time for the West, in particular Europe, to stop compromising. We need to stand up for what we believe in. With the rapid advance of technology the next 50 years could be a Golden age for mankind but only progressive secular values can make this happen. Isn’t it time to leave the darkness of religion behind?
Edit – I’m not sure how much good these things really do but there is an online petition here.
Filed under: debate, humanism, religion | Tagged: fitna, free speech, geert wilders, islam | 17 Comments »
I have found myself lately with time on my hands, stuck in a room with nothing to do except read. I have spent some of this time trying to become informed about what drives the Palestine/Israel conflict (it is topical). This has proved to be more complicated than i originally foresaw. Everyone, it seems clear to me now, has a bias.
I realise that this post is not directly on topic for this blog but i think the problems encountered in informing ourselves are reflected in our secular struggle. The first book i read on the subject was Ilan Pappe‘s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. The title of the book captures the attention, and also sets off my internal alarm bells – there can be no doubt on which side of the fence this author sits, but can he defend his position, and how can i arm myself to know if he successfully has? Ethnic Cleansing is an emotive term with a very clear definition. The author is Jewish, raised by German Jewish parents in Israel, and served in the IDF, so i thought i would give it a try – with the hope of intellectual integrity from the author. but with a skeptical mindset. I found the book both disturbing and compelling – but how can we separate fact from agenda and bias?
I struggled, and continue to struggle, to find an account of the genesis of the conflict that aims only to inform, and not to promote a political viewpoint. It is critical to find the relevant facts, and facts can be ignored as required in order to promote and enforce already entrenched views, and a political, or ideological bias. This is a constant problem and we should be wary of it if we wish to be able to engage in an informed debate. As an atheist it is all too easy to only follow one side of the story, taking scant regard for potential bias in the sources – we all do it, i listen to lots of atheist/secular/sceptical pod-casts and probably visit the sites and read books that enforce my existing worldview – without checking for available sources. The danger, of course is that we do not inform ourselves of why the other side believes what they do – and why they do so, just as enthusiastically as ourselves.
Ideally of course, original sources should be scrutinised – and with care. It is both difficult to know what to look for and how to find it when we know. A quick trawl of the net will find all kinds of viewpoints, from a measured response, to lunatics on both sides of any debate, and Wikipedia is often less than infallible. It is an intellectual mine field out there. I think it’s a journey of discovery that must be taken if we want to seriously defend our positions on issues that matter to us. Is there a way to navigate this mine-field?
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Proving that my “regular” feature, “Shameless Plug Saturday”, is, in fact, variable and decidely un-regular, I now present you with today’s Shameless Plug Sunday feature!
Having recently watched Joyeux Noel and having heard “The Call” by Regina Spektor in the ending credits for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian I recently wrote a song from the point of view of a spouse, decidely androgynous, watching their loved one head off to battle, vowing to wait for them understanding the reality that they may never come back and attempting to rationalise their experience against that of their loved one.
It’s called “Spectre”, as it’s inspired by the words and melody of Regina Spektor’s heart-string-tugging song “The Call”. Since the medium of Youtube is not just auditory, but visual also, I’ve included some related imagery I scavenged from Google in the video, and though I’m not visual maestro, I hope it adds to the atmosphere and emotion of the song.
Enjoy!
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Mark Henderson, the science editor of The Times sees some value in the Pope’s latest outburst against homosexuality.
In his address to Vatican staff, Benedict XVI declared the Church’s belief in a natural order of men and women, and asked “that this order, set down by creation, be respected”
Henderson’s contention is that in general religious people object to homosexuality because it is a moral choice outside the norms of natural behaviour. Most gay men and women do not believe that they have made a choice about their lifestyle and their view is supported by science. Science is proving that homosexuality is naturally occuring accross the animal kingdom and that in humans it is in every known culture.
The Pope is calling for an ecology of man; well he should take his own advice and respect the ecology as it exists. As Henderson says:
Science has made it clear that homosexuality is part of the rich diversity of that creation. That is something we should all respect – the Pope included.
Read the full article here
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This might seem like a strange question but I think it may be at the heart of some of the most contentious issues society faces currently and the near future.
It seems to me that many religious people would answer that the possession of a soul makes a person a person. For Christians the soul enters the body at the moment of conception and leaves the body at physical death, therefore all humans (including embryos) are people. This also means only humans can be people. There are (at least) two problems with this definition. Firstly, what is a soul? Secondly where do they enter from and where do they go after death.
The answer many Humanists/Atheists/Naturalists and the nominally religious would give is that personhood is linked to consciousness. This answer is implicit for many people. They don’t articulate it but from their attitudes to certain ethical issues it can be inferred. There are problems with this definition too. How to we define consciousness? How do we assess it’s presence? Perhaps most contentiously, how do we deal with pre-conscious entities?
So we have two definitions of personhood* but why does any of this matter? Lets look at two current and one possible future issue.
I think both definitions have problems but the problems with the first are far greater. Without any evidence to show the existence of a soul it is based on pure conjecture. The main problem with second is that it fails to account for how we deal with what might be called proto-persons.
My thoughts on this subject are unfinished so I’d be interested to here your opinions.
*There are other definitions we might propose. A person could be defined in biological terms, in terms of their genetic make up. A person could be defined as simply whomever society/the State/the law says a person is. Both of these offer interesting discussion topics but I have deliberately ignored them here.
^The position of someone in great pain and facing inevitable death is different, the Christian position here would be that suicide is not permitted as only their god has the right to take life. This position is inconsistent to the point of being laughable, but that’s another topic.
Filed under: debate, ethics, humanism | Tagged: abortion, AI, euthanasia, right to choose, right to life | 7 Comments »
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