Newsline, 17th June 2005
Quotes Of The Week
Essays Of The Week
NSS In Last Ditch Bid To Persuade Government To Drop Religious Hate Bill
First Legal Humanist Wedding To Be Held In Scotland Tomorrow
Faith Schools: Adonis Is The Source Of The Religious Takeover Of Education
The NSS’s New Website
Crematorium Arguments Go Up In Smoke
Dr Unwin Returns
NSS Speaks Out
News Shorts
Letters To Newsline
Active Secularism Day Is Shaping Up – Why Not Come Along?
Quotes of the week
“In order to win back Muslim support, the Blair government has bowed to Islamic activist pressure and risked curbing one of the key liberties in a free society”
(Henry McDonald, Observer)
“Using the power of the pulpit to urge people to stay away from the ballot box is not a religious act, but an antidemocratic one. It is unacceptable interference”
(Editorial, International Herald Tribune, on Vatican manipulation of Italian referendum)
“In order to placate ethic minorities will Charlotte Church have to change her name to Charlotte Mosque? Will Nicholas Parsons have to become Nicholas Rabbi?”
(Reader’s letter, Daily Mail)
Essays of the week
NSS IN LAST DITCH BID TO PERSUADE GOVERNMENT TO DROP RELIGIOUS HATE BILL
The National Secular Society this week held talks with Home Office Minister Paul Goggins in a last ditch effort to persuade the Government to rethink its Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
NSS Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood put the opposition case to Mr Goggins on Wednesday at a lengthy round table meeting at the Home Office, but says he saw little sign of movement. Keith commented: “We tried hard to make Mr Goggins realise the extraordinary breadth and scale of opposition to this Bill.” Indeed, Keith was able to show the Minister press reaction to the proposals: of twenty opinion pieces, editorials and commentaries published in the national press over the past week, only two were in favour of the new law, and both were written by members of the Muslim Council of Britain.
He added: “We made a strong case that it would be counterproductive and hinder community cohesion by pitting communities against each other. We branded the Bill draconian, pointing to the harsh seven year maximum jail term combined with a worryingly feeble prosecution threshold.
“In contrast, the Government is claiming that the Bill requires a “high test” for prosecution, and this led to some lively debate at the meeting – and some rather helpful exchanges with lawyers after the meeting confirming that we were correct about some points about the detail of the Bill that government lawyers had flatly denied.
“Above all, we drew attention to the deteriorating climate for free expression in the UK and said this would be dealt a further severe blow by the Bill. Allowing arguments to fester does not get them resolved. The principle victors of the Bill will be extremists who will end up silencing their critics and social commentators.”
The almost unprecedented united front of opposition ranges between left and right in the political and religious spectrum - from Polly Toynbee to Melanie Phillips, Anne Widdecombe to Shirley Williams, from the Evangelical Alliance to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, From Christian Voice to the National Secular Society, from the Independent to the Daily Mail, from the Christian Institute to the Islamic Human Rights Commission, from English PEN to Index on Censorship to the Muslim Parliament - a huge chorus of voices has been raised in opposition to the Government’s plans.
The Home Office issued a press release last Friday listing the few organisations that it claims are in favour of the Bill - which included The British Humanist Association.
But the BHA’s executive director Hanne Stinson is outraged by the suggestion that her organisation supports the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. She has written to Home Secretary Charles Clarke demanding that the claim be withdrawn and an apology issued.
She said: “We support the principle of legislation but the Government’s Bill rides roughshod over freedom of speech. We have proposed carefully worded amendments to the Home Office but every single one has been rejected. Without a radical change of heart by Charles Clarke and acceptance of our amendments or something very like them we shall oppose the Bill vigorously, as we have warned from the start.”
Other voices raised in the past week against the proposals included the Professor of Law at the Open University (Gary Slapper). He said in the Independent: “The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is a fundamentally misconceived, unnecessary, hazardous piece o draft legislation. It should be an entrenched principle of a free, democratic society that no ideas are sacrosanct. No set of ideas should be protected against trenchant public criticism. The law should not exalt those who say: “I do not want my credo questioned in public, as that would be an insult to me and my beliefs.” He says that the anomalies in the law could be corrected with a simple amendment to existing law, which would obviate many of the more serious risks to free speech.
In her Daily Mail column, Melanie Phillips wrote under the headline “The British Inquisition (…or how the religious hatred Bill threatens hard-won freedoms for which so many people have died)”: “If this law is now passed it will shut down legitimate and vital debate about Islam. Months ago, I asked the now newly-knighted Sir Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Society of Britain, whether he thought any of the public statements about Islamic terrorism, would constitute an incitement to religious hatred. He replied: ‘There is no such thing as an Islamic terrorist. This is deeply offensive. Saying Muslims are terrorists would be covered by this provision.’
“Ministers have brushed aside this threat to suppress any criticism of Islamist terrorism, saying that since the Attorney General’s consent would be required for any such prosecution, such a threat is empty. But who would have any confidence that the Government would stand firm? Indeed, look at who is now the Attorney General’s deputy, the Solicitor-General – none other than the same Mike O’Brien who wrote the Muslim News article [before the election, promising new privileges for the ‘Muslim community’] and who has now compromised the political independence of the law officers by openly expressing his support for the religious hatred Bill at a conference last week.”
Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times called the Bill a “witches brew of idiocy”. After exploring the various recent cases of child abuse carried out under the guise of “religion” (mainly African witchcraft-style religious beliefs) Mr Liddle wrote: “Unfortunately, we now have the Incitement to Religious Hatred Bill about to enter the statute books, so I am prohibited from suggesting that people who believe in witches, the demonic possession of children and exorcisms are either cretins from a Stone Age culture or psychologically deranged. Which is a shame, because that’s what I’d hoped to do. In fact the government, through its charismatic Home Office minister Paul Goggins, has announced that people who worship the great Satan himself should indeed receive protection from the bill; so we mustn’t whip up hatred when we see a wild-eyed person carrying a black bin bag, some chilli pepper and a small child. Each to his own; live and let live, etc. The bill was introduced to secure the votes of Britain’s Muslims, but if it gives succour to the followers of Beelzebub, all well and good.”
In an editorial The Daily Telegraph opined: “This foolish and dangerous Bill is looking more and more like a minefield.”
The Times editorial on the topic said: “The Government is in a bind. It does not want to scrap the existing blasphemy laws, but it understands that it is not acceptable that only some faiths are covered. The Muslim Council, not unreasonably, sees the proposed law as a piece of equality legislation. Nevertheless, that should not lead ministers to build a new law on poor foundations.”
The London Evening Standard’s leader on the topic: “The political clout of Britain’s 1.6 million followers of Islam should not blind parliament to the need for extremely careful consideration of the new bill ... It is extremely hard to make bigotry a crime without silencing legitimate discussion of a religion's nature and application to the modern world. Parliament should perhaps consider a ‘Ayaan Hirsi Ali’ test. She is the Somali-born Dutch MP who has spoken out, bravely and sincerely, against some Muslim societies’ treatment of women. Critiques like hers deserve to be heard, however unwelcome they may be to some sections of the Islamic community. If the new bill would have the effect of criminalising women like Hirsi Ali, it has no place on the statute book.”
Hanif Kureishi, the novelist and a leading critic of the Bill, said: “The danger is that it is going to stifle the voice of criticism with regard to religion.” Exorcism or female circumcision could go unchallenged as a result, he said. Monica Ali, a novelist, said: “What I’m absolutely certain about is the damage to freedom of speech that will come about as a result of self-censorship, which already operates but will be dramatically increased.” Don Horrocks, of the Evangelical Alliance, said: “People should be very concerned about this unnecessary new law. It will stifle robust religious debate at a time when people need to be able to discuss ideas and concepts freely without fear of prosecution.”
Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, Leader of the Muslim Parliament, said: “If this bill become law we risk
extending the blasphemy law by round about methods. This law will not protect Muslims. In Australia, Muslims campaigned for similar legislation before becoming its main opponents once it had become
law and it was apparent that it was simply a dangerous double-edged sword with evangelical Christians queuing up to litigate Muslims. UK Muslim groups appear not to have learnt this lesson.
“The Muslim concern for protection, equality, and social inclusion is real and genuine. However, this piece of legislation is driven by political motives to stem the haemorrhaging of Labour support amongst the Muslim community. The Home Office has already indicated that the burden of proof would be set so high that few prosecutions are expected. This law will be cosmetic and fail to prevent abuses hurled at Muslims. The way forward is not to proceed with government’s proposal but to call for the support of the Liberal Democrat amendment changing the law on incitement to racial hatred to include reference to religion as a pretext
for stirring up racial hatred against a racial group. Muslims must build alliances with civil society to promote a fairer and more tolerant society in which everyone’s views are respected rather than be seen to be undermining freedom of speech. The time has come to consider the abolition of the blasphemy law that only protects the Established Church rather than Christianity. This will send a clear message that freedom of speech, thought and creativity are far more conducive to creating a progressive and tolerant society than imposed self-censorship”.
And looks like the first potential case might be brewing already. Self-styled witch Karla Korkodolis copied this letter to us – which she addressed to the Black Sheep Brewery: “I found out today about your beer called ‘Holy Grail’, and I need to point something out. I understand that perhaps you were attempting some Monty Python humour with your line, ‘Tempered over Burning Witches’, but that is as crass sounding as saying your beer was tempered over Burning Jews. Can you imagine the uproar if you had printed that? Well, Wiccans and witches are alive and well, and we are unhappy that our Holocaust, with thousands if not millions of innocent women and men burned at the stake, should be the butt of jokes. Your label is in very poor taste, and offensive to me as well as my fellow witches. Please note that Wicca is a recognized religion, and religious intolerance is something that civilized humans are attempting to wipe out. Please remove the offensive line from your beer labels, and issue an apology.”
Home Office minister Paul Goggins who is fronting this Bill has made clear that Wiccans are included under the new legislation, so Karla might be up in court with the brewery very soon.
The NSS is now calling on all those who oppose this legislation to write to their MP or make an appointment with them at their surgery to try to persuade them to vote against the Bill when it comes up in parliament. The second reading is on Monday.
FIRST LEGAL HUMANIST WEDDING TO BE HELD IN SCOTLAND TOMORROW
The first legal marriage conducted by a Humanist Celebrant, anywhere in the British Isles, will take place tomorrow in Scotland. In a landmark decision by the Registrar General for Scotland, Duncan Macniven, twelve Registered Celebrants of the Humanist Society of Scotland are now authorised to conduct legal marriages. Until now, the only people who were able to legally marry a couple were the local Registrars in a civil ceremony and authorised representatives of various religions in a religious ceremony.
The Convenor of the Humanist Society of Scotland, Alan Henness, said, “For many, having a religious ceremony would not be meaningful to the couple and would not reflect their views and values. Now Humanists can have a ceremony that reflects their philosophy of life.” The first happy couple are Karen Watts and Martin Reijns.
Alan Henness added, “One of our most experienced Celebrants, Ivan Middleton, will conduct their marriage in the Mansion House at the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens. The ceremony will be personal and reflective of who they are and how they wish to live their lives together.”
Martin and Karen said, “This is a great development for non-religious people who, like us, believe that marriage is more than just a legal bonding and therefore want a ceremony that's more personal than a standard civil ceremony. We wrote our own ceremony, which allowed us to express our thoughts and feelings freely. We're excited to be the first ones to be able to have a Humanist marriage ceremony that is legally binding.”
Alan Henness concluded, “This is a major breakthrough in the recognition of the rights of Humanists. For too long, religions have had privileges that are not afforded to Humanists. At last we have equality. This is something on which we have been campaigning for many years. This is a very positive step forward for those who live their lives without religion.”
FAITH SCHOOLS: ADONIS IS THE SOURCE OF THE RELIGIOUS TAKEOVER OF EDUCATION
We had long suspected that Lord Andrew Adonis, the recently-appointed junior education minister, was the architect of the present religious takeover of our education system. Now we have the proof, via an interview in the Church of England Newspaper.
When he was Tony Blair’s policy advisor at No. 10, Adonis remained hidden from view and unanswerable for his ideas. Now that he’s been ennobled and promoted into a government position, he is beginning to have to face his critics. Not that the Church of England Newspaper is much of a critic. It knows when it has a friend on the inside that will promote its agenda. In an interview with the paper, Adonis admits that he is a Christian, although he denies that he allows this to influence his politics (yeah, right!).
It was known before he emerged from the shadows that the huge expansion of religion into our education system was his idea, and now he confirms it. In part the interview reads: “Lord Adonis is happy to sing the virtues of Church schools, because they have an enviable track record, and tend to attract a dynamic and committed leadership. However, it also boils down to that quality which previous Education Minister David Blunkett once said he wished he could “bottle”: ethos. ‘People want to see schools which have a strong ethos, and even those who aren’t necessarily believers themselves often identify Church schools as schools which are able to provide a strong sense of discipline and purpose in education, which parents value,’ he says, ‘Some parents don’t take that view, but there is clearly a large group of parents who are committed to faith schools, and they see academies as a way of providing more.’
“As long as schools are operating on a national framework involving tests and inspections, he is encouraged by religion in education. ‘I think it is absolutely appropriate that faith communities should be able to provide management of schools and provide a strong ethos related to their religion for those schools.’”
Meanwhile, in Coventry it has been announced that t millionaire businessman Robert Edmiston intends to open an academy in the city. He runs the fundamentalist ‘Christian Vision’ charity
THE NSS’s NEW WEBSITE
The NSS has upgraded and improved its website. You can have a look at the new version by going to www.secularism.org.uk. We hope, over the coming weeks, to make it much more accessible, easier to navigate and with many more features. We kick off with an essay by the novelist (and NSS member) Zoe Fairbairns remembering her faith-based education http://www.secularism.org.uk/36942.html
You can also keep yourself well-informed and up-to-date with the latest news from around the world at our What the Papers Say feature.
CREMATORIUM ARGUMENTS GO UP IN SMOKE
The Daily Express has been having a field day, panicking its pious readers with a stream of reports about how bibles have been “banned” from hospitals and how the Scouts are now “banning” Christians from swearing to God and, best of all, how a crematorium in Devon had “banned” the Christian cross from its “chapel.”
Christians throughout the land began weeping and wailing about the “persecution” that was being heaped upon them. Old ladies in hospitals would not longer have the comforts of the ‘good book’ (it having been torn from their hands by black-hearted secularists in league with evil Muslims). The “crucifix”, it seems, had been ripped out of the chapel to appease wicked humanists who wanted to bury their dead in heathen fashion without benefit of clergy.
What a lot of bilge. Nobody has “banned” anything. Bibles are still available in hospitals (as are chaplains, expensively and indulgently subsidised from scarce NHS funds). The cross is still present at the crematorium – albeit in portable form. The “ceremony room” is just that – it is not, as has been repeatedly claimed - a “chapel”, it is not consecrated. The crematorium is not a religious building, it is a public utility.
The funny thing is that a little research by NSS council member (and historian of the secular movement) Bill McIlroy reveals that the enthusiasm among Christians to protect “their” crematoriums is very recent. The Church of England only officially accepted cremation in 1944. Two decades later, in 1965, the Vatican Council reversed the 1886 decision outlawing cremation for Catholics. Cremation is still not an option for Muslims.
The Church of England opposed cremation as it had the establishment of privately and publicly owned cemeteries in the 1840s. The Bishop of Lincoln said the practice would undermine belief in resurrection and cause social revolution. The Bishop of Rochester and the vicar of Woking stirred up such hostility against the crematorium (at St John’s, near Woking) that a police escort was needed at the first funeral.
Unable to prevent cremation, the churches adopted a proprietorial attitude. Crosses, bibles and hymn books became part of the fixtures and fittings at most crematoria (usually dedicated by a bishop).
Secular burial ceremonies were not legalised until 1880. But they took place throughout the 19th century and guides for ceremonies were issued in 1868 and 1883.
The latest claims by Christians that they are subject to persecution in Britain are an extension of the seasonal “they’ve banned Christmas” laments that increase in volume each December. It’s a tactic imported from the United States where the religious right moan endlessly about their status as second class citizens, as a poor, down-trodden minority. This is despite the fact that they now run the country and are feeding millions of tax dollars into the pockets of ‘faith-based’ initiatives. However, the ploy seems to work. Christians are never happier than when they feel they’re being martyred.
DR UNWIN RETURNS
We haven’t heard much of the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Unwin lately, but he has now returned with a speech – delivered through those darling whistling teeth - criticising the media for being vulgar and unfair. His speech – unoriginal and predictable as it was – garnered many front pages. Many of the reports had to provide a translation into modern English, otherwise most people wouldn’t have had a clue what he was on about. The Daily Telegraph found us a sentence from a recent speech by Dr Unwin that is so true and so moving that we are going to ask for a framed copy to be made to take pride of place on our wall. It reads: “The reality underpinning apophatic theology is ‘ecstasy’ - not a particular brand of individual mystical experience, but the sober acknowledgment that we must let go of the control of conceptual analysis when we are touched by God”.
NSS SPEAKS OUT
Terry was also on the Radio 4 flagship PM programme on Tuesday talking about proposed changes to the marriage law that would allow an element of religion into civil marriages.
Terry gave an interview to an American public broadcast radio station about the rise of religious fundamentalism in Britain which will be broadcast “in two or three weeks”.
The NSS was quoted in a story in today’s Times Educational Supplement about the takeover of academies by religious groups.
NEWS SHORTS
Theocrats due to take over another school – at your expense. A decision on whether a Muslim school in Leicester will receive state funding is expected in the next three weeks. The schools adjudicator is due to give its verdict on whether Leicester Islamic Academy will finally get the go-ahead.Last year, the Government announced £15 million of funding to turn the independent school, in Stoneygate, into a voluntary-aided school.
‘Intelligent Design’ propagandists go spectacular. Proponents of the oxymoronic concept of ‘Intelligent Design’ have staged their lies on the scale of a Nuremberg rally at the “Crystal Cathedral’ in San Diego California. It has puppets, computer graphics and fully-clothed Adam and Eve.
LETTERS TO NEWSLINE
Please write to tas@secularism.org.uk
From Ricard Giner:
Again another brilliant, lucid article from Polly Toynbee last week (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1503473,00.html)
I rarely take issue with any of her arguments about religion. But I wonder what other readers of Newsline make of the commonly held notion among secularists that it’s important to distinguish between racism and criticism, fear or hatred of religions because race is not a matter of choice but religion is. That racism is morally reprehensible is self-evident. Much as it would be intellectually convenient for this to be true of contempt for religion, there are strong reasons why it is not. Polly herself argues that
“...it is now illegal to describe an ethnic group as feeble-minded. But under this law I couldn’t call Christian believers similarly intellectually challenged without risk of prosecution. This crystallises the difference between racial and religious abuse. Race is something people cannot choose and it defines nothing about them as people. But beliefs are what people choose to identify with...”
This argument assumes that people make rational, considered choices about their religious belief. It could be seen to imply that people are ‘born atheists’ only to develop religious belief because they become contaminated by the insidious forces of religious indoctrination. From a narrow psychological point of view, you could argue that some people have a disposition towards credulity and others towards scepticism. But this makes no difference to the fact that sociological, economic, historical and cultural forces are so powerful that whole societies have stronger propensities towards religious belief than other societies, such as the United States or Nigeria. There are many compelling reasons why those countries are deeply religious - reasons to do with, for example, national identity and common purpose in the first case, and poverty, corruption and fear in the second. And in both countries, social conflict has played a decisive role in shaping their religious attitudes. How in these circumstances can we argue that people freely choose their religious beliefs? People’s beliefs and attitudes are to a large extent the by-products of social forces. And religion is no exception – it’s merely a form of culture.
It seems vital for us secularists and atheists to maintain that choice plays a decisive role in religious belief because that way we feel no moral constraint when we argue that religious people are muddle-headed nitwits who suffer from deep cognitive dissonance. But I cannot avoid recognising that this is naïve. Random statistical clusters do not explain that there is a greater density of Muslims in Pakistan or Syria than in Colombia or Canada, or likewise Lutherans in Finland or Buddhists in Nepal. This mysterious thing called ‘choice’ plays a minuscule role in religious belief. If any readers of Newsline think differently, I would be very interested to hear their arguments.
How then to justify criticism of religion? My view is that religious belief is unsustainable and obsolete in a society in which there is democracy and freedom of information and expression. It makes no sense in post-Enlightenment Europe, or in any post-industrial advanced society or even, amusingly, in the United States, to persist in holding ancient views rooted in a long-dead world. And it is essential in those societies, for whose freedoms many generations have made sacrifices, to give religion and its concomitant constellations of superstitions and prejudices a relentlessly hard time. But people who are not religious out of ‘choice’ - surely the majority of religious people on the planet - would have difficulty engaging with us and knowing where our thinking is coming from.
I’d love to hear what others think.
From Dinah Foweraker:
During the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme broadcast on 12 June, a government minister stated that had the Bill on Religious Hatred been law at the time it would have prevented the Blackburn and Burnley riots. Pardon?? Exactly how? And surely if people inflict injury on others and cause damage to property in the course of rioting, that is already against the law? Next he opined that the reader who described Mohammed as a ‘paedophile’ in the letters page of the Daily Telegraph would not have been prosecuted had the law been in place at the time, but later changed his mind when questioned further.
The proposed law is a mess and muddle. It will not prevent a single hate crime, but is intended as a sop to Moslem labour voters and is a cynical attempt to encourage self-censorship thereby restricting free speech. It is based on the premise that religion is basically a Good Thing and events like 9/11 and the Spanish Inquisition (to name but two) are mere aberrations.
Most government spokespersons when defending the Bill try to distinguish between hatred of a belief and hatred of believers, but how will this be possible to define in practice? I once wrote a short piece criticising aspects of the Catholic religion which appeared on a website with my email address included. Lo and behold, I received several emails from Catholics accusing me of 'hating Catholics', although nowhere in the piece was this either stated or implied.
Soon after the election Tony Blair promised he would listen to what the electorate was telling him. Only a handful of people (mainly government spokespersons) want to see this Bill go through the Houses of Parliament so he is obviously not listening to the majority of us. It would be far better for society as a whole if the Government faced up to the fact that religion has a dark, evil side, and rather than attempt to stifle debate proposed some rational solutions to the religious extremism which threatens our democracy and freedoms, (abolishing faith schools would be a start).
From Chris Bartlett:
Apparently Tesco and Asda along with several major DIY stores are campaigning for a relaxation of the Sunday trading laws. Perhaps we could encourage members to write an email in support of this as not doubt the religious right will be swamping these organisations in correspondence to the contrary. Interestingly Sainsburys have refused to join the campaign.
Email Tesco
Email Asda
From Barbara Smoker:
I am appalled by the letter from Diana Eales (Newsline last week), who seems to want the secularist movement to ape religious groups in preventing their children from coming into contact with ideas at variance with those of the home. That is nothing less than child abuse of the mind, and the very opposite of freethought. So I would still be opposed to atheist schools even if they were made viable by state subsidies and the same legal privileges as faith schools.
Besides, a major reason for the more rapid decline of religion in Britain than in the United States is probably that British law requires religion to be taught in schools and American law prohibits it!
On the other hand, any school syllabus of comparative religion should certainly cover secular humanism, as the one positive alternative to all religions; and we must continually press for that. That is why South Place Ethical Society (Conway Hall) has just published a fourth edition of my book Humanism for secondary schools. (Price £6.50 end of commercial).
From Garry Marlow:
As the Christian Community has taken up a whole page in my local paper this week, to remind me (yet again) that former atheist Professor Antony Flew is now a theist and Hitler was an Atheist (yet again) I have also been invited to “visit a book shop and learn the glorious truth about the history and kindness of the Christian church”. I was also called a bitter cynic for doubting “Our Lord” This just because I wrote to defend Thomas Paine and point out his courage in fighting slavery at a time when the church defended it. Every time I go into the town I have to walk past street preachers and often see members of the latter day saints “on patrol”. With the above being the case I have drafted the follow letter for the paper and would be grateful of members opinions as regards to its wisdom and accuracy.
“Dear Editor
With regard to the ever increasing volume of letters to “Your Say” from the Christian Community (particularly the Christian People’s Alliance), may I propose a simple challenge, which I hope with be of benefit and interest to our town. My challenge is simple; I will make a one off donation of one hundred pounds to a good cause in Northampton (for example, the Disney ward in our general hospital) on two easy to achieve conditions. The first is that all the Christian groups and places of worship within Northampton match, my one hundred pounds with the same amount (given the Churches fabulous wealth this should not be a problem), secondly, a member of the clergy must be willing to read out on Radio Northampton passages from the Bible I select for him. I will of course be selecting the parts, which rarely get much of an airing in public. This will show once and for all that the “loving God’s” of the Bible, are mean, vengeful and ignorant and possessed as Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord Bertrand Russell once remarked of “an uneasy vanity”
As there are around 50 places of Christian worship in Northampton, this being the case between us we can raise over five thousand pounds to benefit our local charities. I hope that my simple challenge is met, after all “the hands that help are better far then lips that pray”, and I invite the Chronicles readership to suggest the charities most worthy to benefit (assuming the challenge is met in its entirety)”
From Fiona Weir:
Spotted on the bus recently, a T-shirt slogan reading: “Happy without heaven”
From Chris Newell:
In a letter in the 20 May issue, Richard Trebilcock reported the Archbishop of Canterbury’s attempt to link atheism with greed and poverty. A similar ploy, popular with religious commentators, is to blame the decline in religious observance on rising materialism. Both claims are clearly ridiculous when you consider that the USA is by far the most religious of the developed countries but has the largest gap between rich and poor, and an unenviable reputation for personal greed and consumption!
From Joe Otten:
In response to Vic Botterill, a quick web search reveals that this movie is a load of new age mysticism. From http://imdb.com/title/tt0399877/ : ‘My friend, also in physics, and I counted 3 facts during the course of this movie. But they were presented in the most misleading manner I’ve EVER SEEN.’
From http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=123744 : ‘You know, I like the idea of cosmic consciousness as much as the next feely-good douche bag, but if you have to warp well established ideas into a wishy-washy parody to explain it...it probably doesn’t need explaining for a reason.’
Given that it impossible to see a movie in order to decide whether or not to see it, I won’t be seeing it.
From Gavin Deichen:
To Vic Botterill (Newsline, 10 June) on the subject of What the Bleep Do We Know? I have not yet seen the film, but from what I have read it sounds like an amusing fantasy. However, from what I can glean, the ‘science’ in the film has nothing to do with reality at all. You say ‘The root of the film and the philosophy behind it lies in quantum physics’ - but is that actually true? Comments I've seen on IMDB (www.imdb.com) among others state quite clearly that the film is in no way scientific. It may well be entertaining or have an interesting philosophical viewpoint, but I doubt it has any real bearing on anything. We do of course influence our own environments - but surely not in that way.
From Paul Collins:
A note of caution please about the film What The Bleep. Quantum Mechanics is definitely weird, but that doesn’t mean any weird theory about it is right. I'm a fan of the Bad Science column in the Guardian - which mentions the film here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1486635,00.html
From Ross Sargent:
Vic Botterill states that “The root of the film and the philosophy behind it lies in quantum physics”. In fact the film does little more than use the apparent paradoxes of quantum theory as an excuse to plug a lot of New Age nonsense. He notes “At one point in the film we were shown the effect of concentrated thought on water. Quite amazing.” Not amazing - miraculous is more like it. It is claimed that the molecular properties of water can be altered according the words used to label the container. This has as much scientific underpinning as turning water into wine by supernatural means.
When the actual procedure with is described as in this very full review at http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html the nonsensical nature of the whole thing becomes apparent. “The third example was the work of Masura Emoto, who tapes words to bottles of water. The water is chilled and forms into crystals descriptive of the words used. For example, if the word “love” is taped to a bottle, beautiful crystals form; if the words “you make me sick” are used, ugly images appear. What the film makers didn’t say is that Emoto knows the word used, and looks for a crystal that matches that word (biased data selection). To demonstrate a real effect, Emoto would need to be blind to the word used.”
Please, before you waste your money on this film do read the review referenced above. Vic Botterill has made a great step in realising that he is an atheist but is now in danger of falling for pseudoscience. The claims made in What the Bleep Do We Know are fully the equal of those made by religion - and in fact in some cases are identical. Nonsense, whether given a religious or scientific gloss, is still nonsense.
For some other opinions on the film from the likes of Richard Dawkins (“This film is even more pretentious than it is boring. And it is stupefyingly boring - unless, of course, you are fooled by its New Age fakery..”) and Simon Singh (“I have spent my entire working life either doing science or conveying its meaning and beauty to the public. Consequently, I despise What the Bleep Do We Know!?, because it distorts science to fit its own agenda, it is full of half-truths and misleading analogies, and some of its so-called scientific claims are downright lies”) see this Guardian piece http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1484603,00.html
From Craig Harrison-Smith:
Until recently I was a member of the Labour Party. However, the Religious Hatred Law has forced me to quit the party in disgust. I see it as nothing short of a bribe to the Muslim population and a step backwards.
I consider myself a progressive and I contacted the Green Party asking for their policies towards religion and was pleasantly surprised. The following are two quotes from the email I received from the Green Party office and may be of interest to fellow NSS members. “Greens would certainly stop state funding of faith schools and are in favour of seeing the state and church separated and disestablishing the Church of England. We would make sure that secular people as well as religious people are not discriminated against but are not in favour of the drafting of the Religious Hatred Law”.
From Steve Hall:
Re: logo. How about a big lion’s jaw about to eat that bloody stupid fish? Or is that too barbaric? Or perhaps not quite barbaric enough...?
Ed: Someone’s beaten you to it, Steve. There’s already a bumper sticker showing a large shark about to swallow a small (Christian) fish, and now there’s one with a T. Rex doing likewise – see here http://valiante.plugnpay.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/scstore/c-Car_Plaques.html?E+scstore
From Andrew Nixon:
In response to Bob Evans’ letter in Newsline of the 10th of June, I still say ‘Jesus Christ!’ to express shock or amazement, in the same way that my grandmother says ‘Gordon Bennett!’ a name that has little to do with the expression.
From Rasjidah St John:
The Qur’an incites religious hatred against me. It should be banned forthwith.
From Bill Gorman:
Once the Incitement to Religious Hatred bill is passed and becomes law I will expect to see many if not all the religious leaders in this country up in court. Why? The doctrines that they follow overtly call for followers to murder non-believers. Look through the bible, the koran, the torah and you will easily find commands from god to slay the non-believers. Bigotry is a necessary by-product of religion. Its almost impossible to avoid.
If that’s not incitement to religious hatred I don’t know what is. At the very least these texts will have to be banned and all copies currently available in public places removed and destroyed. If this does not happen then the law will not be administered in a fair and even-handed way.
I think we in the Society should prepare to make this very valid point. Once this medieval law is passed we should get up bright and early and demand that these inflammatory texts be removed from our shelves and banned as they are in direct contravention of the letter of the law.
I also think we should keep this quiet until the law is passed as it would do us no good to allow the zealots in Tony’s government prepare the case against before we can get it into a courtroom.
P.S. In fact this is so important that it may be wise not to publish this letter until the bill is passed.
ACTIVE SECULARISM DAY IS SHAPING UP – WHY NOT COME ALONG?
Thanks to those who have already expressed an interest in this event. We’ll be sending you details soon.
The NSS is organising a day for those who are – or want to be – activists for secularism. It will be a day of practical suggestions and inspiration, as well as an opportunity to share skills and experiences. We hope that people around the country who want to make a difference in their local area will come along and get involved. We all have different skills that we can bring to the battlefront, and we need to get together to organise and communicate more effectively. Saturday 10 September at Conway Hall, London WC1, 11am-4pm. For more information write to tas@secularism.org.uk
Be first to see Heart of the Beholder
The British premiere of the much-anticipated film Heart of the Beholder will be held in on 8 & 9 July at the Screening Room, Covent Garden Hotel, 10 Monmouth Street, London W1. This is a small venue, and we strongly recommend advance bookings for those who want to see this film, which has been subject to a great deal of harassment from the religious right in the USA. For full information and booking details see here: www.galha.org(click on events). For information about the film and to see a trailer http://www.beholder.com/index_fl.htm