Realising that I might be setting the comprehension bar too high for some blog-readers, I am going to put this as simply as possible.

State-funding for religious schools is a scandal.

There are lots of reasons behind this opinion but the main one is divisiveness. There is already too much distrust and suspicion and dehumanising of each other. Culturally mixed schools won’t solve these problems, but culturally separated schools certainly make them very much worse. 

The Northern Ireland conflict might not have been dragged out for decades if children from Catholic and Protestant families lived in the same neighbourhoods and went to the same schools. Some might have even seen each other as friends before they found out what religion they were.

Extending state support for religious education to Muslims at a time of so much intercommunal mistrust is potentially socially suicidal.

Teachers in Muslim faith schools are really unlikely to represent the views of the average British Muslim. However, when an Islamic school is set up in a neighbourhood, community pressure will soon compel the average Muslim to support it. After all, people brought up as Catholics often feel obliged to send their children to Catholic schools even when they themselves have no faith.

Obviously, state funding for C of E and Catholic schools should be withdrawn, as it should have been over a century ago.

If people want their kids to be indoctrinated into specific religions, that is their own decision. There is no control over indoctrination in the home, hence little justification for banning religious education altogether. However, let them pay for it.  If they are really willing to fork out thousands each year – and/or send their kids to schools with rock-bottom facilities and equipment – why stop them?

However, those people who fake belief to get into a religious school because of its good GCSE results would probably find better uses for their money – paying for better private schools; moving to a district with better schools – they might even – god forbid – start demanding improvements in their local state provision.

Those half-believers who send their kids to religious schools to fit into the values of their community or kin would probably put up a stronger fight if they have to stump up the cost of a private education just to make sure that little Simon learns the Creed as well as the alphabet or that little Ibrahim knows how often to prostrate to Mecca.

The most devout Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or Jew won’t be put off by having to pay a few pounds to save their offspring from the taint of secular education.  Which would leave the religious schools as the province of the true believers.  Which is tough on the kids, yes, but they already have the cards heavily stacked against them by being born to rabid parents. There’s only so much you can do to save them from that.

The previous post  didn’t mention – possibly because of the Guardian article’s  unreadability – that the writer claimed that Dawkins’ utimate objective was to exterminate believers.

This was just slipped in to the text in about the third paragraph. Granted that reading further made you want to gnaw your own toes off in preference, few readers will have got much further. 

Other minor absurdities included the claim that believers were treated like soft drug users – OK if they keep it to private consumption but not when they act as dealers, i.e., try to spread their message – and that wise atheists pretend to be Christians by attending church to get their children into a Church of England school.

First of all, in everyday social life, the mass of people might indeed treat devout Christians more favourably if they keep their beliefs to themselves than if they start preaching. (This is why the local C of E vicar gets more public respect than doorstepping mormons.) However, in most of the world, practising religion is not criminalised, whether a matter of personal belief or public proseletising. No matter how publicly you preach, the police in England will studiously ignore you. Hence the drug law analogy is nonsense, put in just to make religious belief seem edgily hip maybe.

On the point of atheists pretending to be Christians to get their kids into a decent local school, funded by the taxpayer but free to teach nonsense to kids- don’t even get me started on this one. (Too late, it’ll have to be another blog.) The wierd thing is that he thinks this hypocrisy is a good thing. Kids seeing their parents observing a religion they don’t believe is supposed to set a good example of morality in action, then?

Been a while, so here are some entertaining and informing links. Hope you enjoy them:

• http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/01/ the_backlash_is_winding_up.php (more Dawkins related debate!)
• http://proman.compuskills.co.uk/introduction_projects.php (An introduction to project management)
• http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/ 4107 (Greasemonkey script to kill file blog comments)
• http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/01/ stupidity_from_our_old_friend.php (excellent deconstruction of an idiots argument)
• http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2007/01/ exposing_the_frame_atheism_and.php (discussion about an American attempt to remove the privilege Atheists get…….)
• http://service.compuskills.co.uk/blog/2007/01/ 04/ what-are-the-main-differences- between-html-and-xhtml/ (HTML newbie advice)
• http://service.compuskills.co.uk/ rss.php (Compuskills web design service newsfeed)

Obviously the Guardian is keen to get in on the Dawkins bandwagon (Check Pharyngula – any post which mentions Dawkins gets five or six times as many responses as one which doesn’t). Sadly, the Guardian, being a newspaper is far from well placed to comment on science or scientists commentary. You would think that, being literary minded journalists, they would be able to comment on philosophical matter but it appears this is not the case.

On Saturday, the Guardian published a comment article by Tobias Jones, titled: “Secular fundamentalists are the new totalitarians” with a tag line which reads:

Militant secularists like Richard Dawkins are taking their revenge on us believers for refusing to stay in the closet

Amazing. I thought for a few minutes that I had slept for months and it was actually 1 April. Madness is apparently a too polite word for it. Intrinsically it highlights what seems to me to be the main flaw in the current religious-anti-Atheist arguments, Dawkins is not a High Priest of Atheism! There is a constant string of nonsense where religious proponents try to undermine the valid debating points made by Dawkins (and PZ Myers, Sam Harris et al) by attacking the nature and behaviour of what they see as the religious leader of the opposition.

Add to this that tag line which implies the faithful have spent millennia being quiet and hiding their beliefs. Wow. What universe does Mr Jones inhabit?
Are all these people insane? (I think the answer to that question is pretty self evident).

Side note: The guardian certainly achieved their aims with the anti-Dawkins comment. As you may imagine it generated a massive volume of response comments. Fortunately most were of the mind that Mr Jones is inherently insane.

Well, it has been a considerable time since I tried to leave a “Reader comment” on the Blasphemy Challenge article and nothing has shown up. I am not sure if this is because my comment is from out side the US, met some spam checker comments or what ever. I hope it is not because my comment was critical of some of the content of the article and I am sure that WSLS would not prevent such comments on that basis alone. Basically, I am asking anyone who gets the chance to read the article and, if you have anything to say, please comment on it and see if they show up. Thanks for your help.

Historically, this blog has enjoyed criticising .net magazine for its poor content – always with the admittance that writing about web “stuff” in print media is a difficult task to say the least. Recently, after an editorial change, .net magazine improved dramatically and it’s content went from strength to strength and here at WhyDontYou we were happy to admit this.

Sadly it seems the wonder days of June 06 are a distant memory. After an excellent start with a nice layout, good articles and decent expert advice and tutorials, .net magazine has let itself slip back into the swamp.

Continue reading →

First the wet – some one making a few watery complaints about Dawkins titled “Oh, Richard *slaps forehead*.” Typical comments along the lines of Dawkins not realising there are non-Abrahamic religions etc. Some of the comments she gets are entertaining though. It’s nice to see everyone has formed solid (unfounded) opinions of how much they hate the solid (apparently unfounded) opinions Dawkins has formed. I suspect that at least one commenter doesn’t really know what Dawkins has written 🙂

Also, the more entertaining – a post with a video clip where Dawkins does his “what if you are wrong” bit. Entertaining mainly because it is good to see a scientist who can defend himself in that sort of environment. Science does not lend itself to public debates, and as such, lots of good scientists struggle because they get shouted down by charismatic detractors. What a great way to spend Sunday 🙂

Technorati Tags: Atheist, Richard Dawkins, Religion, Philosophy, Neo Pagan, Buddhist

Well, MySpace is still going strong for the Christian nutcase Zealots. Have a look at this “Rules for Christian Women” if you don’t believe me. If you ever get board and want to see how off the rails people can REALLY get you should just tag search Philosophy. It is amazing.

Technorati Tags: Religion, Nutcase, Madness, Insane, Crackpot, Society, Philosophy,

Well, could it get any better than that? In the past I have objected to people taking the position that Dawkins is a religious leader for the Atheist religion. I am sure 99.99% of the worlds population can, after giving it a moments thought, see how ludicrous the concept is. I wish I didn’t have to say it but some people don’t realise that Atheism is not a competing religion. Not believing in (deity of choice) is not the “opposite” of believing in the said deity.

Strangely, this seems to be a concept which religious people really can not come to terms with. This results in them identifying prominent atheists and subjecting them to the treatment as if they were priests of a heretical religion. This is farcical. Entertaining, but farcical none the less.

Anyway, I was following the “FriendlyAtheist.com” blasphemy challenge links out of curiosity and I found some interesting sites which largely indicate to me (living in the comparatively secular UK) the extent that religious dogma provides an undercurrent to the thought processes of people in the US.

One site which really stood out was on WSLS.com (“Blasphemy Challenge targets youngsters“). Now without going into the rather tepid journalistic style there were some bits which amazed me. Before I paste the quotes, I should explain myself. Remember, journalists write in a language they assume their audiences will understand and are nearly always going to bias their editorial space in the direction they think their readers and supporters will appreciate. With that in mind, look at these gems: (emphasis mine)

I asked Donald Shedd, biology professor at Randolph College in Lynchburg, about the videos:”are you surprised?”

Shedd: “no, not at all. An increasing number of people are prepared to verbalize that.” Shedd is a follower of Richard Dawkins, who he calls the “Pope” of atheism.

Blimey. Surely Dawkins assumption of the Atheist Papal position should have been made public! Now, I do actually wonder if this was something Donald Shedd said or if it was something the journalist prompted for (or made up). But it is no where near as worrying as the “follower of Dawkins” comment.

Atheism is not a religion. Dawkins is not the Prophet of the Atheist God. When he says something, he is giving his own opinion and leaving his comments open to debate and challenge. Do people not understand what being an Atheist is?

This is followed up with:

“The blasphemy challenge” says it’s largely based on Dawkins’ teachings.

What? I mean, seriously, WHAT?

Dawkins is an expert on Evolutionary Biology. I have read the Blasphemy challenge website and it has nothing to do with biology nor it is based on any biology textbooks. Does the “journalist” who wrote the article actually think that Dawkins’ books (God Delusion, Blind Watchmaker etc) are “teachings” which are followed by Atheists?

Madness. Pure, unadulterated madness.

Sadly, this is, I suspect, an example of the journalist writing for his audience. They are probably religious people who expect to see a competing religion (I know, I know) have a Pope and have teachings.

Doesn’t stop it being madness though. Currently there is only one comment for this story (another one written by a very rational person may be awaiting moderation though…) and it reads:

God is very real and people better start believing it. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Well, enough said really. There is nothing I could write that would be funnier than that.

Technorati Tags: Atheist, Richard Dawkins, Religion, Blasphemy, Christianity, Bible, Philosophy

Weekends are never good time for churning out posts here, so I suspect asides will come to dominate two out of seven days each week in 2007.

I just wanted to make a quick post to let you know about some very good blogs, well worth reading:

• The Friendly Atheist – has an excellent article on the Blasphemy Challenge which is apparently getting religious groups’ backs up. (Oh well eh?)
• For those who dont think “Oh well” when it comes to annoying the religious fundamentalists, the Atheist Ethicist has an excellent post about what is wrong with Atheist Moderates.

I suspect the second link will be more relevant to Americans, as currently in the UK there is little overt public disfavour of Atheism (although very few overt atheists get public office and religious leaders are always looked to as “moral guardians” by the media and general public). One concern I do have is history has shown that American culture, trends, habits and societal madness eventually makes its way to the UK.

Technorati Tags: Atheist, Belief, Religion, Philosophy, Society, Blasphemy

In World’s Strongest Man final (5th January, 2007)  the winner thanked God, as is becoming well nigh obligatory  in televised acceptance speeches. This still seems sacreligious to me. Surely God has better things to do than fix the result of a sporting contest? If we assume that He hasn’t, a few issues need to be explained.

1. Shouldn’t God be concerning himself with sick people’s suffering, starving babies, torture victims or at least the fall of single sparrows?
2. Does he have enough spare time to make sure that person x wins competition y? Maybe he should be encouraged to get some rest so he can  really concentrate on the day job. 
3. For instance, couldn’t he provide a bit more help with GCSE results then?
4. Would the score of a US vs Saudi Arabia baseball match prove that the Judeao-Christian god was more powerful than Allah? Or vice versa, depending on the result?
5.  What about India vs Pakistan cricket matches? Surely access to the huge  Hindu Pantheon gives a massively unfair advantage to India. Maybe the rules of the sport should be rewritten to level the playing field. (Lame pun clearly intended.) A montheistic team could bring in a thousand-strong praying section to compensate for every polytheist prayer.
6. Over the past ten to twenty years, the World’s Strongest Man title has passed from people all called things like Cnut Cnuttsson through Marius (Polish, so he may be Catholic but his first name suggests he may have secret access to the full set of Roman deities) to people called things like Jethro. Does this finally prove that the Norse gods have been defeated?
7. God might not draw the line at intervening in the Olympics – given its global signficance - but World’s Strongest Man?  Is there no sporting event too insignificant for his attentions? Pro-celebrity golf? Schoolboy football? Pub darts? Infant’s school Parents’ Day sack races? (In which case, I have along-standing grudge with His failure to act in one particular long-past Roscoe Juniors race, in which the writer of this post- who erroneously considered herself quite a good sprinter – was utterly trounced by some unlikely looking mums and dads.)
8. You notice that I suggested mainly amateur events in point 6.  Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. There is a big cash prize in WSM. Maybe God prefers to save his interventions for sports with decent prizes? In which case, he must spend so much time acting as an unacknowledged pools panel for the Premier League that he obviously has no time left for trying to bring about peace on earth.
9. Does this mean God had heard the prayers of the losing contenders and found them wanting in some way? Could Marius not rustle up enough Hail Marys? And those contenders who never even got through the heats must have been pretty lacklustre in their faith.
10. Is there a slight suggestion here that God may be engaging in a sporting version of  insider trading?  He had a side bet with the Archangel Gabriel and just tipped the odds so that his man won.  
11. He doesn’t play dice. Einstein said it (and obviously knew everything because he could do hard sums) It makes sense, who would play dice against someone who could make the dice land on a point in an alternate universe if he chose.  So, he’s obliged to get his sporting pleasures through secretly fixing other sports and games.
12. Ask nicely enough and make enough Eminem-style silly hand gestures when you win (as in WSM winner Pfiser) and God will treat your opponents’ prayers with the contempt they deserve?
13. And why did Don Pope only come third then? 

Technorati tags: World’s Strongest Man 2007, religion, hindu, Atheist, sport, Einstein, television

I have to take issue with the argument that it’s mistaken to believe that it is a matter of chance wherther you get cancer. Granted, this means that you have to interpret “fate” as chance. So I admit that it’s my assumption people who use the word “fate” mean “chance”.   If the belief rests on some predetermined “Kismet” or “destiny” view, then it is indeed blatantly silly. But I take my devil’s advocate role pretty seriously.

My point is that – even cancers caused by heavy irradiation are due to chance, although the chance may approach 100% with regard to certain substances. With most cancers, you can only consider the impact of lifestyle choices statistically. (And having some acquaintance with epidemiology, I can say this is a pretty arcane art).   If 1 in 5 people in continuous long-term contact with substance x get cancer, there is a one in 5 chance that each will contract cancer.  i.e. It’s a matter of luck (chance, fate, or whatever you call mathematically random phenomena).

Following my last post (about British ideas on Cancer), it seems that Cancer is a profitable Technorati Tag for hunting the weird and wonderful. A quick search came up with “Cancer Alert: Does Your Toothpase contain Flouride?” Amazing. I am not going to comment on the blog post, as the author noticeably makes no judgemental commentary on the text pasted so it is not clear if this is a post identifying a nonsense myth or something the author believes. Take a look and decide for yourself.

Technorati Tags: Bad Science, Woo, Nonsense, Crackpot, Society, Cancer, Science, Medicine

Shamefully, I have obviously been spending longer looking through Crackpot American websites for my black humour fix. It appears I have totally overlooked an potentially rich strain of madness and bad science in the green and pleasant land.

The “leader” I had to this was found in an article titled “CANCER IS DUE TO ‘FATE,’ BRITONS BELIEVE” which was produced by AFP, although I found it on an American website. It is not as bad as the alarmist headline tries to make out, however it is a sign that education in the UK really is a thing of the past. The first few paragraphs read as follows:

LONDON (AFP)—More than a quarter of people believe that fate alone will determine whether they get cancer, not their lifestyle choices, according to a survey conducted by charity Cancer Research UK.

The poll of more than 4,000 adults across the country asked people if they thought they could reduce their risk of getting cancer or whether it was out of their hands.

A total of 27 percent of people said cancer was down to fate, with more women than men believing cancer was a matter of destiny than prevention through measures such as quitting smoking or eating healthily.

Among those from the most deprived areas, the figure rose to 43 percent but fell to 14 percent in the most privileged areas.

The survey also found that smokers were 50 percent more likely than non-smokers to believe that getting cancer was the luck of the draw.

It is a strange world we live in.

Is this bad science? Bad education? Both? Neither? To me it is a case of people not realising how their choices affect things, although I also suspect there is a bit of “out of proportion” going on here. I am worried about what the source of this “fate” is? Is it simply a total lack of understanding as to chance and probability? Do people think God sends them cancer as a reward/punishment/test? Who knows.
I think I will have to spend some time looking for UK crackpot websites now – surely we have them?

Didn’t really have time for proper blog entries today, but suffice to say the Guardian Letters page has provided some ammunition.For now, check out this article on Respectful Insolence: Your Friday Dose of Woo. Badscience needs to take notes 🙂

Technorati Tags: Bad Science, Woo, Nonsense, Humour, Crackpot, Snake Oil