Tag Archives: Faith

More on Expressions of Belief

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Sorry for returning to the same topic so soon after my previous post, but as often happens, I posted in haste previously and further reading has brought out some more enlightenment. First off, a bit in the main post I neglected to comment upon before. Mr Illeborg wrote:

The veil, I was told by Karen Armstrong, when I interviewed her this winter, has for some Muslim women become a way of expressing anger over the war in Iraq and disquiet with western aggressors. There is not just one meaning to wearing a veil and Abdol-Hamid has herself chosen to wear it. This is something we must accept, even if we don’t like it.

Now this, to me, pretty much undermines the main premise that the hijab is an expression of religious belief and therefore wearing it is a “right” people have. Here it seems wearing it is nothing more than a statement of outrage over actions carried out by an unrelated nation. It seems to me the Special Pleading is going strong in this instance. If I decided that walking the streets naked, with blood splattered all over my face, was an expression of anger over the French Elections (as an example), would that be “something we must accept?” It certainly would not be a pleasant sight. (Reductio Ad Absurdum is a wonderful tool…)

In addition to this, as is always the case, the comments left by the “public” (yes, they are sneer quotes) is even more entertaining than the original article. It goes some what towards reassuring me I am not being seduced by the RightWing (the claims that the left are in bed with Islam shows how truly ludicrous right wingers can get, not to mention this bit of nonsense). It is nice that a lot of people realise the hijab is not mandated by Islamic doctrine and is a fairly modern implementation (which further undermines the argument it is an inviolable “expression of belief”).

As one comments points out, if your beliefs demanded you refused to shake hands with coloured people, would that be a defended “right” in the same manner? Or (different commenter) if your belief led to you wearing a white sheet and a pointy white hat with the eye holes cut out, would that be just as “right?”

Rights are special, important, things. Creating ones where no right exists just to be seen as reasonable and helping the “minorities” helps no one and does little more than dilute the status of rights.

Expressions of Belief

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Casting about the Guardian website is always an interesting pastime. Today, on the “Comment is Free” parts, I came across a post by Jakob Illeborg titled “Danes battle the veil.” This is quite an interesting article about a Danish politician who wants to wear a hijab when she goes about her daily business. It all seems reasonable enough, doesn’t it?

The comment has a byline which reads “Religion’s role in society is preoccupying the people of Denmark as never before, but they should not restrict the expression of belief.” For me, from this point on things get a bit confused. The piece is further tainted (in my eyes of course, this is a blog not an impartial news piece!) by the opening paragraph:

The role of religion in modern society is preoccupying the Danes as never before. Ever since the prophet cartoon crisis, a heated debate has begun between atheists and moderate Christians on one side, who fear that Islam and democracy are an unholy alliance, and pragmatists on the other, arguing for a greater understanding of the many faces of Islam, who do not see Islam and the Qur’an as being incompatible with democracy.

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Rational Response Squad Debate

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Quick one for people who haven’t checked out Pharyngula recently. PZ Myers has put up a link to some video footage of a debate between the “Rational Response Squad” and Ray Comfort / Kirk Cameron.

It is pretty entertaining footage, for very predictable reasons though. The theists are actually embarrassingly bad at putting their argument forward. After about five or six minutes it becomes painful watching them spout nonsense and revert to book thumping arguments.

If all theists were this inept, religion would have died out long ago. (This is especially true as the RRS are not really putting forward very strong arguments themselves… 🙂 They really did not need to read from scripts so much… )

[tags]Atheism, Belief, Christianity, culture, debate, Faith, Kirk Cameron, pharyngula, Philosophy, Rational Response Squad, Ray Comfort, Religion, Society, Stupidity, woo[/tags]

Faith in its death throes?

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Does expressing atheist views just strengthen bellievers? This issue is raised in Cal McCrystal’s entertaining and favourable review of A.C. Grayling’s short new book Against All Gods.

Grayling (and the Independent’s reviewer) argue that the increasingly forceful activity of believers is a sign that religion is in fact in its death throes. The reviewer makes the point that militant religions define themselves by opposition.

…as in Northern Ireland where people gain religious strength and fervour from their adversaries

I wouldn’t dispute this at all. It doesn’t necessarily lead to a peaceful outcome, though, if Northern Ireland is the template. The medieval Inquisition shows what religion under threat is capable of. Of course, as always, religion can’t be abstracted from the social power relations that it expresses/ supports/ reproduces.

There isn’t something called “religion” that just exists in the realm of philosophy. It’s in the real world helping to unite particulalr social and political groups against others. It doesn’t matter what the ideas behind it are – Grayling’s garden gnome gods or McCrystal’s jellyfish deities would be as useful if they could just convince enough people to worship them and build a hierarchy.

And it may be that opposing religion usually makes believers more determined in their adherence and their will to impose their beliefs. This can’t be taken as an argument for just shutting up and letting religion wither away under the weight of its own stupidity, though.

Even if every non-believer in the world just kept their mouths clamped shut on any faith topic, there’s a whole world full of potential enemy faiths – or opposing sects of the same religion – or opposition groups in the same sect – that believers can define as the enemy.

I would like to think that this capacity indicates a general weakening of belief but it seems to have always been a general characteristic of all monotheistic religions, as well as most others. If this means that religion has always under threat from unbelievers, it’s hardly surprising.

Most people throughout history must have been sceptical, at least in practice. Otherwise everyone would have always followed all the precepts of their religions to the letter. (And even then, they’d have ended up having to be a bit sceptical given that religions are full of contradictory requirements.) If you really believed you’d be eternally damned to hellfire for taking God’s name in vain, there would be no such thing as swearing, for example.

So, if you know the emperor is stark naked, you might as well have the guts to say so.

Arrogant Idiocy

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Well there is a rant brewing, but sadly here in the Ivory Why Dont You Towers we are short on spare time so I can not do justice to a video posted by what seems to be the single most objectionable person I have ever had the misfortune to see. PZ Myers has posted on Pharyngula about it and pretty much says everything which needs to be said. Check it out for the full details.

In a nutshell, this snotty, arrogant kid called Kelly Tripplehorn (snope entry for background) has posted a video in which he claims his “corporation” will offer US$1000 to anyone who can solve the philosophical problem of Induction. Yeah, that is correct. $1000. Wow. Alfred Nobel, eat your heart out. Barely enough to buy a low end laptop to solve one of the major philosophical problems.

To crown things off, the nutcase Tripplehorn goes on about how “he” solves the problem by invoking God. What absolute madness. He demands a reasonable, self consistent, internally logical argument from Atheists but not his own reasoning.

I would like to go on record, having noted his only requirement is “without invoking God” to say the problem is solved, and the universe is logical and ordered because it is the will of Freya. She is neither the Abrahamic God Tripplehorn talks about, nor a generic “God” (as she is a Goddess…).

I await the US$1000. Hopefully I can use it to buy a new SatNav…

A wierd contradiction

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A blog seems to find the answer to why the Virginia Tech massacre took place in Genesis.

In fact, this blog claims that the answer to life the universe and everything is in Genesis. Well, it has the merit of being longer than the 42 answer.

I admit to first assuming this “everythinhg is in genesis is true blog” was a joke. The blog says things like:

You see, when we accept Genesis as it was meant to be taken—as literal history—then we understand that death, disease, and violence are intrusions into this world, and that they occurred after Adam was created……However, we still have to recognize that we now live in a fallen world where we have just a taste of what we really asked for in Adam, when the head of the human race disobeyed God’s instruction not to eat the fruit of one particular tree.

I admit to being a bit sheltered in my own little world, where most peopel would laugh at this sort of stuff. (I am still gagging from exposure to Debbie Schlussel’s blog and this blog is relatively just silly. It doesn’t bear comparison as a view of the dark side. All the same, these aren’t the sort of people you meet in everyday life. or would want to.) So I can’t help being amazed by this fundamentalist stuff. In fact, I am pretty sure these Bible literalist beliefs would give the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chief Rabbi serious pause.

What is so hard to understand is that these people appear to be able to write in English – in full sentences – with spelling and grammar. In blogs. On the Internet.

Now, anyone who’s tried to publish a blog knows it requires a certain level of skill. The constant technical trials of this blog are more than evidence enough of it not being the simplest thing in the world. And before you can even start you have to have mastered some other complex tasks:Learning to read. Learning to write. Running a PC. Getting an Internet connection. And a host. And so on.

My point here is that lots of people who aren’t stupid can’t do these things.

So how can this level of skill possibly co-exist with the capacity to believe, nay insist, that myths are true? Even toddlers don’t believe Red Riding hood is true. And most of that story has more credibility, at least until the wolf puts on a bonnet, gets into bed and starts pretending to be somebody’s grandmother.

Genesis starts out with a ludicrous story and gets worse. A talking snake, a magic garden, an apple which holds all the knowledge of good and evil, a boat with two of everything, a man who offers up his son as sacrifice, a magic list of rules appearing on a stone table …. (I am flailing a bit here because I’m not sure what goes in Genesis and what’s in Exodus or whatever.)

We would assume a small child was bit slow if they couldn’t recognise this sort of thing was a fairy story.

But ADULTS? Adults who clearly have the brain capacity to master the reading and writing and blogging skills. How did they manage to get these skills without any form of reasoning circuit in their brains? Truly the world is full of marvels.

Atheist Pride

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During a few spare minutes I had today, the Great Toutatis guided me to technorati where I found a link to a blog called “Bible Study for Atheists.” This blog (from Vast Left) is pretty good reading. It is witty enough to entertain and certainly worth a visit. On reading it, I found the shards of a bit of a debate between Vast Left and a blogger called El Borak.

From what I read (and please correct me if I get this wrong), Vast Left made a post “poking fun” at Genesis and El Borak responded with:

Of course, it’s not even a study per se. Rather it’s simply a chance to poke fun and play number games. (read original)

I might be misreading the tone, but this strikes me there has been a sense of humour bypass here. Of course it isn’t a study per se — although I am not sure if El Borak means study in the “Bible Study” sense where a load of Christians sit round and re-affirm each others ideas, or a study in the scientific sense. (Hint: I am poking fun).

Now, broadly speaking, El Borak is actually fairly reasonable and presents his arguments well. I am not sure I want to get involved in the overall debate, so I will not pass comment on that “per se.” One sentence which did leap out at me, though, was: (emphasis mine)

I know I should not expect more from self-proclaimed Atheists, and that’s the problem. I truly don’t.

This is interesting. I am not interested in the attempt at a snide dig, to be honest I don’t expect anything else from any theists (self proclaimed or otherwise), they just don’t know any better. What did interest me was the use of the term “self proclaimed.” I am some what confused as to what it was meant to imply.

Normally, when you see the term “self proclaimed” it tends to imply the following word is a dubious boast. Is this meant to mean that El Borak doubts Vast Left is really an atheist until there is some corroborating evidence? From it’s use it could also be read to mean El Borak is amazed anyone could have the front to actually admit they are an an Atheist, or he could simply doubt anyone is really an Atheist.

I am confused. (extra entertainment can be found from the comments on El Borak’s page, Huckelberry is worth a chuckle)

Christian fun for boys and girls

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Following links from parabiodox’s – how can I put this? – unique site, I came across some really good Christian sites. Believe it or not. No, really.

(And before you say it, I’m not the fool for carrying on….. I know it’s not April 1 any more. )

I’m not talking about the normal entertainment value you can get from from reading creationist garbage and having a good chortle – albeit, tinged with fear. These really seem to be people who can extract the proverbial urine from themselves.

Ship of fools is a shock. It should probably be on the Atheist blogroll, were it not for the bulletin board that seems to be full of actual Christians. The gadgets for instance, like the dasboard Jesus, from Dogma or the knitted testament redefine tacky.

My temporary favourite is the cat baptising kit. Which seems to be being applied to the evil cat from Cats and dogs.

There is a section called the Fruitcake Zone that might as well be on the atheist blogroll because some of these links really are to the sites of people off the church bell-shaped curve of rationality. As the Ship of Fools site puts it:-

Here you will find the weird, wild and wonderful world of religious fruitcake, with websites that unwittingly put the “fun” back into fundamentalism. And the “mental”, come to think of it.

Related sites include the The religious adherence of comic book characters With an attention to detail that would shame Monk (the TV detective, that is, not a member of a religious order) someone has tabulated a million comic book characters and listed their religions.

They’ve had to strain the concept of religion beyond breaking point to include things like Alcoholics Anonymous, environmentalism, even atheism. (A fair number of the villains turn out to be atheists.)

Some characters like Thor and Hercules are even stuck with worshipping themselves more or less.

There are even linked pages debating the religion of selected characters at such length you may suspect the Bible is the condensed version of the book these would make.

You can spend hours here, being amused, infuriated and utterly baffled at the oddness of the human mind. As I said they are pretty damn good.

A Borg perspective on Wikipedia’s religion page

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If there was ever a Queen of our hive mind*, it’s Wikipedia.

Feeling a bit robotic today, I thought I’d see what the religion quotes page threw up.

This is partly because looking at creationist blogs stops being funny very quickly and achieves the seemingly impossible feat of being both terrifying and boring at the same time.

This Wikiquote page has lots of quotes, split into alphabetical groups, on some principle that already passes all understanding. (D’oh, actually, no it doesn’t. The order is based on the first letters of each quote.)

Some of these are just great. Lots are (deliberately) funny

Much as I want to paste loads of the anti-religious quotes here, or even steal them for a byline for this blog, I’m just mentioning the link so you can pick your own.

Oh well, OK, then, since you twisted my arm, just one two.

Any religion that teaches there is only heaven or hell is gonna be a haven for manic-depressives.~ E.T.B.

If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron. ~ Spider Robinson

The actual Wiki religion page is just, how shall I put this…. dull.. Too dull to even stir up a rant about anything (unusually) but a least it’s not terrifying.

(I would say that it would be good if you had to write a school essay but, for some wierd reasons, students get penalised for using the greatest knowledge resource on the planet, although they are supposed to be doing a good job if they quote any old Harvard referenced tosh. )

* The blogosphere – I can’t come up with a less repellent word – is obviously the Collective, assimilating more and more odd folk every day. Resistance is blatantly futile.
Immature and specialised Wikis – like the Wikiquote, which was new to me – are being spawned all the time but the Queen remains pre-eminent.

Theistic Follow Up

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Previously I made a post which examined the logic (or lack thereof) in a post made on parabiodox. Today I see there has been a follow up post that addresses some of the “issues” I made, so I think it is only fair that I (in turn) address some of the new comments.

First off, I have to say “thank you” to parabiodox for his reasonable, and generally kind comments. I am flattered. The blog post begins:

This is a very readable, calm and intelligent response to a rather bombastic blog entry from me.
Of course the only reason I wrote it was I was hoping that someone would come along and write the kind of response that Why Dont You Blog? has provided.
Myself I do indulge in a bit of calm and measured article writing once in a while, but what’s wrong with a bit of mud-slinging as well ? Variety is the spice of life I think.

I couldn’t agree with the sentiment here more. There is nothing wrong with a bit of mud-slinging and, to me, the reason people blog is to get issues of their chest. At least this way no one gets hurt (unless they are very thin skinned..). Blogs would be boring places indeed if people did not rant, rave and froth every now and then.

Talking of mud-slinging I did detect a bit of it in the article Theistic Logic, the implication being that this is the way all theists think, of course as I know only too well it definately isn’t.

This, I am not to sure about. Where ever possible I try to avoid stereotyping people into a particular school of thought, and I certainly pounce on it when people try to do it to me, so I hope this is an interpretation issue more than anything else. Looking back on the previous post, the closest example I can find is when I begin “Sadly this is an infuriating example of the theistic line of logic.”

Now, that was never intended to mean it was the way all “theists” think – but it is a common fallacy which is used in many, many, blog posts where theists refer to atheists. Parabiodox continues:

The blog entry was parabiodox thinking, and there’s only one member of that particular philosophy to date.

While that is reassuring, ( 🙂 ) it is not completely accurate. IMHO most blog posts only speak for the line of thought adopted by the person who made the post, however this is a line of thought which is echoed across dozens of blogs (and is often found in the comments section on atheist blogs). While parabiodox does indeed seem to follow a unique philosophy, the fallacies in this particular post are reasonably common.

Theistic Logic

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(or lack thereof). The joys of Technorati have brought me to a post on parabiodox today, titled “Moderate Christians, Fundamentalists and Atheists (where’s the connection?)”

Sadly this is an infuriating example of the theistic line of logic. Obviously when I say logic, I mean fallacies…

The post (in full) reads:

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Ignorant and Proud Labels: rants

“One does not have to be a fundamentalist to put a Jesus fish on one’s car. Some of those who do so are certainly fundamentalists, but many more would better be described as moderate Christians. And yet, they share at least something with the fundamentalists – some degree of pride in their faith (i.e., their belief of something without evidence).”

Also shared with the Atheist faith of course, if you accept the author’s premise.

But of course there’s a lot more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for the non-existence of God.

Now, for so little words there is so much “illogic.” Starting with the first sentence: There is no such thing as the “Atheist faith.” It is meaningless. Any argument surrounding such comments is crying out to be accused of woo.

The second sentence is interesting – mainly in the way it is constructed. I actually know people called Jesus so I agree there is a lot of evidence that Jesus exists. If we are talking about a Jewish carpenter, 2000 years ago then I am also happy to accept that Jesus existed. The important issue is: Was this Jesus the Son of God (while being God at the same time)?

Now here the evidence retreats to the land of woo. What “evidence” is there that this Jesus is the son of God?

In addition to this, the argument uses a fairly blatant form of fallacy (False Dilemma). It tries to present the existence of Jesus and the non-existence of God as the two opposing sides with the implication that proving the existence of Jesus falsifies claims of the non-existence of God. This is nonsense.

There is more evidence for the existence of Reindeer than for the non-existence of Santa, therefore there is a Santa Clause. Evidence for the non-existence of something which doesn’t exist is notoriously hard to come by (what evidence is there that the tooth fairy, unicorns, floating teapots etc dont exist?). In general terms, what is required is evidence that something exists. The more fantastic the claim, the stronger the supporting evidence has to be for it to be accepted. Unless of course you are a devout theist, when no evidence is required for belief…

[tags]Religion, Theist, Theism, Christian, Christianity, Belief, Philosophy, Logic, Logical fallacies, Rants, Society, Culture, Atheism, Atheist, Evidence, Faith, Jesus Christ, God, Fundamentalist, Santa Claus[/tags]

Dumbski and Dumberski

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Biology was pretty well my worst subject when I was at school. (Well, if you don’t count sewing. Clearly, nobody does.)

We had a double lesson that involved almost 2 hours of slicing up dead things that reeked of formaldehyde. I was a child for whom the word “all-consuming” could have been coined. (At 11, I could eat at a tenth grade level, as they almost say in the Simpsons.)

But on those mornings, I would be gagging on the smell through my lunch break and couldn’t face eating anything. The formaldehyde, the dissection and the general air of a necromancer’s den (with jars of pickled foetuses and entrails) that pervaded the biology lab combined to act as aversion therapy. I certainly paid zero attention to the content of the lessons and my diagram of the circulation of the blood was in no way distinguishable from my cross-section of an earthworm’s diigestive tract.

However, deepest apologies to my biology teachers, because I do seem to have grasped one crucial point about evolution. (Or thanks to an illustrated library book about evolution, read when I was 10, which has strangely stuck in my mind across the decades, largely thanks to the fascinating series of artist’s impressions of cats developing in the womb.)

The point about evolution is the survival of the organisms that are best fitted to their environment. My moral compass is obviously set differently to the creationists’ but I’m buggared if I can see where there is a value judgement or any reference to morality here. We can see this happening all around us. Cities get built and expand into farmland and wild countryide and those creatures that can live alongside humans (rats, pigeons, cat fleas, houseflies) all do really well. Any creatures that live in scrub or farmland or mountains die out.

The moral issue here is trying to minimise the impact we have on the world – in our own self interest (FeaturelessVoid help us, if we find ourselves having to live on a diet of rats and fleas and marestail.)

The moral issue is clearly not that “fitter” means better or even more fecund (as in the masterly levels of logical absurdity assumed by the likes of the much-loved Dumbski, very well discussed by TW in his last post) It means suited to the environment.

(Just like us, really. Our bodies evolved to survive pretty well before the invention of agriculture. They’ve adapted well to a few thousand years of agriculture, although that’s just a blink of the planet’s eye. We are not very well adapted physically to the environments we are creating for oursleves in advanced industrialisation. For instance, we are straining our bones and tendons through actions like sitting at desks and in mrechanical forms of transport for most of our days; our mechanisms for storing food on our bodies to survive shortages are biting a lot of us in the non-metaphysical physical arse as we store more and more fat.

However, our most advanced adaptation tool – our monstrous brain, with its capacities for language and reasoning and creating things – lets us keep adjusting our environment, so we are still well ahead. The luckiest of us have medicine and enough food to live a lot longer than people did a couple of centuries ago.)

It would take just one major environmental change – a nuclear war, a global plague or a drastic change in our climate – and no matter how numerous our species is now, we’d no longer be “fit.” Our species would be extinct.

Dumbski’s potato famine topic is a good example. The Irish were indeed more prolific breeders, partly because it seems to have long been a Catholic imperative and partly because the potato could feed large families without using a lot of land. (They generally had tiny farms, as a result of the policies of Cromwell and his successors, who had set up Irish inheritance laws in such a way as to break the power base of Catholic leaders. See, I was a fair bit better at History than Biology.) A couple of years of failure of the potato crop and the Irish were dying in their millions.

If the theory of evolution can be applied to the Irsish potato famine – and this attempt to make a match is pushing the argument to the kerbside of insanity – it shows that fecundity and adapting to one environment doesn’t ensure “fitness” in the biological sense. One potato blight organism and the environment suddenly isn’t the same. Add in a few cholera epidemics. The survivors then become those with the capacity to resist starvation over years as well as to be resistant to cholera. Plus the financial and physical means and knowledge to be able escape to somewhere without a famine. A pretty tall order, but the genetic line of those without all these attributes has gone.

There was certainly a massive social and political component to how this played out. One part of which was the general demonisation of the Irish – to which Darwin may have subscribed, if Dumski is right on the evidence.

Just like today, when blaming the victim is one response to the guilt felt about not actually doing anything to help them.

(As an aside, poster campaigns telling us not to give to beggars is one of my favourite examples. It is basically saying – We’ll give money to our needy friends in the advertising agency instead of these homeless alcoholics that you feckless people persist in giving the money for a “cup of tea”).

So Darwin was just a typical example of his age and class then? Not a saint. Well, if you think he’s God or even a lesser saint, that must be a bit disturbing. But I’m buggered if I can see why being prejudiced against the starving Irish in anyway invalidates the theory of Evolution. Do satellites not work because the first rocket scientists were escaped Nazis?

He certainly wasn’t in anyway responsible for the potato famine, nor the British responses to it. And, even if he had been, the theory of evolution was completely blameless.

Are there really biology teachers so inept, anywhere in the world, that they can’t explain to these people the differences between discussing fitness to survive in a given environment and making value judgements about what living creatures deserve to survive?

I can only assume that some of these people have no more understanding of the basic points of evolutionary theory than I have of the complex prohibitions in Leviticus.

They don’t even believe in their Gods enough to credit them with giving humans the intelligence to draw conclusions about the natural universe.

Which makes it doubly unfortunate that they think they’re made in God’s image. They are clearly all worshippers of the Evil One, after all.

The Faust in faith schools

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The BBC reported on some research on faith schools this week. LSE researchers supposedly found that faith schools got better results where there was competition for pupils. This isnt exactly surprising, league tables of exam results being so crucial now. Any school that needs to attract pupils has got to show it gets good results – something of a circular process.

This competition thing confirms that a lot of people aren’t sending their kids to “faith schools” because of faith.

It makes me think about the concept of selling your soul. Parents are selling their children’s souls to the highest bidder – the religion that can offer the best GCSE and A level results wins the prize. These must be the cheapest Faustian deals ever recorded. Didn’t the going rate used to be lordship of the earth or eternal life or something of that magnitude?

There were two interesting paragraphs, one encouraging and one depressing.

The research is published as the ATL teachers’ union attacks faith schools for a lack of accountability – and calls for them not to “discriminate” in their admissions process.

Conservative leader David Cameron and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne have recently said they intend to send their children to faith schools – a choice also taken by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The first paragraph indicates some opposition to the apparent increasingly widespread supportfor religious schools, in our generally pretty godfree society. The second one shows how politicians – who can certainly afford to send their children to the most sought-after secular private schools -feel that it’s a better vote – winner to choose the religious option.

They know that people resent them buying their kids a “better” education. So they don’t want to be seen to send their kids to Eton any more. But, they are not going to risk their precious little Cressidas and Julians in the target-driven qualification factories that all parties are keen to turn state schools into. The faith school thing gets them off the hook, plus it hints at hidden depths of religious belief and morality.

That is, they are painting themselves of people of such deep faith that they won’t risk their children’s moral upbringing in non-religious state or private schools.

They must feel that this will make us trust them more.

It just makes them look even shadier and more hypocritical.

Treachery of the soundbite

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Richard Dawkins fell into the treacherous pits lying in wait for those who live by the soundbite. He was reported last week as having insulted Peter Kay for saying something silly about being sustained by his faith. The effect was to make Dawkins seem petty and even engaged in a nasty spat with someone who was in competition with him for a book prize.

Repeat after me, several times,

“I will no longer regurgitate kneejerk responses every time a journalist rings up for a quote.”

Luckily few of us will be called on to put this into practice, but, you never know.

Dawkins had the grace to apologise in the Guardian and admit that he was just giving a standard phone rentaquote and had no problem with Peter Kay’s apparent adherence to the Catholic beliefs (or lack thereof). I have greater respect for him after this admission, given that it shows he is aware of some of the consequences of being media flavour of the month. There is always a danger of trivialising serious issues when you get involved with mass media. That’s what they are there for.

Worst, this made Dakins appear to have no understanding of humour or context. Peter Kay could have been being ironic. I don’t know, not having read his autobiography or ever being likely to, but I suspect the contradicions in the offending quote may have been there for comic effect.

In any case, he mind boggles at a book prize that involves a competition between a crusading atheist biologist and a Bolton comic. Maybe they should get together and create a real crossover bestseller.

Dawkins links to anti-faith schools e-petition

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Well this is two of our favourite blog topics in one, so I couldn’t let it pass.

On Richard Dawkins’ own website, there is a link to an e-petition against faith schools of any kind in the UK.

I know it will get a patronising refusal to pay any attention but I still think it’s worth adding your name to it, if you are a UK resident and you have a problem with paying tax to segregate kids by religion….

Although, it’ s probably fair to warn you. Google your name when the petition’s closed and you’ll probably find it with the topic of the petition and a few names of people who signed before or after you.

If you live in a notably faith-obsessed or evn fundamentalist community, you might find that your local priest or imam starts to take an unhealthy interest in your opinions. OK. It’s not exactly going to be on a par with the sort of comebacks that Kareem experienced in Egypt. But education can become a real battle-ground. “Give me a child before the age of seven”, and so on.

(Dawkins’ own blog seems self-evidently worth looking at, and I’ll probably come back to discussing it soon.)