Why Dont You Blog?

(hat tip: post by SurfinSeaOtter on FSTDT)

Popularity: 17% [?]

Popularity: 17% [?]

Good to see that the UK government is still coming under political pressure to drop its demented encouragement of “faith schools”.

The BBC reported

Ministers are being urged to stop faith schools in England selecting pupils and staff on the basis of their religion.
Accord, a new coalition of secular and religious figures, wants the government to stop state-funded schools engaging in what they say is “discrimination”.

Faith schools getting forced into not favouring people who hold their “faith”?

Well, that would be a start.

But, they are wrong on so many levels that, if they were buildings, they’d need the world’s biggest elevators. Demolish the lot of them.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Churchgoing is associated with teenagers getting higher grades, according to a study cited in Ecumenical News International and discussed in the Times. On first consideration, this seems a bit counter-intuitive, given the preponderance of non-believers in the higher academic world and all those flattering studies that suggest that atheists are generally more intelligent and educated than believers.

The findings suggest that it’s whether the student actually attends church rather than whether s/he has any religious belief that has an impact.

The study suggested four reasons church-going teens tend to have more success at school.
One of these is that they have regular contact with adults from various generations, who serve as role models. Another reason is that the young people’s parents are more likely to communicate with their friends’ parents. Other factors at play are that teenagers who attend church develop friendships there with peers who have similar norms and values, and they are also more likely to take part in extracurricular activities. (from the ENI site)

I haven’t seen the data, only the reports, so I’m not challenging their figures or even their suggested explanations.

But there are some alternative ways of looking at this evidence.

Most crucially, it seems to me to be confusing correlation with causation.

i.e. On average, kids who go to church get better grades. Even, if it’s true, this doesn’t imply either one causes the other.

At an individual level, isn’t it likely that teenagers with a greater tendency to conform are more willing to do what their parents want - both in terms of doing their schoolwork and church attendance? So the good grades and the willingness to go to church might both just be manifestations of a general willingness to please adults.

Like brushing their teeth at bedtime. Which may also turn out to be positively correlated with good school attendance and good grades.

The implications that church-attenders are more involved in the community would seem to apply mostly to people who live in cohesive “communities” in which - especially in countries such as the USA - church attendance is pretty much the norm. Questions I would like to ask would be about the localities that the researchers looked at. Villages, towns, cities, slums, suburbs? Incomes? Family stability?

I can think of quite a few questions about this study. But the one that really nags at me is the use of the concept of “good grades.” Good grades are not necessarily indicators of real learning, or even of an academic capacity.

The research might suggest that many schools encourage conformity, rather than independent thought, and penalise those kids who show a troublesome desire to think for themselves (by refusing to go to church, for example.) Hence, more church-non-attenders drop out or put minimal effort into their schoolwork.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Freedom of religion still does not mean freedom from religion. The BBC has a news item today about a an atheist in Co Donegal (Republic of Ireland) having to be buried in Co Londonderry (United Kingdom) because all the graveyards in Donegal are church owned.

A Donegal atheist had to be buried in Londonderry because the county has no facilities for non-religious burials.
Journalist Roy Greenslade’s mother was buried in Ballyowen cemetery in Derry on Tuesday after a humanist service.
He said he was told atheists could not be buried in Donegal because the graveyards are church-owned.

Strikes me as being a touch petty and very strange that this appears to have been the first atheist / humanist burial in Co Donegal. I know the Republic of Ireland teeters on theocracy, but surely…

Once I got over the farce of a whole county being unable to bury the non-religious, I did wonder a touch. Why did an “atheist” family want a Church burial in the first place? I certainly dont. And, reading the article something else struck me as slightly odd:

“Therefore unless one is willing to compromise one’s beliefs by agreeing to a religious service, it is impossible to be buried,” [Roy Greenslade] said.

Here we see atheism described as a belief system again. I find it hard to compromise my lack of belief, simply because it is a lack. If I wanted to bury my atheist mother in a church graveyard, I would pretend she was what ever religion is required. If I want my children to go to a church shool, I will pretend to be what ever religion is required. This is not immoral - if I needed to get my kids into Santa’s school I would pretend to belive in Father Christmas. It is all the same to me. Dying for your religious beliefs is the act of a religious believer.

Where there is a difference is the issue of choice. Should, for example, a law be passed saying I have to belive in Faeries, I will stand up against it. To me, these are two very different things.

On a final note of black comedy, the BBC have a delightful example of Irish (Northern Irish in this example) reasoning regarding religions:

“When I [Roy Greenslade] rang up and asked Derry City Council’s cemeteries department if it was possible to bury an atheist in a municipal cemetery they said it was possible because there were different sections for Catholics, Protestants and Muslims.

“My wife asked if it meant they were going to start an atheist section and the woman said, ‘oh no, she can go in with the Protestants’.”

It really is a joke that just keeps giving.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sorry, we’re a bit slow here -the link is months old - but this could explain how god helped Manuel get to Guinness Book of Records size.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

The world’s heaviest man has lost body weight equivalent to a couple of adult males. Guess who’s responsible? Well, God, of course.

Alongside his copy of the Guinness World Records lies another text, The Bible.
“I have Claudia, my mother and God to thank,” said Manuel. “I am happy.”

You’d think a conceptual ruler of the universe would have better things to do than supervise an individual’s diet, but he must be working in his usual mysterious ways.

However, I’m afraid that the notionally all-powerful one might have been falling down badly in his new cosmic personal training role, to let Manuel Arribe get to weigh half a tonne in the first place.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Popularity: 9% [?]

If you live outside the UK you probably don’t have newspapers like the News of the World. Just thank Freya. It’s not even possible to describe them adequately but the link might give you some idea of their idea of “news”

The NoW recently lost a privacy case based on its deeply unpleasant activities - paying dominatrix prostitutes thousands to secretly film a client (who was already paying more than my month’s salary for an evening of their services) and to add a fake Nazi element because his long-dead father had been a well-known fascist.

(Well, it makes a change from Amy Winehouse. Just don’t get me started on the Amy Winehouse coverage.)

You might think “comically distasteful, but definitely none of my business.” The good old News of the World tried to pretend this was somehow our business because his father had been famous in the 1930s and because he’s the boss of Formula One or something.

Well the guy won his court action and got a fairly huge sum, plus they have to pay some part of his incredibly huge legal fees. This seems fair enough to me, and nothing to do with freedom of the press. I can’t see what the private behaviour of the Formula One Boss has to do with public interest. To be honest I don’t even know what Formula One is. But, even if I did, I can’t believe I would base my private morality on the actions of its multi-millionaire boss.

Not so Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, apparently. He has written - in the News of the World, no less (LOL) that this judgement set a dangerous precedent.

Without public debate or democratic scrutiny, the courts have created a wholly new privacy law. In itself that’s bad enough.
But, as a Christian leader, I am deeply sad that public morality is the second victim of this legal judgement.
Unspeakable and indecent behaviour, whether in public or in private, is no longer significant under this ruling.

D’uh? D’uh, again? So, to the Archbishop, the News of the World’s use of techniques normally associated with blackmail isn’t “unspeakable and indecent” behaviour? Fear of the gutter press is a pillar of public Christian Morality?

More from the ex-Archbishop-

In the past, a public figure has known that scandalous and immoral behaviour carries serious consequences for his or her public profile, reputation and job.
Today it is possible to both have your cake and to eat it. But a case can be clearly made for a direct link between private behaviour and public conduct.
If a politician, a judge, a bishop or any public figure cannot keep their promises to a wife, husband, etc, how can they be trusted to honour pledges to their constituencies and people they serve?

Can the ex-Archbishop not see the difference between being the boss of some racing sports association and being a politician or a judge? Is this man’s public exposure actually doing any service to his wife? Who else is he supposed to have made promises to? What’s his constituency?

Lord Carey is upholding a view of “morality” that barely touches upon any version of the concept that I can recognise. I started to disentangle the contradictions in this argument and its bizarre conceptual basis but I gave up because it seems so self-evidently ludicrous.

I can only assume that the Church of England doles out a really mean pension to its ex-leaders, so they are reduced to producing moral underpinnings for the NoW’s prurience. Please, up the man’s stipend, ffs, Church of England. Thor only knows what shameful activities he may be forced into next in the search to earn a crust.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Popularity: 12% [?]

Sorry, this is a petition that I had meant to publicise a while ago (hat tip: Nullifidian).

Basically a bible bashing crackpot took out a frivolous court case against the BBC for the “Jerry Springer - The Opera” show and lost. In losing he has been saddled with court costs which are really not cheap. Now, the slimebag has decided that it would be the “decent thing” for the BBC to waive the costs and, in effect, all the British licence payers should fund his pointless posturing. This is the message:

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed:

“BBC and Avalon must NOT Waive Springer Costs”
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bbc_springer_green?e

I really think this is an important cause, and I’d like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It’s free and takes less than a minute of your time.

So, if you are a British licence fee payer, please take a trip and sign the petition.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Popularity: 34% [?]

Conservative Anglicans have carried out a strange coup to form a church within a church. On first consideration, non-believers might welcome the increasing disintegration of a major world religion. But, in fact, the impact seems to be far from good, with fundamentalists seeking to snatch control of the Anglicans’ global organisation and moral authority.

The group said it would stay inside the Anglican Communion, but with its own statement of theology and council of archbishops. ….
The move underlines the alliance’s independence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and makes clear that it will no longer recognise Dr Williams’ traditional role as the leader of the world’s Anglicans.(from the BBC)

The BBC has a few soundbites about the issues that divide liberal and fundamentalist Anglicans. These basically come down to views on gays and women.

The BBC’s “debate” between Paul Eddy, from the UK Conservative Anglican network, and Californian Bishop Marc Andrus shows the staggering gap in intelligence and goodwill between the two camps. Andrus so outclasses Eddy as to make him look like a simple-minded fool. (OK, I guess that is no great feat.)

Ironically, Paul Eddy said that the Anglican communion must be paramount, with everybody holding to the same doctrine, which seems to conflict with the GAFCON plan to set up its own international power network within the church.

And how about this from Paul Eddy on “THE NEED TO CONVERT PEOPLE OF OTHER FAITHS”?

The Great Commission [Jesus's instruction to the disciples to spread his teaching] remains as relevant in 2008, whatever the political and religious tensions, as it did 2,000 years ago. The Church in Africa is experiencing huge growth - in Muslim countries among others. It is a Biblical mandate which orthodox churches believe in.

A Biblical mandate to convert? To convert Muslims, even? Argh!

Sunny Hundal had some things to say about Eddy, when he discussed an article, in a new rightwing magazine, Standpoint, by Bishop Nazir-Ali. This bishop is the most senior UK churchman on the conservative side, in the battle for the soul of the Anglican communion.

In fact, the type of society Nazir-Ali wants isn’t far from the utopia that conservative Muslims want to develop, except it’s a different religion.

Hundal said that Nazir-Ali, disappointed that Rowan Williams was chosen as Archbishop rather than himself, is launching a power play, gathering a posse of supporters and gaining media attention through the manipulation of fears of Muslims.

.. for example, he backed a motion by the Church of England’s General Synod member Paul Eddy on evangelising other faiths (but focusing on Muslims to guarantee headlines). Paul Eddy just happens to be a PR consultant who has worked with the purity ring campaign and Christian Concern for our Nation. Remember CCFON from the Channel 4 documentary on Christian fundamentalists?

Well, yes, I certainly do remember it. Here’s the Youtube link to the Channel 4 programmes about the fundy response to the HFEA Bill.

Converting Muslims is a bit of a theme with Paul Eddy. In March, according to Anglican Mainstream

A traditionalist Anglican has said he will continue with a campaign for the Church of England to work explicitly to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Paul Eddy, a lay member of the General Synod, has come under intense pressure from bishops to withdraw his plan.

Apparently this contentious motion is to be put to the Synod on 4-6th July, over the objections of almost all senior church figures..

You might understand the Church of England being unable to successfully face off an aggressive PR consultant, them being so unworldly and all. You can understand the right-wing press being happy to jump on any conservative bandwagon, that’s their social role.

But, I am a bit miffed that the BBC is happy to treat this guy as a handy rent-a-speech chap. The BBC is surely no stranger to the wiles of PR consultants. OK, there’s a dull issue that’s got to be aired on TV or the website in a couple of hours.. They’ve got his phone number…. Lazy.

So I really hope that that Channel 4 documentary becomes required viewing for any members of the General Synod.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Popularity: 17% [?]

With the headline “I create gods all the time and now I think one might actually exist” the Daily Mail distorts the content of its interview with Terry Pratchett.

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.
But it is true that in an interview I gave recently I did describe a sudden, distinct feeling I had one hectic day that everything I was doing was right and things were happening as they should.
It seemed like the memory of a voice and it came wrapped in its own brief little bubble of tranquillity. I’m not used to this.

Experiencing a feeling of transcendence is REALLY not the same as a belief in god. Pratchett himself is aware of this.

For a moment, the world had felt at peace. Where did it come from?
Me, actually….
I don’t think I’ve found God, but I may have seen where gods come from

Most non-believers have experienced transcendence. Feeling awe at the wonders of the universe doesn’t necessarily equate with belief in a divine being. Pratchett’s a fantasy writer. He earns his living by dabbling in myth and metaphor. Throughout the Diskworld series, he plays with the ideas of gods and religion. He treats them as any other component of his imaginary universe.

Pratchett has some sort of brain disease (possibly Alzheimer’s but he has had an alternative diagnosis.) A voice in his head sounds more like a neurological symptom than a religious conversion. If the voice manifested as an instruction to wash his hair in chip fat and stand on a window ledge hollering, the Daily Mail would hardly present this as proof of a divinity.

The whole tenor of the Daily Mail presentation is to suggest that Terry Pratchett has had some sort of religious conversion, in the face of his own words. This is pretty absurd, and would hardly matter to anyone but himself, even if it were true.

The sleb-obsessed press, such as the Daily Mail, treats us as if we are under the spell of any remotely-famous people. Pratchett is a well-known non-believer. So the Daily Mail credits his beliefs or lack of them as somehow influencing the rest of the population. However, if Dawkins were to become a Russian Orthodox priest, it wouldn’t matter to the average non-believer. If the Archbishop of Canterbury were to become a Jain, millions of Anglicans wouldn’t suddenly follow him.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Popularity: 15% [?]