Quite Random

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

I never expect much of The British Humanist Association (BHA), but their opinion poll- well, it almost defies belief in its absurdity. It’s difficult to know where to start with it.

blog.talkingphilosophy.com.

The article quoted above from the new Philosophers’ Magazine blog criticises the recent survey findings of the British Humanist Association, where they claimed that 36% of UK adults are in fact Humanists in their outlook. The main criticism is related to the use of questions to identify Humanist traits in the respondent that are not necessarily reliable indicators of a Humanist outlook (at least, that’s the gist I got).

An example given is a question about whether the respondent’s belief in religion or science gives them a more complete understanding of the universe. The main flaw with this question is obviously that many religious people are willing to accept Darwinian evolution theory, Human Genome research and the Big Bang as plausible explanations for life, the universe and everything – while they still believe in God. You may disagree, but Humanists don’t have the monopoly on rationality, and religious people are not all as stupid or insane as George W Bush.

What the BHA survey does is attempt to corral people into the category of Humanist, simply because they have ticked a few of the right boxes. In matters of spirituality and religion, many people I know have ideas which mark them as Humanists in their outlook, but they are unlikely to classify themselves as Humanists simply because they don’t even feel the need to be categorised in the first place – why wear a badge when you’ve had enough of religions asking you to and you’re happy as you are? Maybe 36% of UK adults are Humanists, but 36% of UK adults won’t be wearing any badges or joining the BHA any time soon, so the entire exercise is somewhat academic.

To be fair to the BHA, most surveys are a complete waste of time. A percentage figure works when you talk about food ingredients or fundraising totals, but not for surveys where Humans have been asked to give an opinion. The two reasons for this – Humans write the surveys, and Humans respond to them. The Humans writing the surveys ask questions either too preoccupied with what questions sound good or what answers they want to hear, and the Humans responding to them either don’t understand the questions, lie, tell you what they think you want to hear, or don’t know what they think in the first place.

New what?

Richard Dawkins finds the title ‘New Atheist’ laughable, and so do I. What the hell is a New Atheist? Am I a New Atheist or an Old Atheist? Are New Atheists trendier, better looking or richer? According to the Dilbert Blog, New Atheists are now also New Gays. This is getting absurd. Dawkins compared the plight of atheists in the US to that of gays thirty or so years ago, so giving birth to another crazy nickname. Atheists are accused by the religious of being religious themselves (the line ‘you believe there is no god’, so oft-repeated, suggests that Atheism is itself a faith position), so all in all, I might be part of some weird new religion called the New Gays. I don’t want to be a New anything. There’s a time limit on being New unless you’re watching the News, and look how New Labour turned out.

Jesus Camp

Be afraid… be very afraid.

If you can’t see the video above, see the film website.

According to an interviewee in this trailer, there are two kinds of people in the world… people who love Jesus, and people who don’t. The co-ordinators of the ‘Kids on Fire’ evangelical summer camp, who insist that “we have the truth”, want to see Christian children as radicalised as the Muslim children they imagine with grenades strapped to their bodies - assuming that all children are, or should be, radicalised in the first place. There is no third way mentioned – presumably the atheists and Humanists of this world fit in to the category of people who don’t love Jesus, and therefore are considered enemies, their children lost. The children in this film are described as born again, one boy saying he was ‘saved’ at the age of five. Apparently it’s never too early to start saving souls.

You can anticipate the reaction to a film like this before it has even hit the cinemas – most reactions being formed without people even having seen the film (and, no, I haven’t). Radical Christians may believe that their words have been misinterpreted, taken out of context or distorted, to suit the ends of the film makers (though the film has mostly been described as a balanced portrayal). Less ‘extreme’ Christians may claim that these loonies have nothing to do with them, and that the themes of the film don’t apply to their own faith. Atheists and Humanists may describe this film as a worrying spectacle of young children being manipulated and indoctrinated by neo-conservative zealots who are no less of a worry than radical Imams.

This all serves as a reminder that religion just isn’t as simple as wearing a badge, any more than declaring yourself an atheist, Humanist or anything else provides a precise breakdown of your own personal credo. We really are all atheists – when it comes to other religions, or other interpretations of religion, faith, personal spirituality, whatever you want to call it. Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise have both fallen from favour with the movie-going public for being too assertive with their respective beliefs, the common reaction being along the lines of ‘entertain me, just don’t talk about your religion, it makes me uncomfortable’.

In many workplaces, even in social circles, conversations about religion are taboo – no-one can open their mouth without offending someone, and Muslims, Hindus, Christians and everyone else demand that their religion be treated respectfully, lest their human rights be violated. I don’t think that my atheism earns me any special treatment, and I don’t expect to have to extend any to anyone else, regardless of their religion. Being asked to lay off criticising religious people has always felt to me like being asked not to mock the afflicted. If you have a faith, you should be prepared to defend it.

Jesus Camp appears to demonstrate that the US has no less of a crisis of identity on its hands than Islam – well-organised radicalism against liberalism. Rational people don’t have the luxury of being able to say that we’re all stuck in the middle while this schizophrenic wrangling plays itself out around us.

Reply to a Christian

Since the publication of my first book, The End of Faith, I have received thousands of letters and e-mails from religious believers insisting that I am wrong not to believe in God. Invariably, the most unpleasant of these communications have come from Christians. This is ironic, as Christians generally believe that no faith imparts the virtues of love and forgiveness more effectively than their own. Please accept this for what it is: the testimony of a man who is in a position to observe how people behave when their faith is challenged. Many who claim to have been transformed by Christ’s love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism. While you may ascribe this to human nature, it is clear that the hatred these people feel comes directly from the Bible. How do I know this? Because the most deranged of my correspondents always cite chapter and verse.

Link: Council for Secular Humanism

This piece by Sam Harris mostly makes perfect sense, though the argument about the inability of the Bible to predict the arrival of the Internet is a little wide of the mark. The problem is, pieces like this don’t persuade anyone. They don’t persuade atheists because atheists don’t need persuading and agreed with it in the first place, and they don’t persuade Christians because they won’t be persuaded. Christians often see atheists as being sick, immoral people who are struggling to deny the god-shaped hole in their lives, just as most atheists simply cannot understand how Christians, or any faith groups, can subscribe to such lunacy.

Not here but there

I’ve added a roundup of good atheist web content from the last week to the Suffolk Humanists site… go there and waste some time.

Humanism, creationism, monkeys

I’ve been working away for a little while now on a new web site, and would appreciate any constructive feedback anyone has. The new Suffolk Humanists web site features information and articles on Humanism, which is an ethical approach to life without religion. It’s in its early stages and short on content, but has some potential to develop moving on.

I’ve also written an article for the web site which may be of interest – in the light of recent correspondence alternately questioning and supporting Darwinian evolution theory in the US media, as well as the controversy over the teaching of Intelligent Design in UK schools, this article looks at the basics of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, creationist fundamentalism, the main creationist argument against Darwinian evolution theory, and the dangers of teaching Intelligent Design to school children as a scientific explanation for our biodiversity. See the article here – I’d appreciate any feedback on that as well.

Atheism is a dirty word

From a telephone sampling of more than 2,000 households, university researchers found that Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in “sharing their vision of American society.” Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.

Link: Atheists identified as America’s most distrusted minority – University of Minnesota

Apparently, even if Americans believe in different gods, they’re all agreed that atheists are “self-interested individuals who are not concerned with the common good”. I already knew that atheist senators in the US congress have to keep their absence of belief in a deity a secret, so this is no surprise. Watch out for this attitude coming to the UK, if our government and countless religious pressure groups have anything to do with it…