The Right to Offend versus the Christian Privilege

In this examination, Eric Stockhausen covers the difficulties in the spectrum of first amendment rights in regard to religion; from offensive but legal, to illegal, and presents his opinion on some recent news.

Lately there has been a lot of news where the freedom to express ones religious views has been at the forefront. With the growing importance of such issues, I think it would be prudent to review some cases which have gotten onto atheist websites.

Exhibit A: Settlement clears way for Kerrville Cross

In my home state, Texas, a non-profit organization called The Coming King Foundation is putting up a 77 foot huge metal cross near neighbourhoods and access to Interstate 10. Not only would this be near residents but everyone would have to see it, on those grounds residents litigated against the foundation. This cross offends residents because A) Giant crosses remind people of lynching and other terrible connotations B) Crosses tend to give the message that God owns this land (Columbus-esque). C) Not everyone is Christian and the community does not want to give outsiders the wrong idea. D) A giant metal cross is just bad taste! I believe this Christian organization has the right to free speech, this clearly being an example of symbolic speech. These Christians have the right to offend people, but there is the clear problem of visual pollution (many people have to see it). So if atheists have the right to put up billboards that offend Christians, should Christians have the right to offend atheists? On a case to case basis it is really hard because from the perspective of a Christian who gets offended at the smallest reference to atheism on a public street corner, it can get fuzzy about whether or not the majority have the right to censor someone based on offence. I personally think that the law gives precedent to protect the foundation’s free speech no matter how much I disagree with their message. If there was a good way of deciding what constituted as visual pollution (aside from obscenities), I would have a different opinion on the legality of the foundation’s cross.

Exhibit B: Federal judge rules teacher can display patriotic banners mentioning 'God'

This time in California, a judge ruled that is was unconstitutional for a school to censor a teacher who had banners with Christian nationalistic messages. (See here)

One should really read the opinion the Judge gave. It really goes into detail of why the judge would protect such banners. These are obviously offensive to my atheistic tastes and I disagree with the mixing of God and country. The teacher is being unprofessional by putting his religio-political beliefs on display. The biggest problem is that they are all quotes of things that already have national protection. The judge referenced the Michael Newdow case where the Supreme Court decided that the Pledge of Allegiance recognizes the importance of God in the history of the United States. Though I disagree with both the Supreme Court’s ruling and belief on the importance of God, I can hardly blame the Judge. I suggest reading the Judge’s opinion and forming your own.

Now the important problem with this case is ‘Christian Privilege’. If the teacher had something like “Are you moral without God? Millions are!” or the like from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, it would have probably been censored because atheistic speech is very limited. This is an unacceptable double standard. I want atheist teachers to have equal protection under the law. If that means personal, political and religious views are prohibited for public school teachers because it is an abuse of power given to them by the government in order to teach kids, so be it. If the sign had said “In Jesus We Trust”, I would think it would be censored too because it is not politically correct enough for the classroom since it implies we believe in Jesus. People realize the importance of political correctness a little bit better when something is restated in a way that makes them understand the atmosphere in which it is presented. Implying Americans believe in Jesus excludes the Jewish Americans and implying Americans believes in God makes Atheist Americans a second class. I’ve gone through some commonly used rhetoric, make your own decision on the case.

Until the wall between church and state is repaired, we will just have to deal with things like Prop 4 on the GOP ballot in Texas (scroll to the bottom).

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought's editors.

The Monstrosity Of Christ - Slavoj Zizek

Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher for the 21st century. His pace is terrifyingly polymathic and just keeping up with the intricacies of his speaking style is an intellectual assault course. Described by his biographer as doing philosophy with such recklessness as to risk making it interesting (a rather pessimistic and unjustified jab at ‘analytic’ philosophy) Zizek is a controversial, card-carrying comrade, but to run away screaming ‘COMMUNIST!’ would be to commit to the modern fallacy of pigeon-holing and categorizing. Zizek is too weird for that.

What interests me about his thought in the context of this blog is his critique of Christianity. An atheist, Zizek would no doubt shun the ‘new atheist’ movement and perhaps view this blog's posts on the future of freethought with bizarre fascination - as he might view the blog in its entirety. Nonetheless, this ‘continental’ thinker has much to contribute to any atheism/theism debate.

Zizek focuses on the Christian command to ‘love thy neighbour’. Firstly, and less interestingly, he asserts along with many other thinkers (I can also think of Hitchens) that love issued as a command is simply not possible. Any claim to do such a thing should be met with suspicion.

The intriguing stuff starts when Zizek asks what is meant by the term ‘neighbour’. It isn’t, he claims, that we should have empathy or sympathy with the man on the street. It is very far removed from this. As part of his larger critique of capitalism, Zizek holds that the term ‘neighbour’ is employed only in order to distance the user from his fellow human. Humanity, claims Zizek (paradoxically in my view), has both human and inhuman aspects. The command to love one's neighbour forces you to embrace both sides.

Charity in the 21st century, is not what it seems, says Zizek. The real motivation for giving to the poor isn’t that you want to help your neighbour; it’s just that you couldn’t care less and want to forget about the issue, but want to feel like it’s ok to forget.

Zizek skilfully extends this critique of religion to a political one and then back again, and if you fancy some quick-paced thinking, check out this video, the first part of which is posted below.



Remember, I’m just a blogger, so don’t go taking this post to your philosophy lecturer. If you want to learn more about Zizek, listen to the man himself.

10 Commandments: A Worrying Moral Code

Religion, in all its undeserved hubris, has, through some form of unconscious consensus, been deemed to provide a praiseworthy blueprint for a meaningful existence. Quite how this has happened I find fascinating and lamentable. Even those who ‘have no faith themselves’ seem quite willing to accept this. The argument that brash atheism ‘pulls the rug’ of meaning from the faithful’s feet is a poor metaphor. In reality, the confrontation is much more violent, forcing the theist to ask “what now?”

But this existential disembowelment is really a good thing. It’s more of a necessary realisation of the individual’s tainted conscience. Tainted because the ‘meaning’ provided by faith is really nothing but that of subjugation, obedience and absolute rule. In no way are the faithful free. Freedom should be regarded as one of the upmost priorities of every decent being. Ensuring freedom of movement, thought and expression for others, if not the foremost concern of a government, must soon become so if they wish to remain in power. Liberty, as Mill wisely dictated, consists largely in doing whatever you like, as long as you bring no harm to others, and though flawed, this dictum serves as a just motivation for civilised conduct.

I struggle to conclusively find that God works on such Enlightened values. That tyrant of the Old Testament supposedly granted us ten universal laws by which we can all live. (There are in fact countless commandments in Exodus, all of which are either blindingly obvious without celestial sanction, or abhorrent to all but the most omnipotent dictator.) It is too rarely that they are thoroughly examined. An exegesis should be welcomed.

The passage in question is Exodus 20, and it begins with a helpful reminder: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” I’m not sure if the Israelites needed reminding of this ‘fact’, yet the God who will later command us to be humble is entitled to a little self-promotion. Incidentally, it is important not to forget the manner in which He freed His people. As a supposedly omnipotent being, He could have, of course, merely changed the workings of the pharaohs mind. Not satisfied with a simple solution (and one that does not make good mythology), He employed His unlimited creative powers to divine ten vindictive and frankly bizarre ‘warnings’ to the pharaoh. They are (in no particular order) plagues of flies, locus and frogs, a prelude to the devisive dogma of transubstantiation whereby the waters of the country turned to blood, livestock were diseased (Yahweh, knowing of the germ theory, neglected to deem this a viral plague, presumably not to disrupt the course of history, allowing Pasteur to take his well-deserved credit), irremovable and painful boils, my personal favourite; hail mixed with fire, and lastly, mass infanticide. The final abhorrent act was moderated; only Egyptian children were massacred. The Jews painted crosses of lamb’s blood on their doors to remind the infallible creator of their devotion and unmitigated terror.

All this and we are not yet at the first of the ten commandments. Luckily, they can be grouped together. Christopher Hitchens has, on many occasions, has performed this deed for us. The first four are all the demands of an egomaniac. One who forces you to love Him. “You shall have no other Gods before me” is, notably, not a denial of polytheism, but merely a demand that good Jews may only believe in Yahweh. And once again, He reminds His followers of the upmost importance of this commandment when they gather their golden possessions so that Aaron can melt them down to form a Golden Calf. This baffling oddity of the people’s need to worship anything during Moses’ forty day exile is indeed strange. Though the entire story is likely a fabrication (no evidence has ever been found of the Israelites nomadic existence in the Sinai), the sheer fact that it must have been credulous to its illiterate bronze age audience should inform us of the circumstances under which the document was crafted. In due course, God is (for once) consistent with His teachings and punishes such sins. Those who had fashioned the idol where ignorant of the rank of this sin, but ignorance was no defence. God, initially bent on more genocide, is convinced by Moses not to resort to such extreme measures. Instead Moses’ henchmen slay 3000 men and God inflicts a further plague upon the population.

The next group of commandments is altogether more agreeable. Honour your father and your mother, do not murder, commit adultery, steal or give false testimony, are all far less controversial. Neither are they unique to the Abrahamic faiths, or ‘faith’ in general. They cannot be laid claim to by the religious. Atheists, despite popular belief, are not all murders, rapists, thieves and liars. Yahweh, hypocrite that He is, can lay claim to many of these characteristics.

The last commandment is unique, and should be singled out.

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

A misogynistic, chauvinistic, totalitarian and petty passage. The only ‘neighbour’ worth note is male (and presumably also Jewish), since women are ranked alongside property and livestock: ‘anything that belongs to your neighbour’.

But more worryingly and importantly, this is the earliest mention I have ever found of a thought crime. George Orwell excellently identified this as a key component of any totalitarian regime. It is not the act of coveting my neighbour’s possessions that I can be condemned for, but the mere thought of it. Such a commandment is both unjust and impossible. In the supposedly ‘fallen’ world that Christianity teaches us we are living in, such a high moral demand comes from a God who is supremely sadistic. There will be many Christians who can offer sophisticated and slippery ways around this problem. Luckily for the rest of us, we are free to avoid such nonsensical fairyology and appreciate the real majesty of our moral universe – free from any religious dogma of this kind.

Beethoven: Therefore, God

A frequent non-sequitur in debates about religion is the argument from beauty. It’s hard to construct the logic behind it, because, basically, there isn’t any. Its proponents rank it as some kind of necessary a priori self-evident truth about the nature of the universe. Without the jargon, this means they see it as so obvious as to not require any chain of reasoning establishing the logical links between the existence of beauty and the existence of a deity.

In a book once lent to me by a minister by Timothy Keller entitled The Reason For God, which I do not have to hand (nor do I recommend) I remember the author trying to convince us that we should not expect proofs of God’s existence, but merely “clues” that suggest his presence in the universe. Leaving this common and revealing caveat aside, Keller quotes Leonard Bernstein’s use of the word ‘heaven’ to describe the music of Beethoven. Last night, I even donned my classical music aficionado hat and headed off to see Daniel Barenboim perform and conduct my favourite piece of classical music – Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto. And the performance was, I admit, ‘heavenly’. .

Admittedly struggling to find a logical pathway from beauty to God, I shall turn to that marvel of 21st century idealism, Wikipedia, and its article on the argument from beauty. It seems a fairly written piece, and I’ll quote from it its outline of the ‘argument’:

And to once more prove this argument is not simply constructed by various atheist internet bloggers just to be swiftly demolished, the article quotes at length well-known scholar Richard Swinburne. He says “If we confine ourselves to the argument from the beauty of the inanimate and plant worlds, the argument surely works."

1. There are compelling reasons for considering beauty to exist in a way that transcends its material manifestations.

2. According to materialism, nothing exists in a way that transcends its material manifestations.

3. According to classical theism, beauty is a quality of God and therefore exists in a way that transcends its material manifestation.

4. Therefore, to the extent that premise (1) is accepted, theism is more plausible than materialism.

Points 2, 3 and 4 are relatively un-controversial, so discussion focuses on the premise (1).

The Wikipedia formulation seems to be reasonable. Arguments of this form always state essentially the same thing: that beauty cannot be explained by naturalism, therefore it must be divinely inspired. To use Daniel Dennett’s terminology, this is a classic ‘skyhook’. The term ‘skyhook’ is a useful and interesting one put forward by the philosopher. He posits two kinds of explanations; ‘cranes’ are explanations built upon foundations of what we already know or can observe. ‘Skyhooks’ posit greater complexity in order to explain complex things.

Why we find beauty in the world is an interesting question, but one that will surely be answered by a suitable crane. Indeed, we can explain many types of beauty using evolution. Those that aren’t a direct result of our evolutionary history, likely still can be explained with reference to it. Our large mammalian brains are incredibly powerful tools capable of experiencing a wide range of, very human, phenomena.

According to the argument in question, beauty is a direct result of God’s existence, since His nature is beautiful. But surely, if He exists, all things that are the case are His doing? Thus, we might posit the ‘Argument from Ugliness’ as an antidote to the argument from beauty. It is just as likely that ugliness “transcends its material manifestations” as beauty does. If we need an explanation for why things are beautiful and say it is because God’s nature is one of beauty, why not say God is ugly in order to explain ugly things? If you accept the argument from beauty, there is no good reason to reject the argument from ugliness. Both arguments are, of course, ridiculous.

It was during the last movement of the Beethoven concerto that Keller’s book came to mind. It struck me how easy it must be to a mind already predisposed to religious belief, to see beauty as something divinely ordained. Music is often held in such high regard in this sense because it ‘transcends humanity’. But I find Beethoven so beautiful precisely for the opposite reason. His majesty lies in his embrace of humanity – he pushes its creative faculties to the limit, in the processes fulfilling a noble aspect of what it means to be a human being. Beauty is a strictly human concept. That thought, in itself, is beautiful. God, once more, finds Himself surplus to requirement.

The Problem Of Evil - An Invitation

Christopher Hitchens has been on form recently, writing about the religious response to the disaster in Haiti in Slate. Hitchens writes:

As so often, the first priest out of the trap on this occasion was that evil moron Pat Robertson, who announced on the Christian Broadcasting Network that Haitians had long ago made an agreement with Satan to enlist diabolic help against French imperialism. The implication was clear ... for this offense, God would kill underfed Haitian babies in slums 200 years later. (He would also kill the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Joseph Serge Miot, and bring his cathedral down on his head, though since Pat Robertson doesn't really think that Catholics are proper Christians, there's perhaps scant irony there.)

It is of course unfair to lump all believers in this category. Only the most farcical examples are liable to such scorn. However, all believers must ask themselves why God would allow such a thing to happen. Evil is broadly defined in terms of moral and natural causes. It is the latter that has resulted and continues to cause so many problems for religious apologists.

As Bertrand Russell pointed out (see post on original sin) in order for someone to say that innocent children deserve the suffering they experience as a result of events such as these, they must become as cruel as the God in whom they believe. Those too, who assert that evil events of this magnitude occur in order that we may develop, simply fail to grasp the enormous moral wickedness required to assert such a thing.

I am yet to encounter an adequate solution to this problem. Therefore, I invite any religious person under 21 to send in a submission to youngfreethought@gmail.com that adequately addresses the problem of natural evil. Afterwards, I shall invite responses from our regular readers to this post.

Please don’t forget to donate to Non-Believers Giving Aid to help those in Haiti.

Original Sin – The Original Sin

The conception of Sin which is bound up with Christian ethics is one that does an extraordinary amount of harm, since it affords people an outlet for their sadism which they believe to be legitimate, even noble.

Bertrand Russell’s words (Why I am not a Christian) are apt to describe the worst species of the idea of ‘Sin’. Its creation can be found in the ramblings of the once raucous party boy of theology – ‘St.’ Augustine. The story goes that he was sitting in a Milanese garden, whereupon he heard children chanting the phrase ‘tolle lege’ – ‘take it and read’. At this climacteric moment in his life, Augustine picked up the Epistles of Paul (Romans 13: 13-14) and read these words: ‘Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexually immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealously. Rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.’ Thus was born original sin.

Humanity, Augustine would have you believe, were blessed with a perfect uncorrupted world. Then came the Fall. A snake began talking and encouraging Eve to commit the worst crime possible – scrumping. And she did it of her own volition. But this contemptible fairy tale has led to inordinate damage. The kind of damage it would be facetious to trivialise. This sin, many believe, is inherited by each and every human being. It is passed down through sexual intercourse from generation to generation. Those born in destitution, rancid poverty and misery, those subjected to tortures from birth, disease, famine and war face deserve no sympathy for these injustices because they were, like the rest of us, born in sin.

Once more, Bertrand Russell put most eloquently and soberly the abhorrent nature of such a doctrine:

I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children’s ward of a hospital, to watch the suffering that is there being endured, and then to persist in the assertion that those children are so morally abandoned as to deserve what they are suffering. In order to bring himself to say this, a man must destroy himself in all feelings of mercy and compassion. He must, in short, make himself as cruel as the God in whom he believes. No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery.

It would have been bad enough for Augustine to have left his appalling idea at this. Unfortunately, he had a scholarly spat which threw him even further into the abyss that was already staring back into him. The British monk Pelagius, as Diarmaid MacCulloch describes in his excellent work A History of Christianity, has often been viewed as offering a nicer alternative to the starkness of Augustinian theology. Not so. Pelagius’ ideal world was ‘one vast monastery’. In his view, God demands high moral standards that we must obey of our own freewill. Nonetheless, what repulsed Pelagius about Augustine’s view was that it provided ‘false excuse for Christians passively to avoid making any moral effort’.

In Augustine’s work City of God, there are tracts attacking Pelagius’ thought. Augustine responds by asserting that our utterly corrupt nature entails that God’s decisions about who to save and who to condemn to hellfire are entirely arbitrary. Since God’s decisions are transcendent of time, salvation is predestined. The Fall was such a serious crime that it can provide justification for to condemn all humankind to the will of a celestial dictator. The worth of humanity to Augustine, if not already apparent, becomes so when you discover the word he used to describe it: massa – ‘lump’. Like a cancerous tumour, humanity is an unwelcome stain on God’s otherwise perfect universe.

Christianity of this guise filters through into the modern day. Most of all, Christianity is a religion of guilt. One where you are created evil and commanded to do good. If atheists need feel anything to Christians of this temperament, it is pity. The invisible hand of Augustine permeates the Christian conscience to remind each believer that they are worthless every time they begin to feel the onset of the faintest joy or happiness. In any form, nihilism is not only false, but dangerous. This is the equivalent of theistic nihilism.

Creation - A Film About Darwin The Man

Fundamental disagreements about the nature of existence, and love, are not often compatible. Love is not transcendent, and it must cope with practical, moral and philosophical (in the broadest sense of the term) disagreements. In a letter to Darwin from his wife Emma, she presents her worries about her husband’s increasing doubt. Her fears were undoubtedly those of a sincere and loving wife; one that wanted to see her husband in the afterlife. Famously, Darwin wrote at the bottom of that letter “When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed and cried over this.”

This extremely personal (now public) side of Darwin is the focus of a new film entitled Creation. Young Freethought was invited, along with several other bloggers, to an online chat with director Jon Amiel. During the course of the film, Amiel said of Darwin that he had “grown to love him”. The film is largely sympathetic to a man it portrays as a sometimes distant but always loving father.

Darwin saw the cause of the fear his wife possessed about his place in the ‘hereafter’ as “a damnable doctrine”. Darwin’s unique understanding of the acerbic viciousness of “nature red in tooth and claw” naturally led him to doubt the benevolence of any supposed creator. But he needed not have sought evil in nature, for Darwin’s Victorian life was scattered with corpses. After the death of what was affectionately his ‘favourite’ child Annie from Scarlet Fever aged 10, he wrote "We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age”.

In 2000, Darwin’s descendent Randal Keynes published Annie’s Box. A book based on a collection of memories Charles and Emma kept of their beloved daughter that Keynes stumbled across (what a find!). Scriptwriter for Creation John Collee would use this book as a source for the film. Annie is a somewhat ominous figure throughout Creation, returning as a manifestation of Darwin’s fears and sorrow. A blur between fact and fiction is a recurring feature fans of Darwin will notice. Though such liberties are mostly executed with care and tenderness, some fictitious signposts provided by the film seem quite unnecessary.

To anyone familiar with Socratic humility, reading The Origin of Species is like discovering Socrates’ great lost work. Darwin goes to extraordinary pains to explain the weaknesses of his theory. And though Amiel was quite right in stating it is “a difficult book to plough through”, in it, Darwin embodies the scientific ideal of dispassionate pursuit of knowledge, whilst retaining his humanity and gentle nature. It seems to me that Darwin was undoubtedly a complete English toff (though Amiel disagrees), but without caricaturing the man, he can safely be said to have been a loveable one. Creation is a worthwhile endeavour, executed well. Its subject matter is universal and touching, always compensating for one or two weak points. Amiel certainly seemed to possess a deep solidarity with Darwin’s ghost and others too, will see why after watching this film.

Creation is out on DVD in the UK and is released in American cinemas on Friday.

Don’t forget, the question of the success of 2009 as Darwin’s year is still a suggested topic for submissions!

How Should Freethought Proceed? More Thoughts...

We’ve had many articles considering the best way to dampen the fervour and spread of religious belief. John Kubinski (18), a regular writer for Young Freethought, wades in once more with this excellent essay. In it, he argues that religion is best understood as a moral intuition with evolutionary roots, rather than as a poor attempt at philosophy and empirical inquiry. He argues this insight into the nature of religious belief might be helpful in thinking about the best strategies for dismantling religion.

The first step in addressing any problem is coming to understand the nature of the problem. Freethinkers can mostly agree that religion is irrational, but what is the nature of this irrationality? Often times, I see freethinkers treating religion as what is essentially a philosophy - and they accordingly hold it up to standards of logical rigor and academic competence. While this perspective is helpful in highlighting the illogical and absurd features of religions, it completely misses the mark in the way of offering an accurate explanation of religion. Religion as philosophy is a terrible model for understanding the phenomenon that we are trying to combat. When someone makes a ludicrous religious claim, it’s nothing like stating a conclusion that doesn’t follow from the given premises. Say you showed someone an apple and dropped it ten times in a row, and it fell to the floor each time. If the spectator responds to this observation by saying that apples rise rather than fall when dropped, that would be irrational - because the evidence suggests otherwise. Now, is religion anything like that? I think few would venture to answer yes to that question. Religious irrationality is of a fundamentally different kind than that. Religion is not merely bad philosophy. Religion must be understood as an outgrowth of evolved features of human psychology, and a product of what is in all likelihood the co-evolution of memes and genes. The capacity for religiosity exists in all of us, and is not just the result of poor reasoning, but a human universal that has been a defining feature of our nature for nearly as long as we have existed. Religion comes to us not through reason, but through intuition. And our intuitions are just a set of evolved faculties that come pre-installed in all of our brains.

While I think memetics can offer a valuable approach, I find myself parting ways with some who view it as a full and satisfactory explanation of religion. Memes don’t exist in a vacuum, they modify our intuitions and help give shape to the milieu of human psychology which has its basic features already outlined by genes. This is why I think it can be instructive to think of religion more like tribalism than say…flat earth theory. To continue to use the language of memes, one could say that American (or British, or French, or Chinese, etc.) nationalism is a meme. But it would be highly (and I would say perhaps dangerously) erroneous to conclude that belief in the superiority of the group one belongs to is merely a meme. While the specific flavour of tribalism is memetic, the capacity for tribalism is innate and universal in human beings. In the same way that tribal loyalty is internalized at a very young age, religion is seamlessly absorbed by the youth in a society. The sheer utility of tribalism in organizing human beings in mutually beneficial ways was all that was required for natural selection to favour the evolution of tribalistic beliefs, even if they didn’t match up with reality. Evolution favours brains that generate a useful model of reality, not necessarily an accurate one. An affinity for ritual might better capitalize on the placebo effect, for example. While there is a lot of dispute about the evolutionary adaptive value (if there is any at all) of religion, I think it’s important to make the point that the nature of all human beliefs are fundamentally designed to be instrumental in attaining survival and reproductive success.

Religion is not merely a worldview for people; it is an integral element of their identity that becomes enshrined in moral intuitions about adhering to the codes and practices of one’s tribe. One of the interesting findings of moral psychology has been that moral judgments are made impulsively and intuitively and then later offered rationalizations. We should not be surprised by the hyper-sensitivity religious people exhibit when it comes to criticism of religion, as it is an expected result of our evolved propensity to sanctify and dogmatically defend the social norms we internalize from our tribe. Belief in the religion that one is raised in should probably be conceived of less as a claim about the nature of the universe, and more as a moral claim. If we take the case of racism, it’s fairly obvious that racism was not really an empirical statement about differences between races, but a moral statement of which empirical justifications were later attempted to be produced for. I think it may be instructive to consider that belief in a religion stems primarily from a deep intuitive inclination that belief in that religion is intrinsically good, and that the justifications for the truth of the religion are offered as an after-thought. There is a period in childhood where children are like impressionable sponges that absorb information from peers and authorities, so that they can profit from the discoveries of their ancestors and internalize the norms of their tribe that will allow them to successfully navigate both their social and ecological landscape; the fact that religious indoctrination occurs during this period should be insightful in understanding the type of belief that religiosity is. The religious mentality, like the mentality of tribalism, was not invented by memes, but arises from evolved intuitions - and not just intuitions about the nature of the world around us (though these were certainly instrumental in the formation of religion, as the Wikipedia article on the evolutionary psychology of religion will inform you), but importantly from moral intuitions as well. We all understand that tribalism is not a rational deduction, we should understand that religion is not one either.

While I have sketched a picture of where I think religion fits into the landscape of human psychology, the practical question of what to do about it remains. But before I proceed, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the empowering nature of the truth as revealed by science. With evolutionary psychology, we can finally develop an accurate understanding of the human condition and begin to grasp the nature of problems that have perennially plagued our species, like violence, warfare, tribalism, and even religion. Armed with knowledge and the hope of advancing human well-being, we can try and apply our learned insights rather than stumbling ignorantly and hopelessly, as our ancestors did for millennia, through circumstances which arose by the force of rationales that no one understood.

Taking religious claims to be more equivalent to “my tribe is the best” or “incest is disgusting” than to statements like “the sun is a thermonuclear furnace” does lead us towards the view that rational debate will only be of limited effectiveness in the battle against religion. The best things we can do are encourage self-refection and critical examination, massage other intuitions (like pointing out the myriad of situations in which religious dogma has stood as an obstacle to compassion), and try and explain religion as a natural phenomenon so that theists must confront the possibility that they are hard-wired for irrationality and credulity. In the countless battles against tribalism throughout human history, the tribal instinct has never been destroyed, but rather it has been modified. Our innate capacity for unity has not been eradicated, it has simply been expanded in a way that encompasses more people so that the reach of our empathy is greater than ever before. But perhaps with religion we can attain an even greater type of victory than that, by raising awareness about evolution and thus the need to question our cognitive predispositions.

Lastly, I want to return to the question of rational debate. Fundamentally I think debate is extremely important, even if it is not the most effective tool in winning over religious hearts and minds (though I do get the sense that it is rather efficacious with respect to convincing fence-sitters to become full-fledged atheists.) Of more importance than atheism’s triumph over religion is the liberal ideal of an open and honest society. By having debates about even the most controversial issues, we evince our dedication to free speech and intellectual progress. One of the most redeeming qualities of liberal societies is that there is nothing held off the table when it comes to critical inquiry and examination. I say it is not only a right, but a duty, for people to try and dismantle falsehoods and render irrationality naked and obvious wherever it is found. Some leftist commentators who are dogmatically dedicated to an over-blown definition of tolerance, like Robert Wright, insist that atheists who call religion on its untenable claims are being arrogant and offensive. But what could be of more value than our commitment to the free exchange of ideas? By refusing to succumb to the temptation to immunize even the most holy and sacred of ideas from criticism, we always leave open the possibility that someone in the future will be able to inform us of our errors. It is in the arena of rationality and the evaluation of competing claims where the truth is advanced and progress is made. As Christopher Hitchens often recites, you cannot have light without heat.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought's editors.

The Banning Of Islam4UK

From tomorrow, the extremist Islamic society Islam4UK will be banned. Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, said it was “not a cause we take lightly”. The group recently sparked media attention with their planned protest in the town of Wotton Bassett, infamous for the processions of hearses that pass through the town from RAF Lyneham.

In reaction to the ban, Islam4UK’s website stated that

It is the duty of all Muslims to rise up and call for the Khilafah wherever they may be.

[...]

When one looks at the terrorism act one can see that the majority of the organisations that have been proscribed under it are Muslim based, in other words, terrorism for the British regime translates as anyone calling for the implementation of the Shari'ah and the liberation of Muslim land.

This call for the new caliphate is one that should disturb the minds of all decent people. The restoration of an oppressive totalitarian regime under sharia is a serious threat to global peace and freethought. Apostasy, the ability to de-convert, or in other words, think for yourself, is commonly punished by Nigerian sharia courts with stoning.

The Archbishop of Canterbury controversially last year, and with plenty of hostile reaction, stated that he felt the implementation of sharia law was inevitable. The archbishop’s website states that

When the question was put to him that: “the application of sharia in certain circumstances – if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples’ religion – seems unavoidable?”, he indicated his assent.

The idea that one standard of justice can apply to one set of people and not to the rest, simply because of poor medieval pseudo-ethical belief systems, is simply not how a liberal democracy can function. Everyone is equal before the eyes of the law, regardless of thier beliefs - correct or incorrect. The Archbishop clearly bent too far backwards trying to make moves towards building bridges between communities of different faiths.

The banning of Islam4UK, a branch of Al-Muhajiroun, under the 2006 Terrorism act, though it seems supported across the UK Parliament, has not been well-received by others. Comedian David Mitchell, writing in the Guardian before the announcement, criticized Home Secretary Alan Johnson’s initial support for the ban.

The thing about freedom of speech is that people are allowed to say offensive, indefensible things; that we needn't fear that because we're sure that wiser counsels are more likely to convince. "Let the idiots and bullies speak openly and they will be revealed for what they are!" is the idea. It's a brilliant one and, in confident, educated societies, it almost always works – certainly much more often than any of the alternatives. Why has Alan Johnson lost confidence in this principle?

[...]

We don't have to show the slightest respect for other people's views – just for their right to hold them. Respect, after all, must be earned. It's only freedom of speech that's a right. When someone says something which you find stupid or offensive, you can say something back. You can tell them to fuck off. They don't have to, but they've still been told.

Maybe that's not your idea of utopia – millions of people screaming: "Fuck off" at each other – but it beats banning it, making an opinion against the law.

Unfortunately for Mitchell, in the society advocated by Islam4UK, his pronouncements would get him killed - he would be screaming “fuck off”, but his Islamic counterpart would likely be wielding a weapon. It is the paradox of tolerance – should we grant it to those who would deny it to us? The risk is too great in this case.

Islam4UK leader Anjem Choudary stated on a Sky news interview, defending the memory of innocent victims of the ‘war on terror’ that "you’re talking about a violation of ordinary rights of individuals”. (Unfortunately, this video was uploaded by a supporter of the equally disgusting political party the BNP. It seems that a good deal of the criticism of Islam4UK is coming from the extreme right wing – a lamentable affair) This is coming from the lips of a man who supports “Sheik” Osama Bin Laden and the erection of a law that allows arcane punishments (thieves are liable to amputation), who supports slavery as advocated by sharia and would will the establishment of a tyrannical global Islamic empire.

Threats to civil discourse, democracy and freedom of thought like this should be oppressed at the quickest opportunity since they deny those very same rights to others. A paradox, but one we must be satisfied with.

Bullying In The Church

A news story I’ve just been alerted to is perhaps a simple demonstration that religion does not make you a better person. The workers union Unite has identified ‘a culture of bullying in the established Church’ according to the Times (link here).

You might expect a religious work place, since believers are far better at morality than us atheists and agnostics, to be a pleasant working environment. It appears not. The petty and damaging human characteristics that lead to untold harm for many are present in Churches too.

A frightening example of this are the highly unpleasant events that occurred to the unfortunate Mr. Sharpe. The Times article reads:

Last month Unite called for the resignation of two bishops after claiming that a vicar, Mark Sharpe, had been forced out of his home and job in the Worcester diocese by what the union described as “a culture of neglect and bullying”. His departure with his family came after four years of alleged harassment, during which the family’s pet dog was fatally poisoned, faeces was smeared on his car and his tyres were slashed twice.

Mr. Sharpe was forced into an early retirement due to ill health at age 42.

The Archbishop Of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, had this to say about bullying:

“I have good reason to know from pastoral contacts with people how much of an issue it can be and I wish we were better at that.”

From an institution that must claim moral superiority over non-believers not open to salvation, this simply is not good enough. The Church needs to address the immoral actions of its flocks before condemning the rest of us to their proselytizing.

How Should Freethought Proceed?

There seems to be a concern among people that ‘new atheism’ or ‘the Freethought movement’ is currently being framed in the wrong fashion. In December last year, John Kubinski offered his thoughts on the matter (his essay can be found here). Kubinski focused on the need to alter a kind of memetic paradigm of the religious mind. Here, Eric Stockhausen, also using the concept of memes, advocates a stance taken by Darrel Ray in The God Virus. Hopefully these different approaches will spark readers to take up or disagree with one or both views. If you have a unique idea, why not send it in? Eric Stockhausen:

I study philosophy in my spare time, so before I even knew who the ‘Four Horsemen’ were, I had read and seen lectures of Dr. Dennett. He introduced me to the idea of memes and to Richard Dawkins; inventor of the concept. Though the layperson may not understand Dennett because of the jargon, there is a book by Dr. Darrel Ray called The God Virus: How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture, which gives a comprehensive view of memetics.

Ray treats religion as a disease which tries to propagate itself by traits it has evolved. These traits include: obsession with people’s sex lives, indoctrinating the young and those in crisis, adapting to the culture and putting itself before the safety and well-being of its host. For more specifics, I highly encourage people to listen to one of Ray’s lectures or book discussions.

Ray also suggests a better approach for the Freethought Movement towards religionists. A kind of grassroots activism. Religionists are infected by the God Virus in such a way that they can no longer think clearly or in their best interests. Displaying antagonism in debate can, for the moderately to seriously infected, strengthen their beliefs. They put on the armour of strong faith so to speak. Because of this, purely arguing against the irrationality of faith is not the most effective promoter of Freethought.

Ray suggests that the following will strengthen the Freethought community: allowing a more open discussion of taboo subjects (i.e. pre-marital sex), becoming an activist (i.e. protecting the separation of church and state), really listening to what religionists have to say (even comments of a theological nature), providing knowledge and tools for freethinking parents to raise their children and to create a community for ‘Recovering Religionists’.

Doing this should promote a positive image of freethinkers. With the examples that Ray presents and the current social trends of the movement, Freethought may soon have the power it deserves in mainstream America and perhaps globally.

Atheism & The Search For Meaning

It is a persistent claim of those who fail to comprehend just how atheists can go on living in such a bleak universe, that their life is devoid of meaning, and thus not worth living. Religion provides meaning. Religion is, in some ways, a vehicle in order to provide to meaning. Religion always offers the chance of something else. After death, there is another life, but that is determined by our actions in this one. Meaning, for the religious mind, consists entirely in appeasing your particular God or gods in order that you get a good deal for the rest of eternity. The moral value present in this kind of life is highly suspect. If the Bible commanded murder (it does in fact, but that’s an aside) believers would be required to do it. The meaning of their life would be to kill. Incidentally, the Bible is interpreted as saying things like ‘do good to others’ and ‘care for your neighbour’ etc. Meaning is dictated, not created. However, it is, unarguably meaning.

But what are atheists to do? There is no one commanding you to refrain from your own nature. Nor is there anyone commanding you to treat others as you would treat yourself. Neither is there any kind of 'spiritual' principle. Life is absent of an external guide. What startles many people is just why, or how, atheists can and do go on, living seemingly happy and fulfilled lives. Perhaps many would believe that they truly cannot. Their rejection of God (or gods) excludes them of any privilege of purpose. The answer the atheist usually gives is this: I create my own meaning.

This idea is most closely identified with the philosophical and literary movement conveniently labelled existentialism. In what will most likely end as the man’s entire legacy, Jean Paul Sartre summed the thought up in three words: ‘being precedes essence’. There are many interpretations and nuisances of Sartre’s work as a whole and of this quote in particular, but the broad meaning of this phrase becomes pretty clear after some thought. Our meaning, or ‘essence’, what the purpose of our lives is, what we must fulfil or carry out, comes after we are born. We're here before we know why. We exist prior to our acknowledgement of this fact. At some point that realisation hits. Albert Camus, when brilliantly championing the absurdist cause in The Myth of Sisyphus, writes this wonderfully poetic description of a similar kind of awakening:

So long as the mind keeps silent in the motionless world of its hopes, everything is reflected and arranged in the unity of its nostalgia. But with its first move this world cracks and tumbles: an infinite number of shimmering fragments is offered to the understanding. We must despair of ever reconstructing the familiar, calm surface which would give us peace of heart.

The religious believer remains in a primitive state. Without thinking, they accept, or are indoctrinated by, the meaning they are given at birth. More concerned and doubtful Christians have solved the problem with a ‘leap of faith’. Camus regards this move as mistaken. The question that concerns him in his essay is that of suicide. Meaning is gone; so why not end my own life? He feels the only proper response to this truth is one of rebellion. Suicide is the equivalent to admitting defeat of a universe devoid of cosmic sanction. Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to push a boulder to the top of a hill, whereupon it would instantly fall to the bottom and Sisyphus would have no choice but to push it back up all over again for eternity. This is a metaphor that Camus struck upon and utilised. A metaphor for life – one of  ultimately meaningless struggle. But, says Camus, ‘one must imagine Sisyphus happy’.

To what extent does atheism necessitate an absurdist or existential outlook? A life without meaning of any kind does seem futile. But why exactly must this meaning come from anywhere other than ourselves or our reason? All individuals do find meaning in their lives somehow; whether they deny it or not; the atheist is no different – except that they must create their own. Atheism does require some form of very basic existential belief. The picture of that school of thought shown in this essay is incomplete and not in any wider context, but it is not out of spirit.

In the words of a even more modern thinker ‘who ties up their life with the ultimate fate of the cosmos?’. When it is put like that, things do become clear. Only the insane or supremely self-elevated would do such a thing. Contemplation and recognition of an indifferent world is not to be shunned, but when making a moral decision, why should it intervene at all?

Cold-heartedness is often attributed to scientific thought. Though I may have given the impression in this essay that I agree with this view, I see it as mistaken. Grand indifference, I find, both exhilarating and liberating. The greatest crime against reason I have so far noticed, is the lack of a particular image around the world. It should be placed in every public place and known to all virtually from birth. The Pale Blue Dot is the ultimate giver of perspective.

And where does meaning fit in on the 0.12 pixels? All over it. But what is truly startling is that, at present, those 0.12 pixels are the only place known where meaning exists in the entire universe. Is that not enough?

Responsibility And 'The Crimes Of Theism & Atheism'

There are those, on the one hand, who claim that religious believers are in some sense responsible for the crimes committed in the name of their particular faith throughout the ages. There are others in turn who claim that atheists are responsible for ‘the crimes of atheism’; citing the dark events of the last century as their main examples. It seems to me that these claims are both misleading. However, religion has the capacity to play a more sinister role than any rationalist perspective.

It is generally agreed that in order to be held responsible for an act, one must be able to be held accountable for it. In others words; if something goes wrong, it was partly your fault. Blame can be assigned to you as an individual. If you fail to act, or act wrongly, in a situation where you happen to be responsible, it would be appropriate to hand out some penalty to you.

Take the claim that religious believers bear some responsibility for crimes committed explicitly in the name of their faith. The Crusades and Catholicism is an often used and suitable example. Do modern day Catholics deserve punishment for what was done thousands of years ago simply because they share a belief system? It seems to me to be wholly unjustifiable to accuse Catholics in any way of being responsible for that particular event. In a similar way, on this basic level, those who wrongly attribute the Nazi’s of being ‘Darwinian’ cannot portion blame on those who accept Natural Selection as scientific fact. The debate must shift from this kind of name-calling. It is unhelpful and misguided. The question must be this: can both ‘the crimes of theism’ and ‘the crimes of atheism’ honestly be attributed to their respective beliefs?

Starting by examining theism, it seems uncontroversial to state that the crusades, the inquisition, the murder of the Cathars, the crimes of the Taliban etc, were all religiously motivated. There have been, and there still are, crimes committed in the name of religious belief. If you try to remove faith from the picture, none of these things could have occurred. In many of those cases, the command to commit acts of violence came from an internally agreed and unanimous leader – I am of course referring to the Pope. These crimes were explicitly committed in the name of a religious belief. This is a danger of theism; there is always a higher authority present that can be employed to justify any act. I’m reminded of a quote from Steven Weinberg “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion”.

What can motivate a human being to kill another member of their species? Perhaps many things, but among them, and high on the list, is certainty. To commit atrocities in the name of anything, you must be completely certain you are correct. Religion, unlike rationalism, makes claims to such certainty. Bertrand Russell once said “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong”. He hit the nail on the head. A rational human being would simply find it illogical to die for a belief. You might die to save a dear friend or family member, for a loved one, but for an ideology? It just doesn’t make sense. Atheism (essentially extremely weak agnosticism) is simply a result of a rationalistic world. Uncertainty is part of the deal. The opposite is true for religion. The regimes of Stalin and Hitler were so successful at mass murder because their leaders became Gods. They had in themselves, and they demanded from others, an unshakeable faith. The historian Dmitri Volkogonov writes this: 'Stalin wanted to believe in his own strength of will, his own invulnerability, his own position as regional leader. Faith, as the cement of dogmatism, remained with him forever’ and that 'Faith in one's ideas and values is well and good, but faith should not displace truth'. To call Stalin’s outlook ‘rationalistic’ is impossible. To call this type of dogmatic surrender ‘religious’ is an apt comparison.

Believers may claim that their species of faith is as different to those religious crusaders as my view of atheism is compared to Stalin’s. They would be quite correct. However, they must understand that central aspects of their religious belief, namely their faith and inseparable certainty, are the real reasons behind the atrocities of history.

D'Souza - Don't Try This At Home

I was recently watching one of the many atheist/theist debates available on YouTube. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has spent many a lazy afternoon this way. One of the more unusual formats I’ve stumbled across was to be found in a debate, of Spanish origin, between three of the four horsemen; Hitchens, Harris and Dennett on the one hand, and D’Souza, Taleb and Boteach on the other. There were many potential topics for discussion hidden away over the two or so hours the debate went on for, but I want to focus on one small segment courtesy of Dinesh D’Souza.

I am yet to find an opponent of ‘new atheism’ as thought-provoking as D’Souza. There are certain questions that he asks which every freethinking atheist must ask themselves. There are moments where he seems to be speaking real sense – he asks the right questions, but draws erroneous conclusions. The majority of what he says is white noise. But, as you may have guessed, there are moments when he really gets it wrong – quite astoundingly wrong. I (or even better; a reader) will discuss D’Souza’s more credible claims at some point in the future. But for now, I couldn’t let what I heard go without addressing it. Here is the video I urge you to watch before reading any further.



“The atheist” exclaims D’Souza “is posing as the champion of reason, science and evidence”. Since this is what Young Freethought is all about, it only seems fair to address his points.

D’Souza’s argument tumbles fantastically with his statement that the atheist and the theist are “both are making a truth claim and [that] both are totally ignorant” – It is only the theist who is making a truth claim. D’Souza seems to concede at this point, for the sake of debate, that there is no evidence for life after death. The reasonable person will not claim that there is life after death, nor will they claim that on the basis of the lack of evidence, there is no life after death. All that can be done is to say ‘since there is no evidence of life after death, I have no reason to believe it’. An analogy that is perhaps clichéd, but nonetheless apt: there is no evidence for the existence of fairies, nor is there any evidence against their existence. Is it more reasonable to believe that fairies exist or that they do not? Of course, it is to say that they do not. Strictly speaking, it must be conceded that it is indeed possible that they do exist, but what reason is there to believe it? Simply none. An incredibly watered-down agnosticism is the position held. The same can be said about pink unicorns, the flying spaghetti monster and the yeti. No reasonable mind would entertain the possibility that these creations do in fact exist – they would only remain open to the possibility of their truth. The concept of life after death is specifically designed to be immune to falsifiability.

Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but a lack of evidence where some might be expected can indeed suggest that a proposition is false. Luckily we have a world which we can observe; providing us with the raw material for decision making. We might expect that a Christian God who created a world where we continue living after our bodily death would have left some hallmarks on his creation; we might expect, that since we are special in our ability to survive death, that humans are granted some special place in the universe, we might even expect to have some encounter with the deceased – we find none of these things.

The reason, however, I take such issue with this speech is the complete pseudo-scientific conclusions D’Souza draws from the frontiers of scientific inquiry. What D’Souza spouts is worse than the God of the Gaps. He relegates himself to a league shared by scientologists who measure your ‘thetan levels’, mystics who take away your ‘negative energy’ with the power of crystals and T.V hosts who communicate with ghosts with the aid of their ‘spirit guides’. I’m pretty certain D’Souza treats these people’s arguments in the same way freethinkers do; so why does he use them? I sincerely cannot think how or why.

D’Souza, like the charlatans, uses the mystery of quantum mechanics to justify his position. The many-words interpretation of quantum mechanics is slowly gaining popularity and overthrowing the long-held ‘orthodox’ Copenhagen interpretation. I am certainly no quantum physicist, so I’ll keep my science brief. The idea of ‘many-worlds’ states that what was previously considered to be the collapse of a wavefunction (a kind of quantum probability spread) does not exist. Every possible outcome does occur and we only witness one. The others occur in an ever growing number of parallel universes. More QM literate readers can correct me, but I think I’m right in stating that a large number of possibilities all occur and do so in parallel universes. D’Souza asserts that better known ideas, such as the Big Bang and Dark Matter, also all point towards a ‘material resurrection’.

Not only is this simply the God of the Gaps at its most blatant – it is a complete farce. The illogic involved is stupendous: we don’t know what the majority of matter is, therefore the likelihood is that a mass material resurrection will occur when Jesus Christ returns. It is frustrating to see an apologist so able to stop rational people becoming complacent by challenging them on important issues reduced to such piffle.

Please Dinesh – don‘t repeat this.

Atheist Christmas

This essay from Alex Charlton, 18 years old, argues that Christmas can be celebrated by believer and non-believer alike in the spirit of giving and charity.

Christmas is fast approaching, and many people around the world will be wondering what they should take from it, and why they celebrate it. Given that Christians only make up a third of the world’s population, I would expect that most of the people who celebrate Christmas aren’t Christians. Should this be so?

For Christians, Christmas is a time to remember the birth of Jesus Christ, and his alleged sacrifice to the world. Christmas also has pre-Christian roots, and is celebrated on the 25th of December because it corresponds with the pagan winter solstice. It’s easy to see why different cultures have Winter festivals. In agricultural societies, Autumn heralded a time to harvest the crops that had been toiled over through Spring and Summer, and as Winter drew in, and the days got shorter, lights and decorations made the dark nights cheerful, and food kept away the cold.

But is there anything wrong with non-Christians celebrating Christmas? It might be suggested that we should celebrate some other, more secular holiday, such as Yule, or Winterval. However, Christmas is part of the rich tapestry of our culture. It’s often pointed out by the religious that western culture was built on Christian values, who then object that Christmas is being hijacked by secularists. The people who think that Christmas is being hijacked don’t seem to consider that you can have the giving, the goodwill, and the celebration without the supernatural woo. Indeed, Christmas has been largely divorced from Christianity, due to the widespread secularisation of the developed world.

Frankly, we should recognise religious traditions, not because they are true or sacred, but because they remind us of where we have come from, and how far we’ve progressed, since the first time a family huddled together around a fire and told each other heart warming stories to stave off the harsh Winter weather. We should be allowed enjoy the beauty of Christmas, just as we can enjoy the beauty of religiously inspired works of art. The beauty is real, even if the object of inspiration is not.

For non-Christians, Christmas is about giving: giving your time and love to your family and friends, giving to the less fortunate, and giving cheer for the wonderful life you have! Spare a thought for all those people who are worse off than you, and consider how you could help them in some small way. Over the centuries, Christmas has become something more than a celebration of Christianity; it has become a more inclusive symbol of charity, and camaraderie, which is why there’s nothing wrong with rationally celebrating Christmas, or with taking the best from Christmas and applying it to life.

Another quandary that freethinking parents have is whether they should lie to their children about Father Christmas. Of course, this is a decision people have to make for themselves, but I don’t see much wrong with playing along. In the long run, by lying to your children or siblings about Father Christmas, you’re teaching them several valuable lessons: don’t take everything people tell you on face value, and remember what it’s like to be a true believer, how you criticize evidence against your beliefs but hold onto dubious evidence that supports them. Mystical thinking is often the norm in society, and people need to be taught how to discern and debunk it.

There is an all too familiar view of atheists as nihilistic, or depressive, or selfish, and celebrating Christmas may be a way to counter such stereotypes. The fact that God doesn’t exist doesn’t mean that life isn’t worth living, or worth living morally. If this were the case, then would atheists take the time to buy gifts, and show their affection for their loved ones? No. The fact that atheists want to celebrate Christmas should challenge the accusations leveled at atheists.

In summary, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating Christmas as a non-Christian, or even as an atheist, not just because Christmas is a pretty secular holiday anyway, but also because Christmas is founded on principles that we can all celebrate: peace on Earth and goodwill to all. The beauty of Christmas is something we can all enjoy. Further, it isn’t inconsistent for freethinking parents to use the Father Christmas myth to teach their children the importance of rational thought and criticism. Finally, the interest that atheists have in Christmas falsifies common atheist stereotypes, and this should help raise the consciousness of those who think that atheism presents a gloomy view of the world.

I hope that this essay has helped young freethinkers to better understand the role of Christmas for unbelievers, and challenged the popular notion that Christmas is the preserve of Christians. To the readers at Young Freethought, may I wish you all a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought's editors.

Bill O'Reilly - Antihero of Freethought

A motivation for one of our suggested articles. Ad hominem attacks should be avoided, they are pernicious and often irrelevant, but Bill O’Reilly is simply crazy. The namesake of the Fox show The O’Reilly Factor boasts one of the biggest followings for a ‘news’ programme on American TV, so this isn't picking on the weak or obscure. His latest attack (video below the post) on the ‘deluded’ atheist band is almost too hard to criticise through its astounding unreason. In response to posters published by the American Humanist Association which read ‘Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake’, O’Reilly had this to say:

“So why does the American Humanist Society, who wants to be good for goodness’ sake, why do they loathe the baby Jesus? He’s just a baby”

Adding...

“You don’t sell atheism by running down a baby do ya?’ How do you sell atheism by running down a baby? It’s just a baby”

For what it’s worth, here is the quasi-syllogism that perhaps went on in O’Reilly’s head (and I really have tried to be fair here):

Proposition 1 – The American Humanist Association believe you can be good without God or a god and release posters saying just this.

Proposition 2 – The baby Jesus was God.

Conclusion – Therefore atheists loath the baby Jesus and try to promote atheism by insulting a baby.

At this point, one of O’Reilly’s Angels even began laughing and later chuckled ‘I think you’re nuts’. Yes... Quite. Maybe they aren’t so immune to logic after all.

In a similar ‘infantocentric’ vein, O’Reilly writes this in his newspaper column –

‘But there is a serious side to this, and the American "humanists" should listen up. Christmas is a joyous time for children; that's the big upside of celebrating the birth of Jesus. Why, then, do people who want to "be good" spend money denigrating a beautiful day? Could it be that the humanists are not really interested in good at all? Maybe.’

This illogicality would even lead me to doubt the man’s sincerity if it weren’t for the abrasive and close-minded tone with which he is so synonymous.

But this argument is just a prelude to O’Reilly’s dialectical masterpiece, the pièce de résistance as he sees it: atheists hate Christmas because atheists are jealous. He writes –

‘The question is, why bother? Why spend money at Christmas time to spread dubious will among men? The reason, I believe, is that the atheists are jealous of the Yuletide season. While Christians have Jesus and Jews have the prophets, non-believers have Bill Maher. There are no atheist Christmas carols, no pagan displays of largesse like Santa Claus. In fact, for the non-believer, Christmas is just a day off, a time to consider that Mardi Gras is less than two months away.’

I’ll let you be the judge of that and our proposed article on atheist Christmas celebrations should be just the place. View our ‘Suggested Topics’ section for the full title. Detailed cross-examinations of O’Reilly are welcome too – if you’re brain can handle such nonsense without self-destructing that is.

A Message Of Support From Richard Dawkins

I am honoured that Richard Dawkins has responded to this blog and advocates so passionately and thoughtfully all that it stands for. This is his letter of support to Young Freethought.

I was delighted when Michael wrote to tell me about youngfreethought.com. So delighted that I hope you will overlook my age and allow me to explain why I think you are making such a valiant contribution to the cause of atheism, rationalism and secularism.

It is all too easy for debates about the role of religion to become inward-looking and academic, but it really does matter. Every day, all across the world, millions of our fellow humans are diminished by religion: religion that may force them to mutilate their children, cover their hair or faces, stay silent when they have so much more to say than those who suppress them, surrender control over their reproduction, donate money they cannot afford, obey and submit to their inferiors, deny reality, forgo education, close their minds, reject proper medical care, suffer needlessly, be burdened by pointless guilt, and live with the spectre of eternal torment. Every day, religion works to recruit more victims, among the young, the sick, the poor and dispossessed, the old: anyone who is weak and vulnerable is a legitimate target in religion’s eyes.

Of course, in any civilised society people must be free to believe whatever they want, but this doesn't mean those beliefs should be automatically shielded from challenge just because they are religious, and it certainly doesn't mean they should be enshrined in law or promulgated by the state. It doesn't mean that the state should abet churches and mosques and temples in trying to convert young minds in schools. It doesn't mean that young people should be divided from one another throughout their all-important school lives purely because their parents happen to follow different creeds. It doesn't mean we should allow our state broadcaster to perpetuate the myth that you need religion to be good. It doesn't mean that the minority of people who are actively religious should have privileged access to our lawmakers, their opinions sought out by policy makers, their bishops sit, as of right, in the House of Lords, their representatives automatically packing government committees or Royal Commissions with an ethical brief. It doesn't mean that our hard-pressed NHS should squander money paying chaplains out of its already over-stretched budgets. It doesn't mean that schools should be obliged to force pupils into daily acts of worship.

Every major battle for the advancement of human rights has been won in the teeth of fierce religious opposition: whether it's the abolition of slavery, equality for women or gays, freedom of speech, the abolition of the blasphemy law, the right of a woman to control her own fertility, or the right of the terminally ill to choose to end their suffering with dignity and medical assistance.

So, this really matters – in the real world and not just in internet chatrooms. Of course we must leave people in peace to practise religion if they so choose. But the rest of us must be left in peace to live our lives without it. The religious want more and more influence over government policy and, if they succeed, our society will be the poorer: less tolerant, less equal, less just, less educated, less rational. These issues should matter to all of us, but young people are the ones who should care most of all. You will inherit the societies that current governments leave behind. This is your future we are talking about, and the kind of society you want to live in.

If you want – and what decent person wouldn't? – to live with the best Enlightenment values, live free and tolerant and committed to knowledge and education and reason, then you must speak up and let your voices be heard.

This is why I welcome this blog so wholeheartedly. You will shape our society’s future, and it is exhilarating to see you preparing to do so.

All good wishes

Richard Dawkins

Tolerance & Religious Belief

This post, an essay on tolerance, comes to you from the brain of Lucy Taylor. Lucy is a 16 year old student in London, UK. The question posed is...


Does being tolerant require you to accept all religious convictions?

Before answering this question, the meaning of the word ‘accept’ must be established. The answer to the question differs depending on the various definitions. ‘Accept’ could imply that you simply recognise that other religious convictions besides your own exist--in that you accept that there are a variety of points of view. It could also mean that you allow or permit all religious convictions and do not hinder or prevent them from being practiced and preached. ‘Accept’ could also mean that you regard the religious convictions as proper, suitable or normal. This definition could be extended to the extent of meaning that you actually agree with all religious convictions. Moreover, ‘being tolerant’ needs to be defined. ‘Being tolerant’ means that you object to a view or action, i.e. the objection component, and you have the power to do something about the disagreeable view or action, but make a conscious decision not to act on your opposition.

Normally when nations, for example, accept the terms of a treaty, they are agreeing to the conditions outlined in the document. In this way, to answer this question the word ‘accept’ is given to imply that you approve or agree to all religious convictions. This, to begin with, is impossible in itself. It is impossible to approve of or agree with all religious convictions simply because a huge number of beliefs contradict each other entirely: you can only approve or agree with one or the other, not both. For example, if you were a tolerant individual and were accepting of both Hinduism and Islam, you would be contradicting yourself on the fundamental grounds that Islam is monotheistic and Hinduism is polytheistic, a religious conviction that for both faiths is the focal point of all their other beliefs. The other difficulty is that, if you believed in Christianity, but you accepted, as in, you approved of Hinduism, you should be a Hindu, not a Christian: the reason you originally became a Christian was because you agreed with Christian beliefs and practices, not Hindu beliefs and practices, otherwise, you would be a Hindu. In this way, it is apparent that, given that you are a tolerant individual, it is illogical to accept all religious convictions, even though you may be tolerant, when the meaning of ‘accept’ is to consider something right or acceptable.

It is important to realise, however, that it does not make sense in this question for ‘accept’ to mean to agree to or with simply because the very word tolerance means, as established in the introduction, that you disapprove of the view and yet decide not to act on your disapproval. If you agreed with the view, there would be nothing to be tolerant of because there would be nothing that you had an objection to.

If ‘accept’ means allow or permit all religious convictions, the answer to the question again changes. This definition falls under the first of four conceptions of tolerance, namely the permission conception, whereby you allow the practice and preaching of all religious convictions. It would seem obvious that a tolerant person should be tolerant of everything, otherwise they could not be called a tolerant person. This harks back to the concept of the limit of tolerance and the problem that arises when a religious conviction is completely unacceptable, intolerant or intolerable: the paradox of whether the intolerant should be tolerated by a tolerant individual or society. It could be argued that to be intolerant of intolerant views is to deny that tolerance is valuable, which is ironic considering that the pretext of this intolerance is that the view you are being intolerant of is also denying that tolerance is valuable.

The argument against this is that if the reason for tolerance is to respect autonomy, then it is unreasonable to tolerate views that do not respect autonomy. The view does not display tolerance in that, if it were the culture of the majority, it would reject and prevent autonomy. It seems that we would increase autonomy by not tolerating this view because we are preventing it from becoming more widespread and influencing many and allowing the view to exert its convictions over everyone thereby smothering their autonomy in due course. An example could be that of Islamist extremists. Our society proclaims to abhor violence to women, homophobia, and any other variety of inequality, yet we tolerate those who advocate Sharia Law which is diametrically opposed to Western democracy and the implementation of such law would result in the total destruction of tolerance. In this case, for the sake of protecting long term tolerance, perhaps it would be wiser to confront intolerance with intolerance. Moreover, it appears that the threshold of our tolerance is the intolerance towards our tolerant culture. The answer to the question therefore, appears that in some circumstances it is misguided to accept all religious convictions.

Conversely, being able to join and be convinced by these so called intolerant convictions is surely an expression of ones autonomy: the fact that it was the individuals’ choice to follow their lead. By removing these views you are basically saying that the individual is only allowed to be autonomous in the culture you deem as suitable, i.e. one without intolerance. You are not valuing their autonomy because you would be denying them the freedom to choose for themselves, you are censoring the available choices to only those you condone. Moreover, you are being as intolerant as those whom you condemn as being intolerant. They are intolerant because their convictions would prevent any view other than their own from being expressed, which is exactly what you would be doing if you prevented their view from being expressed because it differed from your own view. In a way, this seems to imply that a tolerant individual must accept all religious convictions, although they may be totally despicable and vile, because if they do not, they are denying both the value of autonomy and tolerance.

The last interpretation of the question is that you ‘accept’, in that you recognise that there are other religious convictions besides your own. This meaning comes under third and possibly fourth conception of tolerance which is the respect conception, summed up in Voltaire’s famous quote ‘I disagree with every word that he says, but defend to the death his right to say it’, and the esteem conception where you still value certain aspects of their convictions and even admire them for defending their convictions, though personally, you disagree. The first question that must be addressed with this in mind is that, by agreeing to accept all religious convictions on the grounds of your being a tolerant individual because you respect their opinions and you may even admire them, can you still criticise them, although you accept them? Tolerance does not prohibit criticism because without criticism our government would have no checks and balances; ideas could not be improved and modified; and we would be relinquishing our freedoms like those of freedom of speech, expression and thought. In this way, we are obviously allowed to criticise opposing religious convictions although we do nevertheless accept them, or in other words, acknowledge them. A point to note in relation to the original question is that if we did not tolerate all religious convictions there would be nothing to criticise and further, nothing to tolerate because nothing unacceptable would allowed to be expressed openly. If to 'accept', you simply have to recognise other religious convictions but are still allowed to criticise them and yet be a tolerant individual, then it is reasonable to accept all religious convictions because if you can argue and persuade, there is no reason why you should not accept all religious convictions: if you disagree, you could voice your disapproval and defeat the opposition though debate. For example, Hitchens and D'Souza incessantly argue on the subject of religion. Hitchens loathes religion but his revolt is intellectual, not physical. This suggests that if you are tolerant, you must accept all religious views because you still reserve the right to free speech as do your opposition and both of you have the equal ability to defeat the other through debate.

Depending on the definition of the word ‘accept’, the requirement to accept all religious convictions changes. It seems that there are limits to what extent do we ‘accept’ all religious convictions. If the religious convictions preach fiercely against everything our society stands for, then perhaps they should not be tolerated because as Benjamin Franklin said, ‘they who would give up an essential liberty and security (in a democracy), deserve neither liberty nor security’. At the same time, in not accepting these opposing religious convictions, we are essentially contradicting ourselves and everything our society stands for. There is no one formula for what to do in every circumstance, and no one stance for a tolerant person to take regardless of the individual situation. Each position must be judged wisely for, in some cases, tolerance and acceptance of all religious convictions is often used as either a disguise for cowardice to avoid disputes and controversies or to avoid having to think and actually come to a conclusion for each separate belief: it is easier to have a rule that is always followed. Tolerance and acceptance should not be exploited in this way and used make ones cowardice or idleness sound intelligent and thoughtful. The most reasonable conclusion, in my view, is to examine independently each religious conviction and to then make a discriminating and educated judgement for each on whether to accept it or counter it, rather than creating sweeping procedures that a tolerant person should obey for all religious convictions.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought or its editors.

Religion, Atheism & Science

This essay was written by Alex Charlton. At 18 years old, Alex is a psychology student at Plymouth University here in the UK.

If you follow this blog, chances are you also follow sites such as pharyngula, or richarddawkins.net, rationally speaking, or why evolution is true, and if not then you should. They are all maintained by top scientists defending atheism and reason, along with evolution in particular but also science in general. I say that you should follow at least some of them because these bastions of rationality are not just popular but accessible and informative, giving an insight into the difficulties between science and religion. But why are they so popular?

It’s indisputable that a larger proportion of working scientists are atheists compared to the general population¹. Historically, many eminent scientists have been theists and Christians, but until recently atheism was socially unacceptable, with non-Christians facing persecution and discrimination, so this isn’t surprising. There are also some eminent scientists today who are Christians, such as Francis Collins, but they are in a minority.

There are two potential explanations as to why this is: it could be that science education causes people to lose their faith, or that atheists are more likely to pursue a career in the sciences. Neither explanation bodes well for theists. If the former, this has important implications for education. Recently, the UK government agreed to put evolution on the primary school curriculum. If science dispels religion, then perhaps a proper science education is all that is needed to bring religious belief down to levels found in regions like Scandinavia or countries such as Japan². However, I don’t find this outcome very plausible, simply because a number of factors, other than education, negatively affect the religiosity of a country; factors like societal health.

If the latter, then this raises the question of why atheists are more concerned with science than theists? One answer is that many theists are apt to reject the findings of science when they appear to conflict with their religious beliefs. Of course, theists often contend that these conflicts can be reconciled, but I would argue that there is a deeper conflict between science and religion, of which these factual disputes are symptomatic.

Religion and science aren’t incompatible in the sense that science refutes religion, but I believe that science and religion have conflicting approaches to knowledge. On the one hand, science is a method by which hypotheses and explanations of the world are tested and retested against empirical observation and other scientific theories. Since most theories turn out to be wrong, science must be open to refutation and scepticism, so that incorrect views can be weeded out. By this slow and uncertain process of inquiry and refinement, science inches ever closer to knowledge. Religion, on the other hand, uses the methods of revelation and tenacity to come to knowledge. The founders of a religion claim to have special knowledge imparted to them by supernatural beings, which is then codified into dogma, and reinforced over generations.

Whilst the methods of science have led to amazing technological advances and a deeper understanding of the world we live in, religion has led to a great amount of confusion, especially since the dogmas of the different religions contradict one another. This shows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that revelation and tradition are unreliable guides to truth. It also explains why religions have such a bad track record with making testable empirical claims; why, for example, the Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to recant his belief that the Earth orbited the Sun. But if we can't rely on religion to get that right, why should we base ethical and political systems on it? Whilst few religious beliefs can be scientifically disproven, to hold them is nonetheless unscientific, since no religion would stand up to the scrutiny that is applied to even the most widely accepted scientific theories. Put simply, using the methods of science on the claims of religion would be like using a machete to spread butter.

PZ Myers puts this point well in his blog post, “What should a scientist think about religion?”

What should a scientist expect from an idea? That it be a reasonable advance in knowledge; that it be built on a foundation of evidence; that it be testable; that it should lead to new and useful questions and ideas. If we look at religion from that perspective, it doesn't help. At best, the hypothesis of the supernatural and/or a supreme being is vague, unfounded, and inapplicable in any practical fashion—deistic views, for instance, are so abstract and so carefully divorced from risk of challenge that they represent an empty hypothesis, and the most flattering thing you can say about them is that they're harmless. At worst, religion is confused, internally contradictory, and in conflict with evidence from the physical (and near as we can tell, only) world.

Most theists care whether or not religion can be reconciled with science, though most scientists don’t care if science can’t be reconciled with religion. Why? Because science doesn’t need to draw confirmation from religion, it can stand on its own merits. Just imagine a world without science, compared to a world without religion.
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¹ See Michael Martin, "The Cambridge Companion to Atheism", Cambridge University Press (2008), p 307-313
² Ibid., p 56

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought or its editors.