New Humanist Blog

Protest the Pope debate: righteous indignation or unreasonable outrage?

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:06:00 +0000

(Note - this has ended up pretty long, so if you were there and don't fancy reliving it, skip further down for my opinions)

Last night, I attended a debate entitled "The Papal visit should not be a State Visit" at London's Conway Hall, organised by the Central London Humanist Group, along with the BHA and the South Place Ethical Society. Speaking for the motion were the prominent atheist philosopher AC Grayling and the tireless human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, while the two Catholics contesting the motion were the journalist and former press secretary to the Archbishop of Westminster, Austen Ivereigh, and the Benedictine monk Father Christopher Jamison, who appeared on the TV series The Monastery. Ivereigh and Jamison were representing Catholic Voices, a group of 20 speakers formed to put the Catholic side of the debate in the media in the run up to the Papal Visit to the UK, which takes place from 16-19 September.

Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and president of the BHA, chaired the debate and it was perhaps a sign of what was to come that the first mention of the Papal Visit during her introduction drew a boo from one member of the audience. After Toynbee had laid out the format - eight minutes for each speaker, followed by audience questions (with no vote, because that would just reflect who had happened to turn up) – we were straight into the debate.

First up was AC Grayling, speaking in favour of the motion. The are, he said, two primary reasons for opposing the Pope's state visit. The first and, it would seem, most important, is that the Vatican is not really a state. Grayling provided a brief history lesson – the Papacy did possess temporal power during the medieval and early modern periods in the form of the Papal States, which covered a large part of central Italy, but these were lost with the formation of the modern Italian state in 1870. The status of the Vatican as a state was only recovered with the 1929 Lateran Pacts, in which the Catholic Church and the fascist government of Mussolini reached an agreement on the sovereignty of the Holy See.

Therefore, said Grayling, the circumstances of its creation means the argument that the Holy See is a state is moot. He then used an example that greatly amused the secularists in the crowd – if he tried to turn his garden in South London into a state, of which he is the monarch, and asked the Queen for a state visit, what would be the response?

This moved Grayling into the second part of his argument against the state visit, which is that all religions are "self-constituted, interest group". By coming to the UK, the Pope is not representing a state and its people in any real sense, but rather the interests of Britain's Catholics – a relatively small constituency of around nine per cent of the population (and even fewer if you only include regular worshippers). Any self-constituted organisation with an interest, such as a trade union, or the Women's Institute, or the BHA, ought to fund itself. It's influence, argued Grayling, should be proportional to its representation. The religious voice is already over-amplified in British public life, and the taxpayer should not be forced to pay £12 million for the head of the Catholic Church to come to the UK. Therefore, the Papal visit should be a private visit, funded by those who want the Pope here.

Grayling also added a final reason for his opposition to the state visit, which he said he had been searching hard for a way to articulate without sounding aggressive. But, he said, there is no other way of saying it. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has been instrumental in covering up criminal acts, i.e. the sexual abuse of children. It has been involved in a criminal conspiracy. If we knew this in connection with another organisation, would we roll out the red carpet for its leader?

This final point received enormous cheers and applause from the audience, making it clear that the overwhelming majority were on the side of the motion. It was hardly surprising, given that members of the Protest the Pope coalition had organised the debate, and that you might call Conway Hall the (non-) spiritual home of British atheism, but I had wondered how many Catholics might make it, given that it had been widely publicised.

So, with the crowd fired up by Grayling, Father Christopher Jamison took the podium to oppose the motion. He began by expressing anger at the fact that Grayling, at the end of his eight minutes, had seen fit to mock the current Pope's namesake, Benedict XV – how dare he, said Jamison, mock the one leader in Europe who had stood up and tried to stop the First World War (not an unfair point - read his Peace Note of 1917 if you're interested).

With that out of the way, Jamison moved into putting the case for a state visit, saying there were rational and humane reasons for it going ahead, which all those who believe in reason and common dialogue should support. A state visit is where the Queen invites the head of another state to come and make an address in her country – the Vatican extended that honour to her in 1980, so we owe the Pope the same honour in return.

Jamison disputed Grayling's claim that the Vatican is not a state – the Holy See, he said, pre-dates the modern Vatican State by centuries. In fact, it is the world's first United Nations, uniting peoples across the world by common belief. The UK government has long recognised the significance of the Holy See, particularly its role played in tackling global poverty and climate change. For this reasons, more British diplomatic representatives have visited the Holy See in recent years than they have any other state.

So why should we welcome the state visit? Because, Jamison suggested, of British democratic values – this debate raises a fundamental question about the nature of secular society, about whether it is closed or open. Does this society allow only a platform for "secularist ideology", closed to other opinions? Or is it open? Are all voices welcome, even those that question it? Everyone, secularists included, should welcome a public square filled with diverse beliefs and values.

Jamison then moved to answer Grayling's arguments regarding the failing of the Catholic Church. As someone who has worked for many years in Catholic education, Jamison said he had to deal with taking on board the 1989 Children's Act, which tightened regulations protecting children. At the time, argued Jamison, all British schools were failing in this regard – children were abused in all sections of society. He elaborated on this later during the questions, when a survivor of abuse told her story and suggested the Church suffers from "instututional narcissism". It was a particularly powerful moment in the evening, and I was struck by Jamison's response – he seemed visibly shocked and moved, and pointed out that since 1989, those involved in Catholic education have had to learn to protect children in ways that were quite new to them. But they did learn, and the Catholic Church in the UK (he said he couldn't speak for it in other countries) now has a child protection procedure in place which is commended by the government. I think this was one of the more insightful moments in the debate – while continuing to campaign for openness in relation to the shocking abuse and cynical cover-ups, it's important that we remember that many people involved in the Catholic Church do feel a real sense of hurt and guilt over the abuse that has occurred in Catholic institutions, and many have worked hard to change things. I think this was exhibited by Jamison in that part of last night's debate.

Having addressed the abuse, Jamison implored us not to assess an institution by its failings, but by its successes. The Catholic Church is, he suggested, "the world's largest contributor to civil society ... promoting love, hope and common good". At this point, we heard the first widespread heckles from the audience and things didn't improve with Jamison's next point – the Church makes a global contribution to the world's wellbeing, providing a quarter of all global HIV care. This elicited huge cries of "nonsense" and boos, not to mention a few expletives from some people sat behind me. At this point, Polly Toynbee stepped in to calm things down – "I think you should let him speak" – and Jamison asked the audience who they think should be allowed a platform. "What have we to fear," he asked, "other than a closing of minds?"

He ended with an appeal to the audience to "exercise reason over sentiment" – secularists may disagree with the Pope, but they should accept diverse voices. We need an open secularism.

Next up was Peter Tatchell, who focussed on the moral arguments against the visit. He said he agrees with the Pope's rejection of materialism and consumerism, but Benedict XVI preaches a harsh, intolerant version of Catholicism that even many Catholics reject. His opposition to the ordination of women is "sexism and patriarchy of the highest and most shameful kind". He opposes humane scientific advances such as IVF and stem cell research. He says that an HIV positive husband can not even use a condom to prevent the infection of his wife. He approves homophobic discrimination. He has been actively involved in the cover-up of child sex abuse, most notoriously in his authorship, as the then-Cardinal Ratzinger, of a 2001 letter threatening excommunication for any bishop reporting abuse cases to the police.

Worst of all, in Tatchell's view, Benedict rescinded the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson and the ultra-conservative Society of St Pius X, despite Williamson's much-documented Holocaust denial. The Pope has also pressed the case for the Beatification of Pope Pius XII, the wartime Pope who, many argue, cooperated with the Nazis and failed to oppose the Holocaust. For Tatchell, these two cases in particular show just how far the current Pope has departed from the gospels he preaches of love and compassion. Therefore, we should not honour him with a state visit – if he was a religious leader of the stature of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, then absolutely, but not Benedict XVI.

Finally we heard from Austen Ivereigh, with Toynbee urging us to hear him with "rationality and respect". He began by reading a recent quote on the visit by National Secular Society president Terry Sanderson, in which he replaced the word "Catholics" with Jews and so on. Presumably he was picking up the argument of the Pope's personal preacher, who likened the treatment of Benedict over child abuse scandals to the the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis. (As an opening gambit to win over an audience of secularists, likening opposition to a state visit by a religious leader to mass persecution of people on account of their race was hardly destined to be a winner, but it's one possible approach, I guess.)

Then Ivereigh moved on to slightly firmer ground, suggesting that the opposition argument that most people in Britain don't want a state visit is untrue. According to a new survey by Catholic magazine The Tablet, only five per cent of those polled said they were "strongly opposed" to the visit. (I wonder if there's a lesson here for anyone trying to use statistics in these kinds of arguments – Grayling told us only nine per cent in Britain are Catholic, Ivereigh told us only five per cent. It follows that both are suggesting they speak for the more reasonable majority, but is it not fairer to say that together these statistics show that the majority of people have no strong opinions on this?)

Britain, said Ivereigh, has not stopped being a tolerant society. The case put by the opposition is based, in his view, on an abandonment of reason and perspective, on a parody of the Catholic Church. The opponents of the visit spread misapprehensions, caricatures and half-baked truths.

He then tried to show us why this is the case. Women can't be priests because Jesus intended the Church to be run by men [hearty laughter from the audience]. IVF destroys human life in the process of creation. It's the same with stem cell research – the scientists involved don't respect human life. It's dogma, and it doesn't even work. Ivereigh was hardly winning the crowd over at this point, but his next point lost them completely – the Pope is right on condoms, and the science backs it up (he's put this argument in the Guardian in the past). The spread of the virus, he argued, has accelerated in line with the growth in condom use – abstinence and fidelity really are the best way forward.

Is the Church in favour of discrimination? No, said Ivereigh, it is the leading supporter of human rights in the world. It stand up for the rights of gay people – yes, it disagrees with gay adoption, and it supports the rights of Catholic institutions to only employ those who reflect their ethos, but it does not support discrimination.

On child abuse, Ivereigh argued that Ratzinger's 2001 letter did not order bishops to remain silent. He has led the drive for openness on the issue of abuse, and has done more than any other person in the Church to address the problem. The Catholic Church is the only organisation in the UK that annually published a report on instances of sexual abuse in its institutions.

Ivereigh also stressed that Bishop Williamson's order was rehabilitated, not Williamson himself, and that Pope Pius XII had been a great defender of Jews.

The idea, he argued, that the Church is an enemy of human rights is absurd. It works to emancipate – the homeless, the poor, women, immigrants, the unborn. It is the greatest friend of the marginalised, inspired by the teachings of the faith.

He concluded by saying that yes, Catholics and humanists disagree on some rights. But do secularists want to allow free interplay of those ideas, or do they want to push them away? In this respect, Catholics are the true humanists.

The debate ended there, and move into a particularly fruitless "questions" format, in which the majority of participants failed to ask the speakers any actual questions. I wouldn't say this is unique to last night's debate – it's part of the reason I don't watch Question Time on TV – but I do find it incredibly tiresome when audience member after audience member takes the microphone to deliver a general point of their own, without asking the panel anything at all. Maybe I'm just not a fan of this format.

But the questions section was also the point at which the booing, heckling and shouting reached its loudest, and it was that aspect of last night's debate that left me feeling a little uncomfortable as I headed home on the tube. I think both Grayling and Tatchell delivered strong arguments against the visit being a state visit, and I don't think either of the Catholic speakers did enough to convince me that they were wrong. Frankly, some of their arguments were absurd, particularly in relation to HIV and condoms (I find the idea that the Catholic Church is the world's greatest provider of HIV care particularly laughable, as well as Ivereigh's claim that the Pope is right on condoms). But a key element of their argument was that a secular state should provide an open forum for contending viewpoints, and that the opponents of the visit want a closed society and do not want this "free interplay", as Ivereigh called it.

I don't think that this is true, and I don't think it is even that relevant to the state visit argument, which is not about whether the Pope should come, but who should fund it. But it's a common argument levelled by religious opponents against secularists/humanists/atheists, and it's an image we must be careful not to project. Last night the audience, in which opponents of the visit enormously outnumbered supporters, frequently shouted down Catholics (including those posing questions from the audience), rather than hearing their views and then arguing against them rationally. There was a lot of shouting – including plenty of swearing – and at times the speakers were not able to finish making their points (I'd say it was an atmosphere closer to what I'm used to experiencing at football matches than at, say, intellectual talks). In my view this is not how to conduct a debate. Ivereigh accuses secularists of presenting a caricature of the Catholic Church – similarly, could it not be argued that this kind of conduct by a vocal minority allows opponents of secularism to paint the caricature of "atheist fundamentalism"? The result is that Ivereigh can emerge from the debate and describe it, as he does in the video attached to this blogpost, as "a bearpit" and "very nasty". It's also the way it's portrayed by Ed West in this post at the Catholic Herald.

Are secularists and humanists committed, as both Catholic commentators suggested we should be, to an open society of diverse views and beliefs? If we are, then it doesn't mean we should support a state, taxpayer-funded visit by the Pope, but we certainly ought be willing to listen calmly to the arguments and have a civilised debate with those who think we should. At times, last night's event gave the impression that many secularists don't even want to hear the counter-arguments. My own secularism is based, to a great extent, on a commitment to free speech and reasoned debate, which is why I feel uncomfortable with what I saw last night. (My predecessor in this job, Padraig Reidy, recently expressed some similar concerns in the Observer.)

I'm sure lots of you will have an opinion on this – please do get involved and share your comments on this post.

I've gone on quite long enough, but one final thing – I don't feel we really did get to the bottom of the question of whether the visit should be a state one last night, but I did have a question of my own that I was trying to put to the anti-state visit side, particularly AC Grayling. There seem to be two key arguments against the state visit – one technical, one moral. The technical argument questions the Vatican's status as a sovereign state, and therefore the Pope's right to a state visit. The moral argument holds that the Vatican's human rights record – on AIDS, child abuse, women, gay rights etc – means the Pope is not morally deserving of the honour of a state visit. I wonder if these two arguments don't contradict each other slightly? If we follow the technical argument, then the leader of any country we deem to be legitimate is entitled to a state visit, including leaders of states we may deem to have questionable human rights records, such as Saudi Arabia, whose leaders frequently come here. Yet if we follow the moral argument consistently, we would no more allow a state visit from the leader of Saudi Arabia as we would the leader of the Vatican.

It's just a thought – I wonder if opponents of the state visit shouldn't concentrate on one or the other? The moral argument would have wider implications, and make a greater stand in relation to the UK's ties to many other questionable regimes. I never got the chance to ask Grayling, but my guess would be he would say you could apply both the moral and technical criteria to the Holy See – and it passes neither.

Phew, I'm stopping there. Please do leave comments.

Quackery, pseudoscience and the dangers of debunking in China

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:44:00 +0000

In our new issue Sam Geall, deputy editor of the website China Dialogue, introduces the Chinese science cops – the debunkers who are bravely tackling the prevalence of quackery and shoddy (often fraudulent) science that so often prevails in the People's Republic. The bad science ranges from nutritionists offering mung beans as a cure-all solution for dietary issues, through the discredited and harmful "science" of earthquake prediction, to the troubling fact that, according to a Chinese government study, over a third of 6,000 Chinese scientists surveyed have practised "plagiarism, falsification or fabrication".

In the piece, Geall points to the work of two particular debunkers, Fang Zhouzi (pictured) and Fang Xuanchang, who have both played prominent roles in taking on the peddlers of pseudoscience; Zhouzi through running the influential watchdog site New Threads and Xuanchang in his role as science and technology editor at Caijing magazine.

Highlighting what is at stake for those daring to question the culture of bad science in China, on 24 June this year Xuanchang was the victim of a brutal attack as he returned to his apartment after work. Two men brandishing steel bars left him for dead and, as Geall reports, there has been little interest in the case from the Chinese police or mainstream media.

And in a new and disturbing development, on Sunday Fang Zhouzi was the victim of a similar attack. This latest incident is reported by Evan Osnos in his "Letter from China" on the New Yorker website:

"Fang was heading home over the weekend, when a man approached him and sprayed him in the face with what he later guessed was an anesthetic intended to daze him. 'Another man pursued me and tried to hit me in the head with a hammer,' he wrote in a blog post, as translated by ESWN. 'I kept sprinting ahead. This man chased me but could not catch up to me. He threw the hammer at my head but missed.' The hammer-thrower eventually hit Fang in the hip, though the writer escaped and is recovering with minor injuries."

It's unclear whether the attack was related to Zhouzi's work, but threats have been aimed at him in the past, so it certainly seems possible that it is part of a worrying trend. As Geall says in New Humanist, "for Chinese journalists, the message of the attack is clear: don’t go near the subject, or you might be next".

This is a fascinating and important story, and you can read it in full on our website. As China continues to grow into its role as an economic and technological superpower, with a position at the forefront of scientific innovation, the continuing reliance on quackery, along with the prevalence of fakery and plagiarism in academic research, takes on international significance. It's also a reminder that we need to maintain our vigilance against bad science closer to home.

Have a read and see what you think – there's a shiny new commenting facility on all articles on our main website, so you can join the debate there too.

Editor's pick: Susie Linfield on the aid crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Caspar Melville) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:15:00 +0000

One of the very best feelings you can have as an editor is when someone you have been after for ages finally gives in and agrees to write you a piece, and when the copy arrives it it is so totally brilliant that not only does it not require any real editing, but you can bathe for a while in its reflected glory - as if in doing the commissioning you could actually claim the piece as your own. Such is the case with this brilliant piece by Susie Linfield, about the crisis in humanitarian aid. I came across her writing online, and found out she runs the Cultural Reporting and Criticism course at NYU and is an expert on photojournalism. I'm reading her new book about photography and war, called Cruel Radiance, which is very good (we'll review it on our next issue). So do yourself a favour and read the essay – I'd recommend printing it out (it's free) and reading with a cup of tea (and let us know what you think in our groovy new comments section at the end of all articles).

Baptisms for the Dead - bad for your back

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:06:00 +0000

You really do learn something every day in this job. When I first came across this story, entitled "LDS Church sued for baptism for the dead injury", about a man suing the Church of Latter-day Saints (AKA the Mormons) for injuring his back while performing around 200 "baptisms for the dead", my first thought was, had this man been baptising corpses?

Sadly it turns out the circumstances weren't quite so bizarre, although depends how you view the practice, which I now know involves baptising the living as proxies for those that have died without first being baptised.

I can honestly say that, when I woke up this morning, I had absolutely no idea that such a thing existed. But now I do. It turns out Mormons are big fans of baptisms for the dead, and the poor fellow that put his back out, Daniel Dastrup of Las Vegas, was performing them en masse in the summer 2007. Now, these baptisms are the kind that involve fully immersing the subjects in water, so ploughing through 200 of those in one day is bound to put some strain on you. Throw in the fact that some of the baptees (if it isn't a word, it should be) weighed close to 250 pounds, and you've got the perfect recipe for a bout of holy lumbago.

Which is precisely what Dastrup says he got – and it doesn't seem as like it was a price he was willing to pay for the souls of the dead. He is, says the Salt Lake Tribune, "suing the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for, among other things, medical expenses, future loss of earning capacity and loss of household services."

It remains to be seen whether he'll win, but either way we all learned a valuable lesson. Didn't we?

New Humanist in the shops - send us your pics for a chance to win a DVD

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Now that we're on sale in over 1,300 shops around the UK, we'd love to see the evidence. That's why we're challenging you to send us your pictures of New Humanist reaching all corners of the country (and all the bits in between too).

It could be a photo of the magazine on the shelves in your local store, or a post-purchase picture of it next to a local landmark. You could even get a local nun or imam to pose with a copy, or take a snap of it in one of your area's key religious locations.

Wherever the magazine is ending up, we want to see it, and there are prizes to be won in return. We have three DVDs of the 2008 Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People show to give away, featuring Robin Ince, Stewart Lee, Josie Long, Richard Herring, Richard Dawkins and many more. We'll give one DVD to the most imaginative, one to the funniest and one to a random winner drawn out of some kind of hat, or bucket or something.

So, get out and buy your new issue of New Humanist, and send us your pics – you can do so on Twitter (to @NewHumanist), via our Facebook group, or by email to editor[at]newhumanist.org.uk. I've included my attempt here to get you started – surely you can do better than that?

New Humanist now on sale in 1,300+ stores nationwide

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:53:00 +0000

Find a stockist near you using our distribution list (PDF, 270KB)

Hallelujah and rejoice! As of this morning, 26 August, the Sep/Oct issue of New Humanist has gone on sale in over 1,300 stores, including selected branches of WH Smiths and independent newsagents all over the UK.

To mark our launch into these stores, all newsstand copies of the September issue come with a very special free gift – part one of our hit blasphemous card game God Trumps (part two will be free with the November issue). Plus, if you buy a copy, you’ll see details of a special subscription offer for new subscribers only.

With shops all over the country stocking New Humanist, you’ll have no problem finding a copy near you. You can search for your nearest store by downloading our distribution list (PDF, 270KB) and searching for your town or the first part of your postcode.

So what's in the new issue? With Pope Benedict XVI due in Britain later in September, we’ve asked a specially-selected panel to tell us what they would tell His Holiness if they could have an audience with him during the Papal Visit. Get a copy of the magazine to read what Richard Dawkins (sneak peek - "Go home to your tinpot Mussolini-concocted principality and don't come back"), Philip Pullman, Claire Rayner, Ben Goldacre, Ralph Steadman and many more would have to say.

The issue also features interviews with stand-up comedian Stewart Lee ("Religion is just a convenient peg for people like Stephen Green to hang their hatred on") and the House of Lords' "philosophical plumber" Mary Warnock ("I find it extraordinarily irritating when people treat the bishops in the Lords, or the clergy in general, as moral experts").

Plus there's a debate on burqa bans between Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Kenan Malik, a major essay on the crisis facing humanitarian aid, a look at the dangers facing those speaking up for honest science in China, and much, much more.

So, if you've never tried a copy of the magazine, now's your chance. And if you're already a reader, it's easier than ever before to pick up your copy. It's a little while since New Humanist has been on the shelves, so tell your friends, spread the word, and help make the independent, not-for-profit magazine for free thinkers a big success on the national newsstands.

The Claudy bombings and Catholic Church complicity

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:09:00 +0000

The revelation that the Catholic Church colluded with senior police and the British government to protect Father James Chesney (pictured) from prosecution for his role in the 1972 Claudy bombings in Northern Ireland, which killed nine people, shames all those involved (many of whom are now dead), and will surely lead to increased criticism of the Church at a time when it is already under fire for alleged child abuse cover-ups. Indeed, the action taken to protect Chesney has a familiar ring to it – the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal William Conway, worked with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British government's Northern Ireland office to secure Chesney's safe transfer from his Northern Irish parish to a parish in Donegal in the Irish Republic.

While I will leave the detailed analysis to commentators with deeper knowledge of the story, I find myself wondering whether critics should resist the urge to tie this revelation into their wider criticism of the Church. It is, of course, shcoking to learn that senior Church figures colluded to protect a suspect in a terrorist atrocity, but it seems important to point out that this occurred in the complex context of Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, at the height of The Troubles, when the hands of very few of the key players remained particularly clean. The news is an appalling indictment of those in charge of the Church in Ireland at that time, along with their apparent co-conspirators in the RUC and the British government, but to what extent can critics claim that responsibility lies with the Catholic Church as a whole today? Is it any more responsible than the British government of today?

The historian in me is certainly talking here, but I do think it's important to proceed with caution. However, it would be easier to defend the Catholic Church if there was a sense that its hierarchy learns from past mistakes. While the report into Claudy says there was a cover-up involving government, police and Church, and the Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, has apologised, the head of the Irish Church, Cardinal Shaun Brady, has denied that his 1970s counterpart was involved in a conspiracy, saying "The actions of Cardinal Conway or any other Church authority did not prevent the possibility of future arrest and questioning of Fr Chesney." Brady's view conflicts with that of the report, and the defensive tone feels familiar from the approach Church figure have been known to take to allegations of child abuse cover-ups.

And while Father Chesney was protected from the law almost 40 years ago, evidence from Africa suggests that Catholic leaders have helped to shield criminals from justice much more recently. Richard Wilson wrote about this in our May/June issue, describing how Catholic priests that participated in the genocide in Rwanda in the mid-'90s were moved to parishes in Europe to avoid prosecution. It's a trend that has continued elsewhere in Africa, as Wilson wrote:

"When, in 2005, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Uganda’s brutal Lords Resistance Army, local Catholic clergy were quick to denounce the move as a threat to peace, and (without a hint of irony) a “western” imposition. Since then, the Archbishop of Gulu, Jean-Baptist Odama, has led a vociferous campaign against the indictment of LRA leader Joseph Kony, whose crimes include, as it happens, the large-scale sexual enslavement of children."

Wilson argued that the Catholic Church today clearly has a case to answer here – until it does, and gives a sense that events like the protection of Father Chesney are a thing of the past, it is hard to speak out in its defence.

I'd be interested to hear what others think about this - let me know by commenting below.

Buy New Humanist in a shop near you

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:09:00 +0000

We're very excited to announce that from this Thursday, 26 August, New Humanist will be on sale in more than 1,300 stores across the UK, in selected branches of WH Smiths and independent newsagents. To mark our launch into these stores, all newsstand copies of the September issue come with a very special free gift – part one of our hit card game God Trumps (part two will be free with the November/December issue). Plus, if you buy a copy, you’ll see details of a special subscription offer for new subscribers only.

With shops all over the country stocking New Humanist, you’ll have no problem finding a copy near you. You can search for your nearest store by downloading our distribution list (PDF, 270KB) and searching for your town or the first part of your postcode.

So what's in the new issue? With Pope Benedict XVI due in Britain later in September, we’ve asked a specially-selected panel to tell us what they would tell His Holiness if they could have an audience with him during the Papal Visit. Get a copy of the magazine to read what Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, Claire Rayner, Ben Goldacre, Ralph Steadman and many more would have to say. The issue also features interviews with stand-up comedian Stewart Lee and philosopher Mary Warnock, a debate on burqa bans between Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Kenan Malik, a major essay on the crisis facing humanitarian aid, a look at the dangers facing those speaking up for honest science in China, and much, much more.

NHS homeopathy vacancy prompts sceptical shenanigans

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:52:00 +0000

Depending on your outlook, it could be an amusing time to be working in the HR department at the NHS trust of Tayside, which is currently advertising a vacancy for a "Specialty Doctor in Homeopathy" at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. This opening, which comes, as plenty of people have been quick to point out, at a time of impending NHS cuts, carries a salary of £36,807 to £68,638 in exchange for a whopping 8 hours of work per week.

Naturally, news of the vacancy quickly spread among online sceptics, prompting several people to submit applications for the post. It seems the first person to do this was science blogger David Briggs, and the amusing sample he posted from the application became a hit online. Here's a snippett:

"My biochemistry degree means that I am familiar with such vagaries as Avogadro’s constant, but given the extremely attractive salary (at least compared to scientific research), I’m sure I could be convinced to overlook the fact that homeopathic remedies with a potency over 12C contain zero molecules of active ingredient whatsoever."

It's no surprise that this idea quickly caught on, with many more following suit – sceptical blogger Zeno has created a useful list of them in his post on the story. Applicants include the pharmacologist and alternative medicine critic David Colquhoun, who stressed that his experience debunking homeopathic claims would leave him well placed to mislead patients in his new role, and science writer Simon Singh, who reports on Twitter that the Trust seem to be taking his application seriously – they've sent him some more forms that he has to return next week.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out – it's open to applicants until 6 September, so presumably we'll find out after that whether any sceptics have made it through the first stage, Hardly likely, but still, it's another excellent sting by sceptics in the campaign against government funding for homeopathy and its promotion as medicine by pharmacists such as Boots. And like the 10:23 mass overdose, it's a fine source of amusement too.

Dawkins documentary raises worrying questions about faith schools

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:22:00 +0000

Richard Dawkins's documentary, Faith School Menace?, was broadcast last night on More4 (you can watch online here), and its contents have raised some serious questions about the role played by faith schools in British education. Perhaps most eye-catching of all was the discovery that some school are presenting creationism to pupils as scientific fact, albeit in RE lessons, with Dawkins meeting a 60-strong year 10 science class at a Muslim secondary school who all believed the Qur'anic creation story.

In response to this, the Guardian Comment is Free Belief desk have commissioned Erfana Bora, a science teacher at a Muslim school in Leicester, to explain why she doesn't see a problem with children being taught scientific and religious explanations with equal weight. It's fine, she says – the kids learn about scientific explanations in science lessons, and then head off to religion lessons to be taught the creation stories:

So, what's the problem? In Bora's view, it's no different from what happens in a regular, non-religious state school:

"The funny thing is that pupils in state schools are taught the same curriculum content in science lessons – and ask the very same questions. Pupils with a faith background will learn the lesson content in a state school while holding their own viewpoints – and will then attempt to integrate two worldviews – inevitably reaching differing points of "belief equilibrium", as it were. Pupils in faith schools do exactly the same."

Well, in my view, that's not entirely correct. At the non-religious secondary school I attended (thanks to the collective worship law we still had to endure the odd prayer in assembly, but that was about it), what we were taught in science was never contradicted/balanced out by outlandish creation myths in RE lessons, which were at best comparative religion and ethics lessons delivered with minimal enthusiasm, for at most an hour a week, by a teacher who usually taught another subject (I remember having the same teacher for German and RE for one year, which was odd). The fact that the lessons treated all religions equally meant we would never be likely to come away applying much weight to the creation myths we'd learned about (if we ever even did learn about creation myths – in my memory it mostly amounted to learning basic facts about religious practices, such as what all the garments a priest wears are called, or what the five pillars of Islam are, or why a Sikh carries a dagger). Throw in the lack of conviction with which the teacher approached all this, and you hardly have the ideal conditions for producing budding creationists.

Compare this to a religious school, where in RE a particular religion might be taught as the literal truth, by a teacher full of faith and enthusiasm, for several hours each week. Staying with the subject of Islamic schools, I'm reminded of the example of the Ebrahim Academy in East London, cited by Baroness Murphy in the House of Lords (see this Polly Toynbee piece), where half the school day is apparently taken up with Qur'anic studies. Creation myths are likely to carry much more weight for those pupils than they did at my school. Faith schools may not, in general, be going so far as to teach creationism in science lessons, but what children are taught from the national curriculum in science lessons is being actively undermined by what is taught in religion classes, and by the overall emphasis on faith in the life of the school.

Erfana Bora disagrees. In her view, after learning both science and religion "Pupils then do, literally, make their own minds up as to what they believe". She says pupils in her science class ask her all kinds of questions, such as "Do humans really share a common ancestor with apes?". But, interestingly, she doesn't say how she answers such questions. Does she tell them that, yes, humans almost certainly share a common ancestor with apes, or does she say that while scientists argue that this is so, the Qur'an says that it is not? This is important, because if it's the latter then it's a classic case of "teach the controversy", even where there isn't one. The implication that education is about allowing children to make their own minds up may sound honourable, but it is misleading.

Of course, in some areas education is about coming to your own conclusions on subjective matters, but it is also, in many ways, about children learning objective facts from adults that know them. And yes, I'm aware that evolution by natural selection is not, strictly speaking, a fact. But for the purposes of schoolchildren asking the question "Do humans really share a common ancestor with apes?", the answer is, to all intents and purposes, "yes". To answer differently would be intellectually dishonest. My guess would be that Bora would tell students that scientists would say yes, but Qur'anic scholars would say no. And in an environment where they are constantly in contact with, under the authority of, and looking up to Qur'anic scholars, on which side of this "controversy" are the pupils likely to come down?

This kind of intellectual dishonesty is encouraged by the faith schools system, and it appears that creationism is being taught in some British schools. It is why Richard Dawkins encountered a class of 60 15-year-olds who all believed that the theory of evolution is false. In light of Dawkins's findings in the documentary, the British Humanist Association is calling for a parliamentary enquiry into the teaching of creationism and the wider impact of faith schools. They have also launched a new fundraising drive for their campaigns on this matter – find out more on their website.

Share your thoughts by commenting on this post.

Talk about a bad day at the office...

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:07:00 +0000

From the Moscow News website:

"Prosecutors in Samara Region [of Russia] are taking a high-flying businessman to task for forcing his employees to go on Scientology courses. The director of electronics company RosKabelSvyaz Lev Syrolev was threatening to sack faithless workers, but now faces charges for using extremist material."

And you thought your bosses gave you a hard time...

Dawkins's faith school documentary on More4 tonight

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:56:00 +0000

In case you didn't know already, Richard Dawkins has been working on a documentary entitled Faith School Menace?, which is broadcast tonight at 9pm on More4. Here's the official blurb:

"The number of faith schools in Britain is rising. Around 7,000 publicly-funded schools - one in three - now has a religious affiliation.

As the coalition government paves the way for more faith-based education by promoting 'free schools', the renowned atheist and evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins says enough is enough.

In this passionately argued film, Dawkins calls on us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which, he argues, bamboozles parents and indoctrinates and divides children.

The film features robust exchanges with former Secretary of State for Education Charles Clarke, Head of the Church of England Education Service Reverend Janina Ainsworth, and the Chair of the Association of Muslim Schools, Dr Mohammed Mukadam.

It also features insights from child psychologists and key players in faith education as well as insights from both parents and pupils.

Dawkins also draws on his own personal history as a father, arguing that the government must stop funding new faith schools, and urges society to respect a child's right to freedom of belief."

Apparently there's an interview with Dawkins about this in The Times today. Of course, the Times paywall means I can't link to it or read it myself without going out to buy a copy (for the record, I'm not having a go at them – my views on that matter are undecided), but the folks at eChurch Christian Blog have a few lines from the interview. Perhaps most interesting is what Dawkins has to say on the subject of non-religious parents who go along with the system in order to send their kids to faith schools, which are often perceived as the best in a local area. It more or less sums up my view on faith schools:

“I don’t want to cast any blame on them. It’s hypocrisy that is imposed on them by a ridiculous and unjust system. It’s something that taxpayers shouldn’t be tolerating.”

Presumably the documentary will be available to watch online on demand if you miss it tonight.

Biblical law in Scotland?

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:19:00 +0000

Could judges in Scotland soon be basing their rulings on the Bible? You could be forgiven for thinking so if you'd read this article in Sunday's Herald, headlined "Law chief urges Scots courts: consult the Bible in judgements". It reports that Lord Mackay, a former Lord Chancellor, is fronting a campaign by the Scottish Bible Society, of which is Honorary President, to send a Bible to every court in Scotland, along with a pamphlet entitled "The Bible in Scots Law: A Guide for Legal Practitioners", which states:

“The Bible is a unique resource as the foundational source book for Scotland’s legal system. The SBS is pleased to have the opportunity to donate a Bible to courts so that it is readily available for reference in any case which may arise in future.”

So presumably coveting your neighbour's brand new gas barbecue and matching patio table and chairs is set to be restored to its rightful position as one of Scotland's gravest crimes? And what of all the joys contained within the Book of Leviticus, my personal favourite being Chapter 19, Verse 19, which basically amounts to a sanction against putting things that are pretty much the same, but a bit different, in the same place:

"Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee."

No more linen and woollen jumpers for Scots then? Well, not exactly, because, as with so many of these things, this is essentially a bit of a non-story. Mackay may be a former Lord Chancellor, but his current official position, Lord Clerk Register, is merely honorific, and has been since the early 19th century. As president of the Scottish Bible Society, he's perfectly entitled to send a copy of the Bible to every court in Scotland. We have a free (i.e. uncensored) postal service, after all. If I wanted, I could go out and buy a few hundred copies of David Icke's latest and send them to every court in England. It doesn't mean anyone's going to pay any attention. Unless Scottish judges suddenly start invoking Bible passages in their rulings, my guess is that we don't have anything to worry about.

Ann Widdecombe is a fan of Noah's Ark Zoo

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:59:00 +0000

In her Daily Express column (look, it's a quality paper, okay...), Ann Widdecombe lambasts the BHA for speaking out against the awarding of a "Learning Outside the Classroom quality badge" to the creationist Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, near Bristol:

"The zoo has put on such an imaginative and educational display that the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom has issued it with a mark of recognition. Those who run the zoo have established workshops which cover the national science curriculum but do not include discussion of religion and do not promote the extreme creationist view that the world was created 6,000 years ago. In other words it is a moderate, education-focused organisation that challenges children’s minds and produces evidence from fossils.

The British Humanist association says the award is inappropriate merely because the zoo concentrates on creation. In short the British Humanist association does not believe that children should be allowed even to discuss creation or to be exposed to any evidence that might support it."

Now, I'm not sure this would make any difference to Ann's argument, but I have a sneaky suspicion she hasn't actually been to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm. I have, and I've had a good look at what the former government minister describes as "an imaginative and educational display" (one example is pictured above). You can see the photos I took and have a read of what I had to say about it all in my piece from last year.

Also, Ann says the zoo does "not promote the extreme creationist view that the world was created 6,000 years ago". She isn't wrong - nowhere in the zoo does it say the Earth is 6,000 years old. But it does say it's only 100,000 years old. I suppose that is a bit less extreme, being 94,000 years closer to the generally accepted figure of 4.6 billion years.

For more on the zoo's proprietor's "science", have a look at this brief interview he gave me.

Is agnosticism the only sensible choice?

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:52:00 +0000

This isn't entirely new, so some of you may have come across it already, but I just wanted to link to this excellent essay by Ron Rosenbaum on Slate, "An Agnostic Manifesto", in which he argues that agnosticism is the thinking person's philosophy in the face of what he sees as the excessive certainties of both atheism and theism. In Rosenbaum's view, both theists and atheists (particularly so-called "New Atheists") tend to hold that the origins of the universe either can, or eventually will, be explained, while only agnostics have the humility to admit that we may never know, or that perhaps it can not be explained at all.

Have a read and see what you think. I have to say Rosenbaum makes a rather convincing case – no doubt agnosticism will be considered as part of the debate on the future of atheism that we're co-hosting with the RSA and the Guardian in September. Maybe a greater sense of agnosticism would allow us to move the current, increasingly polarised "God debate" on from the (perhaps ultimately fruitless) question of whether something we might call "god" exists, and concentrate on things like the excesses of the organised religion and fundamentalist sects, and state-sanctioned religious privilege – because in the end, those are the tangible issues that really matter to humanists and secularists, aren't they?

Just putting it out there – share your thoughts by commenting on this post.

One way of dealing with bigotry

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:25:00 +0000

It's hard to know how to deal with a bunch of publicity-seeking bigots like the viciously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (although by "church", they actually mean one deranged man and his extended family). Do you ignore them, starving them of the oxygen of publicity, or do you mount a counter-protest to their ludicrous-yet-horrifically-offensive pickets of US soldiers' funerals, ensuring as many people as possible are aware of their rabid and absurd homophobia ("-phobia" really seems too mild in this case)?

The fellow in this photo appears to have found a way of combining both those tactics – he's mounted a counter-protest, but he's telling you to ignore them. With great brevity.

Perhaps it's an approach we in the UK should consider for our own bigots, like Stephen Green?

[I found this photo via Anton Vowl on Twitter – unfortunately I couldn't trace it back to its source (here's the link), hence there's no credit for the photographer. But if anyone has any idea where it came from, let me know]

After New Atheism: Where now for the God debate?

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:55:00 +0000

We're pleased to announce that registration is now open for a debate we're hosting with the RSA on 21 September entitled "After New Atheism: Where now for the God debate?"

"Since the publication of 'The God Delusion' in 2006, the debate over the role of religion in society has become dominated by the so-called New Atheists - Dawkins, Hitchens, Grayling - and the frequently defensive responses from those trying to defend faith from an attack they claim to be crude and simplistic.

The arguments have often been entertaining, but have we learnt anything?
Whatever your take on God is it time the debate moved forward and took a different tone?

If so, who might be its guiding lights?

A panel of expert commentators - Orange prize-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson, philosopher Roger Scruton and humanist historian Jonathan Rée - discuss the future of the God debate in a session chaired by broadcaster Laurie Taylor."

It takes place at the RSA's central London building at 6pm on 21 September – it's free and open to all, but limited space and expected high demand mean it'd be wise to book your seats now via the RSA website.

Apparently, this is what passes for "thought"

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:04:00 +0000

Last month, to what you might call minor media interest, Channel 4 launched 4Thought.tv, a daily five-minute religious slot that was mooted as a TV version of Thought for the Day. We were even told that the "films will give voice to a plethora of beliefs and opinions", with the implication that 4Thought.tv would draw on a more varied crop of metaphysical ponderers than Thought for the Day, with even – shock of all shocks – atheists welcome to contribute.

So far, the slot seems to have delivered what was promised, with the few I've seen featuring Christians, Muslims and, yes, even atheists, but to be honest it only really piqued my interest when I heard that Stephen Green of Christian "Lone" Voice (now, as you can see, shorn of beard) was set to appear. What were Channel 4 thinking? (Except, perhaps, that lots of outraged people would blog about it and drive viewers to their online viewing service by linking to it, as I am about to do.)

Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to the subject Green chose to hold forth on for his five minutes of shame? I'll give you a clue – he seems to spend every waking hour thinking about it. Yes, that's right, homosexuality. I don't know if you've noticed, but he's not a fan. And he manages to combine this with his other bêtes noires – Islam. He was on last night – you can watch it on YouTube, if you can stomach it, but here are some sample lines:

"Anyone who says that homosexual activity isn't prohibited in the pages of the Bible is having a laugh."

"I'm Stephen Green, I'm national director of Christian Voice, which is a Christian lobby group."

"Homosexuals can never be one flesh, so they have to press into, like, sexual duty parts of the body that aren't designed for that."

"There is something inherently destructive about the homosexual lifestyle."

"We are seeing a homosexualisation of society, but not reproducing ourselves except in the Muslim population."

"In 30 years our dying civilisation is going to be taken over by a stronger one and the obvious candidate is Islam and the gays aren’t going to like it much living under that system."

So there you have it – in 30 years, there's going to be a big war between The Gays and The Muslims, or something. This, apparently, is what passes for "thought". Well done, Channel 4. I think we're all diminished by the fact that this was on TV last night, but I feel I'd be more annoyed if I was a Christian. Once again Stephen Green, who represents the most minor, bigoted and embittered section of Christianity in this country (if indeed he represents anyone, other than his own fixations), has been allowed by a national media outlet to present himself as a spokesperson for a significant number of British Christians. Look at the words he uses in his introduction – he calls himself the "national director of Christian Voice", which makes his organisation sound like a large national network, and describes it as a "Christian lobby group", as though it lobbies on behalf of Christians in the UK, rather than a tiny, obsessively homophobic, extremist minority. I think this is the worst aspect – I'm familiar with Christian Voice through doing this job, but I doubt most people would have a clue what it is, unless they're fans of Stewart Lee and followed the ludicrous campaign against Jerry Springer the Opera. Therefore, when they see this man pop up on national TV saying he lobbies on behalf of Christianity, they might think the version of Christianity he goes on to espouse is in some way representative of the majority. If TV and radio stations insist on handing this man a soapbox, they should at least make it clear that he speaks for very few people other than himself.

You can probably tell by the length at which I've gone on that this is a particular source of annoyance to me. Please feel free to join me in this in the comments.

Noah's Ark Redux: counter-educational school trips

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:05:00 +0000

It must be about a year since I took an eye-opening trip to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, the creationist zoo on the outskirts of Bristol. Eye-opening, not in the sense that it opened my eyes to the truth behind the origins of life on Earth, but rather because it showed the extent to which people are willing to overlook insidious pseudoscience in order to admire some cute furry animals.

When I was there, the place was heaving with families ooh-ing and aah-ing at everything from alpacas to zebras, while seemingly ignoring or simply failing to spot the informative signs explaining the age of the Earth (100,000 years), why rhinos have very little hair (“it is likely that God’s earliest design for the rhino had both nose horns and hair, but these were lost in some species later”) or the reason birds sing (to "praise their maker", of course). It was the middle of the summer holidays, so there were no school trips when I visited, but dotted around the indoor picnic areas was plenty of evidence that such trips do take place during term time, with thank-you letters from teachers and students adorning the walls alongside explanations of why humans are clearly not in any way related to apes.

Not long after we published my account of a day at Noah's Ark Zoo, a scandal emerged that was, in a lot of ways, much more shocking than its subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to promote creationism to children. Undercover members of the Captive Animals Protection Society found evidence that the zoo had a breeding arrangement with the Great British Circus, the last remaining UK circus to use tigers, and that the remains of a tiger that died at the zoo had been buried on site, rather than disposed of in accordance with the law.

The allegations led to the expulsion of Noah's Ark Zoo Farm from the professional body for zoos, the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquaria (BIAZA), which you might have thought would have put paid to the zoo's prospects as a desirable destination for "educational" school visits. But try telling that to the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, an educational charity which seems unwilling to let the peddling of pseudoscience and a tarnished ethical record get in the way of recommending venues for the Learning Outside the Classroom “quality badge” which, as the Times Educational Supplement reports, is a government kitemark designed to assist teachers in choosing suitable places for school trips.

This is, of course, something the British Humanist Association have taken exception to, with their education officer James Gray telling TES:

“It is entirely inappropriate that it should support an establishment that advances creationism and seeks to discredit a wide variety of established scientific facts that challenge their religious views. Teachers and parents look to the council for assurance that children will experience high-quality educational visits that meet the relevant government guidelines. Awarding this zoo a quality badge risks exposing hundreds of children to anti-scientific dogma.”

As I reported in my own piece last year, Noah's Ark's proprietor Anthony Bush maintains that the zoo keeps its creationism out of the school trip programmes it provides, and therefore that his creationism and his promotion of his zoo as a venue for school visits are separate issues. It's an interesting viewpoint – the workshop leaders won't talk about their zany views, so it doesn't matter that the kids will spend the day surrounded by signs informing them that “Eating meat was allowed after the Flood” but “Before this most people might have been veggies", and that “All the people in the world come from Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. Caucasian from Japheth, Semitic from Shem, and Negroid/Mongoloid/Redskin from Ham.”

And as for Council for Learning Outside the Classroom? Well, their deputy chief executive, Elaine Skates, doesn't seem to see the problem:

“We believe that an important aim of learning outside the classroom is allowing children and young people access to education that challenges assumptions and allows them to experience a range of viewpoints.”

Ah yes, that old canard of "teach the controversy", even where no such controversy exists. If taking kids to a creationist zoo is what passes for challenging their assumptions and exposing them to range of viewpoints, then perhaps it really is time to despair.

What do we all think? Comments, as ever, are greatly appreciated.

Gove on atheist free schools - missing the point?

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:16:00 +0000

Speaking before the education select committee yesterday, education secretary Michael Gove suggested he would welcome the opening of atheist free schools under the new Academies Act. Referring to Richard Dawkins' remarks during a recent web chat with users of the website Mumsnet, in which he responded to a suggestion that atheists use the new legislation to set up schools by saying he liked the idea of a free-thinking school, Gove told the committee:

"One of the most striking things that I read recently was a thought from Richard Dawkins that he might want to take advantage of our education legislation to open a new school, which was set up on an explicitly atheist basis.

"It wouldn't be my choice of school, but the whole point about our education reforms is that they are, in the broad sense of the word, small 'l', liberal, that they exist to provide that greater degree of choice."

He later told reporters "If Professor Dawkins wants to set up a school we would be very interested to look at an application."

As many commentators have pointed out, the Academies Act is likely to lead to an increase in the number of schools controlled by religious organisations. With this in mind, it would appear Gove was hoping to placate critics of the legislation by effectively saying, don't worry, religious groups are going to set up schools, but you can too if you like.

But isn't Gove missing the point? When I blogged about this following Dawkins' Mumsnet chat, I tried to get a sense of what readers thought of setting up free schools in the name of non-religious philosophies, such as "atheist", "humanist" or "freethinking" (you can see reader comments here, and the results of our poll here). Opinions varied, of course, but the overall impression was one of opposition. Humanists and secularists don't, on the whole, seem to favour taking advantage of the coalition's reforms in this way. While some think it might be time to take an "if you can't beat them..." approach, many feel doing so would represent an inadvertent endorsement of a system humanists and secularists have spent years opposing.

I think this is where I stand too – we already have a situation where, in many cases, the children of Catholic parents go to Catholic schools, the children of Church of England parents to to Church of England Schools, the children of Muslim parents go to Muslim schools, and so on. The answer, from an atheist perspective, is not to add to the problem by sending the children of atheist parents to atheist schools. We currently have an education system that encourages segregation along religious lines, and we should be campaigning for this to be replaced by a system that encourages integration. This view is summed up well by the BHA's chief executive Andrew Copson, in his response to Gove's comments yesterday:

"The BHA campaigns for totally inclusive schools for children of all faiths and none. In our view, many inclusive community schools are already more or less humanist in their ethos and values. If compulsory collective worship was ended and RE became universally objective, fair and balanced, community schools would indeed be humanist in all but name, open and accommodating to all."

I'm looking to cover this in the next issue of the magazine, so reader comments would be greatly appreciated. Where do you stand on this issue? Do you welcome Gove's comments? Should atheists now look to use the provisions of the Academies Act? Or should we oppose the idea of any school set up in the name of a particular religion or philosophy?

Priest in the dog house for delivering Pooch-arist

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:01:00 +0000

Breed pictured - not actual dog

I've been to a few church services in my time (I know - I'll tender my resignation in the morning), and it's often (well, occasionally) occurred to me that delivering the Holy Communion, or Eucharist, or Sacrament of the Table, or Blessed Sacrament, or The Lord's Supper – you know, the bit where they have some cardboard-like bread and wine, which to Catholics actually the body and blood of Christ, but to Anglicans only represents said body and blood – must be a bit of a minefield.

Think about it – how is the poor priest supposed to know who's eligible to take it? As I understand it, you have to be confirmed, but it's hardly like they make you prove that you have been when you reach the altar. Yet a cursory Google search tells me that this isn't always necessary. The Catholic Church, apparently, is much stricter, but even then I'd be interested to know how they would go about halting any would-be sacramental imposters. Anglican churches, in my experience the Church of England, have always struck me as representing something of a free-for-all – even I've knocked back a couple of Eucharists, and I've been a godless heathen for pretty much as long as I can remember.

But there must be some rules, even in the Anglican church. What is the priest supposed to do if a new face comes forward to take communion? What if a known atheist steps up? Or a teenager suspected of being too young? And what if a dog tries to take the Eucharist? It's a serious question, because it's what Reverend Marguerite Rea of St Peter's Anglican Church, Toronto had to deal with recently, when one of her parishioners, Donald Keith, arrived at the altar with his beloved German Shepherd, Trapper. Her answer was to give Trapper his bread and wine, in what she says was a "simple church act of reaching out" to Keith during his first service at the church.

Unfortunately for the Reverend, however, others didn't agree. One parishioner complained to the archdiocese, and Rea has since had to apologise, with her area bishop, Patrick Yu, saying "I can see why people would be offended. I have never heard of it happening before. I think the reverend was overcome by what I consider a misguided gesture of welcoming."

As I said – a minefield.

(PS - I love how even the BBC report struggles to take this one seriously. "Canine controversy", "Bone of contention" – great stuff)

Councillor John Dixon on the "Stupid Scientology" saga

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:05:00 +0000

I've been away for a few days, so I missed this – the Humanist & Secular Liberal Democrats' website has an exclusive piece from John Dixon, the Cardiff councillor facing disciplinary action for calling Scientology "stupid" on Twitter, in which he shares his thoughts on the case and the subsequent publicity it has attracted. Have a read over at the HSLD site.

Maldivan journalist faces police charges for "atheism"

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:14:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the tragic case of Ismail Mohamed Didi, a 25-year-old Maldivan who apparently committed suicide following the negative and abusive reaction he received to his admission that he was an atheist and not a Muslim believer.

By way of an update, I wanted to draw your attention to another story emerging from the Maldives, this time involving a 37-year-old journalist, Ismail Khilath Rasheed, who was arrested for allegedly attempting suicide, and subsequently charged with, in his own words, “attempted suicide by overdozing [sic] on less than a gram of hash oil, atheism and homosexuality.”

It appears that Rasheed has a history of criticising the Maldivan state religion in his writing – it is a legal requirement for citizens of the Maldives to be Muslims – and he has since written to Amnesty International to request help in seeking temporary asylum.

As with the case of Ismail Mohamed Didi, Rasheed's predicament serves as a reminder of difficulties faced by so-called "apostates" in countries where the state dictates the religion of its citizens. It would seem that the Maldives has a particularly poor record in this respect, so it's to be hoped such cases continue to attract international attention.

Councillor in trouble for calling Scientology "stupid" appears on Newsnight

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:42:00 +0000

Following on from yesterday's story about the Cardiff councillor facing disciplinary action for referring to Scientology as "stupid" on Twitter, here's the man himself, John Dixon, appearing on Newsnight last night (video via Index on Censorship). Good to see this worrying case getting some wider publicity beyond all the web action it has generated.

(As a little side note, look at how uncomfortable Kirsty Wark seems when she has to deliver the news that something "became a trending topic on Twitter today". You can't really blame her – I use Twitter every day, but I still cringe myself when I see/hear old media using web jargon like this, as though they expect their wider audience to have a clue what they're talking about. It's why I decided to copy the New York Times when its style editor advised against using the word "Tweet" in the newspaper, and incorporate the same rule into the style guide for our print magazine. I think Twitter's great, but I think we do need to remember that the overall number of users isn't that great compared to the numbers watching Newsnight, for example. All these Twitter-generated news stories that keep appearing in old media must be baffling for some people – I'm not saying don't run them, but they need to be framed in a way that isn't off-putting for those who know nothing of Twitter. Anyway, rant over - it's one for discussion anyway!)

New commenting system

paul.sims@newhumanist.org.uk (Paul Sims) — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:35:00 +0000

We're trialling a new comments system, Disqus, which we hope might make for a more lively and user friendly commenting experience. This is a post on which to test it out - by all means post your thoughts on this here and give it a go. You can still post without having a login name - you just need to give your email address, which won't be displayed or used for anything else – but you can also post using Twitter, Disqus, Yahoo or OpenID.

Let me know of any problems you experience and I can look into them.