Young Freethought

Technical Problems

2010-03-16T20:03:00.005Z

Young Freethought is currently having some technical problems. The more observant of you may have noticed a lack of activity over the last week. Things are due to get sorted by next week, when all will be back to normal. Please continue to send submissions to youngfreethought@googlemail.com

The Right to Offend versus the Christian Privilege

2010-03-08T17:12:00.010Z

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.

An Evening With The Archbishop

2010-03-03T16:44:00.007Z

Have you heard the one about the theoretical physicist and the archbishop?

Last night saw an evenings conversation between theoretical physicist and Faraday Prize recipient Jim Al-Khalili (a man who sparked my own fascination in physics with ATOM – an excellent 3 part documentary, the first part of the first episode can be found here) and Dr. Rowan Williams, academic and the current Archbishop of Canterbury. As head of the Anglican Church, you’d expect the Archbishop to perhaps provide an insightful contribution to any debate pitting religion against science. In this respect, you’d be disappointed. You would find an approachable and intelligent human being though; and most importantly, one with a sense of humour. The Archbishop is a shining example of the kind of Christianity, and religion more generally, that even the most militant atheist would find hard to pick a bone with over a great range of issues. The sinister nature of a figure like Ratzinger is, thankfully, absent.

The ‘nicety’ of the conversation (an interview in essence) was added to by Al-Khalili’s reluctance to push the Archbishop when he slipped into poetic language to try and answer difficult questions. It was apparent from Al-Khalili’s manner, he was uncomfortable with many answers given in response to questions of miracles, divine intervention etc. When asked to comment on the rise of creationism, the Archbishop rightly disregarded it as nonsense. But his account of the supernatural, which religion demands a certain degree of belief in, was equally nonsensical.

A God, postulated the Archbishop, who is constantly “anxiously fiddling” with His creation, suggests He did a botch job in the first place. A clearly logical and fairly uncontroversial statement. But Dr. Williams also argues for a God that’s “bubbling” under creation, occasionally bursting through and causing miraculous events. “That’s not the same thing as tinkering with the works?” asked Al-Khalili. Of course not, replied the Archbishop. Once this logical void had been brushed over, the Archbishop continued with his ‘bubbly-god model’. In an interview with Richard Dawkins (whose name came up often), the Archbishop offered a similar argument which Dawkins was less reluctant to voice his concerns about (to view this, watch this video from about 29 mins 50 secs until 32 mins 59 secs) .

As well as this questionable lyricism, the Archbishop uttered comments on morality which, under examination, reveal a deep suspicion of humanity. Al-Khalili put it to the archbishop that his “moral compass” was perfectly in tune without the need of God or gods. Williams questioned how that moral compass could be set in the first place. Why is it even there at all? Now, although Williams denied that he was advocating a 'God of the gaps' earlier on, he seemed to be doing just that. We don’t know why we have “moral compass” so God must have done it. No, in fact. There are many fascinating evolutionary explanations of altruism that don’t rely on commandments or grand tinkerers. The belief that humanity wouldn’t know right from wrong without a God is theistic fatalism. Quoting Etty Hillesum writing of the Nazi Occupation of Amsterdam, the Archbishop said “somebody’s got to take responsibility for God”. This statement is revealing in more ways than the Archbishop considered.

There was a great deal more content to this talk I haven’t offered my thoughts on, and it’s all worth a listen. I’ll post a link to the event as soon as I find one.

Science: What More Do You Want?

2010-02-27T13:47:00.006Z

John Kubinski, inspired by Dawkins and Sagan, reminds us that science has more properties than being a tool in the debate against religion; science embodies that remarkable process of human inquiry which is beautiful in its own right.

The beauty of science is that it has the ability to shatter common sense. Time and time again, the awe inspiring nature of the truth is revealed to us by scientific inquiry. Unceasingly, science pulls the warm blanket of familiarity from under us, and exposes our minds to the once inconceivable wild bewildering truth. The truth itself is not the only thing that is beautiful, though it often can be rather elegant and stunning. But the fact that we comprehend the truth, the fact that we can successfully pursue the truth, the fact that the only place the truth is ever actually manifested is within our own minds - these are the beautifying aspects of the human relationship with science.

Science is a wholly human endeavour, we know not of any other life that attempts to discern the true nature of reality. And we, as science has shown, are a part of the very symphony we study. Matter is investigating matter. Through science we learn not only about how the world around us operates, but we learn about the fabric of our essence on every single level, from the atomic to the genetic to the cognitive. Could there be a more incredible aspect of the world than the fact that evolved primates such as us can not only ponder, but understand the many great puzzles of the universe? (If there is a more incredible fact, be assured that science will produce it.) And to whom do we owe our advances in understanding? Ourselves. We own the truths that we have unveiled; through nothing but the sheer power of human reason we have vastly improved our comprehension of the cosmos. Could those early Homo Sapiens roaming the Savannah ever have dreamed of calculus, quantum mechanics, relativity, game theory, philosophy, evolution? Our ancestors had no hope of ever comprehending the rationale behind their existence; that is a privilege that (if it ever came at all) could only belong to their progeny. And it didn’t have to be that way. We are unbelievably special in that regard. If you did the calculations, the percentage of matter in the universe that could ponder its origins (or anything at all!) would be infinitesimally small. It is just absolutely astonishing that rationality and sentience manifest in a mammalian brain made of ordinary matter and energy, just like anything else. The difference between you and the objects around you are configuration; the atoms that comprise you are arranged one way, theirs in another. A truth like that is so intensely fascinating and intellectually provocative, it is just amazing that we know of it. Such truths melt our intuition into a shapeless mess of incomprehensibility.

Science makes that sense of flawed understanding and unfamiliarity possible, it expands our cognitive landscape by pushing back ever further against our convenient yet mistaken perceptions of reality. The intellectual process by which one gains greater insight into the universe, and sees reality in a new light, is one of the finest experiences that higher order consciousness privileges us to. But of course, the truths were always true. Reality does not change, just our malformed perceptions do. Much of the wonder lies in this aspect of science; the perseverance of human reason over our innate deficiencies. Science is an exciting foray into the yet-to-be-known, with our collective capacity to reason and the hard-won truths uncovered by those before us as the only guiding lights.

Life has always evolved, entropy has always increased, gravity has always weakened proportionally to the square of the distance of the source, the atoms of solids have always been comprised mostly of empty space, and mass-energy equivalence has always held - but only in the past thousand years have these truths ever been grasped. We breathe life into the equations as much as they breathe life into us, for it is us, and as far as we know only us, who have been able to appreciate the elegant truths that make reality the way it is. Empowering, liberating, inspiring, confusing, humbling - these are just some of the things that science does to life which makes existence fuller, broader, richer, and dare I say, more meaningful.

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

The Inner Self Misconception

2010-02-23T10:38:00.004Z

In this philosophical post, Eric Stockhausen argues that the concept of a soul or inner self is misleading to the most comprehensible understanding of experience and offers an alternative. Enjoy!

Some believe the self is the personality part of brain. Some believe the self is an experiencer who exists within the brain, watching what the brain shows it. Some believe the self is just conscious thought and everything else is more or less no one self. More believe in a soul which incorporates some of ones personality, experience, and thought.

Each one of these beliefs sets up a compartment with walls. These walls represent a barrier between phenomena outside the self and inside the self. When sense data comes into this compartment whether it is the soul or some metaphorical place in the brain, it can be experienced. The self exists in this compartment and is completely unaware of anything outside. From this conception of the inner self, Descartes made his famous Demon argument which suggested that all that information entering ones compartment could be a carefully crafted narrative created by a Demon with unlimited power.

This inner self argument seems tempting in its current form for many people; however it presents many problems of its own. First it implies that there is this clear and distinct “I”; however, under the current argument that would imply that the “I” inside the compartment would be independent from his compartment and also experiencing the experiences as they are being put inside the room. This creates an ontological problem because it implies that there is an infinite set of inner selves. (For more on this subject read Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett.)

Now that the inner self independent of the brain is ruled out, it is important to present an alternative. The “I” people experience is part of their mental actions. During sleep, there is a phase when this “I” turns off and people are no longer experiencing self-consciousness. These experiences are part of ones mental processes and are not delivered to any inner agency that is independent of the whole. Any part of the mental functions can be tampered with in order to produce a different experience. Humans have not evolved to look at their brains and notice that is where the thoughts are occurring. It would be best to imagine an experiment where one with their very own hands could use an electrode to activate certain parts of the brain and notice its cause and effect within their experience. Once one overcomes the instinctive misconception that thoughts hover over matter (and physical processes) as if matter could not logically be them, one will understand the more comprehensive theory of consciousness.

If one is wondering how a physical process produces a thought, there is an explanation. The way matter produces a living thing is by being self-organizing and self-reproducing. The processes that constitute thought are the same way. The matter is organized in such a way that once the process begins, the right reactions occur for the thinking to work continuously.

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

Get Writing!

2010-02-19T18:07:00.001Z

If you missed Marcus Du Sautoy’s Faraday lecture (it’s well worth a watch) you can find it here, complete with slides from the presentation. Entitled ‘The Secret Mathematicians’, Du Sautoy gave a ‘portrait of the artist as a mathematician’. For those who believe the boundaries between the arts and sciences are more blurry than it may seem, this lecture was a great affirmation. Steering clear of the clichéd examples of mathematical artists (I’m thinking of Bach in particular), Du Sautoy talked of intriguing and stimulating artists inspired by mathematics, most of whom, I’m ashamed to admit, I had no prior knowledge of.

In domestic news, this week has been lacking in content, largely because submissions, I’m afraid to say, haven’t been gracing my inbox and I’m not a bloging machine! The hits we’re getting don’t suggest any let up in interest or new readers, so if you’ve been toying over sending something in, don’t hesitate. E-mail it straight to youngfreethought@googlemail.com.

The Monstrosity Of Christ - Slavoj Zizek

2010-02-15T19:05:00.003Z

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

2010-02-11T17:34:00.003Z

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.

Faraday Lecture Given By Dawkins' Successor

2010-02-10T14:42:00.003Z

Twitter has reliably informed me that Marcus du Sautoy will be giving the Michael Faraday lecture at the Royal Society this evening at 17:30 – short notice I know. Luckily, the lecture will be broadcast live over the internet on the Royal Society’s TV player. Their website states:

Artists are constantly on the hunt for interesting new structures to frame their creative process. From composers to painters, writers to choreographers, the mathematician’s palette of shapes, patterns and numbers has proved a powerful inspiration. Often subconsciously artists are drawn to the same structures that fascinate mathematicians. Through the work of artists like Borges and Dali, Messiaen and Laban, Professor du Sautoy will explore the hidden mathematical ideas that underpin their creative output but will also reveal that the work of the mathematician is sometimes no less driven by strong aesthetic values.

Sounds like it will be a good one. Du Sautoy previously presented an enthralling 4 part series on BBC 4 about the history of mathematics. He took over Richard Dawkins' post at Oxford after he retired as the Charles Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science. I’m sure tonight’s lecture won’t disappoint. I’ll certainly be watching!

Tomorrow, back to some articles with an examination of the 10 commandments.

Think Week: 22nd - 28th February

2010-02-09T12:53:00.002Z

Richy Thompson talks about an event taking place this month from 22nd - 28th. Think Week is being run by Oxford University students and local townspeople.

Hi, I'm Richy Thompson, a fourth year undergraduate at Oxford University and also coordinator of Oxford Think Week, a series of 15 high profile events occurring from the 22nd to the 28th February. There are 5 non-theistic societies in Oxford (which for a city this size, must be some kind of record!) - these are the Oxford Atheist Society, Oxford Secular Society, Oxford Humanists, Oxford Sea of Faith and Oxford Skeptics in the Pub. The first two of these are University societies, and the last three are town societies. Think Week has been organised jointly by these 5 societies, and the events are free for everyone to come along to. There'll be something happening every lunch and evening, with events being largely speaker-oriented; guests include the philosopher Stephen Law, the scientist Peter Atkins, BHA CEO Andrew Copson, anti-Sharia campaigner Maryam Namazie, philosopher Julian Baggini, Camp Quest UK Director Samantha Stein and secular MP Evan Harris. Full details of all happenings can be seen on the Events page of the website.

Additionally, as if we weren't organising enough already, the annual conference of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) will be occurring on the 27th, bringing together students from societies across the UK. Last year's conference in London also served as the press launch of the AHS, receiving widespread coverage. This year will be a more internal affair, and lots of training meetings will be happening, but there will be public bits, tying into Think Week; a sort of irreligious fair will take place at lunch (stalls confirmed so far are Camp Quest UK, New Humanist Magazine, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, British Humanist Association, an AHS campaigns stall and an AHS regional stall), and the day will conclude with a performance from the BHA Choir!

The idea for the week started with the Oxford Atheist Society, and was inspired by similar weeks that have been put on by other student societies up and down the country (typically under the names Awareness Week or Rationalist Week). We feel that this is a bit different though, firstly in terms of being more speaker-focussed, and secondly, it is not just being organised by one student group, but is being organised by 5 different groups, with the goal being to bring in an audience from the wider area, not just from the University. We're also promoting the week heavily in Oxford's other University, Oxford Brookes. We feel that this means what we're doing is without precedent.

The aim of the week will be to expose the type of discussion and debate that the various participating societies offer to a wider audience and hence raise the profile of the issues involved. This sets it apart from the annual Oxford Inter-Collegiate CU week (and similar weeks at other Universities, no doubt), which is explicitly a proselytizing event, and we won't be covering base questions like "Does God exist?" but instead be providing events in a similar vein to those we provide during the rest of the year ("so we think God doesn't exist... now what?"). The events will be intended to make people think about things they probably haven't thought about before - hence the name.

One big gain from the week that has occurred already. Levels of cooperation now happening between the different societies in Oxford is massive. Beforehand we had 5 societies who promoted each other's events but didn't really interact a whole lot more than that. Now we all know each other really well, with a wider community being established in the place of a number of smaller ones. Hopefully many more joint events will follow on from the week. It'd be great if similar steps could be taken in other University towns, should the right societies exist! The more united our local groups are, the more enthusiastic our audience becomes for what we are offering.

Organising this week has been a huge undertaking (I know my degree is suffering a bit!), but equally it has been great fun. Time will tell as to whether we still feel it's worth it after we come out the other side!

To reiterate, Think Week will be taking place from the 22nd to 28th February. If anybody reading this wants to come along to the week, please do so! We look forward to seeing you there.

Nope To Pope - A Reminder

2010-02-08T18:13:00.002Z

Just a brief note from me about why any freethinker should take opposition to the actions of this Pope. His recent attacks on British equality legislation and accompanying visit to Britain planned in September remind us of this dangerous figure's presence. Of course he has a right to say what he likes and to visit this country, but all humans have the right to condemn him for his deeds. I was lucky enough to attend a debate last year hosted by Intelligence Squared, where two excellent speeches were made by Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry which I shall post here now. They talk of Ratzinger's appalling failings (the last video posted here, in particular, is shocking) as well as those of the Church throughout history. Feel free to watch the opponent’s speeches too, but take my advice and give Archbishop John Onaiyekan's, the first speaker, a miss. Don't forget to sign the petition asking the Pope to pick up the bill for his visit as opposed to the British taxpayer.

The Right To Offend

2010-02-07T16:54:00.001Z

In the face of increasing evidence, reason and opposition, religionists nowadays often use that last ditch attempt to postpone a logical outcome: offence. Though infantile and irrelevant, it can often take centre stage in difficult dilemmas when it comes to discussing religion with friends and family for atheists. For those young ‘converts’ out there, I’m sure you’re aware of the difficulties of ‘coming out’. But even with friends who happen to be religious, a sudden confrontation can cause theory to crash headlong into practise.

The question I hope a young freethinker out there will answer is this: when discussing religion with friends and family, how far should you go to try and avoid causing offence? What about when talking to strangers about the subject? Typically this isn’t a problem on internet forums and blogs, but the non-virtual world is a different beast. I look forward to reading your fresh and original responses to this problem. Send them to youngfreethought@googlemail.com.

Nope To Pope

2010-02-04T17:28:00.003Z

The Pope’s planned visit to Britain was recently accompanied with an attack on the UK’s new equality laws. He told a collection of British Bishops to resist the laws with “missionary zeal” as they violated “natural law”. The legislation is designed to prevent discrimination against gays and women in the workplace. Essentially, the laws are uncontroversial unless you maintain bigoted medieval superstitions.

According to the BBC, Ratzinger said "Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.”

Bear in mind that the beliefs in question would be abhorrent to anyone not blinded by religious dogma. Religions have demanded exemption from common law since secularism has been around. The law is reflection of that shifting ‘moral zeitgeist’. The fact the leader of an enormous faith is resisting it simply shows once more that Catholics are on the wrong side of history.

Andy Armitage over at the Pink Triangle blog has given the Ratzinger or ‘Ratzo’ what for and rallies bloggers to oppose the Pope’s statements. In his post entitled 'Enter the monster - but let's not make it easy for him' he writes:

I suspect websites and blogs will be ablaze between now and September, when it’s thought this insult to human rights, human dignity and all that is decent will be allowed to place his jackboots on our soil. All power to their keyboards. Let us send an unequivocal message to the Vatican and to our own pusillanimous leaders that this evil obscenity is not wanted here by anyone but misguided Catholics and other members of the Deluded Herd...

In the meantime, please sign this petition urging the Pope to pay for his own visit to UK, rather than the bill being picked up by the UK taxpayer.

Beethoven: Therefore, God

2010-02-02T11:32:00.003Z

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.

Overdosing On Homeopathy Pills

2010-01-30T23:05:00.002Z

In a recent protest against the pseudo-scientific claptrap of the homeopathic industry, UK sceptics 'overdosed' on homeopathy pills outside Boots, a large commercial drug store who recently began selling homeopathy pills. The group wanted to demonstrate that these pills, which are simply made of water, are as harmless as they are useful.

In the UK, the NHS operates a number of homeopathic clinics, paid for and maintained by the taxpayer. There is even a Royal London Homeopathic Hospital as part of the University College London Hospitals NHS trust. University College London is a world leading university (ranked 4th in the world by THE-QS World University Rankings).

In the face of such government-funded illogic it is easy to lose heart. The taxpayer may as well be funding mystics with healing crystals who harness the positive energy (such an overused word with meaningless prefixes helplessly attached) of the spirits to heal your inner spirit guide. That’s why it’s lovely to see a group of devoted sceptics out on what looks to be a rather chilly morning, with minimal media attention, pointing out the utter stupidity of such illogic. This video shows one such group and their noble efforts. One man says, reading from the pill box “Maximum of twenty in a day – and I’ve just had eighty-four!” Enjoy.

Do remember that before putting anything in your mouth, check out what it is. You can OD on water.

Hat tip to Humanist Life for this story. If you want to know why homeopathy is harmless, read this article from Simon Singh.

Edgar Allan Poe Should've Read Carl Sagan

2010-01-28T07:55:00.008Z

Throughout the ages, it seems as if poets, writers and those of any artistic temperament have seen science as the enemy of the creative process. Science has been, and still is, viewed as reductionist and therefore unable to posses beauty. A prime example of this is Edgar Allan Poe’s Sonnet: To Science (emphasis mine) -

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

For the sake of a brief note on taste and my less than authoritative poetic judgement, I don’t think this is Poe at his best anyway. The Raven, stereotypically, is my top Poe poem. But let’s focus on the phrase “dull realities” that the “vulture” of science lays bare. What does Poe mean here? It seems that he believes by removing the veils of ignorance from cosmic mystery, we dampen the universes’ aesthetic qualities. Knowing that a star is a burning ball of light elements means something is missing when we lie down and stare at those pinpricks of light on a cloudless night.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Knowing how something works not only takes nothing away from its immediate qualities of beauty, but it adds, not subtracts, mystery and awe. An interesting question arises regarding the nature of reality in this context though – is any reality beautiful by definition? In other words, if this world was different, would we still be saying its scientific mechanisms were beautiful simply because it happens to be that they are the case?

I would answer this question with a tentative yes. Any reality that can produce creatures capable of asking the question ‘is this beautiful?’ must be marvellous. But in our own particular universe, we do find unique beauty. A peek through the Hubble telescope far surpasses anything written by Poe. Of course, poetry can be equally or more beautiful than science, since it reveals the complex nature of what it means to be human. A poem, essentially, will always be about humanity because it is inescapably written with perspective. But Grand Indifference, a phrase I’ve used before, can only be achieved with science.

Bertrand Russell likened the beauty of mathematics to that of sculpture:

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

Although this may seem a little dated to modern ears, it expresses the kind of sentiments shared by many scientists and mathematicians. But, of course, (and I bet you saw it coming), feelings of this kind have, in my view, always been expressed most eloquently by the late Carl Sagan. In his epic Cosmos he writes:

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

The greatest of mysteries indeed. To those who say science is nothing but “dull realities”, why not take a look at what’s out there? If you’re still unimpressed, then Poe certainly isn’t going to offer anything better...

The Problem Of Evil - An Invitation

2010-01-27T18:08:00.003Z

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

2010-01-24T15:53:00.000Z

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.

Merely A Denier?

2010-01-24T09:53:00.003Z

This article comes from Chanchal Krishna. Chanchal is a 20 year old engineering student from India. In this article, he discusses the common misconception that atheists are 'deniers' of God.

Who is an atheist? I often find that the dictionary definition comes to something like ‘one who denies the existence of God or gods’. Being a person who calls myself an atheist I find that definition or label too narrow. Anti-Christ’s, Satan worshippers etc can be called deniers of god. Would that make them atheists? I don’t think so.

Denying God, in this context implies “to refuse to believe; reject”. Which means that an atheist is someone who denies or rejects god. The problem is, if there were gods or if at least there was the bare minimum of evidence to support the existence of gods: most atheists would gladly accept that fact. So we atheists simply do not go around saying or rejecting something that exist just for the heck of it. An atheist doesn’t believe in God because there’s no proof or evidence to support His existence.

Let’s look at it by way of an example. Let’s just for the moment say there is life on mars. Alien creatures are spotted and all the evidence is there to support this. Now in such a case a person who goes around saying there’s no life on mars can rightly be called a denier. But, in reality, as far as our current exploration reveals, there’s no evidence to suggest there is life on mars (for those who care only to argue, there is at least no complex life form we know of). Now say, there are people who believe there is life on mars and people who don’t believe it as there’s no evidence. Who’d be the deniers here? Of course those who believe life is there, because they are simply denying the mountain of evidence merely to satisfy their desire to believe. The case is similar with atheists; we 'don’t believe' because evidence dictates that this is reasonable, not because we hate god or not because of a deep seated desire to deny His existence.

So it’s an error to call us simply ‘deniers’. Consider the case of Malayalam language – my mother tongue. In Malayalam, ‘atheist’ is translated as nireswara vadhi, which literally means one who argues or denies god. That’s not what I am; a mere denier, and labelling us as mere deniers does not do justice to the word ‘atheist’. That’s why I’m forced to write about this topic.

So who’s really an atheist? An atheist is a rational being with a world view based on true science and an understanding of nature. An atheist relies on his or her reason and common sense as a guide for their beliefs and actions. An atheist is a realist who prefers to accept truth as it is, however inconvenient it may be. An atheist is a sceptic with a curious mind, who’s longing to understand not believe. If this common misconception can be changed we will have advanced some way to improving the status 'atheism' worldwide.

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

The Last Man Who Knew Everything

2010-01-22T16:29:00.001Z

Thomas Young (1773-1829) was a man from a by-gone age. The last da Vinci, the extent of his knowledge and scale of achievement will perhaps never be matched. The subtitle to Andrew Robinson’s book from which this post borrows it’s title is Thomas Young, The Anonymous Polymath Who Provided Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick, and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Among Other Feats of Genius. Readers of this blog might be interested to know Simon Singh describes (as does his wikipedia article) that, at the tender age of 14, Young was fluent in Latin and Greek and knew his way around French, Italian, Hebrew, German, Chaldean, Syriac, Samaritan, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Amharic.

The conditions required for genius are diverse, there isn’t a formula, but there usually are subtle reasons. Young was distant from his Quaker parents and a keen autodidact – he believed that the need for a tutor was purely the result of a lack of self-discipline. He said of himself that he was born old and died young.

To those of us who recognize the importance of youth in shaping your own future and who desire to be informed human beings, the thought often occurs of men such as Young. To what extent should they be mimicked, copied and imitated? Upon reading of the lone, self-taught polymath, should we swiftly lock ourselves up in voluntary confinement? This is neither likely, nor wise. Genius probably can be developed and honed, but the decision should not be prescriptive. Besides, none of us really have any hope of achieving a fraction of what Young managed in his 55 years on planet Earth. Tentative talent too, rarely morphs into success later on. But, said Isaac Asimov of Young... "He was the best kind of infant prodigy, the kind that matures into an adult prodigy”.

I hope there are young readers of this blog who will achieve something like one of Young’s multitude of accolades – I also think it likely. Future scientists, authors, speakers and keen amateurs all can learn something from the early life of this admirable truth-seeker. An innocence; that all knowledge is attainable and worth attaining, should not be lost entirely with age. Young Freethinkers – let’s do our best to keep this freedom.

Creation - A Film About Darwin The Man

2010-01-20T17:52:00.009Z

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!

Non-Believers Giving Aid - Haiti Earthquake

2010-01-18T17:36:00.000Z

A short post about the recent disaster in Haiti. As a non-believer, you may want to ensure your money does not end up supporting any form of proselytizing or conditional aid. As such, we felt that we should make you aware of the RDFRS’s and other freethinking associations’ attempts at providing secular aid to the people of Haiti – Non-Believers Giving Aid. The RDFRS website states:

Clearly the immediate need is for the suffering people of Haiti, and all the money raised by this current appeal will go to that cause, but the new account will remain available for future emergencies too. There are, of course, many ways for you to donate to relief organizations already, but doing it through Non-Believers Giving Aid offers some advantages:

1. 100% of your donation will be go to these charities: not even the PayPal fees will be deducted from your donation, since Richard will personally donate a sum to cover the cost of these (capped at $10,000). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.

2. When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow-humans.

If you can, please give generously. Do not, however, feel we are commanding you to do so. All we hope is to make you aware of a non-religious way of supporting the relief effort. Our sympathies are with those affected by this disaster.

How Should Freethought Proceed? More Thoughts...

2010-01-16T08:30:00.008Z

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.

So You Want To Be A Scientist?

2010-01-14T22:21:00.000Z

Any budding scientists over the age of 16? A competition is being run by BBC Radio 4’s excellent science programme Material World. The competition called ‘So you want to be a scientist?’ is, I’m afraid, only open to UK residents, but I highly recommend the podcast to everyone. The material world website states:

It's not just working scientists who have light bulb moments. Anyone, anywhere can have a brainwave that's worth investigating. But most of us never get the chance. This is that chance.

We want to hear your ideas, however practical, whimsical, big or small. We're not hoping to crack nuclear fusion, reverse climate change or discover the Higgs particle.

[...]

Science isn't all about giant leaps and sudden paradigm shifts.

It's mostly the opposite - single steps which contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field.

Your idea is likely to be on a small scale, perhaps observational in nature, and be based around simple experiments.

It could be focused on exploring some aspect of your local environment or perhaps even put someone else's scientific claims to the test.

Sounds like a good idea to me; a great opportunity for keen amateurs and something many of our readers might be interested in. For more information, visit the Material World website. Good luck to those who enter.

The Banning Of Islam4UK

2010-01-13T15:15:00.005Z

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.

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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.