Young Freethought

Thank You

2012-12-15T22:44:00.000Z

Dear Reader

It may have become apparent due to my inactivity, that I have become unable to run this website with the passion it deserves. I am so grateful to all of you who have contributed over the past few years. You have made my life more fulfilled in doing so.

I'll now be posting in a personal capacity at http://mjpcampbell.wordpress.com/. You'll find a fuller explanation there.

Thank you to you all.

Michael

Germany's Ban on Circumcision is Admirable

2012-07-20T15:42:00.000+01:00

When a Cologne court correctly ruled last month that the circumcision of male children should be made illegal, its decision was condemned by religious organisations and the German chancellor Angela Merkel. None of these arguments succeed in trumping the two very simple facts of which the German court, in a culture of mainstream religious deference, bravely reminded us. The first is that circumcision constitutes an irreversible procedure tantamount to bodily harm given a lack of consent. The second, it is an attempt to determine the religious affiliation of a child before they are equipped to make such a decision.

As a religious practice, circumcision is not carried out as a matter of health. Its proponents, practitioners and many victims claim that belonging to a community is of the upmost importance to them. Shared history and cultural practices define what it is to be a part of a strong group and circumcision is one such practice.

If you think your foreskin, or lack thereof, is an essential part of belonging to a community of any kind, you are a fool. It is not relevant to any community worth being a part of what the precise state of your genitalia is or for how long your ancestors have been mutilating their offspring’s. It is certainly conceivable as the practice of some strange cult, but there are reasons why cults are generally condemned. Language, history, art, music and even benign rituals may contribute to the life of a true community. Do not place foreskins in the same category. The weight of historical tradition grants you no more right to violate a child in one peculiar way than it does in any other.

But what of the right to religious freedom? This certainly ought to be a value defended with vigour by the religious and non-religious alike. The suppression of one’s freedom of conscience and self-regarding actions is a terrible crime too often committed in the history of out species. I am afraid that right does not apply here to whom the religious seem to think it does.

The Cologne court knew very well that banning circumcision is not an affront to the right of the parents to mutilate their child’s genitalia for cultural reasons. It has reminded them, to their disdain, that they have no such right. The right to religious freedom applies to the child who has precisely no choice over the future of their foreskin. The actions of parents in these cases are little else but an attempt to brand a child and instill beliefs which it does not yet have and may not wish to share in later life. If Jews and Muslims were truly concerned about the right to religious freedom, they would not moan hysterically when told their practices are barbaric. If circumcision is still, weirdly, seen as important, it would take place in adolescent or adult life when the subject is able to fully consent to the procedure. Why is this not the norm? The answer, it strikes me, is simple. No adult wants to have their penis painfully altered with sharp objects. At least a baby can’t complain.

This ruling has added sensitivity because of the black history of Judaism in Germany. While we must never forget the Holocaust, we cannot let the evil of the past justify or prolong present and future wrongdoing. Despite this, the ruling is sure to be overturned, as Angela Merkel has vowed. Even so, we can take heart from the fact that, at least for a little while, reason prevailed in the Rhineland.

Higgs Exists!... Unfortunately.

2012-07-09T11:40:00.000+01:00

A huge congratulations is in order to everyone at CERN for the dedication and commitment they have shown to a project which is only now producing results after years of intellectual and emotional investment. And what a result: the clearest indication yet that the Higgs field exists. We now have confirmation that what we thought was true is most likely correct: there is a field everywhere in the universe which gives objects mass, slowing them down or allowing them to pass through freely. A cosmic treacle, if you will. What a feeling it must be for Peter Higgs, one of the originators of this idea, to have his theoretical speculations vindicated after so many years. Comparisons have been drawn to landing a man on the moon. For many, this is nothing less than one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time.

Then why am I slightly disappointed? I would rather scientists at CERN had not discovered the Higgs boson, the indicator of the this treacle, nor anything like it. I would rather have seen that the endeavours of all the men and women involved were in vain. Such a feeling doesn't stem from resentment or sadism but the desire for physics to undergo another radical overhaul.

Science is the attempt to prove other people wrong. We (or some great mind we claim as our own) do our best to devise theories to explain what's going on, then we test them to discover whether we were correct or not. In this case, Peter Higgs has been shown to be not wrong. The really interesting science starts, however, when something everyone thought must be the case is revealed as an illusion.

At the beginning of the 20th century, most people thought physics was almost completed. Isaac Newton's mechanics held steady, we understood thermodynamics, and we could begin a period of mastery over nature. But when Einstein explained just what gravity was, when sub-atomic particles began appearing which completely violated everything Newton said could happen, physics had to begin all over again.

Imagine, for a moment, if the Higgs boson had not been discovered. Of course, absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence, but let's suppose all our efforts suggested that such an object did not exist. What then? Momentary disappointment would quickly give way to lasting excitement. Everything we thought we knew about the basic building blocks of our world through the Standard Model would have to be rethought. The joy of intellectual endeavour generally, not just in science, comes when you undermine your assumptions and must build the tower of knowledge from the beginning on firmer foundations.

In a way, this is a disappointing result. And it could get worse. Nobel Prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg said recently "I had a nightmare which is that Cern would discover the Higgs boson and then nothing else. Discovering the Higgs particle, gratifying as it is, does not provide a clue to how to go beyond the Standard Model." If it turns out that Higgs behaves exactly as we thought it would, then we are left with the same evidence and the same debates, the same Standard Model and the same arguments over its accuracy.

There is some hope for those like myself. The interesting discovery is not that Higgs exists, but what properties it has. That question is still an open one. Let's hope that it gives us something nobody expected.

Focus on Reasoning, Not on Belief

2012-07-08T11:23:00.000+01:00

Eric Stockhausen, 20, offers some thoughts on the argument that atheism has led to terrible crimes of the past by attempting to show that it is how we reach our conclusions, not what conclusions we reach, which ought really to matter to the freethinker.

I am sure many secular people have heard the Hitler, Stalin, and Mao argument against the atheist position. I really do hate judging atheists as a whole based on three people as if atheists are naturally murders. Even if we grant that average atheists have done more harm, that does not prove that atheist leadership will lead to genocide.

But there is a better argument against this evil atheist dictatorship argument, and that is to focus on reasoning rather than beliefs. Religions typically obsess about belief, not the path to those beliefs. For instance, regardless of how irrational the reason a Christian believes in Jesus's godhood, it is considered completely fine by Christian standards. If we look closely at the reasoning of an atheist that is not Mao or Stalin, we realize how important the view behind how reasoning should be done is. For example, take my view:

When I fight for my right to be free from religion, I also fight for the right for other people to have their own religious beliefs of their own choice.

If I take away the right to believe as you wish, I will be carrying out the same injustice that I blame the theocrats of enforcing through violence and fear.

If I accept that people ought to think for themselves, I must accept that people will adopt positions that I think are wrong, even absurd.

My hope is that free, open discussion will lead to self-regulation of ideas, so that the mainstream is not crazy and the values of other opinions won't become violent over disagreements on issues like religion.

I do not trust even an enforced atheistic regime because I do not believe in atheism as an absolute. My core philosophy is a methodology that force undermines. If you cannot use reason to reach your beliefs because force and fear determine what you believe, then even an atheistic conclusion is unjustified. The only justified conclusions are those thought through and with the evidence taken into consideration.

The methods of evaluation are known as science and some are still in debate to this day.

Even atheists who seek to undermine freedom of thought and neutrality in government with respect to conclusions (not methods) are my ideological opposition.

Atheists who think of humans as divisible into the categories of 'Us' and 'Them' undermine the ethical position that you should seek the good for everyone, even those who cause harm, unless the situation becomes too desperate.

When you can only see those who disagree with you as enemies, you can no longer yourself reason with them. You have stopped yourself.

One should be glad to have someone to give them sincere and thoughtful criticism, for this generally means that the person has your best interests in mind. In some cases it would be even wrong for someone not to mention that you're wrong. One should seek the best arguments against their position because beyond just rational benefit, it is better to know you have been wrong than to continue ignorant in your folly.

How can one blame someone who sincerely tries their best to know, who legitimately reaches a conclusion based on the information they had, but reaches the wrong conclusion? Just like I cannot blame a child for believing in Santa in a world that tells her that Santa is real, a theist ought not blame me for not believing in a deity when after all investigation I could not find one single piece of evidence beyond dubious testimonials.

With these views that reflect the kind of values in freethought that led to my atheism, how could anyone reasonably compare the society I seek to Stalin or Mao's?

Intellectual Abuse

2012-06-06T17:44:00.001+01:00

I'm delighted to offer you a fantastic article from a new author, Justin Grey, arguing for a change in our understanding and perception of child abuse. Justin argues that intellectual abuse, that is, abuse relating to a child's capacity for critical thought, should be seen as a serious problem. One which society may have a duty to protect children from. If you like what you read, please take a look at Justin's website.

There are few topics more contentious and passion driven than how to raise a child. Different people offer different opinions, views, and methods, even among professionals. One area of child rearing that is becoming more defined as our understanding of the human mind and interaction grows is that of child abuse, or how not to raise your child. Child abuse is defined as the physical, sexual, emotional ill-treatment or neglect of a child, especially by those responsible for its welfare. In the United States, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies, again, four types of child abuse; physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect. Each type of abuse identified affects a child negatively on a different level of its being and experience. It should be understood that the use of "levels of being and experience" is merely a literary device I will use for illustrating different angles of approaching a child's well-being and does not imply or assume any metaphysical or unsubstantiated claim. In order to understand the idea being presented here, it is important to understand the definition of each of these forms of abuse and how they affect children. These definitions will be given along with a proposed fifth mode of abuse that is also damaging to the child on another level of its being or experience currently unexplored that should be recognized and responded to called intellectual abuse.

 Physical abuse is recognized as physical aggression directed towards a child by an adult that will more than likely result in serious injury or death to the child. Punching, kicking, slapping, shoving, burning, choking, stabbing, belting, pulling on sensitive areas, and even shaking (as seen in cases of shaken baby syndrome) are all examples of physical abuse.  

Sexual abuse includes a wide range of actions between an adult and a child which are sexual in nature. Sexual abuse may involve bodily contact, as in cases of molestation or rape, but not always, as in using the child to produce child pornography or indecent exposure of genitals to a child by an adult. According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, "no child is psychologically prepared to cope with repeated sexual stimulation. Even a two or three year old, who cannot know the sexual activity is wrong, will develop problems resulting from the inability to cope with the overstimulation."   

Psychological (also recognized as mental or emotional) abuse damages the child's psyche, or sense of self. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime website, this form of abuse may consist of ridicule, degradation, destroying personal possessions, torture or destruction of a pet, excessive criticism, withholding of communications, etc. Psychological abuse can result in anxiety, chronic depression, and even post-traumatic stress disorder.   

Child neglect is a form of abuse in which the parent or guardian of a child does not provide adequately for a variety of needs. According to the article, "Understanding and working with neglect," child neglect is the persistent failure to meet a child's basic physical and/or psychological needs resulting in serious impairment of health and/or development.  

Intellectual abuse is the active obstruction or destruction of the intellect of a child, which is to say it is the retardation of a child's ability to learn and reason; the capacity for knowledge and understanding. Examples of intellectual abuse include the stigmatization of a people, indoctrination into a worldview, and the miseducation of a child. It is in itself an umbrella term, as are the other forms of abuse, covering a broad scope of actions and attitudes, centered on one of the levels of a child's being and experience.  

This is not to imply that intellectual abuse is equally as damaging as other forms of abuse. Breaking the limbs of children and fostering low self-esteem by forcing them to undergo humiliating acts both damages them and erodes their quality of life, hindering them on different levels of their being and experience.   The question was raised to me during a discussion on this topic, "wouldn't intellectual abuse simply fall under some subset of psychological abuse since they are both dealing with children on the level of the brain?" This is where the difference between a child's psyche, sense of self, needs to be recognized as different than a child's intellect, ability to learn and reason. The difference between psychological abuse and intellectual abuse is that the former is concerned primarily with the attitude, feelings, and mental state of the child. Intellectual abuse, on the other hand, is concerned with the child's understanding, comprehension, and interpretation of the world and people around them as well as themselves. This understanding can have a major impact on the child's psyche, but is not directly linked to the psyche, just as being raped also has its psychological repercussions.   

Intellectual abuse, in discussion, has also to be compared to educational neglect, which I would still differentiate from. Educational neglect would be characterized by parents not providing an adequate education for their children. Intellectual abuse runs along a similar vein, but takes this inadequate education a step further by substituting good information with wrong information. It is possible to be both intellectually abusive and educationally neglectful with the same action just as it is possible to be both psychologically and sexually abusive in the same action.

To use a personal example, my father, a fundamentalist Christian minister, wanted to impart on me a belief in Young-Earth Creationism - the belief that the Earth and the Universe is nearly 6,000 years old and that all forms of life existed at the moment of creation - and was aware that many branches of science converged on the idea that the Earth was billions of years old (as indicated by geological, astronomical and cosmological scientists), that life on Earth had simple origins with a common ancestor (as indicated by evolutionary biologists and biochemists) and is believed to have originated 3.9 billion years ago.

  One way he could have approached this topic is by telling me that, "Belief in evolution is evil, as is all understanding of it. I forbid you to learn anymore on the subject." This would be intellectual abuse. On the other hand, he could have told me, "I would prefer you share the beliefs I hold dear to me, but I want you to look at the evidence of both sides and judge for yourself what seems correct." This sort of approach, though still with the bias of my father's beliefs on the surface, shows that my father respects me and my judgment and fosters a mindset of critical thinking, an important lesson for any child.  

This new idea of intellectual abuse may seem dubious if not examined closely and a person might ask, "shouldn't a parent be allowed to teach their child the values and beliefs they hold dear? Isn't that one of the joys of being a parent? What of passing on religion and faith? What of teaching a child about their history and culture?" In an essay called "What Shall We Tell The Children," psychologist Nicholas Humphrey answers a similar set of questions, nearly defining this idea of intellectual abuse that I am presenting:

“Children, I'll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people's bad ideas—no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no god-given license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children's knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.

In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense. And we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible, or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children's teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.”

Because the understanding of intellectual abuse is not currently developed, there does not exist explicit data collected to see the number of children harmed by it. But to further use the creationist example, according to a Gallup poll released December 17, 2010, 40 percent of Americans still believe that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years. According to a Huffington Post news article:

"Views on human origins vary based on church attendance. Of those who attend church on a weekly basis, 60 percent believe in creationism while a mere 2 percent subscribe to ‘secular evolution.’ These numbers are flipped among those who rarely or never attend religious services. In this group, only 24 percent believe in creationism while 39 percent believe in evolution without divine guidance. This represents the only subset of data reported where ‘secular evolution’ beats out creationism.”

The purpose of sharing such information is not to choose sides on a religious debate, but to expound upon the notion that people are susceptible to believing what the people they trust are exposing them to, regardless of the validity of their propositions. The Gallup poll also revealed that as the level of education in Americans went up, from a "high school or less" level education to a "postgraduate" education, the number of people who believed in young earth creationism dropped from 47 percent to only 22 percent with the percentage of Americans believing in "secular" evolution spiking from 9 to 25. It becomes difficult not to realize that exposure to more information leads to a different worldview than that of someone who is confined to one belief system compounded with a lesser education.

  Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins hypothesized in his documentary "The Virus of Faith" that children are hard-wired into trusting our elders and parents for evolutionary reasons. He deduces that if children were to practice the scientific method, rather than exhibiting some faith in the word of their parents, the human species may not have survived. Jumping off a cliff can only be tested once. For evolutionary reasons, it becomes apparent why children are more susceptible to believing what they are told, but if this is the case, then what are we to do with such knowledge?

  One thing is for certain, if the knowledge we impart on our children affects their perception of the world in any way and we expect them to make important decisions for themselves we want it to be the most informed decision they can possibly make. Our influence over our children is great and it is a responsibility that should not be abused.

Sam Harris on Free Will

2012-04-27T11:36:00.001+01:00

An interesting talk here from Sam Harris on the problem of free will. Not much is original but the clarity of presentation is excellent. If you fancy writing about what you hear, e-mail submissions@youngfreethought.net.

Click here to view.

The Ancestor's Trail

2012-04-09T22:02:00.000+01:00

In the wake of Richard Dawkins' masterpiece The Ancestor's Tale(his best work and the most beautiful introduction to evolutionary theory I've come across), my attention has been drawn to an exciting event taking place this summer. In honour of the evolutionary history of all life on Earth, a walk tracing the route, with rendezvous points in the style of Dawkins' work, will take place between 25-26th August in Somerset. This looks like great fun, and a good opportunity to meet like-minded people. I might pop along myself. You'll find all the information you need here.

In the meantime, don't forget to buy a copy of The Ancestor's Tale. You won't regret it!

(US readers, can purchase a copy here)

Burma - A Bright New Future?

2012-04-02T20:51:00.000+01:00

The glorious images of the Burmese people freely and openly waving banners of support for Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD party are hugely encouraging. For a nation that has been under some form of military rule for half a century, serious steps have been taken in recent years towards democracy. In the figure of Mother Suu we find a captivating face to attach to this story of steady progress.

But let us not get caught in the inspirational nature of it all. We have to ask ourselves why all this is happening in the first place? Why is it exactly, that a oppressive dictatorship would suddenly wish to open itself up to reform in this manner? The angelic Mother Suu sees it all as an apparent act of good will on behalf of Thein Sein, the current president. At a conference at her villa last Friday, Aung San Suu Kyi defended Sein, claiming he had “genuine wishes for democratic reform.” That she is apparently so full of good will is indeed impressive, but there isn’t a great deal of searching that need be done to find ulterior motives.

Pictures of Mother Suu are abound among the hopeful

Economic sanctions on Burma were beginning to hurt. So what is more likely; a military dictatorship sacrifices power in exchange for ideals, or they hoped to make Burma a more prosperous place, along with their own wallets. Their gamble appears to be working. Multi-nationals are gathering at the borders in packs. Financier Jim Rodgers has already stated that if he could, he would put all his money in Burma. We ought to be reserved about welcoming these investments with arms so open they are at risk of breaking.

Betel-nut farmer Sae Sein Myint said in light of recent events that “I’m struggling. I want my kids to work in a factory, not struggle like me.” The tell-tale signs of a lifetime of oppression are clear when the aspirations of a human being for their children is limited to working in a factory, a factory with typical exploitative conditions in all likelihood. Burma has virtually no labour rights and a population ripe for long hours and cheap wages. We ought not feel so happy about investment when the likely cost can be measured in further human misery.

None of this is to say change is not welcome. It is to reassert what should be obvious - there is a terribly long way to go before the Burmese people can harness their own rich natural resources and use them to the benefit of the population. This is not the same as an invasion of western sweatshops. Until more is revealed in 2015’s general elections, vigilance would not go unwarranted.

Is There a Time & Place for Faith?

2012-03-12T15:53:00.001Z

Here YFT regular, Eric Stockhausen (20), asks the question - 'is there a time and a place for faith?'...

Instead of offering the standard atheistic argument, I am going to take the harder route and defend some faith. Feel free to challenge my argument, but read critically before responding (this doesn’t seem like something I ought to have to say, but you never know)

Faith is the readiness to accept a claim or command that is not readily understood or explainable. This can be tantamount to believing something regardless of the evidence or immediate reasons against the claim or command. Faith can also be used in situations where experience contradicts our intuitions (i.e., illusion), but one should note that this kind of faith is of a very different nature than authority-based faith (i.e., for the bible told me so). This shall be called counter-intuitive faith or CIF, and the other authority-based faith or AFB.

CIF has a place only for a skeptic because intuitions do not always accurately reflect the way the universe actually works. The opposite is also true that one should not always trust experience over intuition, but if one is a committed empiricist, there comes a point in which experience becomes concrete evidence. I will leave it open to whether or not one considers it faith when one applies rigor to the a counter-intuitive claim discovers that neither space nor time are absolute.

The religious example of CIF would be Jesus asking Peter to walk on water. In the story, Jesus walks on the water towards Peter who is in a boat. Peter tests his CIF by attempting to walk on water. He is successful until doubt causes him to fall into the water. The story aims to show the religious believer the virtue of trusting the power god has demonstrated to you.

Non-existent gods out of the way, another example comes from a television show (I will let you guess). In this show, a sceptic doubts her friends ability to sense the future in a form of a twitch of a particular part of her anatomy. At first the sceptic is certain that it must be a coincidence when she sees two successful predictions. After many successful predictions, the sceptic is certain brain scanning during the twitching phenomenon would yield a naturalistic connection. The test continues a long time, but no twitch is observed. Assuming that this test would never yield any relevant insights, we draw to the conclusion of the show, where the sceptic is in a life or death situation where she is asked to take a leap of faith against her better judgment due to twitch prediction. She does and ends up surviving because very unexpected events conspired, in a manner of speaking, to save her life.

In an alternate universe where such a twitch phenomenon did have strong correlation with future events, one ought to accept it. As the most famous British empiricist, David Hume, argued, there is no rational reason for the particular regularities (or Laws as we call them) in our universe to be as we consider them to be. In other words, the connection between two phenomenon does not need to be what fits our a priori (by reason alone) models in order to be true.

If faith is accepting counter-intuitive claims based on repeated first-hand experience like miracles, being able to be faithful is important to being a scientist and philosopher for many foundational beliefs about the world around us. This does not mean that one should believe something simply because it is counter-intuitive like some mystics, but that under this definition there is at least a place where one can induce something that requires faith to believe.

For Authority-based faith, a good example comes from a fanfiction I read recently. In it, a lieutenant receives orders that she and her cavalry are to do a charge into the enemy forces. The orders baffle the officer. She thinks that these orders must have come from some idiot since this would be suicide. Not wanting to have her beloved comrades die, she instead orders a textbook support maneuver. While the battle is won and she has become a hero to the troops for her support maneuver which appeared to save many lives, the higher officers are furious with her. The higher officers tell her that she has cost the army thousands of lives by not following their orders. By doing a support maneuver, the enemy army formed lines and the ambush they had planned had turned into full-on battle.

In this story, the lieutenant failed to accept her order because she did not understand the rationale behind it. In the case of following orders from superior officers, having faith is required. The same moral can be applied to several situations. For instance, a child might find her parent’s rules irrational right now but having faith in her parents wisdom is often justified in retrospect.

With this in mind, I do not intend to say that there is never a case to doubt. In order to properly doubt, however, one has to have a good enough understanding of reason, science, and ethics to even construct a basis for why an authority figure is wrong. Until then, one will just have to rationally accept that there probably is a good reason for what that authority figure claims even if one cannot readily understand or explain it himself.

Three lines of argument against my position are as follows:

1. Faith is defined incorrectly.

2. Accepting counter-intuitive claims based on strong evidence is not faith.

3. Faith is never good.

A person taking the first line of attack generally claims that the true definition of faith is something other than what I claimed it to be. Other definitions can be brought up, of course, but I am claiming that “faith is accepting a claim or command when one does not understand or cannot explain it” as one legitimate definition. In other words, just because there are other definitions does not mean that this is a false one.

The second route I am most sympathetic towards because we often do not universally call having strong evidence faith; however, the believer in a miracle would probably claim that he has strong evidence. While atheists like myself would beg to differ, the common usage still stands that one can have faith because of what one takes to be strong evidence.

The third route is really unfair. Faith is not bad a priori, so one needs to first engage with a better reason.

Credits:

The television show is: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The story comes from Season 1, episode 16.

The fanfiction is Equestria Total War by emkajii

You Have The Right to Remain Offended

2012-02-29T00:24:00.002Z

This piece came out originally in The Cambridge Student newspaper after the resignation of University College London Atheist, Agnostic and Secularist Society president Robbie Yellon.

Imagine a world where anything that might cause offence was forbidden. Whatever you said or did would have to be filtered through even the least important whims and fancies of all society. What space might this world leave for humour, say? Or more seriously, freedom of speech, and thus intellectual debate and progression? Perhaps, you might say, only those beliefs which people hold most dearly, at the core of their existence, should be barred from attack? Is it not instead the case that these beliefs should be scrutinised and satirised more than any others? Either we will come to see them as farcical and mistaken, or the attacks will meet rebuttal and those beliefs will become strengthened. The alternative is a world of static sterility, without vigour, passion or even truth.

It is for these reasons that the resignation of Robbie Yellon, former President of UCL’s Atheist, Agnostic and Secularist society, is such a great shame. His move came after controversy caused following the group’s Facebook post of a cartoon depicting Mohammed and Jesus drinking in a bar to advertise a pub night. The picture of course violates the sacred command prohibiting images of the prophet. Though the demand was most likely originally intended to prevent the worship of false idols, it is doubtful that Muslim voices advocating censorship are worried that over time they may come to pray for a cartoon. Why is it that so many, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are so opposed to the lighthearted mockery of a 7th century Arabian merchant?

This small tale is not the first of its kind. It is 14th February 1989. A death warrant is issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini for the writer Salman Rushdie. His crime? Writing a book that depicts the prophet and Islam unfavourably. Rushdie’s book is burned across the world with total vigour and a lack of shame. The fatwa still stands. In 2005 a Danish magazine publishes cartoons of the prophet, one as a terrorist. The reaction is hysterical; embassies are burned and people are killed. Even South Park’s creators censor their show. This recent fiasco is a minor variation on a major theme. I hope I find no disagreement among readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, in the view that these events are damnable in the highest degree.

So why do they ignite such sentiment? Let’s be frank - religion, Islam in particular, cannot take criticism well. In a society that professes to protect free speech, all institutions claiming power and authority will be subject to harmless jibes and rigorous scrutiny alike. If freedom of thought and expression is to be safeguarded there can be no exceptions. This includes politics, economics, science, but most importantly religion. I say most importantly because religion has so often seen itself as exempt from precisely this sort of attention. Blasphemy is a crime, punishable by death, in many nations of the world; most prominently in those fondest of Sharia law. It is not Islamophobic, nationalistic or unimportant to ask ourselves why this is. Some of the most troubled and violent regions of the world deny the freedom of expression that characterises some of the most developed.

The greatest threat to Islam comes from within. For a religion with a history of comparable tolerance, whose very name means peace, the refusal to even permit any form of critique displays nothing but an unreflective adherence to medieval norms of censorship. We cannot pander to the repugnant mindset of the Ayatollah that demands death in response to free expression. It is the same putrid intolerance that leads to ostensibly polite yet deeply misguided demands to ‘avoid causing unnecessary offence’. Offence is necessary. I have the right to offend you and you have the right to offend me. We all must do our upmost to keep it that way.

What Is Knowledge?

2012-01-10T11:46:00.000Z

Have you ever wondered what it is to know something? We use the term in everyday life constantly. Consider examples like your friend who’s unable to work the T.V. remote to which you say ‘I know how to do that’. Or when buying someone a gift you might say to yourself ‘I know that they like chocolates’. What do we mean when talk like this? You might notice that there are actually two kinds of knowledge displayed in the examples above. The first was knowing how to do something whilst the latter was knowing that something was the case. In this article, we’ll be talking about that second kind of knowing. Philosophers have worried about the problem of knowledge for a very long while indeed.

The problem of knowledge was generally held to have some kind of solution which took a standard form. It went something like this...

I know that something is the case if and only if:

I believe that something to be the case.
That something is the case.
I am justified in believing that something is the case.

Let’s work through an example to see just how this is a really intuitive thing to think. Let’s say that I want to know if I know that I am seeing a picture of Mount Everest. What the three conditions above say is that I only know that I am seeing a picture of Mount Everest if I believe I see the picture, there is actually a picture which I am seeing and that this belief is justified.

The first condition makes sense because I could hardly know I am seeing a picture of Mount Everest if I didn’t believe I was (although this has been disputed!). Secondly, I couldn’t know something that wasn’t true, so condition two seems sound. What about number three? Imagine I believe that every mountain in the world is called Everest. So whenever I look at a picture of a mountain I think it is Everest. It just so happens that this picture I’m looking at now is actually a picture of Mount Everest. Do I know that the picture is of Mount Everest? Surely not. But say if I have seen documentaries about Everest, seen pictures of it before and am in the presence of a reliable friend who assures me that this is Mount Everest. Now I know that I am seeing a picture of Mount Everest. The trouble is, I don’t.

Imagine you're an academic and up for tenure. If you get it you have job security for life. You’re worried since you haven’t published any papers so currently you’re unlikely to get it. The story goes that Edmund Gettier was in exactly the same position before he published a very short paper called ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’ and blew away over a thousand years of philosophy. Apparently, he’s not published anything since.

What Gettier did was to show us a situation where we can have a justified true belief yet still fail to have knowledge. He did this with two examples the first of which I’ll discuss here. Imagine Jones and Smith are going for the same job. Jones, sadly for him, has been informed by a very reliable person (say the one interviewing him) that Smith will get the job. What’s more Smith is a lot more qualified so Jones really doesn’t stand a chance. Now suppose that Jones, in an odd act of subterfuge, counts the number of coins in Smith’s pocket before the successful candidate is announced and that number is ten. So Jones infers that Smith has ten coins in his pocket and that since Smith will get the job he further infers that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pockets. Unbeknown to Jones he also has ten coins in his pocket and lo and behold, after a last minute change of heart, Jones gets the job. So here Jones believed something that was true and was justified in believing it, but did Jones really know that the man who will get the job had ten coins in his pockets? We really want to say no, since Jones was wrong in thinking that Smith would get the job, but if we accept the justified true belief account of the story, we have to accept that Jones possessed knowledge.

This problem has frustrated philosophers for a very long time and inspired a multitude of responses. The more you think about it the more frustrated you'll get. What’s your solution?

Jeremy Combs 1989 - 2011

2011-12-23T16:31:00.000Z

It's with great sadness that I pass on news of the death of Jeremy Combs who was a past contributor to Young Freethought. Jeremy died unexpectedly at the age of 22 on 17th December.

You can read an obituary on the Hartland Patch.

Jeremy wrote this excellent piece for Young Freethought, published on 4th April, on existentialism and suicide.

Our thoughts are with his friends and family at this difficult time.

The Hitch and I

2011-12-22T18:04:00.000Z

When I woke up last Friday I heard the news of Christopher Hitchens’ death on the radio. A feeling of shock accompanied what was an inevitability. I was shaken the whole day, deeply saddened by the death of a man I had never met. Why?

The many obituaries commenting on the life and work of Christopher Hitchens are often written by those who knew him. Some very well and others very little. It would seem out of place here to offer some kind of summary of how Hitchens lived. He reflected on such things well enough himself in his articles and interviews regarding his cancer. This small piece is simply an explanation of why ‘the Hitch’ meant what he did to me and, I think, why he meant the same to so many others.

My contact with Hitchens was small though it doesn’t appear that anyone could have spent enough time with him. Somehow in possession of his email address I sent what might be called fan-mail but to me seemed like a necessary proclamation of all I had learned from reading his work and a thank you for sharing it in the first place. I was thrilled when the response came through in the new year.

Very good of you to write in that vein: quite made my day.

Best of luck with your efforts. 

HNY and all that.

 Christopher H

That I can claim to have made a day of his still makes me proud even if he perhaps was only being kind.

When you read Christopher Hitchens’ work it is not just as if he is speaking to you in that deep and commanding timbre of his. He is ordering you to make more of yourself through the strength of his argument, flair of his pen and content of his character. Hitchens was a rare writer of whom you read and quite simply emerge a better person for it. His way was as if he knew you well. There is a fraternal intimacy between writer and reader which gives the impression of having known the writer for years.

Now that he is dead there is a weighty void which is filled only with echoes. It’s a void that tyranny in all it’s forms falls into never to emerge the victor.

Christopher Hitchens will remain a hero of mine for the rest of my life. A life that I can only hope might live up to the standards he championed.

Christopher Hitchens 1949 - 2011

2011-12-16T07:22:00.002Z

A.C. Grayling on the Meaning of Life.

2011-12-15T11:40:00.000Z

My attention was recently drawn to a short video posted on the New York Times website of an interview with the philosopher Anthony Grayling. In essence he is talking about the meaning of life. I quite agree with everything he says so I’d highly recommend a watch. It what follows I’ll summarise and discuss just what it is that Grayling’s wise words share.

Philosopher A.C. Grayling

The one, and alas the only, time I met A.C. Grayling was at a talk in late January 2009 at Birkbeck College. As an even younger bright-eyed aspiring philosophy student I furiously noted down everything I could and have been wondering ever since when those notes might come in handy. Sadly, today is not that today. Nonetheless, I spied Grayling in the college cafe afterwards and, rather awkwardly, formed a little queue of one behind the fellow Grayling was talking to. Kind enough to notice my efforts, Grayling moved on his interlocutor and said hello. I blurted out this that and the other before asking him a question I was at that time a little worried about - ‘How can life have meaning if there is no afterlife?’. Grayling told me, in that lovely distinctive voice of his, that being with friends, thinking about philosophy and all sorts of other worldly pleasures and endeavours gave his life meaning. I thanked him and walked off before he yelled to me ‘Come do philosophy at Birkbeck!’. I sadly didn’t take up the offer, though I am now a philosophy student. His answer was sincere, I could tell that much, but at the time I wondered whether it really answered my question. After a little thought it becomes clear that it does and this recent video explains why.

There is no lid, as the philosopher says, to take off in order to see meaning contained within some metaphysical vessel. It’s not ‘out there’ among the many wonderful facts of physics and astronomy. Meaning is a creation of our mental lives. The important thing to see is that this does not make it any less real than any kind of meaning (and it would be a strange kind indeed) that you could find in the spatio-temporal world, that is the physical world we live in.

“Freedom is agony” because we now have to find and for ourselves just what it is we desire in life. This harks back to a famous chapter from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov known as The Grand Inquisitor. The title character argues to a reborn Christ that people do not desire freedom but simply happiness. For him, it is the burden of a few to take on the responsibility of free choice whilst the others obey without concerning themselves with such things. It certainly is a frightening revelation to feel how free one is. The right response, surely, is to grasp the freedom and as Grayling says, to create something. “The meaning of life is to make life meaningful” is such a wonderfully put motto.

By setting goals that we desire to achieve meaning comes, not in achieving that goal, but in doing ones best to try to achieve it. The analogy Grayling brings with Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus is pertinent because in that scenario the goal not only will never be achieved, but is in some sense, impossible to achieve. I’ve written about this myth elsewhere a while back but it’s worth going over in case you’re unfamiliar with the story. Sisyphus was a deceitful King of Corinth who was forced by the gods to carry a boulder up a steep hill only to see it roll back down again. Sisyphus had to go back down and repeat his burden. This task would continue for all eternity. Camus then asks us to imagine Sisyphus happy. Here Sisyphus’ life is meaningful because of the attitude he takes towards it or is “made valuable by the goals it would realise if [he] succeeded in realising them.”

Though it might be frightening it is freedom of autonomy that “is the source of the good in life”. Meaning is a creation, a creation we ought to be proud of. Thank you Anthony Grayling for expressing all this so well.

We're Back!

2011-12-14T12:38:00.000Z

After a period of quiet after the storm, YFT is back. This time our brief is bigger and so are our ambitions. We are receiving articles on almost anything from anyone under twenty one. See our submissions page for more details.

This site is fuelled by your contributions so don't be shy. If you've got an idea get writing and send it in. If you don't feel like that right now, then get commenting and shape your views.

You may have noticed that this site has changed its domain to youngfreethought.net. As a result there are new email addresses so don't get confused if you're an old-timer.

I really look forward to hearing from you all.

Darwin's Essays

2011-08-15T11:00:00.002+01:00

I'm very pleased to be able to present you with an exciting new opportunity today courtesy of Pete Darwin. All the information is at this website address but, in Pete's own words, this is the deal:

Dear all young non-theists! I am Pete Darwin and I’m an avid secular humanist atheist and have been all my life. I’m currently completing a Masters of Science at the University of Melbourne in the area of evolutionary genetics and zoology. Anyway, I am working at putting together a book of essays regarding the younger generations’ rise to atheism.

The idea for this book was brought about when I decided I wanted to tell my story about how I became an atheist, as well as share a bit about my personal life with religion and numerous fundi family members. It’s been a bumpy and interesting ride to say the least. However, while reflecting on my own history with religion and atheism I knew there must be numerous other interesting, amazing, scary, and even heartbreaking stories out there that should also be told.

And the details?

To write 2000-5000 words:

Firstly, on their rise to atheism (the when, where, why, how), and any other interesting personal stories with religion or supernatural belief.

Secondly, on the role atheism plays in your life.

Thirdly, on at least one thing that brought them to atheism or solidifies there position there.

This is a great opportunity and I hope many of you will submit your essays.

Belief vs Non-Belief

2011-08-05T11:55:00.001+01:00

The journalist Andrew Zak Williams has recently conducted a quite interesting survey of Britain’s public figures over belief in God. Williams asked believers why they believed, and non-believers why they didn’t. It makes interesting reading and you can find the articles by following the links embedded above.

On the side of the believers, many of the arguments appeal to religious experiences and most refer to some kind of emotional as well as intellectual fulfilment. Occasionally, the atheistic alternative is seen as too dreadfully morbid to accept. Stephen Clark, for example, wrote that...

I believe in God because the alternatives are worse. Not believing in God would mean that we have no good reason to think that creatures such as us human beings (accidentally generated in a world without any overall purpose) have any capacity - still less any duty - to discover what the world is like.

I’d hope for more from a professor of philosophy than ‘I don’t like the alternative answer, so I’ll choose this one’. Moreover, it seems to be a common misunderstanding that just because we are an evolved primate, we are unable to understand the world. In fact, our evolutionary advantage stems from the fact that we can and do understand the world, albeit our own little corner of it.

Still more strange was this answer from Hugh Ross, an astronomer:

Astronomy fascinates me. I started serious study of the universe when I was seven. By the age of 16, I could see that Big Bang cosmology offered the best explanation for the history of the universe, and because the Big Bang implies a cosmic beginning, it would require a cosmic beginner. It seemed reasonable that a creator of such awesome capacities would speak clearly and consistently if He spoke at all. So I spent two years perusing the holy books of the world's religions to test for these characteristics. I found only one such book. The Bible stood apart: not only did it provide hundreds of "fact" statements that could be tested for accuracy, it also anticipated - thousands of years in advance - what scientists would later discover, such as the fundamental features of Big Bang cosmology.

My observation that the Bible's multiple creation narratives accurately describe hundreds of details discovered much later, and that it consistently places them in the scientifically correct sequence, convinced me all the more that the Bible must be the supernaturally inspired word of God. Discoveries in astronomy first alerted me to the existence of God, and to this day the Bible's power to anticipate scientific discoveries and predict sociopolitical events ranks as a major reason for my belief in the God of the Bible. Despite my secular upbringing, I cannot ignore the compelling evidence emerging from research into the origin of the universe, the anthropic principle, the origin of life and the origin of humanity. The accumulating evidence continues to point compellingly towards the God of the Bible.

The Bible showing the correct sequence of events in creation? Is that why the Earth, water, grass and trees all occurred before the creation of stars according to Genesis? Presumably then, our planet is made of no element heavier than helium, as stars are required for such a task? It’s really quite silly of Ross to say such a thing. I gather he does it a lot.

On the other side of the fence we find AC Grayling in a nicely cutting mood with:

I do not believe that there are any such things as gods and goddesses, for exactly the same reasons as I do not believe there are fairies, goblins or sprites, and these reasons should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten.

Bravo.

Daniel Dennett too gives a characteristically straightforward and thoughtful answer:

The concept of God has gradually retreated from the concept of an anthropomorphic creator figure, judge and overseer to a mystery-shrouded Wonderful Something-or-Other utterly beyond human ken. It is impossible for me to believe in any of the anthropomorphic gods, because they are simply ridiculous, and so obviously the fantasy-projections of scientifically ignorant minds trying to understand the world. It is impossible for me to believe in the laundered versions, because they are systematically incomprehensible. It would be like trying to believe in the existence of wodgifoop - what's that? Don't ask; it's beyond saying.

But why try anyway? There is no obligation to try to believe in God; that's a particularly pernicious myth left over from the days when organised religions created the belief in belief. One can be good without God, obviously.

Many people feel very strongly that one should try to believe in God, so as not to upset Granny, or so as to encourage others to do likewise, or because it makes you nicer or nobler. So they go through the motions. Usually it doesn't work.

I am in awe of the universe itself, and very grateful to be a part of it. That is enough.

But sadly it seems, the fantastic Ben Goldacre seemed pretty apathetic about the entire thing. He wrote that:

I think probably the main answer to your question is: I just don't have any interest either way, but I wouldn't want to understate how uninterested I am. There still hasn't been a word invented for people like me, whose main experience when presented with this issue is an overwhelming, mind-blowing, intergalactic sense of having more interesting things to think about. I'm not sure that's accurately covered by words such as "atheist", and definitely not by "agnostic". I just don't care.

I understand exactly where Goldacre is coming from, but it does portray a lack of willingness to engage in an issue that the majority of people of the planet shape their entire, or at least some of their, lives with. Justifying non-belief with a simple 'I don't care' isn't a justification at all. And not to provide one a little crass.

If you have some spare time, give the articles a read. Also have a look at Williams’ review of the answers from believers.

Can Religion Be Beautiful?

2011-08-03T18:29:00.003+01:00

“Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein. Let them curse it that curse the day. Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day.”

Job as de La Hyre envisaged him

These are the words of a man who has just lost all his possessions and offspring in a terrible accident. These are the words of a man who is forced to scrape the awful boils that plague his body off with pieces of pottery. These are the words of Job, lamenting the night he was born.

The Book of Job is, of course, infamous. In it God boasts to Satan that there is none holier and more righteous than the man Job. Satan wishes to test this theory by inflicting a series of misfortunes on Job, as already described, and God permits this. The book is a dialogue between Job and his companions whilst they try and understand exactly why God has acted in this way. For devout believers this story presents a challenge to their own understanding. Some might call it beautiful. What is clear, or at least what I think is clear, is that the language of the Book of Job in the King James Bible is beautiful. Balanced, metaphorical, rhythmic even cathartic. I read Job and I admire these things for their beauty. But, as an individual not tied down to dogma or holy works, I believe Job to be an abhorrent story with an abhorrent moral and an abhorrent God at its centre. It teaches us to cower under authority and respect that which governs us with apparent whim. Therefore, the question; is the Book of Job beautiful?

The story is a good one for understanding the difficulties behind the relationship between religion and beauty as a whole. There is, of course, no criteria by which we can determine beauty objectively. It has been and will be always open to discussion. However, thinking about how I look at Job, it’s clear that my mind is divided between two parts – the words and emotions, which I find beautiful, and the narrative, which I don’t. Is this kind of distinction really possible when it comes to religious art?

Christopher Hitchens’ bestseller, god Is Not Great, has the subtitle How Religion Poisons Everything. Let’s say that an individual performs a series of fantastically generous and kind deeds. I hear about such people and applaud their nature. If I hear that what motivated them to do such things was their religion, I applaud less loudly. I do so because I think obedience to a divine creed, even fear of a divine being, is no good reason for doing anything, let alone charity. Religion has poisoned the good work done. No matter what the deed is this will be the case.

Now compare. You catch on the radio a beautiful piece of classical music playing. The voices soar, the melody sonorously glides and the texture builds into something rich and rewarding. In short, it’s beautiful. The piece ends and the disc jockey proudly declares “... that was the dona nobis pacem from the Mass in B minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.” Damn and blast. It’s a Mass. A piece, not just of musical expression, but religious worship. Is it still beautiful? It would be very hard indeed to say no. But is it as beautiful? Unfortunately, I don’t think so.

Motive is the key factor here. There have been those, Roland Barthes comes to mind, who have proclaimed, as he did, ‘The Death of The Author’. An author’s or artists’ intention is less important than the work produced. However, as long as I know the author of the work did have religious intentions, I cannot remove this from my understanding of the work, at least not in any practical un-abstract sense. Even if Bach had been a Dawkensian atheist the piece itself professes a motive. It is aimed at worshiping God. Motive can, in my opinion, poison art.

The saving grace here might perhaps be the use of perspective. As I outlined in another article on a similar topic, perspective allows us to understand better the minds and actions of those whose views and outlook are vastly different from our own.

But still, the question remains: can religion be beautiful? I think the answer ought to be yes, ‘the religious’ can be beautiful – but not as beautiful as something that isn’t.

The Foundation Beyond Belief

2011-08-02T16:11:00.001+01:00

My attention has just been drawn to the work of a very worthy foundation whom I think it would be worth alerting you all to. The Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) try and promote the obvious idea that secular human beings care for the needy just as much as the religious do. Stated clearly on their website, their mission is:

“To demonstrate humanism at its best by supporting efforts to improve this world and this life, and to challenge humanists to embody the highest principles of humanism, including mutual care and responsibility.”

Sounds pretty worthy to me.

The FBB selects ten small secular charities each quarter and raises funds for them. As explained to me by the FBB, these are the reasons to join:

“...you’ll be putting your humanist values into action and benefitting people around the globe. In addition to raising money for worthy charities, with assurance that the money will be spent on programs, not proselytizing…

1. You will have access to nominate and debate future beneficiaries
2. You choose which charities you support each quarter
3. You can participate in the social network areas of the site and connect with other humanists
4. You can donate to multiple charities from one website”

Please do inspect their work further and consider donating. It could make a difference to someone out there.

Welcome To The Universe

2011-08-01T14:23:00.002+01:00

In this, rather morbid essay, regular contributor John Kubinski returns on top form with his thoughts on the "ruthless brutality" of the universe, reacting to an accident that hospitalised him.

Following an accident in which my face free-fell to asphalt, I came to the following realization: The universe is our worst enemy. Using ruthless brutality and indiscriminate violence, it will maim and kill all of us. These are the brute facts, and they constitute premises from which no additional reasoning can be done. The destructive tyranny of the physical world is immutable and totalizing. One dreams of revolution, but there is no doubt that we are forever condemned as slaves to the indifferent order.

We use the word “accident” as though human misery is a mistake. From the physical perspective, there are no accidents. The universe, with frightening efficiency, systematically inflicts harm and loss on each and everyone of us. Every modicum of pain, every weakening of our powers, every disappearance of greatness and beauty - it’s all staged beforehand. The situation is worse than being written in stone; these hellish facts provide the stone tablet that constrains whatever it is may be written. We have access to one medium. It's crude, violent, and only permits the telling of one story: gruelling oppression. Torture and death are guaranteed in advance.

There is no greater feeling of helplessness then to realize that one has a body. (I should in fact say that one is a body.) It is to understand that we subsist on a purely material basis as a mere collection of “stuff.” Unprivileged stuff. Like the wood or metal that makes up the objects around us, we can be cut, bent, crushed, shredded, torn, sliced, shaved, ripped, broken, incinerated, frozen, or disintegrated. We find ourselves inhabiting a universe where objects move at dangerous speeds, where temperatures have been known to rise beyond the point which we can tolerate, and where magnitudes of force that our bodies cannot withstand are encountered with regularity. And if the terrain were not treacherous enough, there are other assemblages of organic matter out there who will destroy us upon contact - some small, some large, some who are just like us. (It’s amazing that in a world already as harsh as ours, people are willing to kill each other.) Don’t forget, if the impossible circumstance arises in which external threats fail to end us, there is always the certain internal degradation of our own vessel to keep us from having any hope. We are thrown into this world enchained to a carbon-based time bomb. And if you don’t hear it ticking then you’re simply not listening.

Recovery from my “accident” will not qualify as a victory. Quite to the contrary I face a very real loss. I emerge with parts of my teeth removed, and my skin irrevocably blemished. “But you’re ok, aren’t you?” For now. We are always dodging bullets; I have just been grazed by one, and more shots will be fired. Another chink accumulates in my armour. So it goes until the executioner stops fooling around.

Vulnerable. This was the word I kept coming back to. I am vulnerable with no hope of safety. The conditions which enable me to enjoy life are physical conditions, and physical conditions can always change. In the hospital I was placed next to an old man who was clearly suffering from neurodegeneration. He had trouble remembering what season it was. I could see a human being dissolving. He mentioned that he had lost his sense of smell as a result of a motorbike accident. A whole mode of experience had been seized from him. All the pleasures of olfaction were forevermore prohibited. Reality had revoked his permission to smell. It was pure violence. The joys of existence can literally be beaten out of you. A blow to the skull might rob you of sight or hearing, of memories or lucidity, of your passions and relationships. I suffered no such losses, but this was a matter of luck. I can still run and jump. I can still read and write. I can still learn and think. I can still love. This will all change.

I cannot believe I’ve gone through a fair portion of my life doubting whether there was really such a thing as “good” or “bad.” There is certainly bad, I’ve just met it. With a painfully strong hand-shake and a dismissive attitude the first thing it tells you, in a tone of bold assurance, is that you cannot win. Your rage is naturally inspired by the opponent, but with the rules of engagement so heavily biased, the urge to fight yields more frustration than progress. You get kicked in the face, you can't fight back; welcome to the universe. The narrative of course depends on an additional character in order to be compelling: good. Life only ends up being so bad precisely on account of how good it is. Our subjectivities are as rich and wondrous as the existentialists, poets, and artists have told us. Nietzsche wrote: “…in the long run there results something for which it is worth the trouble of living on this earth as, for example, virtue, art, music, the dance, reason, the mind — something that transfigures, something delicate, mad, or divine.” This quote first struck me as a reasonable proposition, but now I see it to be on the order of maxim. Good things really do spring from the human well. I no longer have to wonder what good is. I am convinced that my whole life I have been touching it with my own hands and seeing it with my own eyes; and not only have I encountered it, but I’ve taken part in its creation. I’ve performed it, written it, thought it. Like the air I breathe, there’s so much of it that I’ve failed to detect that it was there at all. If my suffering is real, then so must be the good things of which suffering deprives me. I now understand why Camus says a happy man is a tragedy.

I should add, words cannot truly capture the terror of reality. It must be felt and confronted in the midst of experience. The elegance of language obscures the fundamental ugliness of the world. I’ve mouthed many of the words in this essay before, but usually only as an abstract intellectual exercise. That I’m part of the system, and not merely an observer, has come as quite a shock. When you lose one thing, you realize you can, and will, lose everything. The universe is really as hostile as it seems.

To distill my conclusions:

Reality is ugly, life is beautiful.

Morality In The Absence Of Religion

2011-07-31T13:34:00.002+01:00

In this excellent article by a new contributor, Matthew Bullard examines the relationship between religion, morality and society. Matthew is a nineteen year old studying in Paris.

Everything that people look for in a god can be found in those around us; why look upwards for guidance when you can look to your side?

After having become more and more disgruntled at the claims made by Christians that Atheism preaches immorality; retreating to use a fictional power as evidence when the argument subsided, I began to question the society in which we live and how religion and social condition have left such a large proportion of the population purblind to scientific fact, instead choosing to rely on scripture and outdated religion for guidance.

There is but one unanswered question in life which seems to hold a universal significance, with opinions on the matter pervading every corner of the earth; that question being whether or not there exists a higher power. If one accepts the scientific fact-negating notion that the world in which we live is governed by an ethereal being, the individual is able to tolerate life’s hardships as their struggle, providing it has been moral, will be rewarded in the afterlife. Yet for those reasoned individuals for whom life is entirely self-governed, is there any room for morality once confronted with the nondescript uncertainty of what life entails?

Society needs a common moral framework. This may be, and for many centuries has been, provided by widespread religious belief, but in the twenty-first century, surely one can be moral for reasons other than conformity with a religion. Nietzsche once said, ‘He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.’ which for the Judeo-Christian world affirms the belief that tolerance of hardship, and a moral life lived in accordance with the ten commandments will be rewarded in the afterlife. Although rendering the inconvenient truth for the non-theistic world that the meaning of life is not tangible, it does not necessarily condemn the individual to a life of immorality. According to a study by the Global Peace Index, irreligious and non-theistic nations are the most peaceful in the world; there are several possible reasons for this. It could be that the population of turbulent countries turn to religion to escape the ordeals of their lives, or it could be that religion is not a good way to structure modern society. In any case, it irrefutably sheds light on the matter that morality doesn’t have a distinct correlation with faith; the word faith used to encompass all religious belief, aside from the aforementioned Judeo-Christian religion.

The structure of society in the twenty-first century is that of a multi-cultural cosmopolitan community which encompasses all nations and all faiths, and whilst still maintaining individuality from country to country, there is a much larger sense of a global community. Look back to the beginning of the twentieth century and the world was a completely different place; religious belief was widespread with atheism being a taboo, yet with the advancements made socially over the last hundred years, why is there such significance placed on religion to provide a moral framework?

As Eugene Ionesco once said, ‘No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.’

The real question about morality being derived from the bible is, “Do new notions of morality come from better interpretations of the bible, or does the new notion of morality cause the different interpretations?” Surely a consciously aware, globally active community such as the United Kingdom doesn’t need to rely on thousand-year old scripture in order to live a moral life; surely morality is an inherent part of a modern society, with its upkeep being maintained by the society as a whole; surely morality can be secular.

Notification

2011-06-13T18:58:00.002+01:00

Young Freethought will be back with regular updates this August. Sorry for this everyone! In the meantime, please keep sending in your articles. They are getting read and will be posted come August!

All the best
MJPC

British Faith Schools Looking Shaky

2011-05-03T15:15:00.008+01:00

Andrew Copson, the chief executive of the BHA has written a thoughtful piece in the Guardian about recent Church announcements over British faith schools. It may seem obvious to many of us without much thought why faith schools are such a bad idea. Copson’s article reaffirms this stance and provides the evidence to back it up.

After making it clear that most of us don’t actually want publicly funded religiously selective education anyway, Copson goes on to reveal their truly divisive social nature. Middle class parents simply can afford to play the system to get their children where they want them. Copson writes:

Repeated studies have shown that where there is religious selection in church-run state schools there is also social selection. A report by academics at the LSE in 2009 reaffirmed that the range of admissions criteria allowed scope for school "discretion", but social selection need not even be deliberate on the part of church-run state schools. Even the most socially progressive school will find, if its admissions criteria allow for religious selection, that it is middle-class parents with the time and the means to play the system whose children will end up attending the school. The pupils admitted to religiously selective schools are more academically able and less likely to be on free school meals than others in the area. They show all the attributes of socially selected children.

It shouldn’t be forgotten either, that the basic principle that the religious, purely because of their faith, are therefore qualified to educate the youth is wrong. Of course, one does not follow the other. Neither should we ignore that faith schools provide the perfect place for subtle indoctrination.

The Bishop of Oxford has admitted that now at least 90% of schools shouldn’t be religiously selective. As Copson says the Bishop’s “statement can certainly be given at least 90% of one cheer for going further than any of his predecessors.” It’s certainly a start at the very least.

If you’re 21 or under and perhaps have had experience of faith schools first hand, you may wish to write in to us about this issue so we can publish your views. The address is still youngfreethought@googlemail.com

The Catholic Church Fights Justice Once More

2011-05-02T11:14:00.006+01:00

Yesterday we witnessed the Vatican’s flagrant disregard for justice in full regalia and pomp. The late Pope John Paul II, now the Blessed, was one of the most popular in history. He has now been beatified which is, in essence, the penultimate step on the road to sainthood. Yesterday there was a one million strong crowd filling St Peter’s Basilica rejoicing that their favourite pontiff was now safely in Heaven. By all accounts the crowd was jubilant with a carnival atmosphere as many young people took to dancing and cheering.

So what’s the problem? John Paul II ruled over an institution which regularly raped children in almost every country where you can find a priest, he knew about the scandal and refused to do anything to stop it, the Vatican did not refer cases to the appropriate authorities, priests were not tried in criminal courts, children were made to feel guilty about their abuse and all parties involved were ordered to keep their mouths firmly shut. Not to mention how John Paul II prevented contraceptive use in the developing nations causing the spread of HIV where it is most deadly, and preached the usual Catholic bile over women, homosexuals and abortion. There is an ever increasing mountain of documents to back this up. Denying it is now a ludicrous thing to do. All those who came out in celebration yesterday were either knowledgeable of this and therefore either morally condemnable or in denial, or they knew nothing of the Church’s role in the scandal and their ignorance is inexcusable as Catholics. That is the problem. Nothing will get done about this and the old cretin will surely be declared to have been a saint in the near future. Our governments have already proven themselves too weak and unwilling to do anything about these rapists and pederasts and their masters who hide behind the walls of the Vatican.

To add insult to those who value justice, the Vatican invited none other than Robert Mugabe to the ceremony yesterday. The President of Zimbabwe is currently under an EU travel ban for crimes against humanity and electoral fraud, but this was waived by the cowardly Italian state to allow Mugabe to land at Rome Airport and travel to the Vatican, which is by all practical measures, apparently above international law anyway.

War Criminal Mugabe shaking hands with Vatican officials

All of this should come as no surprise, but how these villains get away with all this is genuinely astounding. Overseeing the beatification process was Ratzinger, the man who personally ordered the cover-up of all these abuse cases. John Paul II is required to have performed a miracle in order to be beatified. The miracle in question has so far not been independently verified (not that a miracle ever can or will be), and reports that the supposed cured subject has fallen ill again have met deaf ears. The only good story regarding the Church at the moment is that a court in Kentucky has recently demanded that the current Pope appear to answer questions under oath over an abuse scandal. Whether this will happen is uncertain.

That we live in an age that can celebrate the lives of such men so openly, that we can disregard justice and that we can ignore the voices of those who have been raped by people meant to protect and guide them makes me greatly uneasy and ashamed. The overwhelming feeling that justice will never be delivered is one of the saddest thoughts there is.