A reminder from a courageous man that some of us really do have it easy.

A couple of weeks ago I met a man on Twitter who is an ex-Muslim atheist living in Saudi Arabia.  He and I have talked a little, and at the end of last week I asked him if he'd be willing to write about his experiences for this blog; he very kindly obliged.

I am not going to give my new friend's name, because atheists in Saudi Arabia can find themselves in genuine, mortal danger if they are discovered to be apostates.  I find parts of his account heartbreaking, and others hopeful and inspiring; as with Bethany's story from the other week, though, I was struck by the similarity between my friend's experiences and those of so many others I've spoken to.  It's a strange and in some ways a very moving reflection that however different our cultures and backgrounds may be, we atheists are often so similar in how we think and how we came to reject our indoctrination.

My scepticism and outspokenness are so much parts of me that I struggle even to imagine what it must be like to be required to suppress them for my own safety.  I am glad to have met my new friend, and honoured that he consented to write this for me.  It's a reminder to us in Europe and other places of just how lucky we are to live where we do, and of some of the reasons the fight against religion really is important despite what many of our detractors try to tell us.  But this also fills me with tremendous hope for the future; through modern technology, we are able to speak to people, share experiences and support each other from distances of thousands of miles.  I believe this new ability may in time bring about the start of an enlightenment in parts of the world where religion currently dominates.

My friend submits this with apologies for his English; I will say, though, that those apologies are entirely unnecessary as his own words needed only the most minor of tweaks from me.  I would like to thank him most sincerely for sharing this with me, and for allowing me to share it with you.

"The story of how I became an atheist.

Before you read this I have to say there will be a lot of grammatical mistakes. I am sorry for that; I will try my best.

I am a guy who was born 16 years ago to a Muslim family in Palestine  Like every child who was born in a Muslim family I was raised to think that Islam is the one true religion and every other one is false.  My parents wanted me to become a Hafiz (a person who has memorized the whole of the Quran), so I became one at the age of 12 and got the second place in a competition in my city.

As a child I always had questions about Islam, like why Christians are going to hell even though they believe in God and pray; the answer was that they are just wrong and Islam is right because the Quran says so. When I got a little older I became interested in science (physics and biology mostly); I was still memorizing the Quran so this created huge conflict in me, but I stilled believed in God and thought it was a test to my faith.

When I turned 14 my father died and my family and I moved to Saudi Arabia (my mom works here as a XXXXX).  I joined the school and found that we have 5 subjects about religion (they are mandatory); we have to pray in school; and my sisters have to go to school wearing burqa, even though none of them are over 13.  I also have a little brother.

I started criticizing Saudi Arabia (in my mind of course, not in public) because they are extremists even though that I knew my religion promotes that, so I became an agnostic for quite a while.  Then I got to a point where I said to myself that this religion doesn’t make any sense and neither does any other; the idea of God, heaven, hell… etc. are absurd, and all the fairy tales that were put into my mind when I was child also don’t make any sense to me.  That was the point when I became an atheist.

A few months ago I decided to tell my 4 best friends in Palestine about this. We talked on Skype. The first one took it well and said you have the right to believe whatever you want; we didn’t argue about it. The second and third friends are brothers; when I told them they were a little bit shocked but also said you can believe whatever you want and that my atheism wasn’t  so big a deal as to end a friendship. The fourth friend was my best best friend; we were friends for more than 11 years.  When I told him he argued with me about a lot of things and got really angry; we argued for about 2 hours on Skype, and in the end he told me “man I can’t talk to you anymore. It’s nothing personal, but my religion says so”. Just like that an 11 year friendship was ended; I got a little emotional and maybe cried a little, but I got over it.

A few days after that I decided to tell my mother since I felt such a release when I told my friends.  I told her in private about my honest opinions; she was very shocked (as I had expected). She told me that I am wrong and Islam is the one true religion and all that stuff; I didn’t want to argue because I felt her pain in thinking that her son will be tortured in hell or could get killed in this country.  In the end I told her that I was not really an atheist but that I had a lot of questions about a lot of things. She said that’s OK, that it was just a phase and that God wanted to test my faith. We’ve barely spoken on the subject again; just a few times she’s told me to watch some lectures by “Muslim scholars”, and to pray. Now I pretend to pray and to believe in Islam, as a lot of ex-Muslims do.

So now I never open a conversation about religion. I don’t want any of my Saudi friends to know that I am an atheist, because if the government heard about it I would be killed for apostasy. 

That was the story of how I became an atheist, and some of my experiences. Thank you for reading."

Update: On the advice of a few people, I have edited out a couple of personal details from the above account. Their loss does not affect the point or the tone of what is being said.

Why do I do this?

I had lunch today with a customer (yes, I have a job, just one aspect of the actual life I have beyond arguing about religion and geeking it up on science!) who added me on facebook a while back.  I'd forgotten he could see what I talk about on there - or talked about, anyway, I don't really bother with FB any more - and he asked me why I take time I could be using profitably to talk about religion, why I have such a problem with it.

It's a question I get asked all the time; even my family don't understand in the slightest why I do this, so I thought I'd have a crack at answering it.  I can only give my reasons, of course (and the list will not be exhaustive, by the way, I'd have to write a textbook for that); nobody speaks for all atheists or all antitheists and in fact I know many of both who would probably disagree with much of what I'm about to say.

There's a lot contained within the following which I'll go into in a moment, but for me the issue with religion can be summarised in one sentence:

Religion wants to tell us all - even those of us who don't believe it - how to live; it demands a say in decisions and policies that affect all our lives, and it does so without offering so much as a single shred of evidence that any of what it tries to dictate is based in reality.

One of many things I wish I could make believers understand is just how much you start to notice the influence religion has on all our lives once you stop believing in it yourself.  In fact, there's an idea; if you're reading this and you're a religious person, I have a challenge for you.  Watch the news on TV this evening, and just try to reflect honestly on how much of what you see can be directly linked with religious belief. I think you'll be surprised, and it might help you to understand how it can feel to be an outsider to the whole thing.

I'm lucky enough to live in the UK, which is relatively progressive (although we still lag behind other parts of Europe in some respects).  Yet even here, I am part of a society in which being gay or bisexual is still considered worthy of note, and where doing nothing more objectionable than satisfying sexual desire can still make a woman the subject of mockery, suspicion, contempt, even outright hatred. Sex - when it occurs outside the traditional one-man-one-woman, pair-bonded-and-monogamous-forever paradigm - is still regarded by many as a dirty, shameful thing to do. Do we really think this is unconnected with the concept of "sin" as promulgated by the Church of England for centuries and by the Catholic church before that?

We still live in a society, too, in which religion is accorded respect it simply does not deserve.  I disagree with many religious values on moral grounds, but because I am an atheist - as opposed to a member of another religion or of the same religion but a differing opinion - I am often expected to keep my mouth shut out of "respect". I recently had an argument online with a believer about the right-to-die laws in the UK when they were shown up for the antiquated, wantonly cruel laws they are by the Tony Nicklinson appeal case (outlined here); I think the laws need to be changed, he maintained that they're OK as they are - and his reasoning for this came from his religion.  It is not possible to have a discussion about an ethical issue with someone whose ethics are based on religion if you cannot criticise or question that religion. And that means its very fundamentals, too, not just whatever verse the person happens to have pulled out of their arse this time. After all, what Jahweh says about assisted suicide doesn't matter two shits if Jahweh cannot be proven to be any more real than Severus Snape (although personally, I'd prefer to live in a universe run by the latter than by the former).  It is utter nonsense - madness - lunacy - to accept "I believe deity X exists, therefore everybody else must take into account what I say s/he thinks about Y" as if it were a reasonable premise, yet we all do it all the time.

But I'm very lucky to live in the UK; there are infinitely worse places to live, and it's no coincidence that - with the still baffling exception of the USA, where people with no idea how lucky they are seem determined to think the laws and mores of places like Somalia something to aspire to - an increase in religiosity is strongly correlated with a decline in human rights, freedoms and quality of life (see this map for a simple outline). Many of the poorest, most deprived, most oppressive and most dangerous places to live on our planet are also the most religious, and when one considers what follows when religion is allowed to become powerful this is not surprising.  So I could bitch about being called a slapper for wearing a tight top or about being hit on at a conference or about being met with hostility when I speak my mind on certain subjects - but the fact is that I'm exceptionally lucky.  There are places in the world where I could be killed for some of the things I say and do and think - and the laws that would allow that are almost all religiously based.

My right to free expression is protected under law in the UK, but that's not the case everywhere by a long shot - and again, it's often religion that prevents this. People have died this week because of something someone said about a deranged paedophile who lived 1,400 years ago.  This is not OK, and to try to argue that we should tolerate or even respect it because it's part of "a different culture" is sickening and utterly cowardly.  All that does is label the people who do the killing irretrievable savages and their victims not worth so much as an admonition.

This is not the time to get into the reasons all religions are factually ludicrous; if you're not clear on that, consider how logical you find a religion other than your own and then just try to accept the fact that yours is no different from the outside.  Even deism is no better than a grandly illogical god-of-the-gaps argument, and to then take that fallacious premise and progress with it to try and tell us all what the deity thinks of our sex lives or our diets is just insane. Suffice it to say, if belief in the doctrine of any one religion were as reasonable and based on evidence as proponents like to pretend, we would not have thousands of conflicting religions and an ever-growing number of people with no religion at all.

Religion affects me and the people I love by throwing up barriers to birth control, to abortion, to dignity in death, to medical research, to equality, to gay marriage, to free expression, to open politics, to reasoned debate, to scientific advancement and to education. People all over the globe are murdered, tortured, abused, enslaved, mutilated, oppressed, threatened, violated, debased, even starved and allowed to contract  lethal but preventable diseases... all in the name of religious beliefs.  And to really hammer the point home - religion does all this, and yet never, in the entire course of human history, have we seen one shred of credible, verifiable evidence that what any religion has to tell us is correct.  In fact, we've had endless proofs that it's crap... and yet we are still ordered to respect it while it commits such atrocities.

That is why I get so angry about religion.

"Islamophobia" - time to end the doublespeak.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that a number of people in the Islamic world are kicking off and killing people about something utterly trivial. Again. If you do need to catch up, though, there's a decent tl;dr here.

However, at this point you could be forgiven for not being terribly interested in what's set the nutters off this time (although you should definitely care about their actions, which have already left many dead. Again.). I mean, you can guess. Someone spoke or wrote or drew (or in this case made a film, as it happens) about their "prophet" Mohammed and so they're screaming blasphemy and demanding retribution. Again. Because they absurdly think their damn silly superstitious rules apply not only to them but to everybody else. Again. And their response has been crazily, loonily, insanely disproportionate.

..... Again.

If there is any good that can come out of this whole depressing mess, it's that the Muslims who're doing it - and I accept they're a minority, by the way - are hurting their own cause when they do this stuff, in the long run at least.

Why?

Because they're making Muslims look like lunatics. They're showing Islam up for the oppressive, paranoid, violent ideology it is. They're showing the world that Islam cares more about some obscure film than it does about murder, injustice, torture, abuse, oppression, mutilation, inequity and violence. They're demonstrating again that Islam cares more that we should all feign respect for their "prophet" than it does for innocent human life.

And you don't get away from that, by the way, with "oh but Islam isn't really about that".  Bull. Shit. Christians have been making the NoTrueChristianTM argument for centuries, and it doesn't wash for them either.  If you believe in the "truth" of a given book - and if you consider that belief a virtuous thing - you don't get to object when someone else takes those same lessons from that same book and uses them to justify murdering somebody. Know why? Because they have precisely the same amount of evidence to say that their beliefs are correct as you do to say yours are - that is, none. Nada. Zip. Bupkis. Zilch. (That goes for arguments between religions too, by the way; someone who believes for no rational reason that Book X is magic hasn't a moral or logical leg to stand on when someone else believes the same about Book Y and acts on that - but that's maybe a point for another day.)

I can virtually guarantee that at least some people who read this - Muslim or otherwise - will by now have dismissed me as "Islamophobic", or even racist.  But I have a couple of points to make about those two accusations (because it's not the first time they've been aimed at me).

"Racist", first, because that's the most transparently nonsensical thing to call someone who dislikes Islam. The only way in which an aversion to a religion could be taken to mean an aversion to a "race" of people would be  if one had to belong to a certain race in order to be a Muslim. Not only is that demonstrably not the case, but even if it were true it would make Islam racist, not me.

And "Islamophobic", which brings me back to the title of this entry.

I am sick. To goddamn. Death. Of this mealy-mouthed, snivelling, craven, manipulative, lying little gobshite of a word that's wormed its way into our lexicon.

Look up "phobia" in any decent dictionary. There are lots of variations on a theme, but you'll notice there is a commonality; they all describe a "phobia" as irrational, illogical, disproportionate to the danger, unreasonable. My chest-constricting, panic-inducing, uncontrollable fear of injections is all of those things - it is a phobia.  My fear and dislike of Islam is not irrational, or illogical, or unreasonable - and it certainly is not disproportionate to the danger it poses. Just ask the families of all the people it's killed.

We know what happens when Islam is allowed to rule, we've watched it for centuries; education and reason are set at naught, women become property, people can be murdered at whim in the name of "honour", genocide can be justified by reference to the magic book. And to draw the "prophet" Mohammed becomes the greatest of all wrongs, an insult that can justify murder.  There are factions within Islam that openly wish to destroy Western ideals and take over. One of the most common taunts I hear from Muslims when discussing religion online is along the lines of "watch out Europe, you'll fall to Islam in the next 10/20/50 years".

So yes, you're damn right I'm scared of Islam, as well as considering it ethically loathsome, factually laughable and worthy of no respect whatsoever (that last point is crucial - I am scared of Islam, but I do not respect it. Do not mistake the two). I consider freedom of expression to be the most important right we have, and we in the West have fought hard to get it. I am scared of any ideology that threatens this freedom. Is that irrational, when we know through centuries of bitter experience what happens when we don't have that freedom? I don't think so. I consider that a perfectly rational dread, which by definition means it is not a phobia.  So please can we drop the ridiculous, knee-jerk label? All it does is reinforce the notion that those of us who watch Islam with fear are unreasonable in that fear or in our expression of it. We're not; we're precisely the opposite.

Time to get back to laughing at superstition.

Well, in all the hysteria and ill-feeling surrounding Atheism Plus, I've grown almost nostalgic for the sort of stick I usually only get from religious people.  When you've grown accustomed to "you're a murdering whore and you'll burn in hell", "gender traitor" and "chill girl" (which latter I rather like, actually) can only ward off the cravings for so long... and I'm jonesing for a meaningful argument now.

So, I thought I'd ask everyone - here and my lovely peeps on Twitter - a question.  Well, two, actually, though they're related.

1: What's the single dumbest/silliest/wrongest/funniest/most infuriating argument you hear from believers in defence of their faith, and why? (And if you'd like to explain how it's wrong, please do so of course!)

2: If you could wave a magic wand and make every religious/superstitious person in the world understand just ONE thing, what would it be and why?

I think it'll be interesting to see how many of us hear the same arguments, which ones annoy us most and which are most common.  We all have slightly - in some cases even widely - different reasons for opposing religion, it's always fascinating to hear how other people think about things.

Please let me know what you think!

Clarification on yesterday's circumcision post

Hello again,

Yesterday I gave my opinion on male circumcision, for religious purposes and more generally; that can be found here.  From the comments I've received (more on Twitter than on the post itself, actually), I conclude that there are one or two things I need to clarify because I have expressed myself clumsily.

First thing; there is a difference (to me at least) between regarding an action as an act of mutilation and considering a person to be "mutilated".  I suppose I should have anticipated that my using the term "mutilate" to describe the act of circumcision would cause some men who have been circumcised to feel I am making a comment on their attractiveness or their suitability as a sexual partner - this was not my intention, however. As far as I am concerned, whether an adult male has been circumcised or not makes no difference whatsoever to my... well, let's say "for my purposes" and leave it to the imagination.  I do not consider a circumcised penis to be in any way ugly or undesirable, and I apologise for my clumsiness in having given that impression to some people.

That said, little as it may matter in adulthood once it's done with and healed, I cannot see the unnecessary removal of an infant's foreskin as anything other than an act of gratuitous mutilation. It's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one; in my opinion it is cruel to subject an infant to unnecessary surgery, but it does not follow that - if you have undergone said surgery (of your own volition or otherwise) - I will then consider you unattractive or somehow complicit in what I regard as an act of wrongdoing.  It was not remotely my intention to imply anything of the sort.

The other thing that's been said repeatedly about yesterday's post - and I definitely could not have predicted this one, because it's utterly bizarre - is that because I am opposed to unnecessary circumcision it follows that I must also be an anti-vaxxer. This truly baffles me, it makes less than no sense.  I am against subjecting children to unnecessary risk and pain; in what way this could possibly make me anything other than strongly pro-vaccination I am at a loss to discern.  Vaccinations are necessary, to protect both the child as an individual and the "herd". Reading of outbreaks of preventable diseases resulting from the selfish decision of a few parents not to vaccinate, thereby risking the health of their own child and that of other people makes me sick with anger. Circumcision - in all but a tiny minority of cases - is NOT necessary, and carries risks for nobody but the child.  If the child grows up suffering absolutely no ill-effects from the procedure (assuming for a moment that we could prove such a thing), that's fantastic and I'm happy for him - but why take the risk on his behalf in the first place?

That's it, really, just wanted to explain myself on a couple of points - hope I make more sense now!

Any move to restrict circumcision is a good thing, but I can't help thinking the media's somewhat missed the point again.

The New York Post reports today that a group of two hundred or so orthodox Rabbis in New York have signed a "proclamation" claiming that the Health Department's concerns about the ritual of metzitzah b'peh - in which blood is suctioned from a male baby's circumcision wound by mouth - are "lies", spread "in order to justify their evil decree".  They have also stated that even if the law is changed, they will simply ignore it.

The article I quote can be found here, but as with so many news pieces dealing with religious customs and ceremonies I can't help but feel a point is being missed. Don't misunderstand me; anything that draws attention to the entirely unnecessary dangers of circumcision, anything that might - just maybe - make a parent stop and think "wait, why am I actually allowing this to be done to my child?" is a good thing, particularly in the USA where circumcision is as much a cultural thing as an overtly religion custom and far more common than it is in the UK and much of Europe.

This, specifically, is the aspect that bothers me; all the emphasis in the proposed change to the law seems to be on avoiding the risk of herpes (and other diseases, one would like to assume), which is a danger specific to oral contact with the child's wound.  It is true that babies have been killed and brain-damaged by contraction of the herpes virus during their circumcision, and of course that needs to be prevented from happening again; but by placing all the emphasis on that risk, the law-makers in New York leave their stance on more modern circumcision methods open to interpretation, and it would be very easy to conclude that it is only the oral contact specifically that carries any risk for the baby.  Who knows, though?  Maybe that really is their stance.

When Germany outlawed circumcision for non-medical reasons a few months ago, the decision was met with hysteria and outrage among both Jews and Muslims, with one Rabbi describing it as "perhaps the most serious attack on Jewish life since the Holocaust".  Much was made of Europe's - and particularly Germany's - history of oppressing Jews, but while this past certainly can't and shouldn't be denied, nor should it be allowed to become some sort of carte blanche to do whatever you like without reference to ethical considerations or legality just because you're Jewish.  It's my opinion that Germany's decision was the correct one, even though I'm certain people will find ways to flout the new law; they've considered the moral implications, and taken a stance on the issue. That speaks volumes in its own right.

Circumcision - unless for legitimate medical reasons - is one of those issues we seem perpetually to be debating and I sincerely fail to understand why. I literally don't get it.  I understand that religious people hold deep convictions on this matter; in a strange sort of way, though, the religious people almost aren't the problem. WE are the problem, we who feel the need to honour their grisly traditions, we who allow them to mutilate babies - who cannot possibly have any notion of the belief system into which they are being presumptively inducted - because they believe it should be done.

Ask yourself seriously; if a parent asked a doctor (or anyone else) to cut their baby's ear off, would we consider that person a fit parent?  What if they demanded not only the removal of the ear, but that the procedure be carried out in unsanitary conditions and without anaesthesia?  Now what if you learned not only that people were ritually removing babies' ears in unsafe conditions for religious reasons, but were in fact up in arms at the prospect of being made to ask permission to do so?!

Male circumcision has been associated not only with communicable diseases as already detailed, but also with long-lasting psychological trauma, reduction in sexual response and confidence, and even with increased pain response throughout the body later in life.  I know many men who have been circumcised (not all for religious reasons, as I have already said the practice is very common in the USA even among the non-religious), and almost all of them resent it to varying degrees. Sex is a crucial aspect of being human, one of our most primal drives (arguably the primal drive among males) and an essential part of our individual and cultural well-being. I cannot begin to imagine how violated and angry I would feel if I were forced to spend my life wondering how different - even, torturously, how much better - my enjoyment of sex might have been if someone had not wantonly lopped off an important part of my anatomy when I was too young to defend myself.

Over again we hear the same tired old arguments in favour of circumcision (apart from the religious irrelevancies, I mean); that it reduces risk of infections, that cleanliness is more assured, that it reduces risk of penile cancers, that it's desirable - weirdly - that a male child should "look like his father".  Leaving aside the absurdity of that last one, the rest, I believe, will be shown to be on balance not worth the risk of the procedure.  We are learning, now, to follow where evolution leads us in medicine. In the same way that more pioneering surgeons are now accepting that the best place to attach an ACL graft is almost always where the original ACL was (because evolution has shaped our complex knee joints over millions of years, through epochs in which ACLs attached in a non-optimal position would have been punished far more than they are today) I would not be surprised at all if in twenty or fifty years we learn that it really is best, medically, to leave the foreskin in place.

And aside from all that, of course, there's the issue of how far parents' (or Rabbis') "rights" to practice a religious or cultural custom should outweigh the rights of the child not to be permanently affected by that custom, both physically and psychologically.  I would have no problem - in principle, although I might find myself objecting to excessive parental/cultural pressure - if an adult male, able to weigh up the risks and assess for himself the importance of the decision, were to decide to be circumcised.  If that is what he wishes to do, I struggle to find any arguments that would justify anyone in opposing that decision. But to make a permanent and life-altering decision like that for a child too young to have any opinion on the subject... that, I contend, is deeply wrong and should not be considered acceptable.

We are, all of us, guilty of overlooking grisly and amoral acts committed in the name of religion that we would not even consider allowing for other reasons. I believe the gratuitous and dangerous mutilation of an infant's penis falls into that category, and I would like to see media outlets push past the unspoken taboo of religious custom and address that, rather than trivialising it by focusing on the very worst outcomes imaginable.

Follow up to the Pakistan "blasphemy" case.

Last week I wrote a post about the brutal injustice suffered by a child in Pakistan, who had been arrested on charges of "blasphemy" after being accused of burning pages from the Qur'an.  My thoughts at the time can be seen here. Although the story was everywhere for a few days - with the USA, laudably, officially registering their "concern" about the case - little has been heard since the child's arrest so I thought I should do some digging.

I'm pleased to report that - possibly due to the outrage expressed by multiple media outlets as well as pressure from other nations - the news is better than I was tempted to expect.

It is now being reported by outlets in India and in Pakistan itself that there is no hard evidence that the burned material found in the child's possession included any part of the Qur'an.  Let me make something clear; this is not me validating, conceding or in any way assenting to the view that THIS is what makes burning a book OK - I'm just passing on what I've learned. Reading between the lines from previous information and another couple of interesting "clarifications", part of me thinks there may well have been Qur'anic material, but that pressure has persuaded the Pakistan authorities to deny this.

In a related clarification, police official Zabi Ullah now states that girl can be held for only fourteen days while the matter is investigated. Another police official who did not wish to be named stated that the evidence against the child is such as to mean there is "nothing much to the case", and that he expected her to be released at the end of the holding period once anger in the region has dissipated. That, of course, is a matter of huge concern; a community of several hundred people has been driven from its homes by a mere accusation; in such an atmosphere, it is not unreasonable to fear that the child and others of her community may remain at risk when she is released.

There is still much confusion on the case; the age of the child has been variously given as eleven and sixteen. There are still reports that she may be mentally disabled. The Times of India quotes a Vatican representative who states she is entirely illiterate. None of that affects or ameliorates the horror of arresting a child, of course - or the insanity of arresting anyone for something so banal as burning a book.

Sadly - and perhaps tellingly - the Pakistan Ministry of Human Rights is offering no comment or press release material specific to this matter that I was able to find.

It may well be that this matter will resolve itself more justly than we might have expected, although of course it's disgraceful that it ever happened in the first place. However, this is by no means certain and if the clarifications given are more a concession to pressure than an elucidation of existing facts (and I by no means state that as a fact), that tells us that pressure may still be necessary. If, like me, you are concerned about what will happen to this girl and to her family, I encourage you to visit this page and send emails to the people who may be able to influence the outcome.  The content is up to you, of course, but I recommend registering your opinion on "blasphemy" laws and seeking reassurance that the child will be released once it is safe (preferably with mechanisms in place to assure that latter point) for her to return to her community.

How the media misses the point where religion is concerned

It's time I returned to my much-neglected blog. For some time now, I've been trying to care a little less about religion because it was beginning to affect other areas of my life too much; now, however, something's happened about which I cannot NOT comment.

Yesterday, the 19th of August 2012, many news outlets around the world reported that a child in Pakistan - part of a small, Christian community - had been arrested on suspicion of burning pages from the qur'an.  The girl in question is reported to be eleven years of age, and the mob's reaction to the "crime" she's accused of has led to hundreds of people being forced from their homes.  It is alleged that the child was beaten before being arrested, and that she may even face the death penalty for "blasphemy".

Now, I hope I don't need to point out to anyone all that's wrong with the idea of "blasphemy" as a crime - free speech, right to dissent etc. etc.. And I hope I don't need to explain why executing anyone for anything is a brutal and backwards way to run your country. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Here's what's pissing me off.  There are reports that the child may be mentally disabled; some outlets are saying she has Down's syndrome, others that she has an unspecified mental illness.  The BBC, in particular, seem to be making a big thing of this, as can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19311098

Here's my question. HOW IS HER MENTAL HEALTH STATUS RELEVANT?!

What does it matter?! In any sane society, any person has the right to burn any damn book they like (as long as it's not rare or someone elses property), and little as we may like it we can't punish them for it.  The BBC and others, by making such a fuss of the possibility that this child is mentally disabled, are making an excuse for her that simply IS NOT REQUIRED.

If a mentally disabled person commits a crime, we quite rightly assess whether they were able to appreciate the wrongness and/or ramifications of what they were doing before we decide whether to punish them. If it is found that they could not understand why what they were doing was wrong, we don't imprison them although we may detain them for their own and others' safety.

Here's the catch; "blasphemy", by any non-insane definition, is not a crime. If this poor child DID burn a book, no one was harmed by that action. By being at such pains to point out that she may not have understood what she was doing, the BBC is lending credence to the ludicrous notion that what she did was wrong and in need of excusing.  This attitude is not only factually laughable, it's dangerous too since it carries the implication that threatening to execute this little girl would somehow be acceptable and reasonable were she not disabled.

Sickening.

Interview with an Atheist: Part Two

How does it feel to be an atheist?

My own answer: "This is an awkward question because it sort of has two answers, one personal and one in relation to the rest of the world.

Going about my business in everyday life, my non-belief in gods affects me in exactly the same way that your non-belief in the Loch Ness Monster or aliens that probe people in Nevada affects you; not at all. It doesn't take any effort on your part to disbelieve in Odin, Ba'al or Antevorta; it's even possible you haven't heard of all of these, and even if you're familiar with them there'll be thousands of other gods and deities you've never come across. How does it feel to not believe in them?

 

In this sense, asking what it feels like to be an atheist is almost a moot question, because the answer's the same as how it feels to not believe in magic or fairies or astrology; you don't believe it's real so it doesn't matter to you. However, the reality of being an atheist in this age is that you're a minority and that people form all sorts of strange opinions of you based on a non-belief that – to you – is no more significant than their disbelief in ghosts or voodoo curses or unicorns is to them.

Reactions I get when I tell people I'm an atheist vary hugely, but complete acceptance is rare.  Even among other non-believers, my open declaration of disbelief can be seen as reckless, aggressive, unnecessary or undiplomatic - although most arguments I've had about religion have been with believers, a fair few have been with atheists who think I'm being obdurate or disrespectful just by stating, in effect, that I think religion's a load of rubbish.   In a weird sort of way, some religious people can actually be more accepting than other non-believers; I'd love to think that's because they feel less patronised by an atheist willing to have the discussion than by an atheist who thinks their position so foolish it would be mean to examine it, but in truth I don't really know what causes this disparity; it could simply be a personality thing.

There are more negative reactions from believers, though, and those can range from defensive and outraged to outright hostile.  I've been called everything from "whore" to "murderer" just for stating I don't believe in gods - sometimes without even getting into a discussion about it at all.  Some religious people think I'm inherently evil, unfeeling, joyless, loveless, nihilistic, even dangerous - and they get all that from the word "atheist".

Unfortunately, religious people are still a majority over non-religious people, which means that in some ways the rationale of my position doesn't matter; it doesn't matter how intellectually and factually defensible atheism is, it's still unusual and therefore weird.  The best way for me to sum up how it "feels" to be an atheist - at least in relation to such matters as politics, ethics, education etc. - is an unattributed quote I read on facebook a little while ago; being an atheist feels like being the only sober one in the car, and no one will let you drive."

Tim's Answer: "I guess I've always been a little mistrustful and skeptical of religion, and I HATED religious classes as a child. Then again, I hated school, period. In first grade (catholic school) the nun told us we had to squeeze ourselves over in our chairs to make room for our "guardian angels." That was the beginning of a long, drawn out, fall from grace.

Realizing that I was gay years later did little to endear me to this "god" concept, but I never really declared myself an atheist outright until I was well into my thirties. Before that I would have called myself "spiritual" and left it at that.

I can't really say it FEELS anything at all. It aggravates me when people - either in my family or in public - say stupid shit that I feel obliged NOT to comment on. It's also good to know I don't have to worry about an afterlife.

Sometimes it aggravates me to get into arguments between atheists and theists where the theists have the stronger point. I feel almost obligated to support the atheist even when they're wrong.

Also, sometimes I get tired of the so-called debates. I spend months at a time wishing people would discuss anything BUT religion."

Ugly on the inside.

Last night - during one of my brain's periodic refusals to submit to Morpheus - I watched some fascinating videos by a youtuber called AronRa, whose channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa.

I enjoyed most of AronRa's videos and will watch more, but one of them, entitled Not a happy holiday, was difficult to watch.  Unlike most of his videos this one didn't deal with religion, but was I suppose primarily a thank-you addressed to a lot of people who had offered help to his daughter during the long illness and eventual death of his three-year-old granddaughter.  I've never had any kids, and therefore I won't insult those who have had children and lost them by pretending for a moment that I can understand what they're feeling.  I do not have the experience that would allow me to imagine the grief a parent or grandparent must feel at the death of a child.  But my ability to empathise with another person's pain does not depend on my having experienced precisely what they're going through, and I found AronRa's account of his granddaughter's long battle very, very hard to watch - it is horrible to watch someone struggle with so much grief and be utterly unable to help.

Not surprisingly, I was feeling rather blue by the end of the video... so scrolling down to look at the comments was a very foolish thing to do.

You know what, though? I was so saddened by this video that I truly believed that everyone who viewed it - no matter how vehemently they might disagree with AronRa's views on religion - would have been similarly affected and would have nothing but condolences to offer.  I wouldn't wish what happened to him and his family on my worst enemy; I cannot imagine hating anyone enough to not feel sorry that such a thing has happened to them.

But every time I think I can no longer be surprised by religious people, they find a way to prove me wrong again. Most of the comments I saw - although, to be fair, I shortly felt so sickened I didn't look down very far - were messages of sympathy and condolence. But a few of them (and one would have been too many) were just unimaginably hateful and callous; the comments of a user called michaelw018 - "i'm ecstatic aronra's three year old grand daughter died of cancer" - stick out with particularly glaring prominence in my memory.

You know what, religious people?  What you believe is not fact.  It is not even a reasonable hypothesis.  Pushing it on the rest of us and calling it "morality" and "freedom of expression" - particularly when you act so very badly and actively try to shut the rest of us up when we criticise you - is out of order.  The refusal of some of us to grant you the special treatment you demand until such time as you deserve it is not unreasonable, it is not disrespectful, and it is not personal.  We don't hate your god/s because we don't believe they exist, and very few of us hate you.  Many of us feel contempt for dishonest religious "leaders" who con huge amounts of money out of you by claiming to know what they cannot possibly know, and we sometimes feel baffled and even frustrated by your choice to continue paying them to lie to you.  We don't like it when you tell us a story, call it fact, and try to use it either to restrict scientific advances, misinform our children, judge people for stuff that's none of your business or restrict our freedoms, and we get especially irritated when you do all this and then tell us we're the hateful narrow-minded amoral lying oppressors of freedom.

If I struggle to imagine the grief AronRa and his family are going through at present, I fail totally to comprehend the level of hatred a person would have to feel to celebrate that grief.  I can think of nothing - nothing - that would make me glad at the suffering and death of a small child.  When your religious belief has become so sacrosanct to you that you will celebrate the loss of a child's life because it brings pain to someone who has in general terms criticised that belief... congratulations, you are less than human, utterly repugnant, and a fantastic example of why religion needs to be fought on all fronts.

A slightly scary parallel.

At the weekend I started reading a book entitled The Closing of the Western Mind by Charles Freeman (which can be bought here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Closing-Western-Mind-Faith-Reason/dp/071266498X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327323426&sr=8-1 and is heartily recommended), which has me enthralled - but also worried.

The guy's a serious historian but he writes well for the layman; he's very fluid, and in many ways this book reads more like a novel than like a history book.  I haven't finished it yet, but so far he's been covering the mindset of the shifting ancient Greek culture, the alterations made by the Romans, and the backdrop that allowed Christianity to flourish and eventually displace the classical values of intellectual rigour, observation and the right to question anybody, no matter how highly regarded.

To put it in simple terms, the Greeks and later the Romans had no problem at all with the religions of those they conquered, and in many cases were more than happy to incorporate new gods into their own pantheon. Frequently when conquering a new territory the gods of those they defeated would then take a place in the ritual sacrifices and observances, and thus the new subjects would be free to worship their old gods as long as they were happy to play lip-service to the Roman gods too (declaring there were no gods at all could get you into trouble, but we are talking about a very ancient civilisation working with far less data than we have now. And we can't feel smug about it - we're not that different now).  Observances on holy days was simply part of Roman culture, and by showing deference to the gods one also demonstrated respect for its values and loyalty to the state.

This all worked fine for a long time because almost everyone back then worshiped a pantheon, a group of gods rather than a single omnipotent deity.  To that way of thinking, encompassing a new god or thinking of it as another aspect of one you already believed in was not a problem, and the Romans made a point of being very tolerant of other religions in order to keep the people of their new territories happy.  Where they started to run into trouble was with Judaism and then - even more so - with early Christianity.  Here was a religion different to every other they had encountered in that it acknowledged only one deity, and in fact condemned Roman society and culture for tolerating multiple gods and goddesses.  Some Jews and many early Christians refused to participate in worship to the Roman gods, and many became martyrs to their cause. Early Christianity, through being unfamiliar and alien to Roman culture and religion, was able to at once exploit religious tolerance and condemn those who extended it.  Here too, for the first time, was a religion that claimed reward in exchange for simple faith, not for good actions, and which therefore actively promoted the mindset according to which blind faith becomes a virtue and analytical thought consequently becomes undesirable, even dangerous.

I haven't finished the book yet and I think I'll have to read it twice to fully grasp all the nuances and implications, but this to me demonstrates an alarming parallel to what has happened in Europe over the last few decades.  In Europe, even those nations like the UK that have a state religion are governed largely by secular values of fairness and equality for all (although no one would deny for a moment that we sometimes fall short of these values).  We have experienced centuries of warfare caused directly by intolerance of opposing religions, and as a result we have learned that it is better, safer and more humane to live and let live with people whose beliefs are different than our own.  In recent decades, however, we have experienced an influx from the Middle East, which has included a large number of Muslims... and Islam as a religion, by any objective terms, is several centuries behind the moderate and considered religious mores most European Christians hold dear.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam are very similar in fundamental principles - they worship the same deity, although few devout believers would be keen to accept that. However, for most Christians and Jews (not all by any means, but most) religious mores have taken a backseat to secular values, whether the believer appreciates that consciously or not.  Ephesians 5:22, for example, states "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord" but even among relatively devout Christians in the UK few would try to claim that women are not equal to men, or do not deserve equal freedoms and rights (the segregation in the Jewish temple is an interesting aspect, but again has become - in most cases, the more orthodox Jews provide exceptions - more symbolic than anything else, as both genders are given equal rights under law). Leviticus 20:10 condemns people who cheat on their spouses to death, and we're all aware of the laws against working on the sabbath and fancying people of your own gender.  The point is that almost all Europeans, however strongly they believe in Jahweh and/or Yeshua, are accustomed to the idea that religious law must fit within the secular laws hammered out over centuries largely to protect people against the dogma of others.

Islam, in this respect, has come as quite a shock to Europe.  Any woman living in a British city will be familiar with that small number of Muslim men who stare at our bare heads and unhidden figures with a curious mixture of lust and contempt.  We ourselves are unnerved and baffled by women in ninja suits, and covertly discuss the implications of this dress; I myself think people should be able to wear whatever they like without endangering the safety of others (so in circumstances under which a balaclava or motorcycle helmet would not be allowed, neither should a face-covering hijab), but I struggle with the definition of "voluntary" in such conditions - can a woman trained from birth to believe herself inherently shameful and inferior ever be considered as "choosing" to cover her entire body? We have been introduced to honour killings, child brides, the sort of sexism we have not seen in centuries, and terror threats on a level we have never encountered before.

And because we have learned through hard experience that everyone's better off if we can all respect one another's values, we've done our best to accommodate all this, to legitimise in the name of "multiculturalism" what we would not accept for any reason other than a basis in religion.  We have instituted sharia courts, insisting that they are only there as mediators where people prefer them to conventional law, while failing entirely to consider the fact that under sharia law a man's word is equal to that of two women, and that it will be the man who decides which court a woman is subjected to.  We tread on eggshells to avoid offending Muslims, to the extent that we stifle our own hard-earned and vital freedom of expression (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/01/18/london-atheist-group-accused-of-bullying-after-posting-a-harmless-image-of-muhammad/), and every time someone in the Islamic world kicks off and blows something up or executes a journalist or mutilates a woman we are told - effectively - not to judge Islam by what its adherents do. When a group of Muslim men were prosecuted for grooming and raping large numbers of underage British girls, a peer in the House of Lords tried to tell us their crimes were attributable to Western women, who through showing insufficient voluntary interest in these animals forced them to drug and rape children.

The trouble with this, of course, is that the principle of "respecting others" only works if both sides agree to it - which Islam openly and proudly does not. The more exemptions we grant Islam under our laws, the more they demand.

This is exactly the mistake the Romans made; they extended liberality and tolerance to a group of people who had no problem with exploiting the freedom while sneering at those offering it. There are signs that we are beginning to identify and resist this two-faced abuse of our values - the pigs buried on the proposed site of a mosque in Seville, Draw Mohammad Day etc. etc. - but I don't think it's enough, I think we need more people more willing to stand up and say "no, this is wrong and it's not racist, intolerant or "Islamophobic" to say so".  Islam is quite open about its intention of taking over the Western world... last time that happened, Europe sank into the Dark Ages and we lost knowledge and values we have only recently - centuries later - started to regain.

Misogyny is alive and well, but is there an evolutionary reason for the double standard?

I exercised great restraint today in not getting involved when reading a long discussion thread about the manner in which women can expect to be perceived and treated if they leave the house wearing anything more revealing than a muslim ninja suit. Predictably, words like "slut" and "whore" were peppered liberally throughout many of the posts, and I was surprised - and more than a little dismayed - to see that there were even a few women joining in the chorus of "if you wear a short skirt you're asking to be treated like an object" and "women who sleep around are sluts".

It got me thinking about the word "slut", which has always struck me as particularly vile as it's a term applied by the historically powerful gender to devalue the historically oppressed gender; these days, when it comes from a man, you can more or less take it to mean "this woman is bad for my ego because I find her attractive but although I have (or think I have) reason to believe she has sex she has not chosen to do so with me". Basically it's sour grapes; an attempt to devalue an object of desire because you can't have it. (Obviously I'm ignoring examples of rape and sexual assault/abuse here. In those cases, I would guess that "slut" and words like it would be an attempt to blame the woman for ones own actions to avoid feeling guilty about it - but I am aware that there's a world of difference between calling someone a slag and raping her.) Words like "slut" and - more commonly - "whore" are particularly characteristic of discussions with muslim men.  Very, very rarely will I discuss religion with a male muslim and not have to put up with such names, or in many cases some very graphic references to what they guess about my sex life, intended to be as shocking as possible; of course, these attacks say far more about the messed up attitude these men have learned to have towards women than they do about me.  I can't quite imagine what it must be like to simultaneously desire women through normal biological urges (heightened by a lifetime of being told you can't respectably have them) and yet loathe them as dirty, degraded sub-human creatures not worthy of your notice. In any case, a lifetime of conditioning to perceive a woman as intrinsically and by their very nature worth less than you is a handy tool when dealing with one who's inconveniently turned out to be a lot more educated and intelligent than you; obviously whatever she says is wrong because - whatever the appearances to the contrary - she is stupid, so you can call her some names to remind her that she's worthless and disregard it. (A word of advice for any women who ever come up against this attitude; don't deny anything they throw at you. All you'll be doing is feeding the myth that what you choose to do with your sexual partner/s is something shameful. Instead, show them how unaffected you are by their primitive notions of what your behaviour should be, and let them know that their opinion of you doesn't matter just because they think it does. Watch them dissolve into incoherent and baffled rage. Debate over.)

Anyway, all this got me wondering about the difference in attitudes we - even in the modern world, leaving aside the islamic throwbacks for a moment (heck, even the christians have mostly got around to letting their womenfolk wear trousers and go to the shops on their own!) - have towards the two genders. I will argue for a woman's right to sleep with as many people as she chooses (as long as it's safe and not hurting anyone), but even I, when I encounter a woman who openly has multiple partners or who has numerous one-night-stands, will raise my eyebrows before I can stop myself; it seems to be to on some level a built-in response, which says something about the extent to which unconsidered social conventions can influence our thoughts, however irrational and nasty they might be. I won't hold it against her, but I freely admit I will be curious about her and probably wonder what the thoughts and feelings behind her choice might be. Would I wonder that about a male who shagged around? Rarely - in most cases I'll just conclude he's either a flake or just out for fun (depending on how he goes about it) and leave it at that.

Obviously there is a huge cultural influence in evidence here, but I wonder if there might be a more instinctive, evolutionary drive at play too? (I need to make two qualifications here; one, it may well be that someone somewhere's done research and published books and all that either for or against my hypothesis; I haven't encountered it if so, but it's not like I spend my life reading academic papers. If you've come across anything on this topic, please let me know in the comments! Two, you can't get an ought from an is; even if you find my hypothesis credible, this does not mean I am in favour of gender discrimination or that I think I am providing an excuse for it. There are also sound evolutionary reasons for racism; the more thoughtful and informed among us are able to override this instinct with but a little consideration.)

My reasoning on this point is pretty simple.  Evolution, as we know, is all about gene survival; a gene that promotes the survival of its host organism will survive and be passed to the next generation, while a gene that is detrimental to the organism's survival will not be passed on because that organism will not survive to breed. For this reason, a gene that inclines an organism to want to be sure that the offspring it's raising are its own will be likely to become dominant over a gene that causes the host not to care; there are all sorts of mechanisms for precisely this in nature, as anyone who's ever watched an Attenborough documentary will know.

For a woman, there is no issue here; she knows a baby is hers because she gave birth to it - for this reason, it doesn't matter to her genes how many other women the father has sex with.  But to the man, who cannot have this certainty, the number of other men the mother has had sex with does matter; it matters because every additional sexual partner the woman has had reduces the odds of the child the woman has born being his - and therefore, the more partners the mother has had the more likely it becomes that a man is wasting his time and energy raising offspring that do not bear his genes.  If this is the case - and I should point out that I am a complete novice and this is just a guess - it seems reasonable to suppose that a gene or genes causing a man to prefer monogamous women to promiscuous ones might arise and become successful; and the obvious way for this gene to work would be to supply an opposing drive to the simple reproductive one, an opposition to attraction.  Of course with modern options on contraception and modern thought about the actual importance of gene transmission (many of us share Stephen Pinker's sentiment that "[our] selfish genes can go jump in the lake" and remain childless; others even adopt the genes of rival humans!) there's no excuse for this kind of instinct - if it exists - to take precedent over rational thought and basic equality.  I also don't think this alone would be enough to account for the complex emotions and cultural associations encompassed in words like "slut", but it might have provided the backdrop... and it might make it difficult to dispose of, although as I said earlier I don't think that's a reason not to try.

There's no need to detail the link between religion and misogyny because it's well known; but if there is an actual, hardwired evolutionary basis for this particular form of gender inequality, it makes it only more imperative to dispose of this additional, artificial construct that adds the best excuse ever found to treat women as sub-human.

My new favourite comedian!

It takes a lot to pull me away from Eddie Izzard and Tim Minchin, but Marcus Brigstocke might just make my list!

Bloody GOOD

There's an article in the Guardian today about a petition by several distinguished scientists who want to stop creatards and IDiots from presenting their ludicrously unscientific fairy-tales as "fact" in British schools.  Possibly this is a new one, but I'm almost certain I've heard about this petition before and it's not terribly new - that's not the point though, it's still a good thing that it's happening, and I think the more real scientists are willing to stand up and tell the world that "creation science" and "intelligent design" are complete fabrications with no grounding whatsoever in fact, the better and the more people will come to realise that creationism really ISN'T a legitimate belief.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/19/scientists-demand-guidelines-creationism-schools

I only learned quite recently that evolution is not a mandatory part of the national curriculum, and the fact's terrifying because it means that state-funded "faith" schools are free to promote creationism alone, with no obligation to tell the kids that it's utter bollocks and that there's a legitimate scientifically verified alternative.  The BHA have launched an e-petition to the government to correct this; I've signed already, but I'd like to encourage anyone reading this who doesn't want creationism to continue to rise as it is now to sign it too - it only takes about ninety seconds.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/1617

Atheism and the family - the need to come out.

Sunday dinner at my folks' this evening, as my brother's visiting.  Mum sent me a message on facebook earlier recommending a video with Frank Skinner and Rowan Williams and asking "no chance of you reconsidering your policy of upsetting every religious loony on the planet?". She doesn't say much about it, but I was reprimanded earlier this year for being "a very intolerant atheist".  Nothing direct was said at dinner tonight, but I got a bit of a disapproving frown when my restraint cracked during a conversation about security for the Pope's visit last year (we got there via the illness of a friend who organised the choir for part of the tour) and I laughed and said something like "nothing says "I trust The Lord" like four inches of bulletproof glass".

Mum and I haven't discussed religion much since I was in my early teens; as far as I know she's still vaguely a believer, but I don't know how much of her dislike of my antitheism is born of her belief itself, and how much is just discomfort at my open contempt for that which has historically commanded so much unwarranted respect.  I also don't know how to take the smile with which she delivers her occasional reprimands; I have a feeling it's one of those things where you try to sound like you're joking to avoid sounding too critical but actually you're totally not joking. Basically, I'm not sure how much she objects to atheism itself, but mum definitely isn't keen on me taking the piss out of religion.

This has got me thinking about how irreligion affects the relationships people have with their families. As it happens, I don't confront my mum about the whole religion thing because I don't want to hurt her, and however flawed I consider her reasoning where faith is concerned I love and respect her tremendously. But I'm one of the lucky ones, because the fact is that if I wanted to I could say whatever the hell I liked about it all to my family and my brothers, and whether they agreed with me or not (I know one brother does, I suspect my dad does, and I don't think the other brother cares much one way or the other) they'd still love me - I don't think there's anything I could do, with respect to religion or otherwise, that could make my family turn their backs on me.  Among atheists worldwide, however, things are not so rosy.  I know people who are lucky enough to be in situations similar to mine, but I also know people who have become estranged from their families after coming out as atheists. Many of you may be familiar with the story of Damon Fowler, a teenager from Louisiana who was thrown out of home by his mother and forced out of town after his teacher outed him for privately asking that an illegal prayer be omitted from his graduation ceremony. In some parts of the world, atheists have little choice but to stay in the closet because they risk ostracism, persecution, in some cases even physical injury and death if they come out.

Clearly, this is wrong; it results from the continuing prejudice against atheists, a disgraceful form of discrimination that seems to be largely overlooked in modern society. It is this discrimination, more than anything else, that makes me feel that those of us lucky enough to be able to declare our atheism in safety ought to do it. The more people come out as atheists, and the more we're willing to talk about it, the more accepted atheism will become - eventually, I hope that atheists even in the most religious nations will be able to express themselves without fear of persecution. That time is a way off, and I wouldn't want to try and guess how long it will be before atheism is universally accepted... but I do know that we can speed the process by being open.

http://outcampaign.org/

A bid to reclaim the word "tolerance".

I've been hearing a lot recently about atheists wanting "tolerance" from believers, both from the atheists who're requesting it and from believers who are granting or denying it.

Now, this pisses me off.  "Tolerance" in this sense may be defined in loose terms as "the ability and/or willingness to endure and/or accept something unpleasant or disliked". So let's look at this more closely. What precisely is there about atheism that warrants or requires "tolerance"? What is it about atheists that is so unpleasant or disagreeable that we ourselves are effectively saying mea culpa by respectfully asking people to put up with us, unlovely and nasty as we are?!

This misuse of the word "tolerance" in relation to atheists is by no means unique to us; long before the rise of the New Atheists (go team!) we were being told that we should "tolerate" - among others - black people and gay people. Now, I find the term just as offensive towards black people and gay people as it is to me as an atheist; what the hell is there about being black or being gay that requires "tolerance" from anyone?!  What aspect of being black is so offensive that we must exercise "tolerance" towards black people?! And how precisely do the private activities of two consenting adults (of any damn gender!) affect you in such a way that you must flare your nostrils, fold your arms and benevolently agree not to be offended by them?!  It's the most condescending attitude imaginable!  Someone being black does not affect you in any way. Someone being gay does not affect you in any way. And my being an atheist does not affect you in any way... except, apparently, that you don't like me being different from you. Well you know what?  I'm doing absolutely nothing wrong by being an atheist - in fact there are many sound arguments for my being morally better than you as a believer - and I'm not going to be grateful to you for putting up with my existence.

There are many instances in which the use of the word "tolerance" IS appropriate - for example:

We tolerate Islam despite the fact that some Muslims blow up buildings, mutilate women and commit genocide in the name of Islam, because most Muslims are good people.

We tolerate Christianity despite the fact that some Christians shoot doctors, persecute gay people, and actively promote the spread of HIV/Aids in the world's poorest countries, because most Christians are good people.

We tolerate atheism despite the fact that some atheists...

... well, what? Talk about it? Publish books and blogs? Gather to form humanist groups? Take the piss out of believers? Again, what precisely is it that we do that needs to be "tolerated"?

I would like to see the word "tolerance" dropped in relation to atheism, because it's an admission of guilt or wrong-doing that simply isn't there.

The most important anniversary of my generation.

Tomorrow, the world will remember the events of September 11th 2001.

It's possible that my age at the time - I was seventeen, on the cusp of adulthood - accentuates the effect, but for me the terror attacks of 9/11 are vivid in my memory almost as much for how much the world changed in the space of a few hours as for the horror of the death and destruction itself. By seventeen, I had been an atheist for many years but had always maintained that I did not have the right to show disrespect for faith in other people; it took a while to crystallise, but 9/11 was the start of a change in my thinking just as it was the start of shattering changes in the zeitgeist of the Western world.

On 9/11, I was at my sixth form college and the first I heard of it was on the way out of my last lesson for the day (I had an early finish), when the college was alive with incredulous and excited whispers that there'd been an accident in New York, that someone had crashed a plane into the World Trade Centre.  At that stage, of course, the world still thought there had been a terrible accident.

I lived a little way from my college, and as it was a lovely day in early Autumn I was in no rush to get home. As I approached my house, though, I gradually realised that everything was a lot quieter than it would usually have been. There were very few cars on the roads, no people pottering in their gardens; even the pubs I passed were near-silent.  I didn't associate any of this with the "accident" I'd heard about at college, but when I got home and turned on the TV (I had the house to myself for a couple of hours) I quickly realised what was going on.

In between my leaving college and getting home, the second plane had hit; we knew, now, that this was not an accident but a deliberate and premeditated act of evil on a scale that was just incomprehensible at the time.

I live in the UK, and grew up in an era when the threat of terrorism and violence was much reduced from the seventies but nevertheless still present. My own father had two near escapes from bombings by the IRA, in Birmingham ten years before I was born and again in Manchester when I was in primary school. What I'm getting at is that Britain had grown used to a level of tension; the attacks of the seventies were still very much in the nation's consciousness, and the nineties saw another elevation in tensions - as a small child I didn't know the details, but just grew up aware that there were some people who wanted to kill innocent people to make a political point. But although one cannot possibly justify one act of terrorism by comparing it to another, there was still nothing in our experience tthat could have prepared us for the scale of the destruction that was wreaked on the 11th of September 2001.

Again, this may be related to my age at the time and my ignorance of world politics, but to me the attacks on the World Trade Centre came completely out of the blue.  I was used to the idea that because of the situation in Ireland - which was attributable in part to a conflict in religious beliefs - there were many people who wanted to make changes and a small minority who would use violence to create pressure for those changes. And again, I'm not saying that an act of terrorism can be justified in relation to another act of terrorism, but this idea that there was a group of people who were not remotely interested in discussion, compromise or negotiation, and whose simple aim was to kill as many Westerners as possible and to destroy our culture because their religion conditioned them to see us as subhuman... again, there was just nothing in my experience that could provide any frame of reference for this idea.

9/11 ushered in a new age of fear, and gave rise both to a terrifying increase in religious extremism - particularly in the USA - and to what is now being termed the "New Atheists", which latter is a group to which I am proud to say I belong. Since the events of that day, everything has felt... I don't know, brittle, fragile, balanced on a knife edge. We have become accustomed to the notion that there is a large and powerful religious group in our world whose medieval values make them ideologically opposed to everything about Western society and culture, people who have no interest whatsoever in sharing our planet amicably and who repay our societies' liberal attitudes by at once enjoying the freedoms we offer and hating us for offering it.

Below is a piece I wrote some time ago in a forum dealing with fundamentalist religion, in which most contributors were religious people lamenting the actions carried out in the name of the religion they personally interpret to be loving and benevolent. What shocked me was that several people in the group - far from denouncing fundamentalist atrocities for their simple evil - were outraged at the fundamentalists for exposing their religion to negative press.  The below is my own opinion on the matter, and in a world where fundamentalist christianity has been on the rise just as rapidly as fundamentalist islam and has contributed to many more times more deaths than the event which gave rise to it (George Dubya's ability to inextricably tangle religiosity, patriotism and national loyalty in the minds of the voters is one of very few achievements that led me to think he might not have been a complete moron after all), I stand by my assertion that the only way to counter fundamentalism is to counter religion; and the only way to do that is to drop this ridiculous notion that fundamentalists are somehow less representative of their religion than do-gooders.

"I get sick to the back teeth, every time the world tries to object to a religiously-motivated crime or atrocity, of people saying "don't judge a religion by its extremists".  After the 7/7 bombings in London, muslims were vehemently assuring us that those actions did not represent ordinary muslims, that they were repellent, misguided, blah blah blah. When that doctor was murdered by a fundamentalist christian in the States, the god-squad were wringing their hands, saying isn't it awful, of COURSE he's not a typical christian, it's not fair to judge us all by him...

Total codswallop, and it makes me livid that we seem to accept such a transparently stupid argument.

Where did that murderer LEARN to be a christian?! Where did those bombers LEARN to be muslims?! Did they develop their superstitions spontaneously?! NO - THEY LEARNED THEM FROM THOSE SAME HAND-WRINGING, APOLOGIST CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS WHO ARE TRYING TO DENY ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS!

If I bring up a child to believe homosexuality is wrong and disgusting, it is MY FAULT if that child grows up to think it's OK to murder gay people.  If I bring up a child to believe abortion is wrong and sinful, it is MY FAULT if that child grows up to murder a doctor because he provided abortions. If I bring up a child to believe implicitly in the qur'an, it is MY FAULT if that child grows up to obey that bit of the qur'an instructing him to murder non-muslims.

So the only way to do away with religious fundamentalists? STOP affording religious belief this ridiculous, exalted position of being above question, above reproach, inherently worthy of respect.  It is a superstition, nothing more; we KNOW who is responsible for religious fundamentalism, and we need to stop letting them off the hook for it."

How religion appears to outsiders like me.

I originally wrote this back in 2010, but I want to reproduce it here as it's the only piece I've ever written that really did - I believe, based on reactions - help a couple of believers to understand how their beliefs (and religious belief in general) appear to a person who simply does not have them. Having said that, the believers whose responses were equivalent to "huh - OK, that sort of makes sense and I hadn't thought about it like that before" were the decided minority; I got many more responses along the lines of "but belief in God X is DIFFERENT!" and the usual screams of "DISRESPECT!!!". One aspect that did amuse me was that even though I'd deliberately and explicitly been at pains to draw parallels and form analogies that could be applied to any of the "big three" Abrahamic religions, each and every respondent who reacted badly had interpreted what I wrote as a direct attack on their particular belief system.

This really only works if you can consider it dispassionately, and in fact in the original post I suggested that any believers reading it might mull it over in relation to a religion other than their own in the first instance.  Anyway, for what it's worth here it is; as with my previous post, it's been subject to minor cosmetic amendments:

"Imagine to yourself that you go to visit an old and dear friend, someone you've known for years. After you've gone through the usual pleasantries and made a cup of tea, your friend eagerly shows you a book he got out of the library a little while ago; Aesop's Fables. You know a little bit about it, that it's a very old book of stories that are designed to teach lessons, but as your friend talks you're surprised to find that he seems to be taking them as fact – even though most of them deal with talking animals and can't possibly be true.

As you probe the subject, you discover that the Librarian suggested the book to your friend and told him that Aesop is not dead but all around us, ever present, ever watchful, and knows everything that everyone in the world does, says or even thinks. The Librarian told your friend that the book of Aesop's Fables – the divinely inspired word of Aesop – is proof of this, and that your friend would suffer misery in Hades for all eternity after his death if he didn't believe in the absolute truth and sanctity of the Aesop's Fables and live his life according to His lessons.

Your friend is eager to show you the book and encourages you to have a read through it. It contains hundreds of lessons on different subjects, but the Librarian has told your friend which are the important ones, such as:

“Don't do to other people things you wouldn't like them to do to you.” (The Fox and the Stork)

“Pursue pleasure only after your work is done.” (The Ant and the Grasshopper)

“Be grateful for what you have.” (The Plane Tree)

“Gentleness achieves more than force.” (The North Wind and the Sun)

Some of these you consider to be reasonably sound lessons, although you wonder why your friend feels he needs an ancient storybook to teach him these things. Some of the Fables, on the other hand, strike you as out-of-touch and even dangerous:

The Fox and the Monkey, which teaches that it's acceptable to physically hurt somebody in order to make a point.

The Man and the Serpent, which teaches us both that an enemy's transgressions may never be forgiven and that violence should be met with violence.

The Bat, the Bird and the Beasts, from which the moral is “that which is neither one thing nor the other shall be unloved”.

Your friend assures you that he knows these lessons are dubious and says that common sense must be applied. This puzzles you, and you ask him how – given that all the fables are the infallible Word of Aesop – he is able to reconcile the total faith Aesop demands with choosing to ignore some of His commands. Surely if Aesop, in His divine and infallible wisdom, gave His followers these lessons it is very presumptuous for His followers to amend or abridge His sacred Truth? Your friend tries to explain that cultural context for the Fables has changed since they were written, and that what is morally abhorrent to us was perfectly acceptable when the Fables were written more than two thousand years ago. You think about this, and then ask your friend how he knows, while acknowledging that some of the lessons are wrong, that the rest are correct and divinely inspired. You want to know, in fact, why – if some of Aesop's teachings can be disregarded in favour of personal ethics and values – your friend does not feel free to take it one step further and live according to his own ethical choices without reference to Aesop at all.

Your friend's answer to this baffles you; he states that without Literary-mandated laws to tell us right from wrong, humanity would have no morals and would descend into Sin and chaos. When you point out that humanity had justice and ethical values long before Aesop's Fables were penned – that the ancient Egyptians, for example, had courts of law and condemned and punished theft and murder – your friend answers that Aesop gave the ancient Egyptians consciences. This, of course, raises more questions for you; if Aesop created the conscience so that humanity could tell right from wrong, why then does that conscience disagree with some of the Fables that also come from Aesop? Why are some acts morally acceptable in some cultures but not in others? Why, in fact, did Aesop need to write down His lessons at all if He'd effectively built them into us? Your friend answers that Aesop loves His children and will not force us to believe or to do his will; for that reason, some people stray from Aesop's will and need the Fables to guide them and save them from eternal misery in Hades after death. You, of course, reflect that giving people a choice between obedience or eternal suffering is not really giving them free will at all, but your friend's only response to that is that Aesop is a loving Storyteller but that He works in mysterious ways man is not meant to understand.

This becomes a bit of theme as the conversation continues; you find that when you ask your friend a question that he cannot answer, you are very likely to be told either that man cannot comprehend Aesop's divine plan, or that something's metaphorical, or that you have closed your mind to Aesop, or even simply that you will be go to Hades if you don't believe – this latter is particularly confusing when it seems you are supposed to simultaneously believe two things that contradict each other. When you point out that you yourself fulfill many of Aesop's demands even though you don't believe in Him, your friend tells you that you've missed the point. It is not enough just to live a good life – you must do so because you are following the teachings of Aesop, or you will suffer for eternity anyway. Even more confusingly, it comes out that a believer in the Fables who lives an evil life can still be taken up to the Elysian Fields – as long as he repents and apologises to Aesop – where a non-believer can't no matter how good person he may be. It occurs to you that this means no one in the whole history of humanity could have made it to the Elysian Fields before the Fables were written – which seems a little wasteful, not to say utterly unfair - but by this time you're beginning to see that logic has no place in your friend's thought processes.

At this point you give up on making sense of the Fables themselves, and gently remind your friend that many of the tales attributed to Aesop are believed to have been written by other people, or even to be simple folk-tales that eventually got written down. In fact, you point out, many scholars have questioned whether Aesop – as a single, historical figure – ever existed at all. Your friend gets very angry at this comment, and tells you you're being very disrespectful to question his belief in Aesop and His teachings. In response you explain that you've got nothing against Aesop in particular, and in fact that there are also discrepancies in the stories attributed to Homer, for example, and Shakespeare too. Weirdly your friend is quite happy to acknowledge flaws in historical accounts of other Storytellers, but remains adamant that Aesop is somehow, by His very nature, different and above question.

Your friend has a young son, and you ask your friend if he's been allowed to read the Fables too. You find that in fact the son has been actively encouraged to read the Fables and to understand that they are the divine Word of Aesop. He asked a lot of questions at first, but once your friend explained to his son that if he asked too many questions or didn't believe everything the Fables have to say he would spend eternity in Hades away from his mother and father, that stopped and his son is now very devout. In fact, he reads passages from the Fables every night! Your friend's wife is an unbeliever and that troubles your friend, but he tries to explain to her why she's wrong and in any case he's made sure their son knows he's right and she's wrong, so the son knows to believe him.

A momentary expression of concern crosses your friend's face as he tells you that his son has interpreted the Fable of the Bat, the Bird and the Beasts to mean that people of mixed race are unloved of Aesop, and that therefore people of different races shouldn't mix. In fact, he also stood up in his sex-education class and told the teacher that bisexuality is a Sin under Aesop and should be punished; your friend is a little uncomfortable with these values, but very proud of the level of faith they demonstrate. He certainly wouldn't want you to think that all Fablists hold such values, and feels he can hardly be responsible for his son's somewhat fundamentalist approach just because he was the one who taught him to believe unquestioningly in Aesop and His teachings.

* * *

I hope you've been able to read all that calmly and without feeling like I'm picking on you or your specific religion; what I've written above is just an analogy to help you understand how religious belief appears to people who are on the outside and it doesn't target any religion in particular - hopefully you've been able to set aside your own convictions long enough to understand the point I'm trying to make with this story. But you may be thinking – quite reasonably – that the beliefs held by the friend in this story, while certainly odd, are harming no one; after all, he seems to be a moderate in his beliefs, and able to set aside the bits of Fablism that aren't compatible with what we now consider reasonable behaviour.

But I want you to take it a stage further, and join me in imagining a society in which Fablism has grown steadily over several hundred years until it has reached the point at which many people are followers of Aesop...

In this society, the influence of Fablism is so pervasive that bisexual people are ostracised, regarded as freaks and perverts, and many feel unable to be honest about their sexuality even to their friends and families. Fablists are powerful enough to make interracial marriage illegal as it's seen as a sin against Aesop; purists even insist that their children be educated at Fablist schools where children are segregated by race to remove the temptation to sin. Some parents object to their children being taught that animals cannot speak, and the Fablist versions of natural history and biology are already taught exclusively in some schools. Snakes, as agents of Aesop's wrath, are revered and there have been several cases of fundamentalist Fablists refusing antivenoms when they or their children have been bitten.

Fablists have split into many groups and factions over the centuries and decades, but they still unite to ridicule and even attack other faiths like Just-Soism, Bozism and the Shakespearians which, despite their many similarities to Fablism, are just obviously and undeniably wrong. Over the centuries, some of the worst wars in history have come about because of people's beliefs in different Storytellers, and even today more atrocities are committed in the names of the various Storytellers than for any other reason. In fact, because the faithful have been so strenuous for so long in demanding respect for their beliefs, the faiths have become a convenient excuse for all sorts of actions – every years acts of war and terrorism are committed with Storytellers as the justification. Many Fablists are uncomfortable with these acts, but ultimately they believe in the same Fables as do the terrorists and war-mongerers, and have little argument to make when a fundamentalist refers them to the Fable of the Man and the Serpent.

Please try to think about this as calmly as you can, and to understand that none of this – NONE – is a specific attack on any one religion; I have been careful not to say anything that cannot be applied to more than one faith. I have some questions for you now, and I would like you to consider them honestly:

Does the fact that the Fablist faith now has millions of followers make its basic tenets any less bizarre?

Would you be willing to accept that the Fables are true for no better reason than that someone told you they're true?

In my story, the friend has discovered Fablism as an adult. This was deliberate, and designed to provoke incredulity as it is rare for an adult to spontaneously become religious. But this incredulity prompts two important questions: firstly, does the fact that the son – unlike his father – was taught about Fablism from a young age make his beliefs in themselves any more rational? And secondly, if you are a religious person and were taught your beliefs in childhood, what does your skepticism about a person becoming a believer in adulthood suggest about the source of your own convictions?

Is it acceptable that children are segregated by race because of a 2,500-year-old book?

Is it acceptable that bisexual people are denied equality and basic rights because of a 2,500-year-old book?

Is it OK to commit acts of war and terrorism on non-Fablists in the name of a 2,500-year-old book?

Is it right that Fablists should have such power in society when they cannot prove that anything contained in their book came from a Storyteller, or even that there is a Storyteller?

Is it reasonable that Fablists should expect your compliance when they want to restrict your freedoms?

Would you stand in silence if your life, and the world as a whole, was being adversely affected by Fablism?"