Church of England: No BNP here
Church of England clergy will shortly be forbidden from joining the fascist BNP. Yesterday, the General Synod voted by an overwhelming majority of 322 to 13 for the CoE to become like the prison service or the police in proscribing membership.
It’s a good idea, since it prevents the BNP from using the name of the Church of England at any meetings or six-person rallies they might hold, but it rather misses the point.
Should Geert Wilders be allowed in?
The vaguely ridiculous figure of Geert Wilders will be no stranger to those on the internet who keep an eye on the politics of our continental cousins. Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, has been informed by the government that he will be denied leave to enter the UK under the laws which permit EU member states to deny any citizen entry on the basis of danger to public security. Whatever that means.
His film “Fitna” caused a stir amidst right and left wing circles when it was released last year. I got a chance to watch it last year and frankly I can’t see what the fuss is about. It shows quotes from the Koran and from Islamic fundamentalists besides images of 9/11, the 7/7 bombings and various other attacks by terrorists. Now he has been invited to show it in the House of Lords by (who else?) a UKIP peer.
Whether Wilders should be permitted to come to the UK, whether he should be permitted to show his video and whether or not the thesis of his video is correct are three different matters. To answer these questions, we must begin by categorizing him; is he racist? A fascist? “Just” anti-Islamic? I find the last troubling since I am anti-Islamic, and anti-all organised religions myself, but in no way similar to Geert.
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Christian refuses to drive ‘atheist bus’
A Christian bus driver said he was offended by a bus bearing the Atheist Bus slogan ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worry and enjoy your life‘ – and refused to drive it. His employer, First Bus, said that was fine and made allowances.
Among some atheist circles this is probably a controversial statement, but I have no problem with this. I think every liberal / tolerant society should accept the willingness of employers to make certain allowances for their employees if it’s not too much trouble.
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Standing on the shoulders of giants
It is a time of year to reflect, to think upon what has come to pass, to learn from the past and thank those that brought us to where we are today. Today, especially, is an exceptional day for these endeavours, being as it is the birthday of one of the greatest and most influential men to walk those green and pleasant lands.
His works, agitation and beliefs revolutionised the world, and there isn’t a day that goes by in which we are not all grateful for his work and influence.
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Religion and politics: a different approach
It’s perhaps a comonplace on a basically secular site like this that religion and politics should be kept as far apart as possible – except, perhaps, when religious leaders say things about poverty or discrimination that we happen to agree with.
And it’s undeniably true that the track record of religions when they intervene in political life has, over the centuries, been remarkably poor. It’s as though there’s something about the exercise of power which is hostile to the central message of religion, that you should love your neighbour as yourself.
And yet this message is so obviously true, and so obviously represents a thing both perennial and urgent, that there will always be a yearning to unlock the puzzle and find a way in which at least those religious people who do hold that message to be central to what they do can engage fruitfully in the political arena.
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Faith schools need to change
The report launched by the Runnymede Trust today, Right to Divide? Faith Schools and Community Cohesion’, is serious, balanced and well researched.
The Right to Divide report recommends that faith schools should:
* End selection on the basis of faith
* Give children a greater say in how the school is run
* Make broad-based RE lessons part of the national curriculum
* Do better at serving the most disadvantaged
* Stop privileging religious identity over those of gender, ethnicity, age, ability or sexual orientation
But it also says that faith should continue to play an important role in the education system.
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The Atheist Bus Campaign takes off
A while ago my facebook friend Ariane Sherine wrote an article about why there should be an ad campaign to counter the advertising that religious groups put out on buses. The idea took off and after a lull, a fully fledged campaign has been launched with the support of the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins. [For some reason however, and I put it down to lack of researching, the BBC wrongly credits the BHA for the idea]
Anyway, they have already reached their fundraising target so there’s little point donating but you can still donate to expand their scope. Although I would encourage Ariane to go for global domination and compete with Barack Obama for online fundraising and blanket television advertising. More seriously, I said this earlier when I plugged the campaign:
I’m not an atheist, but religious advertising mostly annoys me. In fact most people who talk about religion annoy me because they’re rarely well informed on the subject.
…
People who lack compassion and tolerance are bad enough, but those who use religion as their excuse while piously informing everyone their religion is about compassion are particularly annoying.
This is why I support this light-hearted campaign, and particularly the tolerant approach Ariane takes.
And here’s another point: the speed at which donations have been raised shows that when Britons get excited about specific political issues they’re as likely as Americans to donate money online. Surely its only a matter of time before organisations here try and exploit that?
We should face up to faith schools
There are several phases in most campaigns for equality and social justice. First denial that there is any real problem, then attempts to ameliorate it, then an admission that something substantial needs to change, and finally (hopefully) some substantive action.
That is the reason for the launch today of Accord, a new coalition making the case make the case that every state school in Britain should be open to all, irrespective of differences in belief and background; that schools should be places where those whose paths might not otherwise cross learn how to listen to one another, learn together, value one another and build a common future together.
Accord is in some respects an unlikely coalition. In addition to a teaching union, a religious think-tank and a humanist organisation, its backers include secularists and Hindus, Christians and Jews, people of various faith backgrounds and none.
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Faith, reason and foreign policy
Someone once defined “faith” as being “a passionate belief in something that you know to be untrue”. Without wishing to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities, it does strike me that “faith-driven politics” has been one of the biggest weaknesses of the British left when it comes to foreign policy.
Putting to one side the Trotskyist fringe, one of the most fanatically driven group of “believers” were the Blairites who remodelled New Labour into what was initially such a successful political machine. What marked out Blairites from old guard Labour right-wingers, and the “soft-left” of the Labour party, from which they emerged, was a genuine belief that they had found a new political ideology.
It is no coincidence that so many of Blair’s lieutenants had Leninist backgrounds. There is a certain mind-set that wants to fit the complexities of the world into a set of rigid dogmas and battles between good and evil (with flinching cowards and sneering traitors thrown in for good measure).
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Johann Hari and the Seven Seals of Dacre
Nick Cohen’s decline from interesting leftie columnist to right-wing hack has been well chronicled over here. One amusing marker of this was Watching how he broken one by one the ‘Seven Seals of Dacre’.
The idea behind the Seals of Dacre are that every time you adopt a bizarre and counterfactual view which is also believed by Melanie Phillips, a seal breaks open, and when all seven are broken, the Vaults open and an army of ghouls rush out and drag you off to write a column in the Daily Mail (or in Nick’s case the Evening Standard).
I haven’t been tracking Johann Hari’s progress in this way until recently, but I reckon he has broken at least two Seals in recent weeks.
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Irrational beliefs are useful too
In a comment here, Matthew suggests that support for freedom is enhanced by egoism, in the sense of people’s exaggerated faith in their own ability to control their lives.
This is a plausible claim. It’s a cliché that opposition to redistribution in the US is based partly upon the belief of the poor that they can get rich*.
But this just shows that irrational beliefs can serve useful functions. Few people would embark upon risky ventures such as starting their own business, developing new products, or writing books unless they were irrationally over-confident of their chances of success.
And religious belief is correlated with greater happiness, more law-abiding behaviour and support (pdf) for markets.
This implies that there is a potential conflict between two forms of rationality:
1. Belief rationality, which says our beliefs should be proportioned to the evidence. This tells us not to believe in God, and that the odds of being a successful innovator are small.
2. Instrumental rationality, which says we should act so as to maximize our chosen ends.
In some cases, though, desirable goals – wealth, happiness, liberty in Matthew’s example – can be pursued best by abandoning belief rationality.
In this context, atheists such as Richard Dawkins can speak at cross-purposes with believers. When Dawkins says: “believe in evolution, not God”, he’s advocating belief rationality. When his interlocuters reply: “but my community believes in God” they are (implicitly) advancing a form of instrumental rationality; they think they would lose good things when they lose their faith.
The issue here isn’t – or at least isn’t always – one of rationality versus irrationality. It’s: which rationality?
* Irrationality isn’t always the servant of freedom, however. One source of support for repressive measures such as ID cards or 42 days detention is people’s bias to look upon the bright side, and believe that bad things – identity theft or arbitrary imprisonment – only happen to other people. This optimism bias might explain why there’s often more opposition to redistributive taxation than to restrictions upon civil liberties.
Was there conflict of interest over gay marriage case?
The extreme decision of an employment tribunal in the case of Ladele vs Islington (pdf), that of the registrar who claimed to have discriminated against on religious ground for refusing to officiate in civil partnership ceremonies, has naturally drawn a considerable amount of attention.
Thus far, the general consensus amongt legal bloggers is that the tribunal’s ruling is, at best, extreme, if not bordering on perverse and in the days since the ruling it transpires that Ms Ladele, whose views on marriage were described in the judgement as follows…
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Hypocrite Green asks for goodwill from those he sued
This brightens my day. Fundamentalist campaigner may have to declare bankruptcy as a result of the court case I covered last December. He has apparently asked us licence payers to cover the costs:
in the interests of goodwill and justice
Seriously. This petty little fundamentalist bigot who misused a long outdated law as part of his personal crusade against freedom of expression now wants to be let off the costs of the case in the name of “goodwill”.
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Reactions to Doctor Who Broke My Brain
I have spent about five hours so far collating reactions to last night’s Who and am still not done yet, so if this is a bit disjointed, blame Russell T Davies. When I’ve finally done I’ll be making Liberal use of this and picturing Rusty in the role of Boss.
Tips to the usual address: all submissions will be considered, although there’s no guarantee of inclusion.
Andrew Hickey has a great post about why the Lib Dems’ current strategy is completely arse-about-face, which neatly encapsulates my own feelings on the matter and chimes with Mike Smithson’s recent post too.
Stuff White People Like dissects Godwin’s Law: “all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.”
Shakesville reports on a fiscal fly in John McCain’s soup.
On my blog there are tips for those who wish to pile the pressure on Heinz like Lynne F. continue reading… »
The natural progress of procreation?
During the HFE Bill debate, several members of the House of Commons stood up to claim that fathers are being sidelined by the lack of legislation on whether lesbians should have to provide evidence of a male role model in order to qualify for IVF.
Several other members stood up to claim that the child has rights, and that these rights are best looked after by the existence of such a ‘father’ clause.
The terrible logical inconsistencies in such statements became very obvious in debate. If we’re insisting on a male role model, because it will result in a better brought up child, why is it immaterial what sort of role model we’re talking about? If the male role model is a drunk, a wife-beater or any number of other things, then that will hardly result in a better brought up child.
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Nadine Dorries MP and her hoax science
1) On March 19th Nadine Dorries MP published a blog-post titled The Hand of Hope, which featured this image of a small hand apparently coming out of a uterus. She said:
When the operation was over, baby Samuel, at 21 weeks gestation, put his hand through the incision in the uterus and grabbed hold of the surgeon’s finger, a gesture which was apparently met with a huge amount of emotion in the operating theatre. Dr Bruner said that it was the most emotional moment of his life and that for a moment he was just frozen, totally immobile.
Except, it was a hoax and Dr Bruner himself had said so. This was pointed out on several blogs including LC and Dorries wrote another post defending her actions with the view that the photographer, a born-again Christian, should be believed over the surgeon (who she had earlier quoted herself).
The Hand of Hope also makes an appearance on the pictures and video section of her new campaign. In other words, a member of parliament is actually perpetuating a hoax that has been debunked several times.
In many ways, this sums up her entire campaign.
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Who is funding Nadine Dorries MP’s campaign?
A week ago Nadine Dorries launched the 20 weeks Campaign through the Daily Mail, which wrote up this glowing story and dedicated its editorial comment strip to supporting it. The 20 Weeks website has Nadine Dorries MP’s picture on every page and she has promoted it relentlessly through her blog. So we can reasonably assume it is her campaign.
But who is behind this campaign? Is it just Ms Dorries? The website doesn’t say. On the Q&A page however it does have this question: Is this a religious campaign?. Answer: “No. There are people of all faiths and of no faith who support this campaign.”
But that’s about it. Shouldn’t we be told who is running a campaign fronted by a Conservative MP?
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Embarassing endorsements?
A few weeks ago, Tory Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson was endorsed by the fascist British National Party. His response was swift, short, and sweet:
I utterly and unreservedly condemn the BNP and have no desire whatsoever to receive a single second-preference vote from a BNP supporter
This week, Labour and Liberal Democrats were placed in pretty much the same situation by the Muslim Association of Britain. Candidates should likewise reject with alacrity, the endorsement of this extreme right-wing organisation.
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Before I forget
Before my granddad died, he suffered for around nine years with Alzheimer’s. The worst thing wasn’t the forgetting things, the not recognising people or the needing round-the-clock care. The worst symptom of Alzheimer’s was the depression.
He knew he was a burden to those who cared for him, he knew what was happening to him and it broke his heart every day.
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Manipulating politics through religion
There’s often a row about religion over the Easter holiday, usually involving a pronouncement made a bishop that the media has half-grasped and wants to turn into a good old scrap between believers and others.
This year, however, the bundle has been much more political. It was kicked off by Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s gaudy intervention in the debate about the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill continue reading… »
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» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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