andrewducker | Interesting Links for 15-02-2012

(I come to this discussion as a US citizen, with no official state religion, although Christianity has a strong presence in the country.)

I happen to be a pagan, and while I can often find common cause with people of other faiths, I am generally none too happy to sit silently through prayers in the name of other religions when those prayers don’t directly speak to the reason I’m present. (I don’t so much mind Christian weddings, for example, as presumably the happy couple has made a deliberate choice to solemnize their partnership in this fashion.) Even when I agree with the topic of the prayers, if not the name in which it is offered, it is an uncomfortable reminder that I am a member of a minority religion. It does not give me a sense of peaceful purpose, it makes me angry, defensive, and prepared to give as good as I get. That is generally a counterproductive sentiment, and regardless of my personal work in trying to keep a clear head regardless, I would be much happier at college graduations, hockey games, and the like, if prayers were omitted. I cannot imagine attempting to usefully engage in government under those circumstances.

Baroness Warsi appears to think that mandatory Christian prayers for councillors are a good idea... AIUI she is a practising Muslim. I don't really understand where she is coming from on that though.

I've been assuming that she comes from a "Religion is better than not-religion" point of view, where she doesn't want laws brought in that would make life harder for religious people (including Muslims).

As an observant non-Christian religious person, I would much rather have to do DIY observance outside non-religious meetings than be forced to be present for the observance of the dominant hegemonic religion to be able to participate in government (or whatever)! That makes no sense!

The fact that they can hold the same religious meetings five minutes earlier in the same room makes it fairly clear cut to me.

It depends on whether you see this story as "mandatory prayers have now been made optional" or as "optional prayers have now been banned from happening". Without actually being in the sessions I guess it's pretty hard to tell. Different newspapers covered the story in different ways.

There's a world of difference between a few councillors quietly having a prayer before a meeting and between a few councillors praying and expecting the atheist one to join in.

Nobody has been banned from having a prayer session before the council sessions - To quote the original BBC article:
Mr Justice Ouseley ruled the prayers were not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972.

However, he said prayers could be said as long as councillors were not formally summoned to attend.

They just can't force others to attend by holding them during the council sessions.

Sure... I'm familiar with the judgement. Now you can see that judgement as being a judgement that councillors are not forced to attend a session where prayers take place (excellent) or you can see that judgement as a judgement that informal prayers cannot now take place during the session but must take place before hand (not, perhaps, so excellent).

What I'm interested in was what was actually happening in that particular council chambers where the original debate took place. I can well see the possibility of pushy over-religious types forcing their prayers or beliefs on someone else. On the other hand, I can equally well see a few harmless people wanting to introduce prayers into the meeting if they take their job extremely seriously and believe it important.

I mean there are loonies on all sides in this debate. Take the lib dem bloke you linked to who, in all seriousness, said "My human rights were infringed" because he was asked to go into the chamber when prayers were being held. (I'd have had sympathy if he'd, say, made his objections clear and seen what happened, but his claim was that his human rights were infringed by simply someone asking him to go into the chamber and him doing it. Even though, we've no indication that, if he'd made clear his objection, the other people wouldn't have gone, "gosh, terribly sorry, how thoughtless of us, you take your time, we'll call you when we finish.")

I think that forcing people to engage in religious ceremonies is an infringement of their rights. I don't think it's a major one for most people - but if every morning in work I had to take part in a religious ceremony I'd be feeling really unhappy about it.

And we know that some people weren't happy about it, because they'd already had a vote on it, in which the prayer people had won. One assumes there was a debate involved in that.

OK -- there's a risk of two things getting mixed up here:

(1) The lib dem "oh my human rights, I am so wounded" guy from your here:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-time-to-talk-about-things-that-dont-matter-27109.html#comment-196855
He was as far as we can tell from that column just asked to go into the chamber -- or rather someone expressed concern that he wasn't in the chamber. That's as far from being "forced" as I can possibly imagine. That's a pretty poor level of debate. Unless there's another part of that story he seems to be just being a bit of a dick. (Maybe, giving him the benefit of the doubt, it's wholly possible that he knew the other people were really awkward types and he would have been forced to attend had he kicked up a fuss... but he can't mention it here because...)

(2) The council over which the ruling was made.
I didn't know that detail that they'd voted on it. But was the debate "should prayers be included" or "should everybody take part in prayers". That is if it was "should we have prayers" and the guys who liked prayers voted yes, that's a different prospect from "I find it uncomfortable to be forced to go to these prayers can I be excused" and the guys who liked prayers voted "no".

I guess what I'd like to know is who was being intolerant here. I'm sort of 66% inclined to say it was the religious types being intolerant...

a judgement that informal prayers cannot now take place during the session but must take place before hand (not, perhaps, so excellent).

Would you mind elucidating a bit on why? I don't see why this is a problem.

Well, for example, you and I might see it as a bit odd but I can see someone fervently believing that being allowed to quietly pray for guidance on some important decision might be quite important to them. Perhaps neither of us would particularly want to be have someone with such a belief in a position of even minor power. Nonetheless, I'm not sure it's quite such a good thing to forbid them to do so (assuming that is what is forbidden).

As an example, perhaps more comprehensible, I quite often think decisions are best informed with the internet as a look up tool for facts. If a ruling was made I were not allowed to consult this during those meetings where I took my most important decisions... I might find that ruling a bit upsetting.

If someone wants a minute of silent contemplation while they do whatever they like in their own head in order to come to a conclusion, then that's fine by me.

But not apparently by the letter of this law (well, it is unclear, I guess if it was "silent" some people could claim they would not be "said" but that would seem like weasel words) -- and I'm guessing these would be people to stick to that letter of the law.

I'm not actually sure what the letter of the law is here - it seems to be saying that they can't make "Prayer" an item on the agenda, not that an individual can't pray while the meeting is going on.

Which would match the case in US schools and suchlike, where schools cannot have prayer sessions, but individuals can pray if they feel like.

IANAL, of course.

I guess I interpreted from "prayers can be said as long as councillors are not made formally to attend" (the ruling I think) that prayers could not be said when councillors were formally made to attend -- that is prayers could not be said in that part of the meeting at which was compulsory. Perhaps that is too strong an interpretation.

Yeah, I dunno either. And banning "the saying of prayers" could be taken either way - and hopefully wouldn't cover people saying them silently in their heads. But lots of things I hope turn out to not be true :->

Indeed, we can only hope it has found the correct balance between forcing others to attend (or worse participate) in ceremonies they find offensive on the one hand and, on the other hand, allowing a non-disruptive freedom to pursue beliefs.

Yeah - it's a hard line to walk. And I don't like some of the decisions made recently (I object to people getting in trouble over expressing opinions, even if they are ones I find disgusting). But I can hope :->

I read the actual judgement; prayers have certainly not been banned.

Having not attend this council I am unclear on whether the prayers were previous optional or compulsory but they were on the official agenda. Now they must not be on the official agenda; but can happen pre-meeting (or post-meeting, or whenever else people like); they are even allowed to use the council chamber to hold them in.

Well, prayers have been banned during the council session itself but can take place before. See above. Whether you see that as a ban or not is really a matter of perspective.

Did someone confuse "Scott of the Antarctic" with "The Antarctic of the Scots"...?

Hah!

‘implying that [Palestine] is not free is the contentious issue’

Who thinks this is contentious? Not to mention I'm sure this sort of commentary about other countries wouldn't face the same kind of censorship...

I’m not sure if the article on the Antartic being devolved to Holyrood is a spoof or not but…

… Given the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty Westminster can just legislate to change the Scotland Act and return powers over Antartica to Westminster. The Scottish Government has pretty no come back to that at all.

The negotiaion over the Indepedence referendum arises because the Westminster government genuinely recognise the legitimacy of the people of Scotland having a referendum and the genuine but remote possibility that Salmond could place himself at the head of an angry mob / organised insurrection if the wishes of the people of Scotland were ignored.

I don’t see myself rioting over Antartica – no matter how much oil you could extract from penguins if you minced them finely enough.

… Given the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty Westminster can just legislate to change the Scotland Act and return powers over Antartica to Westminster. The Scottish Government has pretty no come back to that at all.

I believe not. Westminster can amend the Scotland act, but the Scottish parliament would also have to agree to rescind those powers. That's sort of the point of devolution, you can't hand over powers but retain the ability to remove them whenever you feel like it.

The Express has a little more info. It seems that the Scotland Bill committee at Holyrood (under the previous government) agreed to basically undo that part of the legislation, but the current committee have decided to oppose it. The SNP have the means to make political capital out of this and it looks like they may do so.

Politically it may be the case that Holyrood is asked to consent to amendments to the Scotland Act constitutionally Westminster can do whatever it wants.

Westminster consents to bound by the Scotland Act and the ECHR but, unless the constituation has fundamentally changed since I was at law school in the 90's the Queen in Parliament is sovereign and unbound.

As an atheists (and speaking for my people) I might well be irked by formal prayers before procedings.

Perhaps not as much as a member of another faith group would be.

It largely depends on whether I was forced to attend or (or even participate) in the prayers in order to be present at the proceedings. If I'm allowed to arrive late, then fine. If not, then I must whole heartedly show my encouragement, by providing background music to the prayer. With a kazoo.

There was a comment kicking about somewhere about people using prayer sessions to bags seats.

Might not seem an important point most of the time but there could be occassions when you really want or need to sit with someone.

So, even if not compulsory one is at a disadvantage if one doesn’t want to sit through a formal prayer session.

A good point, although I doubt you could argue that being unable to have your choice of seat was necessarily something they were required to do anything about.

No, but if there is going to be a free for all I'd like not to start at the back of the scrum on account of my religious affiliation.

Did you hear Dawkins being skewered on Radio four in an interview about that poll? Hilarious... he was huffing and puffing in his way about "not proper christians if" (which always winds me up as I fit his definition of "not proper christian" -- seriously, do I tell him how to be a biologist?)... and one of his points was "can hardly be a proper Christian if they don't know the name of the first book of the new testament"... in a brilliant moment the interviewer asked him if he knew the full title of "Origin of the Species". He replied that of course he did. The interviewer asked him what it was. There was a couple of minutes of spluttering sounds and vague guesses that there was some kind of subtitle (to be fair it's long and I can't remember it). I doubt it will dissuade him of the idea that somehow a lack of knowledge is the same as a lack of sincerity but it was a marvellous moment.

It was funny, but not actually meaningful. The Bible is the source of truth for Christianity. It is their central religious work, from which all truth springs.

The Origin Of The Species was a groundbreaking work of science which will not add anything to the understanding of a modern biologist who has read the same (and updated) information elsewhere.

It is their central religious work, from which all truth springs.

I'm afraid I find that sort of statement slightly offensive. I'm a Christian. I do not believe all truth springs from the bible. I'm pretty offended anyone would think I would believe something so patently and obviously daft. I imagine a fairly high percentage of Christians are in this position.

I happen to have read the bible. I can't remember even a high percentage of it. I wouldn't question the faith or sincerity of someone who hadn't. I guess it's not just relgion that gets this. The "if you were really sincere you would..." argument is prevelant in a lot of beliefs:

If you were a committed vegetarian you wouldn't wear leather shoes.
If you were a committed environmentalist you'd never take a car anywhere.
If you were a committed socialist you'd have read Das Kapital (actually I haven't).

I'm just always a bit doubtful of the reasoning behind someone who makes this kind of comment. Why are they trying to state that someone's declared beliefs are not their real beliefs. That's why I'm really dubious about Dawkin's "not a real Christian" crusade. It's all so similar to a telegraph column about people who don't really believe in the environment, equality etc etc...

As you don't believe that the Bible is entirely true, do you believe that any of it is true? If so, what is your method of choosing that some bits are truer than others?

I guess I use the same method that you would use in deciding which bits of a newspaper article are true -- do they fit in with my overall world view.

Oh, I don't see how that can work for deciding whether things are true or not. Depending on what you mean by "world view". I mean, my world view is "liberal", but that doesn't mean that things written in liberal newspapers or by liberal people are more likely to be true than things written by people I find reprehensible.

I don't want to misunderstand you here - it sounds to me like you're saying that you believe things based on whether they feel good to you or not, but if that's not what you mean then I don't want to assume. (Particularly after our previous misunderstandings!)

I don't believe my method for determining what is true or untrue significantly differs from how most people do it, except, I guess that I've got a bit of statistical training so I'm slightly able to escape certain biases.

How do you determine what is true?

Testable models, and relying on other people arguing over _their_ experience and testable models to build something which approaches truthiness.

When it comes to historical fact (as opposed to things you can experiment on or run statistical models against) - wodges of documentation.

I'm not sure how either of these can be applied to deciding which bits of The Bible to believe are true.

None of those methods would seem to work when it came to moral beliefs though. Testable models and documentation don't help really. Do you believe you have a rigorous way to construct a moral framework? (Incidentally, I would certainly not argue "pick one from a religious text" lest you think I'm trying to say that -- actually, I used to be an atheist and my moral stance has not really changed since).

I believe that you can have a totally coherent moral framework, as with any logically consistent framework - you just have to pick your axioms and then follow them to wherever they lead.

I do believe that morals are just opinions though - They're statements of like and dislike.

I like it when people have free speech, I dislike it when millions of people are killed because of their genetic grouping. But I wouldn't try and say those are somehow facets of the universe, they're facets of me (and many other people, of course).

And how do you pick your axioms?

(Incidentally, do you really believe your moral framework was constructed by choosing axioms and then logically working them through to their conclusions?)

If morals are just opinions how do you pick your opinions?

I don't have a coherent moral framework. You asked if it was possible to construct one, not if I had one.

I don't pick my opinions - they just are. Much the same way as I like chocolate and dislike being kicked in the crotch, I like free speech and dislike torture.

Some of them change over time, of course. I didn't used to like salt and vinegar crisps, and now I do. And, of course, sometimes my opinions clash, and things I thought seemed like a good idea turned out to not produce results that I liked.

Apologies, I realised I phrased my question badly. When I asked "Do you believe you have a rigorous way to construct a moral framework?" I was more asking a question about how you picked your moral beliefs -- rather than whether it was in theory possible to create a logically consistent moral framework.

When people say "you just choose the parts of the bible/koran/atlas shrugged/D&D second edition rules/bhagvad gita that make you feel good" (which is where this started) it strikes me as unjust but a question worth considering. But really this is part of a larger question about how we construct our beliefs about the world.

For clear-cut science/history things this is easy (um... well not easy, but easy to state the approach one would like to have). For moral/societal choices it strikes me as much more difficult and that most of us aquire a bunch of disparate moral beliefs from what we have read and what we found compellingly argued and try to make this into a consistent whole.

I used to love the idea of having a coherent whole - and then I studied some philosophy at university, read a bunch of stuff about belief systems, and came to the conclusion that moral systems are ungrounded and fractal - trying to make them fit into a single "Doing X will always produce the right answer" system never works, and what you end up with is usually the opposite - people who have a nice coherent system and then get horribly defensive when you try to point out that their system falls apart when dealing with the complexities of the real world. This is where libertarians, or communists, or anarchists, or various other -ians and -ists go wrong (IMHO) - the system becomes the answer, rather than a useful set of guidelines to save people from decision overload.

If you look at where most people get their morals from, it's usually themselves. People might espouse particular codes, but if you look at what they actually do it's what they believe to be right. See that Russell piece for perfect examples of that - people who espoused Christianity, while utterly ignoring what Jesus (is supposed to have) said. When you get down to it, they didn't actually believe in that model of Christian Values, they just claimed to (and quite possibly believed they did - people are exceptionally self-deceiving), while actually doing what they wanted.

And I'm not trying to claim this is just Christians - this is pretty much everyone. Ayn Rand was a rubbish Objectivist, L Ron Hubbard probably sucked at Scientology :->

When I actually went back and asked myself "What do I mean when I say 'Eating babies is wrong.'?" I was left with the conclusion that I meant "I do not like it when people eat babies." And as my likes and dislikes are something that are sourced internally (although, clearly, affected by the world around me), trying to take the various things that make up my moral tastes and make them all fit into a single code seems remarkably silly and counterproductive.

It would be like trying to fit my liking of "Aliens" and "The art of Dave McKean" into a single system - we could spend countless hours trying to define different systems of taste, fitting things into it, or I could use a simple label like "Geeky stuff" and understand that that's a very vague descriptor, with oodles of places where it doesn't fit.

And that's fine, because my feelings on rape squads and Monet don't tell you anything about external truths of the universe, they just tell you about things in my head.

Now, getting back to the tricky stuff of belief, if your Christianity is a purely moral "I think that most of the stuff that Jesus (is said to have) talked about is pretty good, and the world would be a better place if more people took care of the sick and poor and stopped throwing stones at each other." then that makes perfect sense to me. That's not making any statements about whether there even was a person called Jesus, it's just making statements about the way you'd like people to act.

If you think that Genesis definitely didn't happen, but Jesus was definitely resurrected then I'm left wondering why you think that two things that both seem impossible from my understanding of the universe are differently possible in your understanding - but I'm happy to hear explanations of your logic :->

Speaking of which - looking at the definition of Christian in the Russell piece, it seems to be belief that (1)There is a God (2)There is immortality and (3)Christ was at the least a great man.

I haven't seen any evidence for (1) or (2), and (3) seems debatable as I'm not convinced that the Christ described in the Bible existed, or that I would agree with all of his beliefs, although a lot of them do seem like a good start, particularly for someone born in a pretty unpleasant part of human history.

*phew* I don't half ramble on.

I used to love the idea of having a coherent whole - and then I studied some philosophy at university, read a bunch of stuff about belief systems, and came to the conclusion that moral systems are ungrounded and fractal - trying to make them fit into a single "Doing X will always produce the right answer" system never works

This is pretty much where I am as well... If you've ever read anything Feyerabend wrote about the nature of science, what you describe here seems to be the same thing for morality and ethics... that while people want to believe in a coherent logically constructed moral system (which I suspect is why so many people are drawn to utilitarianism), in fact what most people do is gain beliefs over their lifetime and cobble them together and try to make them consistent.

the system becomes the answer, rather than a useful set of guidelines to save people from decision overload.

Indeed... a reaction to the complexities by believing a simple system will somehow work.

That's not making any statements about whether there even was a person called Jesus, it's just making statements about the way you'd like people to act.

Which is pretty much were I come from.

If you think that Genesis definitely didn't happen, but Jesus was definitely resurrected

I don't think the second either... you'd perhaps be surprised how common a position it is. http://preacherwoman.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/the-resurrection/ (only the first few pars worth reading)
So apparently the second belief is not necessary to get to the rank of Bishop in the Church of England.

However, I take your more general point that there are things which seem unevidenced.

as I'm not convinced that the Christ described in the Bible existed,

The evidence is better than most people would make out given that he was just one guy with a relatively small number of followers some time in the past. A comparison I like to make is, imagine trying to find evidence that the poll tax riots had happened if the entire resources you had to work with were a handful of small public libraries where 9/10ths of the books had been destroyed. But yes, it's certainly not 100% convincing. I find the evidence that he existed more convincing... the opposite involves believing in later forgers (presumably Christian) inserting into at least one text.

Edited 2012-02-15 20:12 (UTC)

If your belief system consists of "There was probably a person called Jesus, and he may have done some of the things from the Bible, and generally he seems to have been a pretty good guy." then that's fine (and fairly non-contentious), but it doesn't seem like religion to me, insofar as it has no connection to any deity. It's more a fan club for a chunk of history - like thinking that Gandhi was great.

It's the adding of the supernatural elements, and the idea that Jesus wasn't just great, but that he was connected to the creator of the universe, who has ideas about right and wrong that we should listen to that converts it from a fan club into a religion. And that's the unevidenced bit - unless you believe that The Bible is an accurate account, in which case we're back to "Which bits and why?".

And that is, I guess where these discussions bottom out. If you believe things which are obviously unreasonable people think you are obviously unreasonable and if you do not believe things which are obviously unreasonable people think you are somehow cheating or not believing properly.

The problem being that what is obviously unreasonable to me may not be the same as it is to you, and is clearly very different from what is obviously unreasonable to Rick Perry.

And brings me back to my original point, I think* which is that given a book in which large chunks are obviously unreasonable, why take any of it as fact?

To use an analogy that's simplified to the point of silliness, imagine if people took Narnia as a religion, with The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe as their religious text. There would be your strict Narians, who believed that the whole thing was literal fact, passed down by Aslan. And there would be those who said that _obviously_ it was unreasonable to think that the children literally passed through the wardrobe into Narnia - that bit was metaphor, but the Pevensie children still existed and visited that house during the blitz, and that bit was fine, because it's not obviously unreasonable.

And I'd be wondering why we'd take a book where 3/4 of it was agreed to be metaphor/myth and take 1/4 of it seriously, just because there was an actual Blitz, and houses like that really did exist in the 1940s.

*Or at least, I'm going to segue there anyway.

But really, have you ever actually met a christian who believes the entire bible is true. In my experience you only come across them in newspaper stories.

a) I've had evangelical Christians on my friends list.
b) Talking to people who believe in bits of the bible, their methodology usually comes down to "These bits make me feel happy." Which fills me with horror and rage at their lack of intellectual rigour, while also making me envious that they can do that kind of mental separation/juggling.

*heh* It's the "not proper Christian" thing. I used to have it about vegetarians... "ooh, how can you call yourself a vegetarian but wear leather" and used to work myself into a bit of a rage about the lack of intellectual rigour.

I think when you actually ask evangelical Christians whether they literally believe that (say) god put two of every type of animal on a big boat you'll find the number who say yes is a small proportion of evangelicals. Follow that by asking if they believe that the hare "cheweth the cud" and all observations by field naturalists are incorrect... I may be wrong, you may have some very rare examples but I suspect if you asked them these questions you'd find that actually they don't genuinely believe everything said in the bible is literally true and you've been doing them something of a disservice in your beliefs about them.

You still haven't said what makes you a Christian then. It's a self-applied label, so it clearly means something to you - but so far you haven't corrected me from "I believe things that it makes me feel happy to believe.", which is surprising, as I'd have thought that you wouldn't be happy with that label.

I picked my definition of Christian from Bertrand Russell's essay "Why I am not a Christian." It's excellent and part of the reason I stopped being an atheist. You can find it here:

http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html

but so far you haven't corrected me from "I believe things that it makes me feel happy to believe."

Then let me take this opportunity to do so.

I'll go and read that now - I may be a while in responding to this one, as I also have dinner arriving momentarily, and possibly also a shopping delivery :->

And please don't take this as me trying to wind you up. It's not often I get a chance to talk to someone about their religious beliefs, and actually try and understand what they really believe, and why.

I find talking about religious beliefs pretty uncomfortable. People tend to assign you with all kinds of bonkers opinions afterwards... it's as if you've admitted to thinking that gravity is wrong. For some people it gives them an automatic "oh, they only believe that because" so I don't actually tend to mention it too much because in my experience it only ever reduces people's opinion of you.

That's understandable - especially if you're surrounded by sciency geeky types, who pounce on things and try to tear them apart.

If it helps, I'm appreciating the discussion, and it's not lowering my opinion of you :->

The jury said in a statement on Monday: "Shitstorm fills a gap in the German vocabulary.."

And they didn't translate it? to my ear, sheissensturm has a certain ring to it.

That article about RPGs is terribly written, by someone who has apparently never played one, and certainly not WoW.

RPG games?
Dwarven warrior mage?
Puh-lease. Regardless of the actual study, the article lost my interest two paragraphs in.

The actual study was by Mormon Mail-Order College. It's not exactly credible.

Well, all right then. :)

The fact that the "common sense on prayers and councils" dude open his piece with an offensive, ignorant, bigoted paragraph, wherein he demonstrates the quality of thinking and education one normally only sees from young-earth creationists, does not incline me to read him further.

I totally agree with his point. I understand atheists more than I do theists, but only a bit. I find both points of view puzzling.

The short version: You don't think of yourself as an idiot for not believing in santa claus and internet gnomes and the sacred healing power of plasma television, or anything else I could make up. Why would you think someone else is an idiot for not believing in Vishnu?

And yet, Our Writer over there decided that an ignorant strawman was good enough for him, and he presented it in the traditional bigoted "now, don't let anyone POSSIBLY confuse me with one of THEM, they're unclean! Those bitches be CRAZY" manner.

I am abysmally fucking tired of the special pleading that otherwise seemingly-sane people will resort to to explain why THEIR story gets a pass on being considered fiction, and that I'm the one somehow making an unjustifiable leap of logic when I conclude that their bedtime story for boring children is not materially different from The Cat In The Hat or the Eddas or Dianetics.

I didn't notice him doing any of that. He said that he finds the certainties of atheists puzzling.

I do too. I don't consider Christianity any more likely than Dianetics, but that doesn't make me convinced that there definitely are no Gods, which also strikes me as unproven.

I didn't notice him doing any of that.

First part of first sentence: "Now, before I start, let me be clear: I am not an atheist"

Translation: The MOST IMPORTANT PART of EVERYTHING I HAVE TO SAY TODAY (or else I wouldn't have but it first-and-first) is I am definitely NOT a member of this group.

Second part of first sentence: "in fact find atheism’s certainties as puzzling as those of fundamentalists"

Translation: I don't know what an atheist is or what the word atheist means, and I will admit this! I will then attempt to tar them by association with the ignorant.

Third part of first sentence: "the latter are certain that God exists and the former that he does not."

Translation: Strawman argument that demonstrates that the translation of the second part of the first sentence is an accurate translation.

Second sentence: "Quite how, after centuries of Enlightenment philosophy, there are adherents to either point of view is beyond me."

Translation: Those bitches be CRAAZY. I'm not one of them. They're SO UNCLEAN that I must spend my first paragraph explaining that I'm definitely not one of them.

I mean, hell, he gets in a snide, offensively stupid and ignorant shot at people who *do* believe in God, too, while he's at it, but his major focus is that he doesn't know what an atheist IS but he's sure the most important thing he can imagine is that he doesn't want to be mistaken for one.

Let's rewrite his first paragraph about a different group, and maybe you can see why it's so offensively fucking stupid:

"Now, before I start, let me be clear: I am not a homosexual and in fact find homosexuality’s choices as puzzling as those of pedophiles – the latter are certain that sex with children leads to procreation and the former that a man's womb is accessable via his anus. Quite how, after centuries of anatomical science, there are adherents to either point of view is beyond me."

Does that help?

He seems to know exactly what an atheist is - someone who believes that God does not exist. Which is one of the main definitions of atheism, and agreed with by two dictionaries I just checked with.

I'm not sure where you're getting the rest of it from, you seem to be basically translating perfectly normal English into whatever you feel like.

He seems to know exactly what an atheist is - someone who believes that God does not exist.

Which is to say, an ignorant restatement that marginalises and erases and belittles.

(and incorrectly reverses the burden of evidence - but that's why it's a STUPID statement, not why it's an OFFENSIVE statement)

Which is one of the main definitions of atheism, and agreed with by two dictionaries I just checked with.

If you look in a dictionary you will also find "theory" to be a synonym for "hypothesis". Try that in biology, see how that works out for you.

Dictionaries reflect casual and non-technical usage as well as technical.

you seem to be basically translating perfectly normal English into whatever you feel like.

I'm going to assume you yourself have no argument with my translation of the first part of his first sentence because I don't see any other way for it to be read. If you do disagree, please, tell me why.

Assume, for a moment, that I genuinely do feel that "atheists actively believe in the nonexistence of God, and this is an irrational leap of logic that requires at least as much faith as believing in the divinity of Jesus" to be an offensively ignorant statement, much along the same lines as "Muslims worship the moon" and "feminists hate men" and "homosexuals were abused as children".

(Because I do. But even if you don't believe me, just assume it, for a moment)

Given that, can you now see why I find his statement incredibly offensive?

I studied philosophy at university, where the same definition of atheism was used repeatedly. I've heard it used that way repeatedly by people who defined themselves as atheists. If you don't use it that way that's fine, but claiming that all people that do are on a crusade to defame atheists is, well, crazy.

I can see that you find it offensive, but I think that's _your_ problem. If you are offended by logically accurate statements then that's not something I can do anything about.

I didn't say he was on a crusade to defame atheists, I said he made an ignorant, stupid statement that exposed his unexamined and JUST MAYBE unconscious bigotry.

Very well: You've redefined nonreligion as a religion. What do you then call "those who lack belief in culturally postulated supernatural beings"?

(Or, to use the normal word, "atheists". But you've redefined that one.)

Agnostics do not know whether there are culturally postulated supernatural beings.

Of course atheist _also_ means that, because it means two different things. And agnostic also means people who believe that there is no possibility of knowledge about supernatural beings. Which verges into the territory of ignostics, who believe that the concept of God is meaningless (or at least no definition currently extant is actually coherent). I usually lump myself into the last of those, because I've never heard a definition of "God" that made sense to me.

Again, we have a definition issue.

The "standard model" that I most often see, that we used in university and that most of the current discussion follows, puts theism and gnosticism on different axes.

A "theist" is someone who believes in one or more culturally postulated supernatural beings (to wit, "gods", but also includes anima, ancestor spirits, and other beings of supernatural reverence. "culturally postulated" is meant to exclude ghosts and UFOs and Michael Jackson.)

An "atheist" is an a-theist. A non-theist. One who does not believe in any supernatural beings

A "gnostic" is someone who believes either than the existence of supernatural beings is known or can be known. It really should be split into two words for the two different concepts but nobody ever does, and it rarely lacks for context.

An "agnostic" is a non-gnostic: Someone who believe either that the existence of supernatural beings is unknown, or cannot be known. See also: needs a two-word split.

Your position, then, could be anywhere along the two (or three) axes. Several positions are incoherent and cannot be reached reasonably - theism along with agnosticism, for example, necessarily involves a logical failure, most often special pleading, somewhere along the line.

Anyway. That's the standard model.

My personal position is atheist - I lack belief in any gods - but I reject the entire gnostic/agnostic axis as meaningless along the lines of your statement of ignosticism. The statement "nonbelief in god" is meaningless, and an attempt to repaint nonbelief as a positive statement necessarily leads into the first-year philosophy dropout's "but what if ANYTHING was true, and everything else was arranged to make it LOOK like it wasn't true? What if you're in the MATRIX, man?"

(This is most often formally stated as Chris Carter[1]'s Principle: Given a large enough conspiracy, nothing can be ruled out.)

The question itself *is meaningless*, and treating the question seriously in the first place incorrectly cedes the validity of the concept of "god" as more worthy of consideration than that of werewolves from space.

[1]: Creator of The X Files.

Oh, and I don't agree with your translation of the first part of his sentence either, to be clear.

Placing things in context is not the same thing as stating that it's the most important thing you have to say.

Also: I've now gotten a few paragraphs further before ONCE AGAIN and for a different reason writing him off as a vacuuous imbecile who can't string two thoughts together without getting tangled.

He thinks enforced participation in pseudomagical rituals, while the head druid chants magic spells and symbolically sacrificies a nonexistent goat, is a totally meaningless thing to require as a prerequisite to participate in a body that is purely secular in purpose and that is legally obligated to not endorse or participate in any religion?

He does what?

a) the government in the UK is not legally obligated to not endorse or participate in any religion. We _have_ a state religion, and some its highest members have reserved seats in the House Of Lords.

b) He clearly says that "It is clear to me that the latter is the preferable state of affairs." - which is the option where there are no prayers during the meeting.

I'm not sure where you're getting your bit from.

Paragraph 5: "My human rights were infringed. But in the scheme of things it cost me no pain, no embarrassment and did not prevent me doing my elected duties."

To wit, he says it was harmless and meaningless. Y'know, like telling the new woman in the office that she's hot and wolf-whistling her as she goes by - sure, there's LAWS saying that you can't do that, and you're violating her rights, but you're not HURTING her or preventing her from doing her JOB, so it's all OKAY and the woman who complains is just a whiny bitch.

Paragraph 7: "It is clear to me that the latter is the preferable state of affairs."

Oh, it would be NICER if he didn't harass the women around, but...

Paragraph 8 (assuming his quotation is included in paragraph 7): "There are lots of things in life I don’t agree with. But I am a liberal and am not going to state portentously that the reading of the Daily Mail, believing that Margaret Thatcher was a good thing or supporting a football club (any football club, since you ask) have no place in the council chamber."

... but he damn well has a right to harass them and their right to not be harassed doesn't matter.

At which point I gave up on him, again.

Actually, there are no laws saying that you can't hold prayers in the council chambers - and until very recently nobody believed that the law could be interpreted as saying that you couldn't hold them during council meetings either.

Equating this to harrassing women seems to me to be ridiculous. I'm not sure where you're getting that from either.

Actually, there are no laws saying that you can't hold prayers in the council chambers - and until very recently nobody believed that the law could be interpreted as saying that you couldn't hold them during council meetings either.

It is so weird to occasionally be confronted with the fact that other countries have no guarantees of religious freedom.

Equating this to harrassing women seems to me to be ridiculous. I'm not sure where you're getting that from either.

Do you accept, in general, that objectivication and nullification and expectations of gender roles and dismissal of all objections as "irrational" and "shrill" is offensive to women? And that much of the time, this behaviour is threatening? And that, despite this, there are still people who say "sheesh, those broads should stop whining and learn to take a joke! I'm not offended so they aren't allowed to be!"?

Do you accept, in general, that constant expectations of heteronormativity and outraged expressions of disgust at homosexuals, is offensive to homosexuals? And that much of the time, this behaviour is threatening? And that, despite this, there are still people who say "well, if you'd just made different choices, you wouldn't be at such a high risk of suicide!"?

What that dude said was the equivalent, aimed at the nonreligious. And it's common, and it's everywhere, and it carries a lot of the same weight.

Oh, I agree that we _should_ be secular. I agree with the ruling - it's about time.

Harrassment is something I consider to require intent - the state of religion entitlement strikes me as being more like the general existence of patriarchy, where people make assumptions about what is reasonably behaviour. But _mostly_ in the UK it's not there to deliberately keep people down. Obviously, sometimes it is, and I object to that a lot more strongly.

Harrassment is something I consider to require intent

Interesting. Do you know the phrase "hostile work environment", in the context of harassment cases?

the state of religion entitlement strikes me as being more like the general existence of patriarchy, where people make assumptions about what is reasonably behaviour.

Except the existence of unconscious and unintended bigoted behaviour can *and should* be correctly recognised as harassment. "It's just the patriarchy" is a reason to not have recognised it before, it is NOT a valid reason to keep doing it.

But _mostly_ in the UK it's not there to deliberately keep people down. Obviously, sometimes it is, and I object to that a lot more strongly.

And you don't think the council prayers, voluntary or not, officially part of the proceedings or simply something that the majority group does, are anything *except* a way of creating an us-vs-them in-group out-group mentality? And that there isn't going to be pressure to attend and pay lip service, or punishment for nonattendance?

Because, fundamentally, that's what ceremonial prayer in nonreligious groups *is*, every time - a way of defining the in and the out. It's why Jehovah's Witness children are required by their religion to leave school classrooms when the national anthem is played - because their church works hard to ensure that they are different and "other" to the other children, so they form fewer out-group bonds. It's why Mormons and Scientologists and Amish and JWs "shun" people who leave the church - the threat of losing all your social contacts (see also: why they make you an outsider in the first place) is the threat they hold not only over you, but over everyone else who thinks they might be like you.

And that's why prayers are required at a legislative session: To ensure that everyone present knows who the in and the out are. And now that it's formally illegal to COMPEL group participation, it's gone to "voluntary but we will KNOW and we will JUDGE" participation.

Interesting Links for 15-02-2012

The comment I left on the prayers & councils post

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