Civility and civilisation

Recently there has been a mini-debate among atheists about whether their critique of religion should remain "civil" (i.e. polite).

Clearly they have never read the words of the Book of Proverbs about the most effective way of upsetting someone being to be nice to them. (“If your enemy is hungry give him bread to eat, And if he is thirsty give him water to drink, for so you will heap coals of fire on his head.” (Prov. 25:21,22))

Personally I find that I can offer trenchant criticism of the bits of Christianity that I dislike (penal substitution theology, homophobia, and the idea that other religions are wrong) without offending my Christian friends or making remarks that imply they are all stupid or malignant. Occasionally I get it wrong, and have upset moderate Christians by not being specific enough in my criticism, but for the most part, many Christians agree with my criticisms, or at least find them interesting.

Bigoted and extreme Christians like the odious and repellent Stephen Green do find my criticisms offensive - but he, and his nasty bigoted organisation, have put themselves beyond the pale of civilised discourse anyway. I really felt pleased that my views were deeply offensive to Stephen Green.

I do think that criticism is more effective, and more likely to be listened to, when it is backed up with reason and evidence, describes the situation accurately, and does not include ad hominem attacks. A lot of recent atheist attacks on religion have failed on one or more of these criteria. And conversely, a lot of recent Christian attacks on secularism and equality have dismally failed on one or more of these criteria.

Also, civilisation is founded on being civil. We don't settle arguments by barbaric means such as trial by ordeal, burning at the stake, and torture any more. Instead, the best means of demolishing your opponent's arguments are the well-placed witticism, the cogent argument, and sometimes, just ignoring them as irrelevant. If you really want to upset someone, just ignore them. As Oscar Wilde said, "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

Missing the point (again)

PZ Myers and most of his commenters appear to have completely missed the point of Religion for Atheists.

They also completely exaggerate the importance of belief in religions. Alain de Botton is right that whether or not God exists is a boring question. It's been pretty well settled that God does not exist. Some theologians have got round this problem by saying that this is because God is existence, or the Ground of All Being, but then that leaves the question of what that might mean.

I'm glad that the New Atheism has raised the stakes in the theological game, and brought non-realist and apophatic theology to the fore again, but I dislike the way some New Atheists dismiss all religion as harmful rubbish.

Most religions are centred around practice rather than belief. In Hinduism, Paganism, Buddhism, Taoism, Unitarianism, Quakerism and Judaism, belief is not central to whether you count as a member of the religion or not. What counts is either values or practices. The question for Jews is not "Do you believe?" but "Are you observant?" For Pagans, what counts is your attitude to nature, the earth, and/or the land. There are many different schools of thought in Hinduism, Taoism, Paganism, Buddhism, Taoism, Unitarianism, and Quakerism, ranging from theists to non-theists. For Buddhists, deities may well exist, but they are irrelevant. Many Pagans and Unitarians would agree with the Buddhists on this. Many Unitarians are atheists and humanists.

So if it is not about providing an explanation of how the world works or how it came into being, what is religion for? It is about providing a system of shared meaning, and a set of spiritual practices (meditation and ritual), and a community to share ideas, joys and sorrows.

In liberal religions, you don't need to sign up to a set of axioms or propositions which may offend against your reason in order to be part of the community and make use of a collection of stories, mythology, symbols and practices.

Religious community also inspires people to band together to create social justice (although non-religious groups do this too). By consistently encouraging members to treat others with compassion, religious community can be a powerful tool for creating change. Think of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and others who were inspired to change the world.

"Pagan Christianity"

Ha. I bet you thought this was going to be a blogpost about ChristoPagans, didn't you?

That's what I thought when I saw the title of this blogpost by Dyfed Wyn Roberts, Pagan Christianity.

But no, it's about a pair of bigots who have written a book complaining about all the "pagan" bits in Christianity.

I find the notion of expunging "pagan" practices from Christianity really offensive - but then I am a Pagan.

The Orthodox Church at least has the sense to practice inculturation in its missionary activities, whereby it preserves the bits of the pre-Christian culture that do not conflict with Christianity (which is most things).

I don't approve of converting people of other religions to Christianity, but if you must do so, at least do it with some respect and sensitivity towards them, as the Orthodox Church does.

The early church preserved many aspects of pagan culture which might otherwise have been lost. Snorri Sturluson wrote down the Eddas (Norse legends). The Pantheon in Rome was converted into a church (can we have it back please?) St Paul quoted two pagan poets, Epimenides and Aratus, in his famous speech in the marketplace in Athens.

Many customs which are supposedly "pagan" actually turn out to be only pre-Reformation folk customs.

Other practices (such as Christmas trees) may have been pagan or Christian in origin - no-one is quite sure.

Doubtless there are "pagan" bits in Christianity - including the myth of the dying and resurrecting god so beloved of most Christians - but they should be celebrated, not expunged.

LGBT teen suicide in the UK

Just in case you think this is only an American problem, it happens in the UK too.

Here's a few articles:

• Pink News: Inquest rules on gay teen goaded to suicide by baying Derby mob
• Pink News: Stonewall speaks out about bullying after teen suicide
• Cornwall Double Gay Teen Suicide?

And remember that what the media reports is only the tip of the iceberg.

Check out the It Gets Better Project for inspiring videos from LGBT people showing that life really does get better after you leave school.  There's also a great video from a straight woman saying how she has loads of LGBT friends and celebrates their sexuality.

It gets better video

My effort for the It Gets Better Project. It's not the best video ever made, but it is my first ever YouTube video.

It Gets Better

Recently the media has been paying more media attention to teen LGBT suicides.

In response to this, Dan Savage has started a YouTube channel, "It Gets Better".

Nine out of 10 gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment at school, and gay teens are four times likelier to attempt suicide. Many LGBT kids who do kill themselves live in rural areas, exurbs, and suburban areas, places with no gay organizations or services for queer kids. (...)

I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better.

But gay adults aren't allowed to talk to these kids. Schools and churches don't bring us in to talk to teenagers who are being bullied. Many of these kids have homophobic parents who believe that they can prevent their gay children from growing up to be gay—or from ever coming out—by depriving them of information, resources, and positive role models.

Why are we waiting for permission to talk to these kids? We have the ability to talk directly to them right now. We don't have to wait for permission to let them know that it gets better. We can reach these kids.

So here's what you can do, GBVWS: Make a video. Tell them it gets better.

This deserves wide publicity, so please blog about it, tweet it, and post it on Facebook.

(via Geeky Sex and sexgenderbody)

Will atheism supplant religion?

According to a blog at Psychology Today, atheism will replace religion because it provides a better explanation of how the world works. This is based on a Frazerian/Tylorian assumption that the primary function of religion is to explain how the world works.

I would argue that the primary function of religion is to provide a community of shared meaning, values and practice. Belief is secondary to these functions. Of course fundamentalists' explanations of how the world works (both morally and physically) are way off reality as evidenced by scientific research, personal experience, and any sense of spirituality.

The article suggests:

The reasons that churches lose ground in developed countries can be summarized in market terms. First, with better science, and with government safety nets, and smaller families, there is less fear and uncertainty in people's daily lives and hence less of a market for religion. At the same time many alternative products are being offered, such as psychotropic medicines and electronic entertainment that have fewer strings attached and that do not require slavish conformity to unscientific beliefs.

Not all religions require "slavish adherence to unscientific beliefs". The liberal and mystical tendency in religion has been questioning dogma for centuries. In the West, this questioning has resulted in four great liberal traditions: the Society of Friends (aka Quakers), the Unitarians, liberal Judaism, and the Pagan revival (which includes various traditions). None of these traditions requires adherence to a creed or even belief in God(s). They are about exploring the meaning of life (drawing on both secular and sacred sources of inspiration) among a community of shared values. In Islam, the mystical tradition of Sufism fulfils a similar role; and Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism are similarly diverse and include liberal perspectives. Please do some research before dismissing all religion as irrational and dogmatic.

The second aspect of this argument, that religion is about providing reassurance in an uncertain world, depends on what is meant by reassurance. Liberal religion provides the reassurance of having a community of shared values and interests, but it does not provide reassurance on the subject of life after death. Liberal religion is about enjoying being alive now, not about a future existence which is very uncertain.

Critiques of the Alpha course

The Alpha Course is one of the most insidious phenomena of evangelism - and it's interesting to note that it has been criticised from inside Christianity as well, because there are still Christians out there with brains and integrity.

The theology propounded by the Alpha Course is not mainstream; it was developed by the same kind of people who 'discovered' the Toronto Blessing. It has been criticised by both evangelicals and liberals.

The course's homophobic stance has been widely criticised, and there is an analysis of it by the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association.

It's also deeply manipulative of vulnerable people, being run in prisons, workplaces, schools, colleges and military establishments:

"It was like to talking to a politician of the opposite persuasion. They were all very nice people, but I came out feeling exactly as I did when I went in," said Jill, who asked that her name be changed.

Among her problems with Alpha was her feeling that other faiths were not given equal status.

"I felt it was biased against other religions, whereas I believe all roads lead to one God," she said.

There was also an element of "therapy" about the style of the course, she said.

"It plays huge mind games with people. You have to be a strong personality to resist, but I did. They were working on me all the time. They said they would pray for me.

"I think they tend to prey on who is vulnerable. The whole thing for people is about being accepted and feeling like they belong.

"It's friendship I want, not spirituality."

It also uses sales techniques to manipulate people:

Debbie Herring, a former Alpha course leader in Sheffield, told the BBC that the techniques she was expected to use were similar to those of door-to-door salesmen.

“It became clear very early on that what Alpha was really about was high-pressure selling of a very narrow evangelical agenda, which dismisses and denies whole swathes of Christian teaching and tradition,” she said.

The course is also mis-sold as an opportunity to explore the meaning of life (which you would expect to offer a genuine philosophical discussion of the various ideas on offer):

It’s at that point you really see what the Alpha Course truly is: it’s not an invitation to explore the meaning of life, but a slickly marketed Christian conversion course. The objective of Alpha is not to educate people about Christianity, but to convert as many people as possible their particular brand of this religion.

The whole thing makes me sick, quite frankly.

Alpha Course is anti-gay

Pink News: More schools running 'anti-gay' Christian crash-courses

There should be no place in schools for proselytising for religion. A person's choice of religion or philosophy should be freely made as an adult, not forced on unsuspecting children. And there should be no place for homophobia in schools either.

Christianity is not inherently homophobic; same-sex marriage was once a Christian rite, and the "clobber verses" in the Bible have been deconstructed numerous times. So there's no excuse for including this poisonous homophobic nonsense in the Alpha Course. I am not particularly surprised that it's there, though, given that the Alpha Course also teaches young-earth creationism. It's all of a piece, really.

One good point about this: being taught this nonsense in school will make kids rebel against it. I recall when I was a teacher, the headmistress invited an evangelical band in to do an assembly, and the kids were rightly completely up in arms about it. I told them I completely agreed with them that it was wrong for them to have religion forced on them in this way.

Christian intolerance in South Africa

Sorry to see that South Africa is about 20 years behind the times in the matter of Christian nutters releasing ridiculous twisted slander about Pagan festivals. And it's a reminder for the rest of us not to remain complacent - extremist Christian slanders are always rumbling along in the background. But it's also important to remember that many many Christians want to live in peace with Pagans and actively promote genuine interfaith dialogue.

Minority Review - The Dance

In the southern hemisphere the feast of Beltain is celebrated on the last day of October and the first day of November around a celebratory 'May'-pole. The dance of the Maypole is a symbolic act of fertility magic in which male and female partners, each holding ribbons attached to a central pillar, dance in opposite directions whilst weaving toward and away from the pole, around an erect pillar of wood decorated with flowers. Maypole dancing is an ancient (pre-Christian) and wide-spread form of western European folk dance.

This year, as every year in living memory in this country under the fascist white Christian Nationalist government, amidst the Beltain celebrations, venerations, joy and laughter in covens and Pagan gatherings across the country, the feint reek of Christian agitation against Pagans once again focussed on Halloween. The agitators? Fanatical followers of Peter Hammond's Africa Christian Action network.