We'd be better off without religion - review by Ruth Gledhill - The Times Religion Correspondent.

March 28, 2007

'We'd be better off without religion'

Download the podcast here: Part 1 | Part 2

Richard Dawkins was among the speakers at the debate sponsored by The Times and organised by Intelligence Squared at Westminster Central Hall in London last night. More details on The Times Faith Page, and you can also listen to the podcast. There is also an entertaining blog just up, summarising this post and some of the comments.

By the time the debate actually got going, I have to confess I was feeling pretty cross. I was looking forward to getting more fuel for my crossness from Richard Dawkins and going home in a right old temper to take it out on this blog.

But to my sorrow, Dawkins thwarted this intent.

The motion was: 'We'd be better off without religion.' On his side were Professor AC Grayling and Christopher Hitchens. Against were Baroness Julia Neuberger, Professor Roger Scruton and Nigel Spivey. The incomparable Joan Bakewell was in the chair. At these debates, styled along the lines of Oxford and Cambridge debates but disappointingly less hecklesome, a vote is taken at the start and another at the end.

The first vote was 826 votes for the motion, 681 against and 364 don't knows. By the end, the voting was 1,205 for the motion, 778 against and 100 don't knows. And would you know, so thrown into confusion was I by being almost convinced of the case by Dawkins that I actually voted for the motion at the end. Is God - I have no doubt that such a being exists at least - trying to tell me something I wonder?

The debate was not about the existence of God. It was about religion. But none of the speakers gave a proper definition of religion, not even those arguing in its favour, thus handing the opponents a gift. In addition, all the speakers for the motion spoke without a script. All those against it read from notes or a script. Keith Porteous Wood and Terry Sanderson from the National Secular Society sat in the 'congregation', grinning.

At one point, when he was speaking, Dawkins seemed suddenly to realise that religion had not been defined in the terms of the debate, and that therefore its definition was up for the taking, and therefore religion could perhaps be broadened to include all kinds of things that he quite aproved of, such as worship of the scientific glories of the universe, or of the beauties of complex mathematical equations. He visibly faltered and a look of shock fleetingly passed across his face as he felt the pull of temptation towards this rational black hole. He quickly recovered. It was 'odd of God', though, that with the exception of Hitchens, they all seemed to veer half the time towards arguing for the opposing side. And I'm not sure I'd ever want Hitchens on the side of religion.

Nigel Spivey, who teaches classical art and archaeology at Cambridge and Rabbi Neuberger were particularly anxious to emphasise their non-religious credentials. Julia repeatedly emphasised that she was so liberal as to be almost near to dropping off the edge, and Spivey likewise was keen to make sure we knew he was not one bit religious himself. Oh no. He was just enormously appreciative of the enormous contribution that religion had made to art and archaeology. The religious instinct was an intrinsic part of human nature, he said. It was either there because it was necessary for survival, in a Darwinian sense, or because it was an ineradicable side-product of some other essential gene. I felt here that I was a bit like a monkey, still in thrall to this strange religious gene, and Spivey was a zoo keeper, observing the phenomenon and its benefits. He had evolved to the point where he was aloof to it all himself, but he was happy to nurture and acknowledge it, especially when usefully caged in the prism of arts and architecture. Spivey actually opened the debate on the side of religion! I knew then we'd lost it.

Professor Scruton was the best for religion. I could have listened to him for hours. Central Hall is of course a place of Methodist worship and several of the speakers seemed to have long links with it. Rabbi Julia had been taken there for synagogue worship. It was used as the overflow by the West London Synagogue on festivals and highholydays. She described fasting during Yom Kippur and long services at Central Hall, having to smell the odour of fish and chips floating up through the wooden floorboards from the cafe below.

Scruton likewise had been introduced to Methodism at an early age by his father. 'When it crossed his mind that he could not bring his kids up totally without religion, he looked for the gloomiest chapel he could find and it was the Methodist chapel. We were sent there every Sunday and he did not attend. It had a profound effect on me.' His rebellion was to bunk off chapel, and secretly attend the nearby Anglican church instead. 'This was totally unrelated to the fact that there was a very attradtive girl there in a white makintosh. That was my first encounter with a transcendental religious experience.'

That's the thing that its opponents will never understand about religion. As this blog bears witness, so much of its appeal is that it is actually about drives and instincts related to love - love for our fellow humans as well as for the transcendent.

In a debate redolent with platitudes, Scruton was the least platitudinous, in spite of lecturing us on why Plato got it wrong in his Republic. Arguing on rational grounds that a society would be better off without religion was like arguing that society would be better off without love, he said. And as we all know, love is frequently irrational. He did not deny that there were wrong ways of pursuing the religious quest. But there was nothing irrational in looking for what is sacred. It was part of the human condition to search for meaning.

Hitchens, I thought, almost lost it for the anti-religionists when he interrupted Rabbi Julia with a vituperative: 'How dare you!' as she was speaking. She had been casting aspersions about the sensibilities of atheists. Joan Bakewell quieted the beast and reason took hold once more. And soon it became clear that the pro-religionists did not have a hope, given the calibre of Dawkins and Grayling.

ACGrayling, whose new book is called Against all Gods, was philosophic. By that I mean quick of tongue and logic. His mind at one point went too fast for his tongue and he lost me. But I got one paragraph down that contained the thrust of his argument: 'You do not need supernatural agencies or religion or scriptures to explain the fact that human beings are capable of good and that most of the good in the world has come from that source and not from some alleged supernatural source.'

Not surprisingly, Dawkins had no difficulty at all destroying Spivey's argument. I suspect that they are in fact on the same side. 'Speak for yourself,' he said about the allegation that the religious gene is in us all. 'It is not a part of me. It is not a part of the great majority of my friends in universities in England and the US and elsewhere.' (Dear Dr Dawkins, that's because you and your academic friends are all 'zoo keepers' in the Spivey sense. Spivey wasn't talking about 'people like you'! He was talking about people like me.) And as for Spivey's point that religion had given us the Sistine Chapel and other similar great works, Dawkins correctly pointed out that great artists painted about religion because the Church had the money to pay them. Even Hitchens was right to to note that every brick of St Peter's was paid for by a special indulgence.

It is strange how Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion and Channel 4's Root of All Evil programme, came over as an angry man. Because he is not at all like that in the flesh. Especially when seated next to someone like Hitchens.

'There are very good grounds to believe there is no actual truth in the claims of religion. I rather liken it to a child with a dummy in its mouth. I do not think it a very dignified or respect-worthy posture for an adult to go around sucking a dummy for comfort,' said Dawkins, perpetuating a common but gross misunderstanding of why people need religion. Some of us, I suspect quite a lot, are not religious for comfort. It is because we need to be battered, reduced, to have our monstrous egos squashed so we can control them properly. Speaking entirely for myself here of course.

Dawkins also compared giving children a religious education to erecting in their minds a firewall against scientific truth, rather like a computer firewall against viruses. He was particularly upset about a well-known Christian geologist who had abandoned his science when it became clear it was not compatible with a literal reading of the Bible. 'He said that even if all the evidence in the world pointed against creationism, he would still be a creationist because that is what the word of God pointed him to.' Well I'd be upset if my son became a creationist but there is no chance of that, not in the Church of England at least.

Dawkins did not have to work very hard to win the argument last night. His problem is that he takes religion too literally, and as many have pointed out, is too fundamentalist about his own atheistic creed. Apart from that fleeting moment of doubt I spotted, we are all creationists in his eyes. But I hope I might have the opportunity to explore some of these areas in an interview with him soon. I'll still be using in in my mind the nickname I have adopted for him: 'Mobius Dick.' But after last night I accept that Dr Dawkins does have more than two sides to his soul, more that two dimensions to his spirit. He just doesn't know it... yet.

(Update: Dawkins, who celebrated his birthday recently, has called me to reassure me there was no 'moment of doubt' whatsoever. And there was I beginning to think he was human. More soon I hope.)

Posted by Ruth Gledhill on March 28, 2007 at 12:49 PM in Religion, Richard Dawkins, Secularism | Permalink

We'd be better off without religion review

The anti-God squad

Would we be better off without religion? It depends whether the best of humanity is already inside us or whether it needs faith to bring it out.

James Randerson

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March 29, 2007 9:30 AM | Printable version

Religion belongs to "the abject childhood of our species", Christopher Hitchens told an audience at Westminster Hall in London last night. The author and journalist condemned the "medieval barbarism" of religious conflicts the world over and urged those listening to oppose the religious impulse whenever it shows itself. "It shows very well that religion is created ... by a species half a chromosome away from a chimpanzee," he spat.

He was defending the motion that "This house believes we'd be better off without religion", and he had some formidable artillery on his side - the philosopher Professor AC Grayling and the evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins, to whom Mr Hitchens referred tongue-in-cheekly as a "spokesman for the moderate wing" of the atheist movement.

First to pick up the gauntlet was Dr Nigel Spivey who teaches classical art and archaeology at Cambridge University. "When I'm asked to imagine a world without religion is ends up looking like the suburbs of Swindon," he lamented, after painting a picture of a grey and featureless world lacking religious inspiration. Erase King's College chapel, the Parthenon, the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal and you get the picture.

And for Dr Spivey's collaborators - the philosopher Professor Roger Scruton and Baroness Julia Neuberger - the benefits of religion went beyond great art. Baroness Neuberger said her opponents missed the profound inspiration that motivates many people of faith to do good in the world. "It was the strong religious sensibilities of Wilberforce and his contemporaries that brought an end to the slave trade," she said, "In my view if we didn't have religion, we would be more selfish, self interested, certain and cruel."

But Professor Grayling would not let that pass unchallenged. "You don't need supernatural agencies ... to see that human beings are capable of good," he said. This was a theme he developed in an interview with the Guardian this week that is available as a podcast. (As well as his views on God and religion he discusses Intelligent Design, stem cells, climate change and the seductive power of pseudo-science). "People think that unless you have a faith of some kind or unless there is a God then there cannot be a moral law. That's a terrible mistake, a very very deep mistake," he told the Guardian's Science Weekly team. Most people do not act based on whether they believe they will be punished or rewarded, "[They] do it out of respect for their fellow men and in many ways are more admirable as moral agents than people who are doing it because they think they have been commanded."

Professor Dawkins was offended by the notion that we need religion for great art. Michelangelo was simply forced to work for whoever had the money, and when he painted the Sistine Chapel, power and wealth were firmly in the hands of the Catholic church. How sweet, he wondered, would Haydn's Evolution Oratorio or Beethoven's Mesozoic Symphony have sounded?

Besides, said Mr Hitchens, there is ample beauty in nature without the need to believe in myth. "Take a look through the Hubble telescope and look at the beauty and majesty of what you will see," he said, "And you want to exchange that for the burning bush?"

For what it's worth, the atheists won the day with 1,205 votes for the motion and 778 against. And although many of the arguments marshalled on both sides were as old as religion itself, the debate ended up hinging on surprising territory. Both sides tried to lay claim to the virtues of doubt and to the idea that theirs was the more optimistic view of human nature.

Mr Hitchens wanted to defend society against "those who know they are right", while Baroness Neuberger said she did not recognise that picture of religion. The nice cuddly liberal Jews whom she knew were very able and willing to embrace doubt. "Belief matters a good deal less than how you live your life," she said - begging the question of why bother with the belief.

The real question is whether the best of humanity is already inside us or whether it needs faith to bring it out. For Mr Hitchens it is possible to have the good without the faith (and hence also without the interfaith wars in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq and the rest). "It's called culture."

Pope invited to address European Parliament – crunch time is coming - Berlin Declaration

The absence of mention of religion from the so-called Berlin Declaration, issued to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the EU, has, predictably, got right up Ratzinger's nose. He has been raging and storming around Europe, demanding that the EU return to its traditional (Catholic) values.

In a speech to European bishops, Ratzinger accused the EU of "apostasy" for refusing to mention Christianity in the Berlin Declaration. Asking how leaders could hope to get closer to their citizens if they denied such an essential part of European identity, the pope said: "Does not this unique form of apostasy of itself, even before God, lead it (Europe) to doubt its very identity?'"

Fifty years ago, the EU was founded with a treaty signed in Rome. The location was chosen for the signing ceremony because of its close identity with the Roman Catholic Church still, at that time, regarded by many as the lynchpin of Europe. Fifty years later, the Berlin Declaration gives the outward appearance of a European Union that has deliberately distanced itself from the Vatican and any particular religious allegiance.

As far as Ratzinger is concerned, to accuse European leaders of apostasy is the ultimate insult he could offer. He hopes it will grab the attention of those who matter in Europe, and frighten them into obedience. The Vatican still thinks it can mobilise the faithful to overturn governments that do not do its bidding. But recent events have shown that the faithful are less and less inclined to listen to the voice of the Vatican when it comes to lawmaking (or, indeed, personal morality).

Ratzinger's ambition is to sweep Europe back into Rome's fold, and he has many influential supporters within the EU who are determined to help him do it.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who drafted the Berlin Declaration, promised the pope when he visited Bavaria last year that she would do her best to get Christianity into any revived European Constitution. Then, Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament and, at the time, leader of its influential Catholic centre-right movement, also told the pope last year that his group was determined to see the spiritual dimension of the European project written into the European Constitution. At the time, Poettering described the European Constitution to the pope as "holy text."

Merkel and Poettering are two of the three EU gurus chosen to sign the Berlin Declaration. Jose Manuel Barroso, the secularist European Commission president, is the other.

Intriguingly, on the very eve of EU leaders gathering in Berlin to witness the signing of the seemingly irreligious Berlin Declaration, who do we find having an audience with the pope? None other than one of the prospective signatories to the Berlin Declaration, Hans-Gert Poettering. And what was Poettering doing in Rome while the other EU leaders gathered in Berlin? Issuing the pope an official invitation to personally address the European Parliament.

It may yet turn out that, far from being remembered for a Berlin Declaration with all of its religious teeth pulled, the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome may well be remembered as the occasion when the pope accepted an invitation to ride his crusading horse into the heart of the main legislating body of the European Union and batter it into submission over the Constitutional recognition of religion.

Is this the card that Merkel and Poettering have now played?

The Berlin Declaration is an open challenge to the supremacy of the religion of Rome in Europe. The pope has met that challenge head on, and the EU has responded with an open invitation for him to come to its parliament and fix the problem. This provides the pope with an open door to peddle his spiritual wares directly to the main legislating body of the European Union.

Angela Merkel has been careful to couch references to the need for a new start to the issue of declaring European values within the Berlin Declaration in verbiage such that it can be interpreted as a green light by those EU leaders seeking for religion to be bound up in the European Constitution. The deadline she has set to achieve this by is the year 2009. The current German presidency of the EU is determined to leave the next holder of the rotational presidency, Portugal, with a clear mandate to pursue agreement by all EU members to commit to the 2009 goal by the end of this year.

reposted from: NSS
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales claims religion is under attack in this country

Editorial by Terry Sanderson
Murphy O'Connor should be shown the door
In a somewhat over-blown speech in London this week, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, claimed that religion is under attack in this country.

Murphy O'Connor is still raging at the defeat of the Church's attempts to be exempted from legislation designed to protect gay, lesbian and bisexual people from discrimination. He became the first Catholic leader in nearly 200 years to question whether the policy of the government interferes with the practice of Roman Catholicism. He accused the British government of creating, "a different version of our democracy, one in which diversity and equality are held to be at odds with religion."

In a breathtakingly manipulative speech, aimed directly at Downing Street and Tony Blair's Catholic pretensions, Murphy O'Connor told an audience at Westminster Cathedral: "My fear is that, under the guise of legislating for what is said to be tolerance, we are legislating for intolerance. Once this begins, it is hard to see where it ends. My fear is that in an attempt to clear the public square of what are seen as unacceptable intrusions, we weaken the pillars on which that public square is erected, and we will discover that the pillars of pluralism may not survive. The question is whether the threads holding together pluralist democracy have begun to unravel. That is why I have sounded this note of alarm. I am conscious that when an essential core of our democratic freedom risks being undermined, subsequent generations will hold to account those who were able to raise their voices yet stayed silent."

Murphy O'Connor claimed that a secular society would cause religion to go off the rails. He said: "The secular state, which we now risk adopting in Britain, seeks a politics entirely independent of religion, in which religious principles have nothing to say in the 'real' world of political action. The choice of the State to side with the secular is said to be neutrality; and it is usually justified by an appeal to equality. But this is in itself ideology, divorcing religion from the public realm on the pretext that religion is divisive. This sets up great tensions in society. The more determinedly secular a state becomes, the more pressure mounts for religious beliefs to assert themselves. We then no longer have a common search for truth on the basis of shared reason, but a series of monologues in which each side excludes the other. People talk past each other. There is little reasoned thinking.

does Religion depend on reasoned thinking, or on Faith?

There is no adequate civil discourse. Society is then at risk of the fragmentation of its moral structure."

Murphy O'Connor said he feared that Britain was becoming a country where faith-based charity work will not be welcomed. "When Christians stand by their beliefs, they are intolerant dogmatists. When they sin, they are hypocrites. When they take the side of the poor, they are soft-headed liberals. When they seek to defend the family, they are right wing reactionaries," he moaned.

The Cardinal gave his strongest indication yet that the church would close their nine adoption agencies rather than take an estimated £10m of government money to run them in compliance with the new law.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, commented: "Murphy O'Connor's own behaviour in the past disqualifies him from lecturing others on morality – especially in relation to vulnerable children. We have yet to hear any meaningful apology from him for the disgusting cover up he engineered for the rampaging paedophile priest "Father" Michael Hill. And as for the Catholic Church suddenly becoming a defender of democracy – what does that institution know about democracy? Its headquarters, Vatican City – a supposed independent state – is the also the only surviving theocracy in Europe. The Vatican loves to interfere in the politics of other nations (see other stories in this edition of Newsline), but there is no opportunity for anyone to repay the compliment.

"The Catholic Church has happily allied itself with just about every totalitarian regime that has emerged over the centuries in Europe. At the moment it is in bed with the crypto-fascist regime in Poland. Cardinal Murphy O'Connor has nothing to teach us about morals or democracy, and nor is he qualified to lecture us on 'conscience'. The Catholic conscience seems to mean that those who have it have awarded themselves carte blanche to be as nasty and excluding as they like to those they don't approve of. Well, modern concepts of human rights must trump these claims of divine conscience. It's time for the Catholic Church – and all the other religious bodies that seek to impose their will on democratic governments – to be firmly put in their place."

Read the whole speech.

reposted from: NSS
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

scientific evidence is growing that organic food is better for you

Peter Melchett

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is policy director of the Soil Association, a UK organic food and farming organisation.

Bearing fruit

The scientific evidence is growing that organic food is better for you. But our politicians are still too wedded to the food industry to admit it.

Peter Melchett

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March 30, 2007 2:00 PM | Printable version

Eat yourself fitter: organic veg at a farmers' market. Photograph: Frank Baron.

The newspaper headline this week that stated "Proof at last that organic apples can be better for you" was perhaps slightly more tentative ("can be" not "are") than first appeared. Several scientific studies published in the last few days have indeed confirmed earlier research findings that organic milk, meat, fruit and vegetables generally have more beneficial nutrients, and less harmful or potentially harmful substances, than non-organic. Will this be enough to convince die-hard opponents of organic food and farming that it really is better for you? No it won't - those who have a fanatical belief in pesticides and GM crops will go on opposing organic with an unnatural fervour whatever the facts. At least they will until the oil and natural gas runs out - and with it the feedstocks for the pesticides and artificial fertilisers that intensive and GM farming relies on. Before that happens, will this new research change David Miliband's opinion, expressed earlier this year, that there is no proof of health benefits from eating organic?

First, what did researchers actually find? American research on organic and non-organic kiwi fruit was carried out by scientists at the University of California Davis, a university known for agricultural research that has generally focused on the benefits of intensive farming and GM crops. The researchers said: "All the main mineral constituents were more concentrated in the organic kiwi fruit, which also had higher ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and total polyphenol content, resulting in higher antioxidant activity. It is possible that conventional growing practices utilise levels of pesticides that can result in a disruption to phenolic metabolites in the plant that have a protective role in plant defence mechanisms". They found organic kiwis had 17% more polyphenols - antioxidants that reduce the production in the body of harmful chemicals called free radicals. The organic produce was also found to have 14% more vitamin C and greater concentrations of several important minerals such as potassium and calcium.

European researchers found that organic tomatoes "contained more dry matter, total and reducing sugars, vitamin C, B-carotene and flavonoids in comparison to the conventional ones", while conventional tomatoes in this study were richer in lycopene and organic acids. Showing that these comparisons can throw up some variation in how beneficial organic is, previous research has found that organic tomatoes not only have higher levels of vitamin C and vitamin A, but also of lycopene. In the latest research, the scientists conclude "organic cherry and standard tomatoes can be recommended as part of a healthy diet including plant products which have shown to be of value in cancer prevention".

A French study has found that organic peaches "have a higher polyphenol content at harvest" and concludes that organic production has "positive effects ... on nutritional quality and taste". In the study of apples, organic apple puree was found to contain "more bio-active substances - total phenols, flavonoids and vitamin C - in comparison to conventional apple preserves" and the researchers conclude "organic apple preserves can be recommended as valuable fruit products, which can contribute to a healthy diet".

All this confirms a list of officially accepted, beneficial nutritional differences (or lower risk) between organic and non-organic food. These include the Food Standards Agency's (FSA) advice to consumers that eating organic food is one way to reduce consumption of pesticide residues and additives and the Agency's agreement that recent research at Liverpool University shows organically produced milk can contain higher levels of types of fats called short-chain omega-3 fatty acids, and higher levels of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) than conventionally produced milk. Beef produced from animals fed a diet high in forage (organic standards require that cattle be fed predominantly on forage-based diets) rather than grain, has reduced saturated fatty acid concentrations and enhanced content of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. No hydrogenated fats are allowed in organic food, and the FSA say that "the trans fats found in food containing hydrogenated vegetable oil are harmful and have no known nutritional benefits".

So someone buying organic food to reduce their intake of saturated fats, or avoid hydrogenated fats, where evidence of harm is widely accepted, is making a rational choice on health grounds. Equally, an organic shopper, who, in the absence of definitive scientific evidence either way, reasonably believes that the accepted nutritional differences or absence of pesticides and artificial additives in organic food will benefit them or their children, is also making a rational, health-based choice about their food. Those determined not to acknowledge the benefits of organic sometimes try and change the question - of course some non-organic food also avoids trans fats, cows don't have to be organic to be fed all-grass diets, and what affects our health most is eating a balanced diet containing plenty of fruit and vegetables whether organic or not.

So what of Miliband's "there is no proof of health benefits from eating organic"? In some respects he is clearly wrong. If generally agreed nutritional advice about the dangers of trans fats or the benefits of ALA are right, eating organic is the way to be sure you are making the healthier choice. And of course, even if in some areas of human health and diet there is still "no proof of health benefits from eating organic", there is equally absolutely no scientific proof that eating organic is not healthier.

the Bertrand Russell 'Teapot circling the sun' arguement; doesn't mean the teapot exists or that organic food is healthier!

It will always be difficult, maybe impossible, for scientists to do controlled studies on large numbers of human beings over long periods, to show the impact of an organic diet versus a non-organic diet. Controlling diets, and the huge number of other variables that affect our health, make identifying subtle impacts hard or impossible. Science cannot answer all questions. So other factors come into play.

People generally use their experience and their common sense. They may well know someone whose allergies cleared up when they switched to an organic diet, or they may feel better themselves when they eat organic food. They may know that organic farming and food is scientifically proven to be better for wildlife and farm animals, that it builds healthy soils, that it causes less pollution and that organic farming generally caused much less global warming. They may also know that it causes less stress to animals and plants, and that it is a simpler system, relying on few or no artificial chemicals. It is a sure way of avoiding GMOs.

And with the latest research, they may hear that there is now plenty of scientific evidence that many organic foods contain higher levels of beneficial nutrients compared to non-organic. It is certainly clear that our planet will be healthier if all farming was organic. All this may not prove people will be healthier if they eat organic, but it does seem a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw.

Reasonable, that is, until you factor in the politics. Miliband's problem, as others in government, the National Farmers' Union and elsewhere have said, is that they simply cannot announce that over 90% of the food we all buy or eat, the non-organic food, is less healthy, or even unhealthy, compared to organic. Ultimately, this is a political not a scientific issue. Once a third or a half of UK farming is organic, such an admission will be politically possible. Until then, we rely on the common sense of citizens. In what is still my favourite comment on all this, a member of the public told the BBC: "I take my vegetables seriously, but I take my politicians with a pinch of salt."

Berlin declaration excludes reference to religion

1 April 2007 07:33

Joan Smith: Sorry, God. You're not on the guest list

(National Secular Society Honorary Associate Joan Smith, Independent on Sunday)

This is the high point of a fantastic week for secularism

Published: 25 March 2007

When the leaders of 27 countries meet in Berlin today to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the EU, there will be one significant absence. To the annoyance of many Poles, who have what is arguably the most crackpot right-wing government in Europe, God has not been invited to the party. Neither Christianity nor the deity feature in the declaration which Europe's leaders will sign to mark the occasion, signalling the high point of what has been a fantastic week for secularism.

I would think that, you might say, given that one of the jobs I most fancy is poster-girl for a strictly rational approach to human affairs. But recent events show that it isn't just sceptics who are worried by the inroads which other people's imaginary friends have been making in secular states. The politician behind the decision to exclude any reference to religion from the Berlin declaration is the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a pastor's daughter, who recognises the crucial importance for most modern societies of a separation between church and state - and of not providing ammunition to critics who accuse the EU of being a Christian club.

In this country, in a blow to the Islamophobia industry which has tried to silence critics of Islam through strident accusations of racism, the Education Secretary Alan Johnson issued guidelines which will allow schools to ban paranoid forms of religious dress, including the mask, or "niqab", worn by some Muslim girls. I'm sure this will have wide public support, because the last thing most people want is a Talibanisation of relations between men and women in the UK.

At the same time, some of the country's most senior Anglican prelates were roundly defeated in the House of Lords when they made the idiotic error of supporting the Catholic Church in its attempt to discriminate against gay couples who want to use its state-funded adoption agencies. "What do we want? Discrimination! When do we want it? Now!" has never seemed to me a persuasive platform for any religion to fight on, especially when the public has warmed to gay weddings such as that of the singer Sir Elton John (who, by the way, is celebrating his 60th birthday with an eloquent blast against gay-bashing worldwide).

In a dramatic sign of the times, the Archbishop of York and two Anglican bishops found themselves criticised by peers who wanted to know what had happened to the notion of Christian love. Baroness Howarth and the former Culture secretary, Lord Smith, spoke as practising Christians and were supported by Lord Alli and my friend Baroness Massey, easily winning the debate. The Anglican hierarchy needs to do some soul-searching about why they joined this doomed cause, placing themselves on the same side as monstrously prejudiced bishops from Latin America and Africa.

Meanwhile in Paris, in a ruling welcomed as a robust assertion of the right to free speech, a French court acquitted Philippe Val, editor of the weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, who was taken to court by Muslim organisations after publishing three cartoons deemed offensive to the Prophet. And the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled against Poland, which has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe, after a Polish woman lost most of her sight when she was denied a legal abortion on medical grounds.

The Enlightenment, in other words, is back with a bang. Of course people have a right to their religious views, but they aren't entitled to exercise them in ways that trample on the rights of women, children, gay people and freethinkers. Wake up and smell the coffee: God doesn't rule, OK?

reposted from: independent
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments

Possible Letter to send to MP with The God Delusion Pledge

65. Comment #28167 by bitbutter on March 28, 2007 at 7:35 am

Reading other peoples covering letters has been useful, here's my version (NB. not thoroughly grammar/spelling checked!)

---

Dear xxx,

I have sent you a copy of 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins. I hope you have the chance to read it and that you enjoy it as much as i did. Perhaps you will even find some of your beliefs challenged and change your mind about some things as I also did.

I believe we have a duty to attempt to understand our world and it's mechanisms to the best of our abilities, and to use our knowledge to minimise human suffering wherever we can. I firmly believe that religious faith and its promotion is counterproductive to this aim.

I think Richard Dawkins is in the best position to make this argument so i took part in a group initiative to send his book to Britain's MPs. I chose you as the recipient of my book because xxxxxxxxx.

The point from the book that resonated the most strongly with me was this:

The problem we face is that if we accord respectability to religious faith we must not only accord respect to religious moderatism (as our society does at the moment) but also to religious fundamentalism. The two are not qualitatively different, one is not an perversion of the other. They are both founded on irrational faith. Adherents to each differ from each other only in terms of how literally they interpret the words in ancient texts.

I believe that the taboo in our culture that has made it inappropriate to talk plainly about the core beliefs of the Abrahamic religions prevents us from having a proper discussion about the growing problem of fundamentalist violence (at this time Islam is in the spotlight, but inspiration for violence can just as easily be found in Christian texts).

There seems to be a distinct unwillingness to acknowledge that the motivation of religious fundamentalists who carry out terror attacks and other acts of violence comes from their supernatural beliefs, even when the attackers plainly tell us that this is the case. I believe that this refusal to see what's in front of our noses is a grave liability at this time.

There are many other issues addressed in the book that deserve discussion too but i will try to keep this letter succinct and let Professor Dawkins do the talking.

I'm sure you are very busy so if you only have chance to read part of the book i strongly recommend chapter 8 'What's wrong with religion? Why be so hostile?'. It should take about ten minutes to read.

Thank you in advance for your time and your consideration of the arguments presented here.

Yours Sincerely,

xxx

reposted from: richarddawkins.net
my: highlights / emphasis / key points / comments