Kafir Thoughts

I Agree with Inayat Bunglawala!

2009-05-05T22:52:00.001+01:00

The Home Office has published a list of 16 people who have been banned from Britain. They optimistically say that they are “naming and shaming” them.

The only shaming that is going on here is the government’s increasing authoritarian approach to “free speech”. There are already draconian anti-free speech laws in the UK, and banning people before they come here (especially for those people who do not advocate violence) just smacks of thought crime.

The worst outcome is that if you’re not banned, does that mean that you have a “Home Office Approved” stamp on what you say?

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain says in The Times:

If they step over the line and break the law, it’s at that moment the law should be enacted, not beforehand. If people are keeping their odious views to themselves, that’s their business. We should not be in the business of policing people’s minds.

Quite right, although I think there is a line to be drawn for those who have incited violence (and have not publically renounced those views).

Many of the people on the list are just odious. The best antiseptic for odious views is to have them exposed – most people will be able to see how foul Fred Phelps is as soon as he opens his mouth, for example.

Technorati Tags: Home Office,free speech,banned

Perhaps the Best Anti Christianity Sarcasm Ever!

2009-04-30T22:02:00.001+01:00

I love to see a Christian answer this!

NonStampCollector, my hat is off to you!

Please subscribe to his channel, there’s loads more brilliant stuff there.

Technorati Tags: NonStampCollector,funny,brilliant,Christianity

Not on the tele

2009-04-30T21:48:00.001+01:00

I got bumped from The Big Questions, but they have my details, so hopefully they’ll be in touch when they’re next in London.

I’ll watch the show and post my comments.

Technorati Tags: The Big Questions,BBC

May be going on The Big Questions on Sunday

2009-04-30T13:25:00.001+01:00

I got an email from Simon saying BBC One’s The Big Questions had invited him onto the front row in the show, but he couldn’t make it, and that he had suggested me (thanks Simon!)

I spoke to the Production Assistant, Hannah, at some length about the theme of the show: that society would be better if we all belonged to a religion. Hannah will get back to me today.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a TV show, so my fingers are crossed that they will be able to fit me in!

Technorati Tags: The Big Questions,atheism,TV

Jade is remembered as she has lived…

2009-04-04T16:12:00.001+01:00

with ignorance.

Comedy Archbishop

2009-03-26T07:39:00.001Z

Can we be sure that the Archbishop of Canterbury is not actually one of us? That he’s infiltrated the Church of England in order to mock it from the inside? I’m not sure, on the evidence, that we can entirely dismiss this hypothesis. The latest evidence is this nonsense:

I think that to suggest that God might intervene to protect us from the corporate folly of our practices is as unchristian and unbiblical as to suggest that he protects us from the results of our individual folly or sin.

WTF?! It’s unbiblical to suggest that God doesn’t intervene? I must have misread the Bible. You know, the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, God talking to Noah, Moses, Abraham and Issac, God allowing Satan to torment Job, Mary’s rape by God himself, any of Jesus’ miracles, the Resurrection… The Bible is absolutely full of God intervening in the world!

But the muppet ABC tells us what Atheists argue – that God never intervenes in the world! God acts in exactly the same way that He would act if he was completely imaginary. But never mind, the Archbish lets us know that even as God allows million to die from starvation, drowning, or war from global warming that

God's faithfulness stands, assuring us that even in the most appalling disaster love will not let us go

So that’s all right then!

What a git.

Technorati Tags: Archbishop of Canterbury,funny,unbiblical

A Helping Hand

2009-03-23T11:49:00.001Z

Melanie Phillips has published a blog entry in which she asks what Patrician Hewitt would do if she were walking along Beachy Head and found someone about to jump off – would she help them? What if they were in a wheelchair?

I think it’s clear that there is a difference between someone who is impetuously attempting to commit suicide, and someone who is seeking to end their own life on their own terms and timing to give themselves a good death.

I have some experience with suicide. I was driving across Grafton Bridge, a well known suicide spot in Auckland, when I saw a crowd of people. They were all looking at a young man who was clinging to the other side of the railings. I stopped my car, and walked through the crowd. A woman was keeping everyone away from him (she was doing her best), but I thought the best thing to do would be to talk to him – he seemed awfully lonely standing there with so many people watching him, but all by himself. I introduced myself to him, and asked him why was he standing as he was. He told me that he had had some terrible times, and that he felt desperate, but nobody would help him. I suggested that jumping off the bridge would not solve anything (while it might bring his problems to an end). I also told him of the tragic consequences for those below who he might fall onto or in front of. Just months earlier, I had had that very experience – seeing what I thought was a bundle of laundry falling off the bridge, except a second later, I realised that bundles of laundry don’t have arms and legs – a patient with schizophrenia who had absconded from the hospital leapt to his death, and landed right in front of my car. The young man on the bridge agreed that he didn’t want to die, and as he turned to climb back, the whole crowd of watchers moved forward to help pull him over to safety.

A childhood friend of mine made many attempts at suicide during her teens and early twenties. She has the scars up and down her arms. I remember visiting her in a secure psychiatric facility after one attempt, and her showing me the healing wounds on her arms. She had been having some very difficult times, and she felt very desperate to end the psychic pain she was experiencing.

If the person at the top of Beachy Head is in this situation, then I hope Patricia Hewitt (or Melanie Phillips) would do all they could to reason with, or help get support for the person facing such desperation. And help can be got. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to the young man, but my friend is now in full time employment, in a long-term and stable relationship and is a loving mother to her little daughter.

But there is a different case altogether. I don’t have personal stories about this, but I’ve read of many, and corresponded with a few people. Someone who doesn’t have their whole life ahead of them anymore – someone who will shortly die, or who will lose all their dignity and ability to function in life as they have been doing. If you contemplate a death whereby you will end up choking on your own saliva or where you will slowly lose all control of your body until it succumbs to an infection in the indefinite future is not a death that many of us would relish (if Melanie Phillips disagrees, she is welcome to experience a death of her own choosing). Asking for someone to help you die in a manner, time and place of your own choosing is a liberation for many people. They are taking from fate and empowering themselves. They have a chance to put their affairs in order, say goodbye to their loved ones and slip into a sleep from which they won’t awake. I acknowledge and understand that some frail people might feel pressured to “do the right thing” and there must be strong procedures in place to prevent that, but to deny a good death to someone because you’re comparing their act with that of a mentally unstable desperate person is folly of the highest order.

We are the authors of our own lives. Let us be the authors (if we so choose) of our own deaths. If we need help, it is only right and compassionate that help should be forthcoming. I support Patricia Hewitt’s amendment.

Technorati Tags: assisted suicide,Melanie Phillips,Patricia Hewitt,Coroners and Justice Bill,Grafton Bridge,suicide

Fabulous Tee Shirt!

2009-03-17T22:27:00.001Z

I saw this tee shirt at Skeptics in the Pub last night! Primo!

“That’s what I don’t like about Western Medicine”

2009-03-17T22:15:00.001Z

I’m having singing lessons (well, it was my first singing lesson tonight). The teacher is very good, and I think that with time I might reach my goal of not making people’s ears bleed if I sing, but she’s a bit of a hippy.

I’m asthmatic, and during the lesson, I needed a puff on my inhaler. This led to a discussion about “Western” medicine. She asked a question (what I took to be) about whether I knew how I got asthma, and I said I had no idea. This led to the title quote. “They say they don’t know anything, but they also say, ‘do this, do that, we know everything”.

I wasn’t having this! I said (very mildly) that “Western medicine” has saved my life – I’d certainly have died as a child from various asthma attacks or chest infections. It has also saved the lives of my wife and child when they required an emergency caesarean when my son was 9 weeks premature. I suggested that “Western medicine” had probably saved her life, and she admitted that she had spent some time in hospital last year, and was very grateful. But she still wanted her cake and to eat it as well… She said that “Western Medicine” didn’t know everything!

Well, I replied, that was part of the beauty of it. Science acknowledges that it is not perfect – it is not the end. But the obverse of this is that science works to discover more, and drive back the boundaries of ignorance.

It’s important to confront these sort of attitudes. It’s easy to do it in a way that doesn’t put people’s back up. I made it personal about how much modern medicine has helped me and my family, and then suggested similar benefits were available for her too. She was in no doubt of my position by the end of the exchange, but there was no rancour!

Success!

I am an Islamophobe

2009-02-26T23:18:00.001Z

At the Education for Tomorrow meeting yesterday, I was very surprised at how many of the people there said that the only reason that Faith Schools were an issue now was that Muslims were starting to want their own schools and it was pure “Islamophobia” to oppose that.

I am strongly of the view that “Islamophobia” is a bogus concept – one which does not convey sueful information, and is used as a battering ram to rule out of the debate any criticism of Islam, regardless of that criticism’s merits.

I recorded my bits, and this is what I said:

Well, a lot of people have talked about Islamophobia. I think Islamophobia is an imaginary concept. I think that it is completely different from the other phobias, and phobia of course means fear, and I think that instead of having an irrational fear of Islam, many of us have looked at Islam, and are deeply worried about the vision that many Islamists have for society.

Now we talked about people worrying about Islamic schools, now I didn’t want to talk about Islamic schools [for the very reason that our opposition to faith schools is not based on one particular religion – we have principled objections based on the nature of the special privileges enjoyed by all faith schools] but people have brought it up. We need to look at things like the King Faad Academy, where students were reading school books that are part of the Saudi curriculum, which is what they were using, where Jews are called monkeys and pigs. Now the reason, of course that the Jews were called monkeys and pigs in these books is that what the Koran says about Jews.

[At this point, an audience member exclaimed “No!”]

It is. It’s what the Koran says about Jews. In the Koran it says, “Oh Muslim, at the end of the world, even if a Jew is hiding behind a tree or a rock, then the tree and the rock will call out, ‘Oh Muslim! There is a Jew here, come and kill him’ at the end of days”. It is absolutely in the Koran [actually, I was wrong. It is not in the Koran, it’s in the Hadith, and it’s called the Promise of the Trees and Stones, see the email I sent at the end of the talk transcription] give me your email address and I will email you the Sura of the Koran. I mean, the Koran is filled with anti-Semitism from beginning to end. IT is also filled with hatred of non-believers be they Christian, Jew or so-called idolaters [I meant polytheists], you know, the Hindus, and people like us [referring to another self-declared atheist] we have the worst of all fates, according to the Koran.

[Another audience member called out “What about the Bible?”]

Well, I’m certainly not here to defend the goodness of the Bible, but Islam is more than a religion, for many people, many Islamists, is a political ...

[The same audience member who had previously asked about the Bible, objected vigorously to this, and accused me of tarring all Muslims with the brush, it was at this point that I was accused of being Islamophobic.]

process [I meant project] for many Islamists [note that I never talk about all Muslims, I talk about Islamists]. For many people who believe in Islam…

[We talk over each other a bit here, with both of us trying to gain (or retain) the floor.]

they believe Islam gives the entire structure for not only the way their lives should be lived religiously, but also the way the state should be structured and the interactions between people, and between the state and people as well.

[A fellow panellist interjected with the comment, “It sounds like all religion to me”.]

Well, yes, it’s certainly true [by which I meant that other religions sometimes have political agendas attached to them.] But there is a clear problem with…

[Another interjection from a different attendee, this time about Catholics and Protestants, I was going to go on and say that those other religions are not seeking special privileges and supremacy at the present time, as Islamists seems to be doing.]

Why were Catholics so hated and feared in England for such a long time? Because Catholics tried to blow up Parliament and tried to kill the King. There was a long period of religious war in Europe between Catholics and Protestants. That’s the reason a Catholic can’t marry into the Royal family, that’s the reason that there was so much discrimination against them. But Catholicism has created a modus vivendi which allows for people to be Catholic [I should have added and to be full citizens]. There was great consternation when Kennedy was going to be President in America, you know, the first Catholic President, “Gosh! Are we going to have a President who takes his orders from Rome?” The answer is “No!”, because Catholics now have a division between their secular and their religious duties, and I don’t think we see that with Islam, maybe it will come, maybe not, but we’re in that process.

[I was now accused by the second interjector of “creating a hierarchy of religions”.]

I don’t want to create a hierarchy of religions.

[“Yes you do!”]

Why? Why am I doing it? [I meant “How”.]

[Another interjection which I can’t hear on my recording.]

Ok, Ok, let’s discuss it afterwards.

Of course, after the meeting the second interjector avoided me like the plague.

I think what he meant by the hierarchy of religions idea was that he thought that I thought that Islam was uniquely awful, that there is no place in modern society for Muslims. But this is not my position.

I think that Islam, when practised as a personal faith, where it’s adherents refrain from pork and booze, and give to charity, and pray five times a day, and believe outlandish things about Mohummed, and go on holiday to Mecca is fine – in this case, it’s just like any other religion. Maybe crazier than some, but by no means the most mad religion in the world.

But, the point I tried to make is that there are some Muslims for whom it goes further. They think that Islam is also a political project. They think that God has given Islam the right (and responsibility) to rule over the whole world. They use political and violent means to try and bring this state of affairs about. I just do not see how opposing a political project could be “Islamophobic” (which is code for racist). Opposing Islamism (the name of this political project) seems to me to be the right course of action.

Islamophobia, and covering their political acts with the hijab of “faith” allows Islamists considerable free action in our society, and this is a problem that we must confront.

I’m happy that I was called an Islamophobe. Like Kafir, it’s kind of a badge of honour. It means that I’m stepping on Islamist toes, or at least on the toes of those who would give the Islamists cover (the people who interjected were not Muslims, as far as I know).

I promised one of the attendees an email explaining the Suras (and Hadith it turned out). Here’s the email I sent:

Dear …

I hope you enjoyed your drink with … last evening.

I promised I would send you information on the two specific quotes I made - one about Jews being turned into pigs and monkeys, and the other about even the stones and trees crying out for the Muslims to come and kill the Jews hiding behind them.

Sura that refer to Jews being turned into Apes and Pigs:

(all translations by Yusufali from this source:

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/quran/)

2:65

And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the Sabbath: We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected."

5:60

Say: "Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as judged) by the treatment it received from Allah? those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more astray from the even path!"

7:166

When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: "Be ye apes, despised and rejected."

As I said, the context is less important than how these verses are actually interpreted by the faithful. Here is a MEMRI TV clip showing these verses being explained to an audience by the Syrian Minister of Religious Endowment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQERHieZHcg.

And here is a disgusting recording of a show from Iqra TV in Saudi Arabia showing exactly what little children are tuaght: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhbHVEGnYD8&feature=related

Now, I was wrong about the "Promise of the Trees and the Stones". This is a Hadith, and not in the Koran. The Hadith is found here:

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/muslim/041.smt.html

Book 041, Number 6985:

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.

And here: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/052.sbt.html

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 176:

Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar:

Allah's Apostle said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight wi the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O 'Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.' "

Watch these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xvuROQ0_s (the quote is at 4:50 if you can't stand to watch the rest of the vile anti-Semitism in this man's talk)

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFAkmsszTD8 (do you think this preacher is referring to the Hadith in a metaphorical way, or a literal way?)

I welcome a debate on this.

I think Islam is a personal religion - no-one is interested in stopping people declining alcohol and pork, and praying five times a day, but as I said, for many Islamists, Islam is also a political project. It is not "Islamophobia" to oppose a political project that is founded on violence, and seeks to destroy every freedom that we in the West have secured for ourselves.

Kind regards

Nick Pullar

My Talk at an Education for Tomorrow meeting

2009-02-26T07:50:00.001Z

FAITH SCHOOLS: the case for and against

Education for Tomorrow

25 February 2009

Nick Pullar, National Secular Society (http://www.secularism.org.uk)

Thank you for the invitation to come here today and talk to you about how secularists view faith schools.

First, I’d like to apologise for not being a teacher! The National Secular Society is an organisation with a broad ranging focus: about how to bring fairness to a political system where there are many competing faith traditions, and a growing group of people with no faith – indeed, according to the Office of National Statistics Religious Trends survey, only 53% of people say they belong to a religion. We are interested in every child having a good education, and the reason that I’m here is that we think that faith schools in particular are a barrier to this goal, so I really speak as a lay-person in terms of education although I am a parent so these matters concern me personally as well as theoretically, but as a member of the NSS my particular interest is in secularism.

Second, I’d like to define what we mean by secularism. You may have got the idea from listening to Bishops or other religious figures that secularism is just a cover for atheism. It is true that the National Secular Society is an organisation for non-religious people, but secularism is more than that. Fundamentally, secularism is just the idea that the public square should be free from religious privilege. As secularists, we believe firmly in the idea of freedom of religion – we think that it is a fundamental right of all people to be able to believe whatever they like, and to be able to freely practise that religion, so long as that practise does not impinge on the freedoms of others. This includes the right to hold to an orthodox or even a so-called heretical religious view without interference from the state. You don’t have to be an atheist to think that secularism is a good idea. There are many people who are secularists in this meaning of the term, but who are also Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims or Buddhists. Now, I think it’s easy to see the attraction of secularism. It means you are free with respect to your religious choices, and no-one from the government will tell you you have to stop, or worship in a way that’s different to how you want to worship. But it also means that no one religion has a monopoly on faith or any sort of special privilege. Every religious person believes their religion to be the one true way. As an atheist, too, I think I’m right and they’re all wrong! It is impossible to imagine that the members of these competing religions will all agree to allow a special privilege to just one of the other religions, so to stop religious conflict, or a constant racheting up of religious privileges, we think the best way is to treat all religions in just the same neutral way.

Of course, when I say that the government won’t intervene in religion, I hope it’s obvious that there are some pretty clear exceptions: I don’t think that parents have the right to for example with-hold medical treatment from their sick child on the basis of their religion. Jehovah’s Witnesses have a well-known aversion to accepting blood products on religious grounds, and adult Jehovah’s Witnesses are routinely allowed to die because of this belief, but their children are not. Judges will readily grant court orders which have the effect of trumping the religious belief of the parent in order to save the life of a child. Similarly, people who believe that paying income tax is against their religion pretty rapidly find that this belief does not in fact exempt them from the same laws as the rest of us.

Now one other thing that religious opponents of secularism say is that we want to get rid of religion all together – that religious people should not be allowed to have their religious conscience in public life. This is quite wrong. A common example brought up is religious members of parliament. They say that we want to stop Catholic MPs from voting with their conscience on issues such as abortion. This is not so. What we oppose is the making of laws which have a religious foundation. So, if an MP is opposed to abortion, they are perfectly entitled to that view, regardless of how it was arrived at, but they would not, on our view, be entitled to promulgate a law which stated that abortion would be illegal because the Pope says so. The Pope is only a religious authority to Catholics, why should non-Catholics give even the smallest concern about the Pope’s view on abortion, any more than they give weight to the Grand Druid’s view on tax policy? So, if a Catholic MP wanted to introduce a Bill about abortion, then they should find secular, i.e. non-religious grounds for other MPs to support them. And this is how we find that debate generally goes in the Houses of Parliament.

And with that preamble out of the way, onto faith schools. I’m sure you know the background. One third of the schools in the country are faith schools. These schools have a number of advantages that community schools do not have. They are allowed to select pupils on the basis of their parent’s religion, and they are allowed to discriminate in the employment of their staff on the basis of religion. We think both of these special privileges are iniquitous and generally lead of a worse outcome for education as a whole.

Much is made of the better than average results that faith schools get – proponents of faith schools tell us with pride that this is due to the “special ethos” that only faith can provide. But of course, we know that there are lies, damned lies and statistics, and we must be careful that the explanation for the success of faith schools holds up.

Now, since we are comparing the population of faith schools with the population of non-faith schools, and we find that faith schools are on average better, do we also find that faith schools are similar to other schools, or are they different in some way? Actually, we find that faith schools as a group have a number of important differences to the population of non-faith schools. The proportion of children receiving free school meals in faith schools is less than in non-faith schools. The number of students with special needs is smaller in faith schools than in non-faith schools. Do these students, on average, do as well as their peers? No, they generally perform worse, so if it is a fact (and it is) that faith schools have fewer poorer performing students, then naturally we should expect them to do better as a matter of course. Furthermore, if one compares the population of non-oversubscribed faith schools, that is faith schools which do not get to choose their students, then we find that this subset of the faith school population performs just as well (or badly) as schools as a whole, so the application of a “special ethos” doesn’t help in this case.

In fact, the “special ethos” only seems to works in over-subscribed faith schools where there is a competition for places. And who gets selected? Naturally the best behaved and most likely to achieve good grades (which accounts for the lower than average levels of Special Needs and free school meal students in faith schools). Now it gets more insidious. Because the best students are creamed off by the faith schools, in those areas where there are over-subscribed faith schools, that will tend to make the community schools in that area worse than average, this leads to a virtuous circle for the faith schools, and to a vicious cycle for the community schools, as privilege and disadvantage are reinforced in the particular school communities.

So if there’s no overall benefit, then why persist with faith schools? Well, because there is a benefit – to middle class parents who are religious, or who are happy to pretend to believe if their child will receive a better education. Because the faith schools are selective, and as we have seen, because they use that selection to cream off the best students in their area, faith schools are often better than community schools. Thus, children who go to faith schools receive a better education than they would at most community schools. It’s called receiving a private education on the state. I think this is why government is so in favour of faith schools – it is a benefit that middle class parents take advantage of. If their benefit is threatened, those parents would punish the party responsible at the polls. But is it fair? Everyone pays taxes for a good education for their children, to have already privileged middle class parents receiving a better deal at the expense of their less well-off neighbours does not seem to gel with the ideals of Christian charity.

At the same time, Church authorities are hugely in favour of faith schools too. They know their congregations are greying, and dying off, and that fewer and fewer young people are coming through to join the pews. The best way for religions to propagate themselves is to capture children when they’re young. The old Jesuit saying goes, “give me the boy until he is seven, and I will give you the man”. This accounts for the fact that faith schools are overwhelmingly primary schools. It is obviously important that if you have a religion which you wish to grow, then the best people to expose it to are young children, who are not in a position to critically evaluate the claims of that religion, and who tend to believe everything they’re told by authority figures. And in his first major speech on education, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams let the mask slip a little when he said that “The church school is a church” and he encouraged has church schools to hold confirmation and communion services. So religions have a strong incentive to continue with faith schools as well.

Now, we’re not against teaching about religion in school. We think that an understanding of the beliefs, practises of the various religions and learning about religious texts as literature are essential for an understanding of history and of different communities both here and abroad, but the confessional teaching of religion should play no part in the school experience. Parents are free to introduce their children to their religion of choice, but this is something that should happen outside of school – at Saturday or Sunday school. We should remember that for the children at primary school, there is no such thing as a Christian child or a Hindu child. Children of this age are too young to properly understand what it means to believe in a religion. The best we can say is that the children are children of Christian parents. Labelling a child at such a young age seems a very cruel thing to do, as it gives the child a load of expectations and baggage about their perceived role in society will be which is contrary to the idea that religion should be freely chosen, not imposed.

We are also opposed to the teaching of religious dogma in the guise of other subjects. An NSS member recently contacted us with this story:

My son attends school in Salisbury. He is in Year 1. The school has a very strong Christian ethos. Yesterday, he told me that as part of the ‘light and dark’ science topic (which the school informed us he would be studying as part of science for KS1) he was taught how God created the earth and brought light to the world.

I hope you will agree that such a breach of trust is disgraceful. There are many other stories like this. We are familiar with the Academies in Gateshead teaching Creationism, and we are sure that in many schools, there is religious indoctrination incorporated into many lessons. Science lessons should be for teaching about science. Religious books have little or nothing useful to say about this topic, and schools should concentrate on how and why science is such a powerful explanatory tool rather than muddying the waters with the ideas of people who were basically completely ignorant about how the world really works. This reminds me of a question: if all the works of science vanished tomorrow, we would find ourselves living in the Stone Age, but if all the works of all the theologians vanished, would anyone even notice?

One of the most telling points against faith schools relates to social cohesion – a big topic today. Rather incredibly, the proponents of faith schools tell us that by siloing children into religious ghettos, this enhances social cohesion. We can see for ourselves how separate education for different religions has worked wonders in Northern Ireland or Scotland, where deep sectarian fault lines exist and are perpetuated to this day, where children from the different communities have completely separate lives.

All the evidence is that if the goal is to help minority students integrate into a community, and for them to be accepted by the majority, then the only real way is to have them share experiences, especially from a young age. That way, someone’s skin colour or beliefs becomes irrelevant in making friends and playing together.

Other religions have started to demand more schools of their own faith, paid for by the tax payer, and the government is in no position to deny them without appearing to discriminate. All religious schools have quotas for children of other faiths and none – but only if the school is undersubscribed. In reality, how many non-Muslim parents would be happy sending their child to an orthodox Muslim school where their daughter would have to wear a veil, for example?

School should be a place where children can stretch themselves and learn about their talents and abilities. Some patriarchal religious traditions frown on boys or girls learning certain skills or having certain experiences. In faith schools governed by these traditions, would boys and girls receive the same education? Perhaps a young girl is a gifted musician. But her family belongs to a religious tradition where the playing of music is forbidden. Should this girl have an opportunity to discover her talent, and then be able to decide for herself whether she should develop it, or should that decision be made for her, and she be kept in ignorance of what her potential is. Sometimes a broad education is a way out of a narrow religious tradition. By allowing some faith schools to teach only a restricted portion of the whole world of experience and knowledge, we can only make the world a poorer place for those young people who find themselves in that restrictive environment, and, if they only knew there was another way, might seek a different life.

Finally, I want to turn briefly to the effect of religious discrimination on teachers. Most teachers want to teach, to expand the horizons of their students and to bring knowledge where there is ignorance. If most of the schools in the local area are faith schools, which require a teacher to be a practising member of that faith, then this obviously presents difficulties for teachers of different faiths and of none. We believe that your religion is a private matter which has nothing to do with the teaching of mathematics, science or history. Yet teachers of these secular subjects can still be discriminated against by the people who run faith schools. The NSS has heard many stories from teachers who have lost their faith, or who never had one who need to lie to everyone around them in order to keep (or to get) a job in a school close by. Again, this is a scandalous situation, which would not be tolerated in any other sphere. We should take human rights seriously – all people should have the right to seek employment without a committee deciding if they are sufficiently orthodox to be allowed to teach in a particular school. The Star Chamber went out of use hundreds of years ago, except within faith schools, apparently.

In conclusion, we see that there is no magical “special ethos” that makes faith schools better. In reality, faith schools are better for the same reason that private schools are better – because these schools have the power to allow the good students in, and to exclude those who might perform badly.

This is a benefit almost exclusively for the middle classes, but for which everyone needs to pay. It is greatly in the interests of the various religions, because it secures them new blood, but again, at the expense of the education of the whole community and of the potential and individual conscience of the children involved.

Faith schools divide young people of different backgrounds one from another. An inevitable consequence of this is more distrust between communities, borne of social isolation.

Teachers are discriminated against if they have the “wrong” religion, or even if their practise of that religion does not meet the standards of their inquisitors, in violation of the norms of the rest of the world of employment.

What parents’ want, what we want, are good schools. Good schools open to everyone in the community, regardless of the religion in the family. Let’s all come together to learn about each other and the world. I don’t know who would like to disagree with that ideal.

The best possible world?

2009-02-20T08:07:00.001Z

Matthew Paris is an intelligent man. I often enjoy reading his comment, but his most recent column in The Times shows up the poverty of the religious mind.

In the column, he says,

Fascinating to read on The Times's letters page last week a discussion among Darwinian Christians about how a loving God could have allowed (for instance) the creation of worms that burrow into animals' eyes. This took the debate full circle: back to 30 years before this paper was founded, and the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755, featured in Voltaire's Candide.

The catastrophe provoked anguish about how God could allow such suffering. The 17th-century thinker Gottfried Leibniz had asserted that (1) a loving God would have created the best world He could; (2) there exists a loving God; ergo (3) this must be the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire mocks this, through his ludicrously optimistic Dr Pangloss.

I feel for Leibniz, a mathematician and a genius, who only asserts that if you believe in a loving God it follows that, good or bad, the world could not have been better. Voltaire's shallow knockabout does not answer a logical sequence whose sole vulnerable assertion was that there exists a beneficent God. If Voltaire did not believe this he should have had the guts to say so. Instead he cheated. As a boy I stopped reading Candide here and have ignored Voltaire since.

What a glib answer! Voltaire’s argument is flippant, and that’s the point, it is also a serious discussion about suffering.

You do not even need take the idea of evolution seriously (as I take it Paris does) which implies that there has been suffering and death on a monumental scale for hundreds of millions of years to see the flaw in Leibniz’s argument. What a supporter of Leibniz is committed to is that not a single one of any instance of suffering could be removed or even mitigated without the world becoming a worse place.

We now have anaesthetics. Does Paris really believe that the application of a narcotic (by God) to a suffering child (in circumstances where it would be given today) especially in circumstances where not only that child, but also all witnesses to that suffering would shortly also die (such as in a family during the Black Death or in a remote sea wreak) would have been a bad thing? Does he support the use of pain relieving drugs today?

The idea we live in the best possible world does not need logical refutation, the fact that it is so easily mocked and derided in its own terms is evidence that it is a faulty idea.

Laughter is our best weapon. That’s why it’s rare to see religious leaders happy!

Is Someone In Care Allowed To Change their Religion?

2009-02-19T23:43:00.001Z

This story, which I know is a bit old, but I think it’s important to comment on.

Briefly, a sixteen year old girl who was identified as being from a Muslim family was in care. She decided that she wanted to change her religion and become a Christian. In response to this, she was removed from her foster-carer who was then suspended because “council officials allegedly accused her of failing to ‘respect and preserve’ the child’s faith”.

This raises really important issues.

Should we assume that minor children will automatically have the religion of their parents?

Many people assume that they should or will. But as Richard Dawkins points out, we don’t assign other labels to children – we don’t, for example, call the children of Conservatives, Conservatives. We appreciate that while most children do follow their parents in terms of religion or politics, it is up to the child when he or she reaches maturity to decide such things.

It is also worth noting that children are not the property of their parents, and do not owe parents a duty to follow a particular religion any more than we would expect a young adult to follow a line of work suggested by their parents.

This must also be true of children in care. Assumptions should not be made about the child’s interest (or lack thereof) in a particular religion. It is natural that carers should attend to the “spiritual needs” of a child (whatever those might be!) by introducing them to the rites and rituals they would be introduced to as a matter of course for their community in a regular family, but it should not be more than that.

What is more important, the rights of the girl or the rights of the community?

The most obnoxious aspect of this episode is the assumption by the social workers that because the girl was from a family of Muslims, that she was a Muslim herself. Furthermore, because she was thought to be a Muslim then the Sharia provisions against changing one’s religion away from Islam were used by the social workers.

This gives the biggest insight into why Sharia Law should be opposed. Sharia law is fundamentally against allowing individuals making their own choices about how to live their life. Apostasy from Islam is not allowed because Islam is the supposed perfect religion, so no-one would ever want to leave! The people who are at greatest risk of becoming victims of Sharia Law in the UK are “Muslims” who are coerced, in this case by “well-meaning” multicultural social workers, into having Sharia Law applied to them, even though the outcomes of that Law are contrary to the interests of the person.

This contrasts sharply with the way things are done in the West. Let’s read what the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has to say about changing religion:

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

I agree completely with this. People, even young people such as this girl, should be at complete liberty as to which religion (or no religion) they chose to follow. It is important to note that the State (in this case the social workers) should be blind to the religion (or no religion) that is chosen.

Other members of the community are free to hate, ignore, exclude the girl because of her decision. If they believe that apostasy is a wicked act, they should be free to be complete shits about it. That’s the thing about freedom.

Were the actions of the social workers in the best interest of the child?

This is another important issue. Social workers must do what is in the best interests of the child. From reading the reports, it is clear that the girl made an informed decision, and held to it over a long period of time. This shows maturity and intelligence. From my reading of the newspaper articles, I’m not sure that the social workers took this fully into account, but gave undue weight to the “community norms” of a community the girl did not want to be a part of. The doctrine of Multiculturalism meant that the girl’s membership of a certain religio-ethnic community was considered more important than the girl’s expressed preferences. If this reading is correct, it is highly unfortunate.

It is also highly regrettable that the foster carer has lost her job over this. Her own account is that she is a dedicated and otherwise excellent foster carer who works diligently to help the young people in her care. I hope that she will be able to return to work very soon.

National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year Award

2009-02-08T12:28:00.001Z

I spent a very pleasant afternoon yesterday at the National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year Award at the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square. The award was presented by Richard Dawkins.

The joint winners were Dr Even Harris MP and Lord Avebury for their joint work in abolishing the common law offense of Blasphemous Libel. This has been the NSS’s raison d'être for it’s whole existence, so it was no surprise that the primary authors of its repeal should be rewarded! Both gave fine acceptance speeches, with Lord Avebury commenting that he was just the one who gave the final push, after such a long effort, despite the fact that he has been tabling amendments for 20 years to get rid of that wicked law. Dr Harris MP gave a very amusing speech about the battles yet to be won, including faith schools and faith-based welfare. He revealed that he has drawn fifth in the members ballot for Private Members Bill, and he wants to introduce a bill to stop discrimination against Catholics marrying into the line of succession (and allow female members the same right to inherit the throne as males) so he thought it would be a good idea to ring up Damien Thompson, the editor of the Catholic Herald and give them an exclusive (since he and the Catholic Herald have disagreed on much previously) but Thompson was “disgusted”:

Dr Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP nicknamed "Dr Death" for his creepy determination to make late-term abortions and euthanasia more widely available, now has a new cause: he wants to remove the ban on the heir to the throne marrying a Catholic.

You know something? Catholics don't want to be liberated from this constitutional discrimination by a politician who advocates an end to the requirement that any abortion requires the consent of two doctors, arguing that the "procedure" can carried out by a nurse or even in the home.

I know I speak for many Catholics when I say that this man disgusts me. He is wrong about nearly everything, and wrong in a particularly nauseating fashion, too: self-righteous, humourless, self-important.

I had a phone call from his office yesterday, with the news that "Dr Evan Harris MP" wanted to brief me on his initiative, as if it was supposed to be some sort of honour. I said I couldn't imagine anything worse than talking to such an appalling character.

Let's leave the constitutional bar in place for just a bit longer, shall we? It's mildly offensive, but Catholics have more important things to worry about. Such as saving late-term unborn babies from the grisly fate that Dr Harris is happy to see inflicted on them.

Ha ha ha!

The other presentations were a special award to Ariane Sherine for her excellent work on the Atheist Bus campaign (of a little model London bus with her slogan on the sides – nice) and two hard working volunteers.

Entertainment was provided by a recreation of the great debate between Huxley and Wilberforce about Darwinism. The part of Bishop Wilberforce was played with great gusto by NSS President Terry Sanderson – I must say, there’s a career in the Church for him if he ever wants to give up on our side!

We also heard from Matthew LaClair, a student from New Jersey, about his efforts to keep his classroom religion-free after his teacher used his position to preach to the students.

It was a fine afternoon, and I’m looking forward to next year.

Christian Nurse Back On The Job

2009-02-07T11:46:00.001Z

Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient will be allowed to continue working.

The statement from the North Somerset Primary Care Trust reads in full:

New statement regarding Caroline Petrie, North Somerset nurse

Issued 5 February 2009

NHS North Somerset have contacted bank nurse Caroline Petrie with a view to her returning back to work as soon as she feels able. We have always been keen to bring this matter to a timely resolution. It has been a distressing and difficult time for Caroline and all staff involved.

We recognise the concerns raised by the many people who have contacted us about this situation. We feel we were right to investigate the concerns from people about Caroline’s actions. We are always respectful of our patients’ views, and we will always strive to ensure our staff meet professional standards such as the Nursing and Midwifery Council Code of Conduct and any policies and procedures which are designed to maintain high standards.

However, we are keenly aware of the importance of an individual’s spiritual belief, and we recognise that Caroline felt that she was acting in the best interests of her patients. For some people of faith, prayer is seen as an integral part of health care and the healing process. That is why NHS services in North Somerset offer spiritual support such as chaplaincy and prayer rooms, for example, available for use by people of all faiths.

It is acceptable to offer spiritual support as part of care when the patient asks for it.

But for nurses, whose principal role is giving nursing care, the initiative lies with the patient and not with the nurse. Nurses like Caroline do not have to set aside their faith, but personal beliefs and practices should be secondary to the needs and beliefs of the patient and the requirements of professional practice.

We are glad to make this position clear so that Caroline and other staff who have a faith continue to offer high quality care for patients while remaining committed to their beliefs. We hope Caroline can return to work as soon as she feels able. For more information please contact Communication Team

I think this is an excellent statement. It balances the needs of patients for autonomy and privacy with respect to their religious beliefs, and with the desire of religious people to bring what “spiritual comfort” to their patients that they can.

I think it is obvious that a very religious patient might receive considerable solace from a prayer with their carer, regardless of the actual efficacy of that action, and it would be wrong to deny those patients who explicitly request it that solace. But at the same time, it is wrong to impose your version of “religious solace” on an unwilling or even a disinterested third party.

As secularists, we do not want to stop people believing in or acting upon their religious beliefs. Indeed, it is almost a necessary element of secularism that we be in favour of freedom of belief for religious believers, but we know that their freedom of belief stops the moment another person might be affected – if that other person does not consent to the religious practise, then it stops being a matter of the freedom of religion of the practitioner and it becomes a matter of balancing competing rights of freedom of religion, and the other person’s rights to autonomy and privacy.

There is one point that was made in an earlier press statement by the North Somerset PCT which hasn’t been covered in the most recent statement:

There are grounds for wondering whether the nurse’s sincere faith convictions about the efficacy of intercessory prayer are more strongly held than her commitment to a pattern of practice consistent with her professional role.

It does appear that Ms Petrie has a higher level of trust in the curative power of intercessory prayer than the evidence warrants (ie she believes that it is not totally worthless). It is worrying that Ms Petrie would make statements to the Guardian such as

She said she had seen her supplications have real effects on patients, including a Catholic woman whose urine infection cleared up days after she said a prayer.

I still think that the Nursing and Midwifery Council Code might have something to say about that:

You must deliver care based on the best available evidence or best practice

and

You must ensure any advice you give is evidence based if you are suggesting healthcare products or services

Ms Petrie should continue to do the excellent job she has been doing, and ensure that she restricts her spiritual assistance to those patients who willingly request it from her.

Pope Un-excommunicates Holocaust Denier

2009-02-05T00:33:00.001Z

Opps!

I don’t understand. I thought that the Pope’s magical powers/direct hotline to God would have intervened before he did something this stupid.

Did Ratzinger not get his special tingly Pope-sense that this would be a mistake, or is he *gasp* just an ordinary man with no special/magical powers at all?

Israel/Hamas War Discussion

2009-02-03T08:32:00.001Z

At the height of the Israel/Hamas war, a friend on Facebook changed his status to:

“Condoleeza Rice just made a statement.1st 3 mins were about Hamas rockets into Israel. Nothing about Israeli war crimes, bombing UN buildings, white phosphorous.”

Here is the anonomised discussion. I’ve moved it over here because I want to answer all the points raised, and there’s no space on Facebook!

Commentator 1 at 16:50, on 16 January.

the usual stuff, really. Won't be missing her anymore than Bush.

Commentator 2 at 17:07, on 16 January.

she's a glove puppet, sadly she has a one size fits all policy

Commentator 3 at 17:20, on 16 January.

Heard on the news the israelis are hoping to wrap it up in Gaza before Obamas inauguration. I no longer think this is 'cos Obamas foreign policy is going to be more sane, it just avoids making him look bad as their ally. He'll be able to live off PR and false hopes for a bit longer.

Nick P at 17:34, on 16 January.

Yes, Condi is right - "No rockets, no problem". Let's talk about phone calls to civilians, leaflets and radio messages to the people of Gaza. How many of those do Hamas use? Let's talk about the Israeli withdrawal in 2005. How many Schools did Hamas build? How many hospitals? OK, now let's ask how many rockets were imported and how many tunnels were dug.
This is the clearest moral question of our age. Do we support the terrorists of Hamas who want to destroy the Jews, or do we support Israel, who wants to protect its civilian population from a barrage of rockets?

Commentator 3 at 17:58, on 16 January.

Have a look at this to get some historical perspective, Nick, especially the stuff lower down pre 2000. It doesn't include the current fighting and I don't think it includes the massacres of thousands of palestinian refugees in camps in lebanon in the '80's. Hamas didn't emerge from nowhere to spread beardy islamist terror cos they're on the axis of evil-
http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2006/05/post-1967-palestinian-israeli-deaths.html

OK, let’s talk about that. The article linked to talks about “since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza (the Occupied Palestinian Territories) and the Golan Heights (Syria) in 1967”, which is BULLSHIT of the highest order. Why were those territories occupied? Perhaps it was because all the countries surrounding Israel attacked it in a co-ordinated surprise attack, and were massively defeated in a war. The Golon Heights and the West Bank and Gaza are the spoils of war. And not even a war of aggression – a war of self defence. Furthermore, the West Bank and Gaza are not “the Palestinian Occupied Territories”. The West Bank was (formerly) Jordon and Gaza was (formerly) Egypt. There NEVER has been a country called “Palestine”.

It is tragic that many thousands of “Palestinians” have suffered over the decades. No-one wants that. Well, actually, that’s not true, is it? The Arab governments of the surrounding countries want it quite badly. They use the fate of the Palestinians to beat Israel, yet they take no actions to resettle that populations in their own borders.

Facebook Friend at 20:33, on 16 January.

Nick, phone calls, leaflets and radio messages saying what, exactly? "We are about to begin bombing, please leave your homes, we'll be destroying them, and head to, err, how about a UN school or HQ, you'll be safe there"?
Where do you get the money to build schools and hospitals when Israel is blockading your country so businesses cannot "do business".
How about "no occupation, no rockets, no problem"? Seems a little short sighted of Rice to miss out the first step?
…

Opps! You can’t believe anything that the Palestinians tell you during a war. Now it transpires that the UN School WAS NOT HIT, and no-one was killed there.

You also forget, don’t you, that there was NO OCCUPATION. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Yes, they did introduce a blockade. Why? To reduce the amount of materiel that Hamas were importing and to stop suicide bombing.

So is your position that Israel can’t try to stop Hamas importing weapons (by imposing a blockade) nor can they defend themselves from people who are trying to murder their citizens?

Facebook Friend at 20:34, on 16 January.

not to mention international law and the Geneva Convention . . . . .

Commentator 1 at 20:43, on 16 January.

And the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands and from Jerusalem, the illegal settlements to grab even more land, the "separation wall" that goes beyond Israeli borders.... Palestinians are being pushed in corner, they're being choked for 40 years.
Hamas did not come out of nowhere indeed.

As I mentioned before, the Palestinians weren’t really expelled. They left and hoped to return soon when Israel was destroyed by its Arab neighbours. They were then let down by those same Arab neighbours who preferred to use them as political pawns and a stick to beat Israel with.

I agree that the wall in the West Bank is unhelpful, although it has been very successful in reducing suicide attacks on civilian populations.

Nick P at 22:19, on 16 January.

Can we agree on one thing? That it's wrong to indiscriminately target civilian populations. If that's the case, then what course of action do you recommend to Israel given that the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was such a disappointment, and by withdrawing from the West Bank then virtually the whole of Israel is in range of Quassam-type rockets? It would be lovely to hear what options you think are realistically open to Israel.
Cheers,
Nick

Commentator 4 at 00:43, on 17 January.

Nik, u talk about Israel's 'unilateral withdrawral' from Gaza - the test for occupation under international law remains 'effective control' and seeing that Israel maintains complete control of Gaza's airspace, territorial waters, border crossings and population register not to mention an 18 month blockade on the Gaza Strip which has plunged 1.5 million Palestinians into poverty, turning the area into an open air prison with a lack of essential supplies such as electricity, medicines and denying youth their right to education and study opportunities abroad - not to mention financial and economic sanctions placed on the democratically elected representatives of and oppressed and occupied peoples- yes, Israel's unilateral disengagement from the territory was indeed a disappointment. Possibly, just possibly, ending the occupation would end the desire to fire Qassam rockets into Israel or as i understand it the legitamate right to resist occupation, oppression and apartheid. Cheers.

Key sentence: “Possibly, just possibly, ending the occupation would end the desire to fire Qassam rockets into Israel”.

Answer: No, it’s clear that Hamas were doing all they could to stockpile weapons which they have used to attack the civilian population and infrastructure in Southern Israel.

Commentator 4 at 01:01, on 17 January.

Hey, and another thing: you ask 'how many schools and hospitals did Hamas build?' erm, well, it looks like you are missing some information in your argument- coz as far as i am aware Hamas rose to power exactly because of the charitable work it did and its funding of social, educational and medical institutions- maybe we can start with Al-Mujamma Al Islami University, or the Islamic University or establishing free medical clinics in many mosques or numerous mobile health clinics that visit rural areas. Erm, facts are sometimes more powerful than propaganda! Salaam!

Yes, Hamas were famous for their health clinics, and I acknowledge that this was a factor in their electoral success. But as I recall, Hitler built the autobahns and Mussolini made the trains run on time. Totalitarians sometimes can do good, but they’re still totalitarians. Read the Hamas Charter which says much more about creating a Sharia State than building health clinics.

Christian Nurse Suspended Over Prayer Offer

2009-02-02T13:26:00.001Z

This story.

Caroline Petrie, a “bank” nurse has been told by the North Somerset primary care trust that she will not be receiving any more offers of work until an inquiry into her alleged offer to pray for an elderly patient of the Trust has reported back. The patient had informally complained to the Trust. The patient said, “But it could perhaps be upsetting for some other people if they have different beliefs or thought that she meant they looked in such a bad way that they needed praying for”. Ms Petrie claims “I am upset because I enjoy this job and it [prayer] is a valuable part of the care I give.”

Ms Petrie’s comment highlights the central issue. Religion is a deeply personal and private matter. To bring your religion into your workplace and even obliquely suggest that people should engage themselves with your own religious rituals shows a level of insensitivity and selfishness that is incompatible with a “caring” profession.

No-one is suggesting that Ms Petrie, in the words of the Daily Mail front page splash is being “Persecuted for praying”. She is not being told to not pray, nor to do anything that is against her conscience. Rather, she is being told that her behaviour is inappropriate. The Nursing and Midwifery Council Code states, “You must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health”, furthermore it states that “You must treat people as individuals and respect their dignity” and “You must not discriminate in any way against those in your care”.

The problem is that Ms Petrie wants to do two contradictory things. She appears to be a caring person who wants to help people as a nurse, but she also wants to act as an evangelist. She needs to choose what’s more important to her. No-one would suggest that Ms Petrie should not preach the Gospel to whosoever she can find to agree to listen on her own time or if she was employed as a religious worker by someone, but to expect her to be able to pursue her religious hobby at work is a silly as a stamp collector being aggrieved that they aren’t allowed to spend all their time at the post office while they are supposed to be at work. The fact that this is the second time she’s been carpeted over this suggests that it’s the evangelism that’s most important. Who is to say how many vulnerable people have not had the courage to stand up to her?

To wish for a secular society is not to wish religious people silent, it is to recognise that religion has its own time and place. That time and place is not at work. Ms Petrie needs to consider what’s the most important thing for her.

As an afterword, I think that it is excellent that the Code also states, “You must deliver care based on the best available evidence or best practice” and “You must ensure any advice you give is evidence based if you are suggesting healthcare products or services”. Prayer is totally ineffective as a treatment as demonstrated by numerous studies, including, for example, the total indifference that God show towards amputees.

Finally, in an attempt to measure the delusion that Ms Petrie is operating under, consider the statement attributed to her in the Guardian,

She said she had seen her supplications have real effects on patients, including a Catholic woman whose urine infection cleared up days after she said a prayer.

Really? A urine infection went away after a few days? A miracle! A miracle! Perhaps Ms Petrie was also administering antibiotics at the same time? Does she know that some infections just go away all by themselves (with a little help from the immune system) even without prayer being used?

As Mark Twain wrote on the effectiveness of prayer, “Rain always follows prayer, so long as the prayer is continued long enough”.

Hall Of Shame Update

2009-01-23T12:57:00.001Z

Current list of signatories to the two EDMs about the atheist bus ads:

NO GOD ADVERTISING

That this House notes the recent advertising campaign based on London buses, There's Probably No God, the brainchild of the British Humanist Association; also notes the fact that the rationale behind it is that people can be less careful about their lifestyle choices and general approach to life's consequences by discounting the likelihood of a Creator and an afterlife; and recommends to Christian groups considering alternative advertising approaches to There's Probably No God to counter it with the simple addition of But What If There Is?

There is no change to the Hall of Shame for this EDM, it’s still six:

Conservative Party

Scott, Lee (Illford North)
Winterton, Ann (Congleton)
Winterton, Nicholas (Macclesfield)

Democratic Unionist Party

Campbell, Gregory (East Londonderry)
Simpson, David (Upper Bann)

Independent

Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

The second (and much worse) EDM:

OFFENSIVE ADVERTISEMENTS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT

That this House notes that posters with the slogan `There's Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life', appear on 800 buses in England, Scotland and Wales, as well as on the London Underground; notes that this causes concern to Christian and Muslim people, many of whom feel embarrassed and uncomfortable travelling on public transport displaying such advertisements and would not wish to endorse the advertisements by using that public transport; regrets that the British Humanist Association backs the campaign; and calls on Ministers responsible for public transport and advertising media to investigate this matter and to seek to remove these religiously offensive and morally unhelpful advertisements.

Sadly, the Hall of Shame for this EDM has increased by two since the last update, there are now nine inductees (new entries marked with a star):

Democratic Unionist Party

Campbell, Gregory (East Londonderry)
Simpson, David (Upper Bann)

Independent

Spink, Bob (Castle Point)

Labour Party

Cryer, Ann (Keighley)
Dobbin, Jim (Heywood & Middleton)
Drew, David (Stroud)
Singh, Marsha (Bradford West)
Williams, Betty (Conwy) *

Liberal Democrats

Hancock, Mike (Portsmouth South) *

I’ve linked the MPs to their They Work For You profile. I suggest that you write each of them a quick email, and ask if they think that atheists are entitled to equal protection under the law, and the equal right with religious people to publically express our opinions.

Atheist Bus Ads Allowed

2009-01-23T11:35:00.001Z

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that the atheist bus ads are not in breach of the Code.

Predictably, Christian Voice are outraged and assert it’s all a plot by the evil Secularists and Homosexuals (that’s us!)

More MPs Object to “Atheist Bus Ads”

2009-01-17T09:50:00.001Z

There’s a second, and even worse EDM about the atheist bus ads (h/t: MediaWatchWatch):

OFFENSIVE ADVERTISEMENTS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT

That this House notes that posters with the slogan `There's Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life', appear on 800 buses in England, Scotland and Wales, as well as on the London Underground; notes that this causes concern to Christian and Muslim people, many of whom feel embarrassed and uncomfortable travelling on public transport displaying such advertisements and would not wish to endorse the advertisements by using that public transport; regrets that the British Humanist Association backs the campaign; and calls on Ministers responsible for public transport and advertising media to investigate this matter and to seek to remove these religiously offensive and morally unhelpful advertisements.

This EDM is worse than the previous one for two reasons.

First, it elevates “causing concern” among the devout to a greater importance than protecting the freedom of expression of a significant number of citizens of the UK. The fact that people may be “embarrassed and uncomfortable” is neither here nor there. There are an unlimited number of things which may cause “embarrassment or discomfort”, is Bob Spink, the author of this shameful motion planning to have all of those things censored too?

The second element is even worse. Spink and the other craven fools who have signed this terrible document thinks that censorship and the exercise of state authority are the answer to words and ideas he doesn’t like. Note, they say, “calls on Ministers responsible for public transport and advertising media to investigate this matter and to seek to remove these religiously offensive and morally unhelpful advertisements.” Does Spink not understand what it is to live in a liberal democracy? Does he rather we live in a Taliban-like theocracy where the Church/Mosque has the power not just to censor words they don’t like, but to exercise judicial power under blasphemy laws to punish those who dare think differently from him? Spink and the others who support him do not deserve to be MPs.

The Hall of Shame for this EDM is seven:

Democratic Unionist Party

Independent

Spink, Bob

Labour Party

MPs Object to “Atheist Bus Ads”

2009-01-16T22:39:00.001Z

This isn’t on Al-BBC.

The following Early Day Motion:

That this House notes the recent advertising campaign based on London buses, There's Probably No God, the brainchild of the British Humanist Association; also notes the fact that the rationale behind it is that people can be less careful about their lifestyle choices and general approach to life's consequences by discounting the likelihood of a Creator and an afterlife; and recommends to Christian groups considering alternative advertising approaches to There's Probably No God to counter it with the simple addition of But What If There Is?

Why should “This House”, which is a body to make laws that affect everyone, need to recommend anything to Christian groups, especially considering that Christian groups have been advertising on any media available since that media was available.

Furthermore, why is it that the religious again impugn the moral integrity of atheists? “people can be less careful about their lifestyle choices”. WTF is THAT? Where is their evidence that non-religious people are more immoral, more wicked, more depraved than the devout? In fact, having to think about what is moral and what is not is good for the “soul”. The MPs who endorse this EDM simply believe that they Sky Fairy just tells them what to do and that’s that. I just hope they never come to believe that the Sky Fairy wants them to fly aeroplanes into buildings.

The Hall of Shame stands at six as at today’s date:

Conservative Party

Democratic Unionist Party

Independent

Spink, Bob

Bus Driver Refuses To Drive Bus With Atheist Bus Ad

2009-01-16T14:08:00.001Z

Poor old Ron Heather looks sad. The bus he was due to drive on Saturday had the Atheist Bus advert on the side. Mr Heather said, “I'd heard about this silly campaign in London but I had no idea it was coming to Southampton.

“I had certainly hoped they were not coming here because I didn't want to make a stand.

“I was in a dilemma but I felt strongly I couldn't drive that bus and so I went up to my inspectors and told them there was no way I could drive it.”

It’s funny though, Ron isn’t always sad…

Sometimes he’s happy. I think it all depends on what the photographer is telling him to do!

Seriously, the problem here is that the ads which appear on a particular driver’s bus are really nothing to do with that driver. They are to do with the bus company and the advertiser.

Would Mr Heather think that it would be OK for a vegetarian bus driver to refuse to drive a bus advertising McDonalds? For a racist to refuse to drive a bus showing a black person? For an atheist to refuse to drive a bus with a Christian advert (although back in reality-land I’ve never heard of such a thing happening)?

Mr Heather thinks he knows better than everyone else. He’s special, and deserves to be treated differently than his co-workers.

It transpires that on seeing the terrible Atheist bus, Mr Heather took it upon himself to go home, as there were no other buses available. This means that someone else had to do Mr Heather’s work.

Shamefully, his bus company has caved to his demands immediately and offered to ensure that he will only have to drive a bus with the ad if there are no other buses available.

We need to stamp religious exceptionalism on the head. Human Rights law exists to ensure that people are treated equally, not to ensure that religious believers get better treatment than everyone else.

Shame on Mr Heather, and shame on the First Bus.

More Atheist Bus Ads

2009-01-16T09:00:00.001Z

On the Tube!

I was travelling on the Jubilee Line yesterday, and snapped this:

Al BBC

2009-01-15T08:33:00.001Z

I listen to the Today programme in the mornings, and I’m struck at the way IDF or Israeli Government spokespeople and the way Hamas apologists are treated. One group is subjected to harsh, aggressive questioning, while the other is asked gentle probing questions and allowed time to develop their ideas.

A good contrast is this morning’s interview with (the excellent and calm!) Mark Regev, where he was aggressively attacked about “knowing that children were going to die” and with not a word about Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel (maybe they know that no Israeli children could possibly be harmed with those action?); and with this interview with Alistair Crooke yesterday as he defends Hamas, and blames Israel.

The question is, what does “victory” mean? And I think the Western ideas of broken houses, of headquarters destroyed, of lines of communication interrupted are one side of the picture, but the other side of the picture, one which will affect the whole region, is really of a more intangible sense of an image. Hamas, after all, is not just a group of armed men, it’s an idea, it’s a way of living, it’s a way of envisaging the future. It’s very hard to destroy that. It’s about ideas, not buildings.

Israel has made it plain that “victory” for them will not be the destroyed stuff – they’re not there to be vandals – it’s a cessation of the rocket attacks on Israel, and the damage to buildings and so on is to secure that aim. But Crooke is right about Hamas – it is an ideology, the ideology of Islamism (which is clearly laid out in its Charter. Now, there could be an interesting discussion here about the Islamist ideology of Hamas, with its hatred of Jews and it’s calls for the destruction of Israel and imposition by force of Islamic law on the whole world, but no. Apparently it’s all Israel’s fault:

Humphrys:So they’ll become, remain, a symbol of defiance in other words?

Crooke: No, I think it will be more than that, it will revert to an archetypal sort of image of Islam verses not only Israel, but Islam verses the West. It will become an iconic element of an attack first of all on Hamas, also on Gaza, also on the Palestinians and finally on Islam itself, and we see that in much of the imagery. So when people look at it, they will look at the region, the conflict, particularly the involvement of some Arab states, they will look at what has happened and they will say the uncontrolled, if you like, use of civilians in this, the uncontrolled collateral damage visited on civilians…

Humphrys: Yes

Crooke: Shows that this is unconstrained war. The implications are very serious because any Islamist will say, “Oh if we’re going down that route, if you can do this…

Humphrys: Yes

Crooke: Then we’re heading for a very bloody and protracted conflict over the future of this region. “If you’re uncompromising, then maybe we need to be uncompromising in our reaction, too”

WTF??

So no mention of the compromises made by Israel – total withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. No mention of the stand made publically by Hamas against compromise. No mention that if Hamas had not been firing rockets at Israel for YEARS then there would be no invasion. No, it’s all Israel’s fault for defending it’s people.

Sick stuff.

My First Atheist Bus!

2009-01-13T22:30:00.001Z

I was at the pro-Israel, pro-peace rally on Sunday, and I got a special bonus. I saw my First Atheist Bus!. It was very dirty, but I was proud to see it.

I’ve read many, many religious folk asking “Why do these atheists need to put up signs? They must be very insecure.

To which I retort,

“Because we are free to express our beliefs in the hope that someone might think about what they believe, and to have the courage to reject their religion.

And furthermore, because we live in a society where WE CAN. We do not need your approval, nor your permission, unlike the unlucky majority today and for all those past centuries who do not and did not have that luxury.”

Should Parking Regulations Apply To All?

2009-01-13T22:17:00.001Z

This story (via The Religion of Peace) struck me, because the moral of it seems so clear.

The long and the short of it is that the parking wardens of Swindon have hitherto ignored parking violations by the worshippers at a local mosque during Friday prayers. However, they have recently become to actually enforce the rules, which has driven the mosque-goers into a “fury” (in the words of the article).

Coun Derique Montaut (Lab, Central): “At one stage traffic wardens took a softly softly approach.

“But we are now saying everyone should be treated the same. There should be no privileges.”

To which the mosque-goers retort,

Mansoor Khan, secretary of the Thamesdown Islamic Association, said: “The parking situation is atrocious.

“We are getting sick and tired of it. People don’t have time to go to a car park and walk, as they are on their lunch break from work.”

Muhammad Ali, a representative of the Marat Shahjalal mosque in Manchester Road, said spaces are empty during Islamic prayer time, as residents are at work anyway.

“A lot of prayer goers are getting tickets every week,” he said.

“It is causing unnecessary arguments. I don’t think it is too much to ask for us to be allowed to park in empty resident parking spaces for one hour.

“People should be facilitated for religious purposes.”

This fundamentally comes down to fairness. When there are rules applied for the public good (like parking regulations) it is objectionable if a minority demand a special exemption.

It is doubly objectionable if that exemption is demanded because of a religious belief (you must not discriminate against me, but you must, at the same time discriminate in favour of me).

There are many groups who would like to be able to park (just for an hour, just on Tuesdays, there’s no-one else there), and then you’re back in the same situation you were in before the regulations were introduced. Nuddy2, a commenter on the article says:

I remember only too well the parking situation before res. park was brought in, when every Tom Dick and Harry used to park here to go shopping or football and so did many of the employees at Garrards, it was a joke trying to find a parking space if you were a resident.

Let there be one law for everybody, and let us be wary of special interest groups (especially faith-based special interest groups) demanding special privileges.

BBC NEWS | UK | 'No God' campaign draws complaint

2009-01-08T23:03:00.001Z

Good old Stephen Green. He really knows how to liven things up.

If you don’t know about the “Atheist Bus” campaign, go here and here.

Stephen Green of Christian Voice is challenging the ads on the basis of the lack of substantiation and the alleged inaccuracy of the ads, which read:

I suspect that Stephen’s Irony Meter is broken.

The whole of the press release from Stephen Green is here. In fact, his whole website is good for a laugh!

BBC NEWS | UK | 'No God' campaign draws complaint

Tony Blair is right!

2009-01-07T08:08:00.002Z

Crikey! Words I thought I’d never write. Here is Blair quoted on the BBC News website:

Mr Blair, who represents the UN, EU, US and Russia in the Middle East, said he believed discussions between Egypt and Hamas about halting the supply of arms and money to militants in Gaza were critical to securing a ceasefire. There needed to be "clear, definitive" action to bring this about, Mr Blair said, adding that he thought all sides were willing to discuss this.

Which is exactly what the supporters of Israel have been saying all along – that it is the actions of Hamas which precipitated this crisis, and it is only the actions of Hamas that can stop it, which brings us to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Blair has more perceptive words:

Mr Blair, who has met Israeli leaders and senior Palestinian officials in recent days, called on Hamas to work towards a ceasefire to end the "appalling suffering" in Gaza.
"If they truly do care about about people in Gaza, there is a possible way that would have an immediate cessation of hostilities and that is obviously what any responsible person should try and achieve.
"For anyone living in Gaza, it is hell. It is bound to be. You are have got a situation where you are in an effective war zone."

But do Hamas really care about the people of Gaza. They deliberately site their military installations in areas of high population density, they provoke war with Israel, and they make slogans such as “We love death more than you love life”. Hardly the actions of a peace loving, innocent Gazan life protecting organisation.

Trevor Kavangah has an excellent piece on this in yesterday’s Sun.

The leader in today’s Daily Express says much the same thing.

Stop the War Arguments

2009-01-04T14:11:00.001Z

In the previous post, I looked at who Hamas are, and why they might not be honest brokers in the war. We did this by looking at their own words, from the Hamas Charter.

In this post, I want to examine the arguments of the people who believe that the war in unjustified. I very much admire Johann Hari, and his article The true story behind this war is not the one Israel is telling gives perhaps the best argument against the war that I’ve read. I will briefly summarise Hari’s argument:

"The disengagement [from Gaza] is actually formaldehyde.” That is, it was a cynical ruse to stop the establishment of a Palestinian State.
Most Palestinians want a two-state solution and they were horrified by the Israeli deception. Hari quotes 72% in favour of a two state solution based on the 1967 borders.
So the Gazans voted for Hamas in free and fair elections and also because they were disgusted by Fatah’s corruption.
So Hamas offered Israel a long ceasefire, and a de-facto recognition of the two states, on the condition that Israel returns to its 1967 borders.
Israel did not play ball with Hamas, and imposed an almost total blockade on Gaza.
But, Hamas continued to press for peace, and on 23 December 2008, the Israeli Cabinet rejected “a ceasefire in return for basic and achievable compromises”.
This led to Hamas firing rockets into Israel (which Hari acknowledges is immoral).
So Israel attacks Gaza.

I think there are several weaknesses in Hari’s argument.

First, I think he mischaracterises the Israeli position about the disengagement. Hari claims that it was a deception to stop the peace process in its tracks, but I have found (via shlemazl) the original Haaretz article where the quote was found. In this article, Dov Weisglass says that the purpose of the “formaldehyde” is to force the Palestinian side to prove their credentials and commitment to peace (and it’s worth quoting in full):

"The disengagement plan is the preservative of the sequence principle. It is the bottle of formaldehyde within which you place the [US] president's formula so that it will be preserved for a very lengthy period. The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that's necessary so that there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."

[Haaretz:] Is what you are saying, then, is that you exchanged the strategy of a long-term interim agreement for a strategy of long-term interim situation?

"The American term is to park conveniently. The disengagement plan makes it possible for Israel to park conveniently in an interim situation that distances us as far as possible from political pressure. It legitimizes our contention that there is no negotiating with the Palestinians. There is a decision here to do the minimum possible in order to maintain our political situation. The decision is proving itself. It is making it possible for the Americans to go to the seething and simmering international community and say to them, `What do you want.' It also transfers the initiative to our hands. It compels the world to deal with our idea, with the scenario we wrote. It places the Palestinians under tremendous pressure. It forces them into a corner that they hate to be in. It thrusts them into a situation in which they have to prove their seriousness. There are no more excuses. There are no more Israeli soldiers spoiling their day. And for the first time they have a slice of land with total continuity on which they can race from one end to the other in their Ferrari. And the whole world is watching them - them, not us. The whole world is asking what they intend to do with this slice of land."

So this is the exact opposite of what Hari is claiming. The withdrawal from Gaza was an effort to make the Palestinians prove themselves.

The rest flows from that. Although Hamas did make some peace overtures (in Egypt and in Moscow), they did not renounce their desire to destroy Israel. Indeed, throughout this whole period, Hamas TV had a children’s character called “Assud”, and prior to him, “Nahoul the Bee” who preached hatred of Jews and destruction of Israel (eg among many others, http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP184108).

Also, during the time of this so-called peace, Hamas built an infrastructure of tunnels, and imported munitions. It captured Gilad Shalit and launched a massive barrage of thousands of rockets at Israel.

It’s of course tragic that civilians are hurt or killed. Israel goes to lengths beyond that of any belligerent nation in history to avoid civilian casualties, The IDF makes phone calls to the residents of buildings that they’re targeting.

I think that the conclusion is that Israel is justified to perform its military operations. What it would do to make them stop is for Hamas to renounce violence. That’s the issue at the centre of the conflict.

What is Hamas?

2009-01-01T23:22:00.005Z

The Charter of Allah: The Platform of the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas)

“In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah. And if the People of the Scripture had believed, it had been better for them. Some of them are believers; but most of them are evil-doers. They will not harm you save a trifling hurt, and if they fight against you they will turn and flee. And afterward they will not be helped. Ignominy shall be their portion wheresoever they are found save [where they grasp] a rope from Allah and a rope from man. They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them. That is because they used to disbelieve the revelations of Allah, and slew the Prophets wrongfully. That is because they were rebellious and used to transgress.” Surat Al-Imran (III), verses 109-111 Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors. The Islamic World is burning. It is incumbent upon each one of us to pour some water, little as it may be, with a view of extinguishing as much of the fire as he can, without awaiting action by the others.

"The People of Scripture" are the Jews. Note, "most of them are evil-doers" These Jews have "incurred anger from their Lord", ie Allah. The commentary on this sura assures the reader that "Israel will rise and will remain erect intil Islam eliminates it."

I think that the preamble to the Hamas Charter (1988) is pretty clear.

Now read this:

Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic
Resistance Movement.
...
There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.
The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.
The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game. As the hadith has it: “The people of Syria are Allah’s whip on this land; He takes revenge by their intermediary from whoever he wished among his worshipers. The Hypocrites among them are forbidden from vanquishing the true believers, and they will die in anxiety and sorrow.” (Told by Tabarani, who is traceable in ascending order of traditionaries to Muhammad, and by Ahmed whose chain of transmission is incomplete. But it is bound to be a true hadith, for both story tellers are reliable. Allah knows best.)

OK, so Hamas will not engage in peace talks, because they are a waste of time. There is no solution except Jihad, and by this, be assured that Hamas do not mean "interior spiritual struggle". Further note that this is evidenced by quotations from the Hadith. There are numerous other references to both the Hadith (the sayings of the so-called Prophet Muhummed, and the Koran) throughout the Hamas Charter, it is by no means a secular document.

And don't think that it's just the Jews or the Zionists or Israel that is the problem. The problem, my reader, is YOU (assuming you're not a Muslim... actually assuming you're not the right type of Muslim).

Article Five: Dimensions of Time and Space of the Hamas
As the Movement adopts Islam as its way of life, its time dimension extends
back as far as the birth of the Islamic Message and of the Righteous Ancestor.
Its ultimate goal is Islam, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution.
Its special dimension extends wherever on earth there are Muslims, who adopt
Islam as their way of life; thus, it penetrates to the deepest reaches of the land and to the highest spheres of Heavens.

Article Ten
The Islamic Resistance Movement, while breaking its own path, will do its utmost to constitute at the same time a support to the weak, a defense to all the oppressed. It will spare no effort to implement the truth and abolish evil, in speech and in fact, both here and in any other location where it can reach out and exert influence.

The for Hamas, struggle they are engaged in is open ended and not limited to Israel. They want to bring Islam to the whole world, and make everyone live under its precepts.

This is the essential background to the latest violence in Gaza.

The people of "Palestine" elected Hamas in free and fair elections in 2006 - no-one disputes that these elections represented the will of the Palestinian people. This was after the Unilateral withdrawal of all military facilities and settlements from Gaza by the Israeli government in 2005.

After the elections, Hamas began importing large amounts of munitions into Gaza, leading Israel to close the border. It is also important to note that Gaza also shares a border with Egypt, but the crossing at Rafah is under Israeli control. This blockade of Gaza has been in place since June 2007.

In 2007, Hamas fired some 5,500 rockets into Israel. In June 2008, a truce was declared between Hamas and Israel, and on 23 December, Hamas unilaterally announced that the truce was over. On numerous previous occasions, Islamist organisations have decaled truces, only to renounce them later. They do this when they are in a position of weakness and it allows them to rearm. Like so much else of what they do, this has theological underpinnings. "The Prophet Muhammad made a temporary hudna, or truce, with the Jews about 1,400 years ago, so Hamas allows the idea. But no one in Hamas says he would make a peace treaty with Israel or permanently give up any part of British Mandate Palestine. Steven Erlanger writes in the New York Times,

The Prophet Muhammad made a temporary hudna, or truce, with the Jews about
1,400 years ago, so Hamas allows the idea. But no one in Hamas says he would
make a peace treaty with Israel or permanently give up any part of British
Mandate Palestine.
“They talk of hudna, not of peace or reconciliation with Israel,” said Mr. Abusada, the political scientist. “They believe over time they will be strong enough to liberate all historic Palestine.”

A "hudna" is a temporary peace which the Muslims enter into in order to grow
strong and renew the war. See here for more on the theology behind this and the history of the treaty of Hudaybiyya (although also note that Muslim commentators do not agree that Muhummed violated the treaty). But, on the other hand, this is what Yaser Arafat said when he didn't think kafirs were listening about hudna,

I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our
Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.

This makes it very difficult to believe Hamas when it asks for a truce.

I'll come back to this theme again soon.

Welcome, and what is a Kafir?

2009-01-01T22:51:00.001Z

Welcome to Kafir Thoughts.

According to IslamOnline.net, a kafir is someone who "reject[s] and den[ies] ... Allah, Glory be to Him, and His messages". It's other meanings include disbeliever, or unbeliever (in Islam). Today it is used by many Muslims as an insult, but to me, it seems like the best word in Arabic, and I want to claim it: I AM someone who, quite deliberately and consciously denies, explicitly denies that there is any truth whatsoever in Islam as a religion, or as a political system.

This blog will be about politics, Islam, religion in general, philosophy, science and atheism.

I hope you enjoy it.