Tabtasm

The Joss Knight Universal Theory of Mind

2009-03-20T13:15:00.006Z

For some time now I've been working on a theory of consciousness, or rather I've had a theory and I've been trying to work out how to articulate it. I'm not entirely there yet, but I believe I've got it to a stage now where some people understand what I'm talking about.

When philosophers, psychologists and so forth talk about 'consciousness' they often mix two different concepts together and I should prise them apart first. Firstly, there is consciousness as opposed to unconsciousness. There are things we are aware of and things we aren't. There is a temporal sequence of events of which we are aware and usually causal relationships between them. There is the internal monologue, what we are 'thinking', as distinct from the everyday things our brain is doing. This is the mechanism of consciousness, this is consciousness as an engine for boiling the world and our experience down to some simplified model so we can make sense of it. It's the cognitive module where experience, thought and decision converge. This is much of what Dennett is talking about in his book Consciousness Explained.

Secondly there is conscious experience. Recently I've just been calling it 'experience' or sometimes awareness to distinguish it. It is also sometimes called 'qualia' (singular quale). This is what it 'feels like' to be aware, to receive sensory input and to have a functioning brain. It refers to the feeling of pain as opposed to the stimulus and neural activity, the feeling of being in love as opposed to the mental parameters of it. It is this meaning of consciousness that I'm going to discuss.

You see, the engine of consciousness may not be fully understood but nobody is suggesting it is anything fundamentally incomprehensible. The brain just has a particular way of modeling the world for us, and it's essentially just a matter of time while we work out how that works (and perhaps why the brain has evolved to represent the world that particular way).

But for this other aspect, subjective experience, there seems to be a problem. Not only does there seem to be a need to explain where it comes from - how you go from neural activity to 'feelings', to put it simply - but it's quite hard to understand how we might even start investigating it. The two things just seem so fundamentally different that they could never been connected up.

One possible method of investigation suggests itself: build an artificial consciousness. If you can build a machine that has experiences then that will have explained the connection between the cognitive material (silicon, electricity, computer programs etc) and the qualia. But the people who suggest this are being a bit disingenuous. How exactly are we going to tell when our AI is conscious? Right now I can have a device which measures stimuli and records the data and nobody believes my device is 'feeling'; I could even create a robot designed to shy realistically away from undesirable stimuli - but still nobody would believe my robot was actually in pain. I see no reason why this would change as the stimuli and responses got more and more complex.

The reasons we believe other people are conscious are twofold: firstly we know we are conscious (that's part of the whole definition), and secondly other people are like us. This doesn't apply to a manufactured device. No matter how convincing a simulation an AI may be, there is no way to 'get inside its head' and prove that it is experiencing rather than just responding as if it were (and the same is true of other people of course). Even if the created device were biological rather than mechanical, organic rather than metallic, the same objections would apply. Taken to the extreme, perhaps the only way people would be convinced the created organism was conscious would be if it had grown from some simple beginning (like an egg) rather than being built complete - and that just leaves room for the magic spark of consciousness (if it is magic) to get in in the same way it does for us, thus leaving the problem unsolved. Before you know it, we're discussing P-Zombies and you know when that happens you should shut up and go and hide in a corner till it goes away.

So building a machine that appears to be having subjective experiences, although it might be enough for some people, really won't cut it. And the question is whether anything will. I think I know the answer: no.

The problem as I see it is not how to resolve the causal relationship between brain activity and experience, but to recognise it as non-existent. There is no causal relationship because they are the same thing! One is just a different aspect of the other. A different point of view. Specifically, qualia are brain activity from the brain's point of view. The apparent difference is because subjective experience is like introspection, we are perceiving brain activity using sensors made up of brain activity, the sensor is sensing itself. When we look at brain activity objectively, from the outside, we measure current, charge, ion flow and so forth, but when we are the current, charge and ion flow it 'looks' different, and that is what experience is.

What I usually tell people is that our brain activity has to feel like something, so why shouldn't it feel like it does? If all a brain is doing when it experiences pain is switching on a neuron for 'pain' (obviously it is more complex than that but let's simplify it) then switching on the neuron has to feel like something, the damn thing is in our head where our very identity exists. What else ought it to feel like? Something going 'click' perhaps, like a light switch? A musical tone changing frequency? An LED illuminating? Why those and not 'pain'?

And for those who think it ought to feel like nothing, what possible justification is there for that? If we are our brain activity then things like neurons firing ought to impinge on our experience (or at least they ought to sometimes). It's only if we're not, if we are brain activity plus magic (or some other 'aspect' or 'stuff'), that we might be tempted to assume that a neuron switching on wouldn't feel like anything, but in order to look at it that way we have to assume what we are trying to prove, so it's circular. The important point is that 'experience = brain activity' is self-consistent, nothing more is needed.

Now in the past this is as far as I've gone and, to be honest, if you lost me above then you're probably never going to follow what I'm getting at. Certainly I've spent hours arguing these points with very clever people (monists, not dualists, who still think there's a missing causal link despite not believing in a soul or other magic mind-stuff), and they haven't been able to come with me thus far.

However, I have put together a new analogy which is supposed to help clarify what I mean by "they are the same thing" and there's always a hope that it might be enough to get some others on board. I call it "Joss's Car Analogy of Mind", and it has two versions. Like all analogies if you try to stretch it too far it will break. It only works within the bounds established by the description. It is an aid to comprehension not a theory or a challenge.

Joss's Car Analogy of Mind

Version 1.

The brain is a car. The workings of the brain are the engine. 'Experience' is that of a person, 'you', inside the car. Everybody has their own car, nobody can leave their car, and nobody else can get into your car. You experience your car as the sound of the engine. You can also investigate other people's cars by listening to the sound of their engines. Because of the difference in aspect, location and so on, ie. point of view, other people's engines sound distinctly different from the way your engine sounds to you inside the car. Nonetheless, the source of the sound is the engine, and it's the same sound energy whether it's you that's listening or someone else, it just sounds different.

In this version of the analogy, the emphasis is on the fact that the engine's activity is all there is to explain the sound. The difference between the way your engine sounds and other people's is because you are inside your car, and not in theirs, not because something else is operating, generating other sounds which mix with that of the engine.

Version 2.

Now the cars are perfectly sound-proofed so that no sound energy can leave your car and impinge on other people's. Sound, as a concept and material thing, only exists inside the car, and all the sources of sound must be inside the car. Other people can still investigate each other's cars through other means, like measuring heat radiation. But only you can hear the sound of your own engine. However, despite the fact that your experience of your engine is dramatically different from the way other people perceive it, the engine is still the only thing doing anything in your car.

In this version of the analogy, we make sound special to the inside of the car to draw analogy with the extent to which subjective experience is qualitatively different from the material activity of the brain (neurons firing, ions flowing etc.). It still doesn't require us to postulate more mechanisms, or other engines or devices.

Discussion.

The main flaw in this analogy as I see it is the distinction between the sound of the engine, and the activity of the engine. The engine causes sound inside the car and there is still the question of 'how'. In the analogy the sound isn't caused by the engine so much as it is representing the activity of the engine, but there is no good analogy for that. Still, the analogy does help us see how point of view can make something that is actually the same appear very different.

New Atheist Camp (song)

2008-01-30T18:30:00.000Z

Last summer (2007) my brother and I co-wrote a short musical review on behalf of The Old Stagers, an amateur dramatic society of which I am a member. This was performed after a play on two nights of a week-long run.

What really happened was that my brother was asked to write it and he enlisted my help. I was unable to come to the week of performances (during which The Epilogue, as it is called is rehearsed), and therefore I wouldn't be able to be in it, or contribute to its direction. So I was resistant. However, I said I would write 'a couple' of sketches. In the end I wrote one song, one sketch, and a bit of another sketch.

The song was a tribute to my atheistic interests. The Epilogue is supposed to be topical, and the 'New Atheists' were topical in 2006/7, so I thought I'd write a light-hearted, simple song about them.

In the final version my brother made (understandable) edits, and cut out Sam Harris' solo, both to shorten the skit and because he thought nobody would know who Sam Harris was (honestly!). However, I am posting here the full original text:

(Richard Dawkins only)
My name is Richard Dawkins
I’m sure you seen me talking
Evolutionary biology’s
What usually gets me squawking
But world events have pressed me
To skip and dance and sing
Of how religion’s naughty
And faith’s a silly thing

(All)
We are the New Atheists
We’re targeting the lay theist
To cunningly convince you
The Enlightenment’s the way, theist
We are the New Atheists
We’ll bait you with the weightiest
Verbal excitation
To inflame to the irateist!

(Sam Harris only)
My name is Sa-am Harris
My reputation’s garish
My book “The End of Faith” proclaims
Religion’s time to perish.
I’m young, I’m hip, I’m fashionable
As fits the philosophical.
I got designer polo-necks
From Ralph Lauren in Paris!

(All)
We are the New Atheists
We’re feisty and we’re gay, theists.
We’ve got a competition to see
Who can be the raciest.
We are the New Atheists,
Come on and have a play, theists.
Munch on our polemicals
And tell us who’s the tastiest!

(Christopher Hitchens only)
I am Christopher Hitchens
You’ll know me ’cos I’m bitchin’.
But secretly, the real me
Is just a cuddly kitten.
My rallying cry “God Is Not Great!”
Won’t pull a Muslim on a date.
But I bring clever techniques to
The bedroom and the kitchen.

(All)
We are the New Atheists
Our books are not the paciest
Meticulously worded to be
Un-indoctrinate-eist
We are the New Atheists
Our critics are the slatiest
But we remain determined
Undeterable-y matiest.

We are the New Atheists
Our books are not the paciest
Meticulously worded to be
Un-indoctrinate-eist.
We’ve come here to say, theist
That God has had its day, theist.
(Coda)
We don’t just have no faith in it...
We want to rub your face in it!

Tina Beattie epilogue

2008-01-30T18:26:00.001Z

My conversation with Dr Tina Beattie over email continued after the first two, and got very interesting. It has paused because we both agreed that I would need to finish reading her book before it continued. I believe any transliteration of our conversation that I make here should wait until it's 'finished' too; plus I haven't asked her permission to make the conversation public, and I probably ought to. I have just finished reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali and am now reading her book, so hopefully I'll have something for the public soon.

I should say that page 63 of "The New Atheists" did not contain any admonishment of atheists for their pride or ridicule, but a reference to female genital stimulation. I was suitably amused...

Dr Tina Beattie responds

2007-11-08T10:02:00.000Z

I sent Dr Tina Beattie my letter by email, only edited slightly to replace "huge black fleshy mass on my testicle" with "huge lump on my privates" (yes, I know it's bowdlerising but I didn't want her just to dismiss it in disgust at my crudeness). I got a very good-humoured response:

Dear Joss,

Thank you so much for your e-mail. I admit to being very moved by your situation, and quite humbled to know that you were so comforted by the programme.

Of course, miracles do happen and we must never give up hope, but I think truthfulness is an essential factor in all human relationships, don't you agree?

With that in mind, I have to say that things don't sound good for you. If I were your wife, I would take full advantage of your swollen privates while she can, because I fear that you might soon be joining your dear dead grandma and her starving dogs.

By the way, if your wife needs to comfort herself after you've gone, she might find it helpful to take a look at page 63 of my recent book, The New Atheists. I understand that there are now some top of the range devices available for this problem. (You can find my book on amazon.co.uk and there is also an interesting blog about it on Richard Dawkins' website).

With all best wishes, and thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Tina Beattie.

I haven't looked at page 63 of her book yet but fully expect it to be either some pap about consolation, or an admonishment that atheists are always resorting to ridicule because they lack adequate arguments. Still, I appreciate her effort to respond in a good-natured way.

Naturally, I wasn't trying to claim that Tina was actually arguing that the feeling of absence proves god. It is more a statement of exasperation that not experiencing god has no affect on a believer's faith and is dismissed with such a piece of sophistry. It's like the church leaders and theologians are saying, "You can't see god or touch god, but you can experience him in your heart and that is very real. Oh, and if you don't experience him in your heart, that's actually just another 'way' of experiencing him."

I don't think we can ever win over people as deeply indoctrinated as the sweet but batty and deluded Dr Tina, this sort of thing proves just how futile it is. We must work on the young, and at the fringes.

Presence = absence

2007-11-05T19:18:00.001Z

Well that's it. I might as well pack up my bags, and move into a seminary. The arguments for god are now all wrapped up, thanks to Dr Tina Beattie of Roehampton University. In a feat of sophistry so unbelievably fatuous and astounding, gormless and yet somehow sweetly innocent, she informed the listeners of Sunday Worship on Radio 4 yesterday that God existed precisely because he wasn't there:

Sometimes God's presence is most intensely experienced as a form of absence and yearning.

Well, what can you say to that, eh? I have drafted the following letter to Dr Beattie, I wonder if I should send it?

Dear Dr Beattie,

I very much enjoyed your discussion of Mother Teresa on Sunday Worship on Radio 4, and was taken aback by many of your insights. One thought struck me as particularly profound, when you said, "Sometimes God's presence is most intensely experienced as a form of absence and yearning."

This came as a great comfort to me. You see, my dear grandmother passed away recently; I mean, I thought she had, there was a body, a funeral, a cremation and everything. But I yearned so much for her to be with me again, and applying your reasoning, I now realise that she isn't in fact dead - she's just not talking to me any more. All I need to do now is try to understand why she won't answer the phone when I call. Still, it's a great weight off my mind, especially because now I don't have to have her dogs put down, and I duly dropped them back off at her house the other day (she was out, but I presume she's got her reasons for avoiding me).

I was wondering - does it work the other way round? If I yearn hard enough can I make something that appears to be present go away? I ask because I've developed this huge black fleshy mass on my testicle, or at least that's what it feels and looks like. But perhaps if I really concentrate on my yearning it will turn out to be just a silly delusion that I'm having? I'm really interested to know because my wife is starting to get a little upset that I won't go to the doctor.

In grateful expectation of your response,

Joss Knight

I am confident that the good 'Doctor' (I can't bring myself to extract that from scare quotes since the lady is a Doctor of Theology, which scarcely counts) will be able to answer my question as she is clearly highly qualified in the field of bollocks.

Tina was talking about the recent revelations of Mother Teresa's loss of faith. In recently published letters it was revealed that for the last 50 years of her life, Mother Teresa felt no presence of God, neither in the practice of her religion nor in her heart. She wrote, "I'm told that God loves me, and yet the darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great, that nothing touches my soul."

The poor woman was brow-beaten by her indoctrination into declaring belief in something inherently unbelievable, and going through the motions and rituals of her religion even though it gave her no benefits, only despair. And Christians around the world hold her in high esteem, as the model of a good Christian. They're supposed to aspire to be like her!

Well, it's certainly an interesting state of affairs - the ultimate demonstration of Christian faith is to have managed to dispense entirely with all conviction of god's existence. I suppose it is somewhat akin to the 'machismo' of pointless and arbitrary religious doctrine, like not eating pig or shellfish, or being circumcised - if you can successfully remove all practical experience of faith, and yet go through the ecumenical motions anyway, you've won big time brownie points for endurance (and mindless obstinacy).

One cannot help but be put in mind of the quip of satirist Peter de Vries:

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

It seems a lot less like satire when an academic theologian is saying essentially the same thing with a straight face. In fact, we ought to note this important reminder: Dr Tina actually believes in what she said. She really, honestly, thought it made perfect sense that you can experience god through his absence. We can be pretty sure of that because it went out on the air and must have been reviewed dozens of times before it did. I'm not sure what conclusions we can draw, but it serves to remind us just what we're up against.

Review of "In God We Doubt" by John Humphrys

2007-10-13T12:12:00.000+01:00

I recently read a book by John Humphrys called "In God We Doubt". It irritated me so much I penned a review for Amazon. Here it is, edited slightly for context:

Humphrys has a problem. He doesn't believe in God, but finds the implications of a purely natural universe bleak and depressing. And so, like many, if not most atheists in the UK, he decides to call himself an 'agnostic' instead. Surely, if he looks hard enough, he can find some excuse to believe in 'something', thereby rescuing his worldview from the dark nihilistic depths of dreaded atheism? This book is like looking into Humphrys' mind while he argues with himself, a great clash of reason and denial.

Humphrys doesn't like the resurgence of Enlightenment thinkers who are open about their disagreements with religion and he goes out to irritate those readers from the outset: characterising Richard Dawkins as a bully who 'knows there is no God', and who would tear a comfort blanket from a starving child in the name of truth, and dismissing Christopher Hitchens as a 'clever clogs'.

I couldn't help myself - I was annoyed by these characterisations, particularly because of the assumption being made that religion is a subject that ought to be afforded special gentility simply because many people have chosen to take those beliefs very seriously. But it's hard to imagine Humphrys describing as a bully a man who, say, vociferously attacks someone's political views because he believes them nonsensical, and religious belief is, after all, a choice.

However, I have to accept that, although if you page carefully through 'The God Delusion' you will never find Richard Dawkins claiming to 'know' there is no god, neither could it possibly be fair to label him arrogant or a know-it-all, this is precisely how a lot of people see him and we admirers of Dawkins must accept that. We ought to be aware of the way agnostics see us.

What is pretty unforgivable, however, are some of outrageous presumptions he makes later in the book about what atheists believe. It reaches its most offensive with a list of seven things that "sum up the attitude of those militant atheists". They include such monstrosities as "Believers are mostly naive or stupid", "The few clever ones are pathetic", and "If we don't wipe out religious belief by next Thursday week, civilisation as we know it is doomed". His excuse for such virulent vilification? : "I make no apology if I have over-simplified their views with that little list: it's what they do to believers all the time." How...immature.

Well Mr Humphrys, I know a lot of atheists and I don't think they put a tick in any of your boxes. But even your tyrant of 'militant' atheism, Richard Dawkins, could not possibly be characterised with such superlatives. What Humphrys, like many self-described agnostics, is missing is a sense of just how ridiculous the world seems to someone who has come to see the great religions as superstition no less absurd than the almighty Xenu. It's hard to imagine Humphrys reining in his scepticism when discussing Ronald Reagan's use of astrologers to help him make presidential decisions, or Tony Blair's use of Tarot Readers or whatever other New Age claptrap his wife is into this week.

Sniping at atheists aside, the thing that strikes you most about the book as you're reading the first two-thirds of it is - in what sense is Humphrys not an atheist? In a slightly disordered, conversational way, Humphrys dismisses all the arguments for the gods of religion. He doesn't believe in any kind of benevolent, involved deity, and he is convinced of that. That makes him unambiguously an atheist - so what's all the soul-searching about?

He eventually shows his cards in the last few chapters, and it is a dreadfully disappointing hand, but, again, says a lot about the way people think. His first target is morality. He gives a laudable description of how evolutionary biology explains the origins of moral impulses (sniping at Richard Dawkins' reverence for Darwin as "perilously close to worship" on the way), but at the end asserts that there must be something more. How does he justify this? "Follow this thinking to its logical conclusion and you reduce human beings to the level of a marauding, oversexed chimpanzee. Kindness and the other virtues make us what we are...a world without kindness, altruism, generosity, empathy and pity would be unimaginable". In other words, he doesn't like the sound of there being no transcendental, other-worldly quality to our moral urges, therefore it can't be true. Way to go, denial!

He uses the terrible 'ought' argument of C.S. Lewis to back up his point. Apparently, if we're in a situation where two instincts are in conflict, one selfless and one selfish, we know that we 'ought' to do the selfless thing, such as risking ourselves to help someone in need. So what is driving this 'ought' judgement? The argument that follows is utterly scatter-brained, with facile assertions sharing space with arguments for one side that have already been addressed by the other. "By any Darwinian measure the stronger [urge] is bound to be self-preservation." Says who? Regarding the progress of the moral zeitgeist over the centuries, "We have only moved in one direction". This is either tautological, or false (we can hardly claim that the fall of Athens led to improvements in the moral baseline, to cite just one example). "We are more than the sum of our genes - selfish or otherwise". He claims that the moral superiority of selflessness cannot be explained by social convention because if it were simply convention we would expect it to be different in different societies. He (and Lewis) never click that the veneration of selflessness may be a necessary property of society. In fact, no attempt is made to look for a biological or sociological explanation, it is simply asserted that there is none.

And finally he discusses the comfort that religion brings, and how dare we horrid atheists disturb that. I am open to the possibility that religion's sedative properties may outweigh its ill effects, but the arguments Humphrys uses are so lamely one-sided. For instance, he describes how a couple whose two daughters were killed in a road accident were able to come to terms with their loss through the knowledge that they had gone to heaven, and were even able to forgive their killer. No mention of the secular alternatives to wishful thinking, other than to dismiss them out of hand. No mention of the downsides of such denial - whether it might be easier, in the long term, to move on from such a loss if you've accepted they're really gone. No question that forgiving the killer was a noble thing to do.

Humphrys' style is casual, conversational, and sloppy. Quite apart from the mistakes that others have mentioned (calling Sam Harris "Sam Smith" for several pages must be considered almost unforgivable), he switches back and forth between points with no clear direction, spatters his rhetoric with childish retorts, fails to provide references for anything - like I said, it is like listening to him arguing with himself.

However, in many ways, this book ought to be read. It gives a genuinely interesting insight into the minds of a great proportion of the population. Confused, and in deep denial. Just don't let Humphrys get away with the suggestion that the agnostic position is the 'hard' one. Hard to justify, yes, but trivially easy to take up without justification, as most people do.

Absolute morality is an oxymoron

2007-10-09T13:27:00.000+01:00

I was listening to Peter Hitchens and Christopher Hitchens arguing the other day and it set me thinking, as I have in the past, about absolute morality and how it is not just non-existent, but ruled out by definition. Peter Hitchens' main thrust in this row is that, regardless of whether or not an atheist behaves morally, if they do not believe in a moral absolute then there is no way they can claim that anything they do is 'good' or 'bad' - everything is arbitrary. He says you can make choices on pragmatic grounds but your claim that one choice is 'better' than another has no authority over another person's claim of the opposite.

Leaving aside for the moment how an atheist does justify their choices in moral terms, I want to argue that absolute morality is in fact a contradiction. Morality, by definition, excludes the possibility of being absolute - by which I mean either a property of reality, or imposed (or 'declared') by an outside agent, such as a creator god.

It is absolute morality, not subjective morality, that is arbitrary, or more specifically, divorced from the consequences of actions and choices. I believe a necessary definition of morality is that moral choices have desirable consequences. If you break the connection between consequences and the original rules, the rules cannot be moral. Rules imposed by an outside agent, whether a god, or a ruler, or just someone other than yourself, can only ever be laws, they cannot form a foundation for morality, precisely because the imposer can choose them at whim. Rules cannot simply be labelled moral.

One might simply assert that this is not true, that precisely because of the difficulties of subjective morality, of the need for absolutes (such as were articulated by Peter Hitchens), consequences must be only secondary, or irrelevant. First let me argue merely rhetorically - if a law from above or beyond were to lead to something horrific - genocide, say - how could anyone, in all honesty, say it is moral? Of course, people have done, but mostly they try to claim that the beneficial consequences are merely hidden from us, helping to prove my point. However, more rigorously, once divorced from the consequences the rules become arbitrary, as I stated. If you need to understand this problem consider the circular argument: This action is moral because it is the way God wants me to act. Why must I act the way God wants me to act? Because God's commandments are moral.

Let us consider, then, a kind of absolute morality in which the rules are chosen because they bring about desirable consequences. Desirable to whom? I would contend that no action can be considered moral unless the outcome is desirable (in some way) for the individuals involved - otherwise we are left with the conundrum of how we evaluate the moral worth of the consequence. In other words, it is perfectly clear that a ruler may impose laws that have immoral consequences (apartheid, say).

What if the ruler's laws have consequences that are desirable for the individuals involved? If this is the case, can we not learn for ourselves which rules bring about those consequences? We have struck the main point here. The source of moral reasoning is the consequences, not the rules. If we know what consequences we desire, we can reason our way to the rules; the rules themselves are derivative, and never absolute.

A possible way out of this is if the desirable consequences are created by the law-giver. Punishment and reward, in other words. I argue that such rules can never be moral. You cannot invent morality through power, that reduces to the absurd conclusion that morality lies with the powerful. I asked this question to the Bible Answer Squad once, and the response was that God was the exception in this case. Such an assertion could be made anywhere along any line of reasoning, it is hardly compelling!

What about morality as a property of reality? Can the universe impose a moral law? Let us consider how we would detect such a thing. We would do so by examining the consequences of our decisions. In other words, even if it were possible to impose morals on reality, it would be irrelevant. Good choices would bring good results and that is how we would know.

Once we have successfully identified 'desirable consequences', and not the mind of God, as the source of moral reasoning, we quickly realise that ascertaining the desirable consequences is tricky. People's desires are often in conflict. We are forced to conclude that not only is morality not absolute, but it is changing, and elusive. This is a big problem for some people. But consider this: you are captured by a highly intelligent, but primitive tribe of cannibals, who are going to eat you. To them, you are morally no different from an animal. How would you reason with them to get them to set you free? You could scream at them about how they would go to hell, or how we are all made in the image of God, until you were blue in the face, but that is not reasoning, it is assertion, and these cannibals don't know about your religion. No, you would try to identify common ground, consequences that both you and the cannibals find desirable, and on that ground attempt to show them how their actions are undesirable to them.

This is what morality is. It is the outcome of reasonable people coming together, first to establish what are the shared desirable consequences, and then to reason as to how to bring them about. We can see how morality cannot be clear-cut, because if it were it would become close to being absolute, and absolute rules cannot be moral. Morality is nothing substantial, nothing tangible, it cannot be by definition. And that is a good thing, since the obsession with absolute morality has for centuries kept power in the hands of the powerful, and those who claim to be able to read the mind of god.

Hitchens' unjustified assertions about Iraq

2007-10-01T13:40:00.000+01:00

I admire Christopher Hitchens (author of God is Not Great) so much mainly because I love his aggressive no-nonsense style. I wouldn't want everyone in the world to be like him, but it is great to have a few of them. I've even admired his stance on Iraq, because he makes many very good points.

But I think I've managed to distill his opinions on the war down to their ultimate flaw. Essentially, we are presented with the option: interfere, accept inevitable deaths in the conflict and after, and provoke more terrorism and hatred of the West, while possibly arresting the progress of irrational regimes towards the manufacture of cataclysmic weaponry; or don't interfere, choose diplomatic means, and in the mean time accept inevitable deaths caused by those regimes and the possibility of them acquiring that weaponry. And he chooses the first and asserts vociferously that it is the lesser evil. We must promote civilised governance and stop theocratic regimes from getting nukes. But he doesn't seem to be able to argue for that.

Deaths and suffering and oppression are inevitable if we do nothing. But far more deaths and suffering are inevitable in the short term if we provoke aggressive war. How does Hitch know that in the end, the invaded nation will be better off? He cannot count the potential dead. But he can make a good estimate of how many will die because of war. And how can he know that the provocation that invasion creates won't actually accelerate the acquisition, and use, of apocalyptic weaponry by some group or some nation? He cannot know this for sure.

Neither can I know that the diplomatic route is safer. But I can look at history. And history tells me that sweeping changes to a country's governance and culture only come about over decades and centuries, not through any one imposition by some group promoting a new way of life. Such conflicts can only make relatively small changes, in the big scheme of things.

Democracy was not imposed on England after the Civil War, the emancipation of women not caused in one swoop by the Suffragettes or by the publication of The Female Eunuch, freedom of religion didn't suddenly 'switch on' after the French Revolution or when The Age of Reason hit the desk of King George or Thomas Jefferson. The closest thing I can think of to a culture-changing conflict was the American Civil War, 'causing' the abolition of slavery, but the conditions that set up the two conflicting parties were brought about by a whole array of earlier events and discourses.

There are probably many counter-examples, but it does seem to me that in the case of the Middle East, the changes that will bring about peace, reason and democracy will likely be closer in speed of action to those that brought it to the West, than a bit of a fight and a decade or two of aftermath. Surely the most likely causal agencies will come from within these countries, as they did for us, and as they seemed likely to do in Iran until we blundered into the region again and made the authorities crack down and the youth harden their attitudes.

Perhaps the reason Hitch makes the assertions he does is because this time there is more urgency, because Iran could get a nuke soon, and with their apocalyptic vision of the world they could be tempted to use them without any thought for the consequences. But it seems to me there is an easy argument that it is our actions in the middle east that provoke this outcome, just as much as our inaction.

The point is that Hitchens is too damned sure of himself. Normally he's quite carefully rational but on this point he seems to be making unjustified assertions simply because he cannot be seen to back down even slightly from the corner he backed himself into. So come on, Hitch, tell us why you think the fast, aggressive route is more likely to prevent Armageddon and reduce suffering than the slow, diplomatic, educational, evolutionary route? I'd love to know.

Meaning in a meaningless universe

2007-09-25T14:15:00.000+01:00

One of the biggest problems that theists and other supernaturalists seem to have with atheism is that if the universe wasn't created for a reason (i.e. with some sort of objective in mind), then nothing we do is worthwhile. I've been reading Victor Stenger's "God: The Failed Hypothesis" and he has a beautifully succinct section on this which I will butcher for you.

He tells (a supposedly true story) of a schoolteacher refereeing a basketball game, in which the kids are getting very competitive and quite rough. The teacher used to tell the kids "In ten years' time, who's going to care who won this game?". Good point, you'd think.

No! It's a rubbish point! The correct response (articulated by Stenger) is "Why on earth should we care right now about what we're going to care about in ten years' time?" Such a philosophy would make a mockery of almost every leisure activity in which we partake.

Of course, there needs to be a healthy balance between living in the here and now and preparing for the future, because one day we will be our future selves and wish we'd done some preparation! But future considerations do not make current considerations meaningless.

Similarly, our everyday objectives, and our long term objectives, are not made meaningless in the face of the long long long term future of the universe, where the impact of our actions is of as little interest to the workings of the cosmos as was the impact on us of a fly being caught in a spider's web on the other side of the world. (This is not to say that small events cannot have a huge long-term impact, it is merely to remind us that neither the universe nor anyone in it will care what that impact was.)

If an action you take only has meaning for you to the extent to which it is a step towards the overall goal of the universe (or its creator), then that is what makes everything you do trivial and banal to the point of insignificance. Real meaning is defined by the contribution of our actions towards our own objectives, objectives we are perfectly capable of coming up with independently.

Consider: what is the meaning of the actions of a cow in a field? Its purpose given to it by the farmer is to be milked and eventually slaughtered for the needs of mankind. Is that what informs its own actions? Of course not. A cow might take pleasure in chewing some grass here, or having a rest over there... Or a more meaningful analogy might be with a slave in Southern USA in the 18th century, who may find meaning in learning to read even though his given purpose necessarily rules that out!

It doesn't matter now that the inevitable heat death of the universe will annihilate everything I ever did. I can still take joy and pleasure in my achievements, however fleeting, and my enterprise in advancing the meaningfulness of the lives of others.

Things you should know about me

2007-05-24T10:05:00.000+01:00

Everybody is, to some degree, a psychological fuck-up, right? Here are some of my fuck-ups and advice on how you can help me, and minimise their impact on you.

Don't patronise me.
If you know better than I do, that will become obvious from what you say; and if it isn't, maybe you don't. There is never a need to treat me like a child who either doesn't know something that should be obvious or is too stupid to understand.

If you don't want to get me furious, don't patronise me. If you do want to get me furious, then you're not my friend and I probably don't spend very much time with you anyway, so knock yourself out.

If I goof up, cover for me, don't harp on about it
Are you the sort of person who likes to point out the deficiencies in others and the mistakes they make and harp on about them in a crude attempt to gain approval from your peers? Or are you a nice person, who feels embarrassed by people's mistakes and wants to disguise them?

It may be as simple as me repeating something somebody has just said because I wasn't listening properly, or being clumsy or forgetful, and yes, it's a cheap one-off laugh at my expense; but if you keep banging on about it it becomes exploitative. It reminds me so much of the kind of playground bullying I used to despise so much at school. Try to show a little more generosity. It doesn't hurt, and, who knows, you may get more of a buzz from that than you get from getting a gaggle of onlookers to giggle.

I can be anxious
I occasionally suffer from anxiety. It's no big deal, but if I start acting oddly or distracted, it may be because I'm having an attack. Anxiety (or panic attacks in its more severe form) can attack at almost any time and be triggered by almost anything. It's particularly disconcerting when I need to be concentrating and/or cannot easily escape, such as when driving, in the cinema, or holding a conversation, simply because the normal recourses (lying down, controlling breathing, finding distractions, taking a pill) are not available. Please be understanding.

I'm a hypochondriac
Aren't we all? Hypochondria, in the mild form that many of us have, is simply the tendency to think the worst about any new or unusual physical trait we are experiencing - a new ache, itch, discomfort - even state of mind.

Surveys show that hypochondriacs have a more realistic idea of the probabilities of them contracting certain illnesses or having certain conditions than 'normal' people. But the point is not the statistics, the point is the inability to apply those statistics rationally, no matter how rational a person you are. Persistent chest pain is a heart problem, persistent headache is a tumor. A lot of people get cancer, so why not you? Some people have to get it, and denial isn't going to help. This is especially true for a lot of chronic and terminal conditions for which the prognosis is far better the earlier it is caught - so better to be safe than sorry, and get checked out!

Of course, in many ways the health service might be better off if everyone were slightly hypochondriacal, because they may catch more diseases and conditions early. The real problem is not that I wind my doctor up. The problem is that it's terribly stressful thinking you might have some horrible illness. There have been times when I've been just about as convinced as I believe it's possible to be that I've got a terminal illness. I've looked into the future and thought "I can't plan to be around this time next year". It can be terrifying. It shouldn't be - everyone dies, and everyone should try to come to terms with it sooner or later. But my journey to that place isn't finished yet.

So, for the time being, you can help by not bringing up the subject of health if at all possible. Or, at least, telling only positive stories. And don't mind me if I seem distracted - it could be that I've got some health issue and I'm worrying about it rather too obsessively. I will learn to control it in time, don't worry.

So I went to Eton. Get over it.
Several things. Firstly, the fact that I went to Eton really isn't the most fascinating thing about me. It may be interesting to you but it really isn't to me, so get over it, and move on. Secondly, I'm actually in some sense ashamed that I went to Eton because it represents such an obscene level of over-privilege, and I'm not at all convinced that boarding school and single-sex education is a good thing. Now, it's not my fault of course, but that doesn't mean I want to sit there while you harp on about it. Thirdly, and related to that, going to public school and particularly Eton carries a stigma. It is mostly an unfair stigma and certainly so in my case, but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect how people treat me and act around me once they know about it. Consequently it is my right to choose when and how people should learn about it. It's an extreme example, but imagine if one of the first things you told people about a gay guy was that he was gay. Not only does it over-inflate the importance of something which the guy may not consider to be a defining characteristic, but it robs him of the opportunity to allow people to get a chance to know him before any default prejudices are dropped into place. So, if it comes up, I may mention it, but I want to choose the moment and the manner myself, thank you very much.

So you enjoyed school. Good for you. I didn't, so please shut up about it.
I was completely miserable at school for the nine years I was boarding. The number of happy memories can be counted on my fingers. I fantasise about going back in time to key moments of unhappiness and doing things differently; like the time some little shit stole my diary and read key, peculiarly embarrassing passages from it to the others in my year - I want to go back in time and beat the crap out of him. That sort of thing.

I remember, when I turned thirty, noting that now I'd been not at boarding school longer than I'd been at boarding school, and maybe now I'd be able to move on. Well, it's not like I break down in tears when I think about it or anything, but I still wince at the memories and probably always will.

I am not happy recalling my schooldays and not interested in joining in your game of reminiscing. Go and find someone else to talk to if you want to discuss the time your school beat my school at rowing, or the fun you had sneaking cigarettes or torturing teatchers. Get back to me when the conversation reaches your gap year.

I'm an atheist, and I'll tell you about it
I'm the kind of atheist who thinks it's important that not only should people talk openly about their non-belief, but that delusional beliefs should be challenged. If you don't want to be quizzed mercilessly about why the hell you think the motion of stars billions of miles away and thousands of years ago have an impact on our lives, or that some giant supervisor was happy to torture and kill himself so that he could circumvent his own already mightily bizarre rules of justice, or that sinfulness in this life is balanced out in some future one because, well, otherwise it wouldn't be fair, then don't bring it up. Stupidity and wishful thinking are never virtues and never deserving of quiet respect, no matter how important you think they are to your fragile psyche. Besides, I'm trying to help you!

Imagine

2006-10-11T14:56:00.000+01:00

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

I've never been a big fan of Imagine. The tune is pretty bland, mainly. But I always felt that the lyrics were a bit obvious. For decades people have been praising Lennon for his brilliant insight into Utopia, but many of us just go "well, duh!" But I'm not being fair on Lennon, really, I'm judging the song on credit it's been getting that Lennon didn't necessarily ask for.

So let's be fair to John Lennon. He's summed up the solution to the world's ills pretty well. It's that one line "Nothing to kill or die for" that's crucial. Of course, it only works if we're all doing it, but this is Utopia we're talking about. Getting rid of nationalism and sectarianism, that's going to pretty much remove all the fuel for mankind's tribal urges. I'm not saying they'll go away, but I've commented before that just because we're never going to be perfect doesn't mean the world can't be a lot better.

I would take issues with "no countries". That seems to imply anarchy. I think there should be one country (and obviously a hierarchy of local government), because I don't believe anarchy is workable (if you don't believe me, do a search on 'police strikes'). I suppose what Lennon was really after was "no national identity". That's is very unrealistic - ideal for a utopia I suppose - but at least approachable with a one-world philosophy in which everyone is encouraged to see everyone else a part of their 'tribe'. I think we've made great steps in this direction over the 20th and 21st centuries, with science showing that we are indeed essentially identical as a species with no physically or intellectually superior races, and with television, world travel and communications bringing the whole world to everyone (well, obviously this only applies in the developed world, there's a way to go to convince, say, a Taliban soldier who's never left his bit of the desert in northern Afghanistan, that he shares a bond with every other human being alive).

I'd agree with "no religion" though. The alternative is "one religion", which is, apparently, what that line is changed to when some fundie Americans sing the song. One religion might seem superficially to solve the problem, but in practice it invites either fragmentation or theocracy. Maintaining a single doctrine demands a level of totalitarianism, such as with Catholicism, or Islamic theocracy, that is incompatible with modern demands for civil rights and liberties. Alternatively, if you go with a less authoritarian model like in Protestantism, you just end up with petty in-fighting and, ultimately, separation into separate faiths.

But with no religion, what is there to try to hold together? There's no doctrine to keep consistent with current social customs and scientific understanding, there are no texts to be disputed. There are no requirements to conform to an unrealistic social order. Fears that society would implode morally are not supported by the evidence, with the least religious nations being among the safest and most charitable, and the most religious quite the opposite. Clearly children need moral instruction and if parents don't know how to teach it in anything but religious terms, they need to be shown how, presumably by the government via the schools.

How do we progress towards these goals? Well, if we could just break through the barriers we have to current enlightenment progress, we can just sit back and watch it happen. Globally-aware organisations like the EU, the UN, Amnesty International, the Red Cross and so forth can enhance our feelings of companionship and break down the barriers between nations that encourage our tribal nature (homogenization sounds like an unpleasant word, but I think it's a noble goal - if everyone joins the one-world culture by choice, it isn't people being stripped of their identity, it is their identities growing and expanding). And the advance of Enlightenment cultures should continue to spread through all nations, stripping religion of its power and reducing it to an ever-diminishing caretaking role.

I am optimistic enough, just, to be aware that this is still happening, recent events in the USA being an obvious (but temporary) glitch. Let us continue to both hope and strive for John Lennon's utopian goal. I think it'll happen, just as long as we can get past the current string of crises: religious fanaticism, end-times lunacy, nuclear proliferation, environmental catastrophe, resource depletion and over-population.

People are idiots

2006-08-28T04:21:00.000+01:00

I've been trying for many years to determine the universal theory of humanity, the single trait that describes all aspects of human thought, desire, and action. And it looks like it's going to boil down to something very like this: people are idiots.

I don't mean to be flippant. By this I mean something quite specific, yet very broad-reaching. I mean that people are trapped, by their very nature, into acting and believing in ways fundamentally contradictory to reason, and indeed contradictory to the advancement of the human race.

Let me elaborate. Sometimes, I'll be sitting on the sofa watching TV or reading a book or something and Marci will sit next to me and stroke my neck or even just rest her head on my shoulder; and most of the time I like this, but sometimes it will irritate me. I don't know why, it's just the mood I'm in.

It's a common feature of any man's relationship that he will often find himself wanting out not because there are problems with the relationship, but because he misses the freedom of being single, meaning to put it frankly he would quite like to sleep with other women. Yet this almost universally leads to unhappiness and any rational man would, if he could, 'switch off' that urge because all it does is cause trouble and distract him from making more of his current relationship. When I'm at a party or at some other suitable event I might find myself exhibiting courting behaviour - grooming myself, going out of my way to meet and introduce myself to new women, trying to sound clever, evaluating women on the basis of shallow parameters - even though I may be aware that the odds of anything happening are basically zero, if given the opportunity I would probably turn it down, and, if I didn't, I would regret not doing so because I'm perfectly happy with my current relationship. It's just madness.

Rowing is one of the best examples of something where psychology is more important than genuine consequences of your actions. When I'm doing an ergo (rowing machine) workout in the gym, I can improve my performance simply by making more effort to distract myself from what I'm doing, by thinking about something else, or watching TV, for instance. In other words, I am physically capable of rowing a lot harder than my brain is telling me I can by trying to get me to give up and putting me through all the pain and exhaustion.

Other examples: The instinct to shout at, argue with, or generally get annoyed with people who impede or delay you on the street or on the roads, regardless of whether it will do any good and even if a cool-headed evaluation puts the blame at your feet or at nobody's. Learned behaviour is the classic: if we've been brought up to think a certain way then we will obstinately ignore any contradictory evidence however glaring. This comes up all the time in my religious debates. Most religious people have absolutely no problem recognising the preposterousness of the supernatural beliefs of others but their own will be defended to the hilt as somehow inherently different. One particular opponent is always calling us atheists dishonest for drawing comparisons between fairies and Father Christmas, and religion, because they are somehow self-evidently absurd and nobody really believes in them, while we atheists genuinely cannot discern a difference in the quality of reasoning behind believing each idea.

Then you have truly bizarre behaviour, usually religious, which is totally counterproductive and against nature. Young abstinent priests. Circumcision. Suicide bombing and terrorism. Terrorism transparently does not achieve any of its aims yet the zealots' faith in its effectiveness seems unwavering.

We act in counterproductive ways because the modern world with all its technology, huge groups of people operating in close proximity, global travel, mass overpopulation, and pointlessly destructive weaponry is a side-effect of our ability to reason and use tools, which only evolved to give us a predatory advantage in a tribal environment with small communities. I get irritated with Marci because my neurochemical condition is a desire for solitude at a completely inappropriate moment, some remnant of a man's ancient need to recuperate and mull over the day's hunt undisturbed. I go on the pull without even really wanting to because monogamy was never part of the blind watchmaker's 'plan', I'm supposed to be out there spreading my seed around as much as I can and trying to get away with as little contribution to raising my children as I can get away with. My brain's never heard of rowing, it just has trouble reconciling my desire to do lots of hard work when I'm not in danger or on the hunt, so it keeps telling me to stop and preserve energy (as if resources were so scarce!). Road rage is a strange phenomenon that may be to do with the conflict between being in a mental state that says 'travel' yet not actually going anywhere, and perhaps our tendency to find causal agency for everything which means we're virtually incapable of accepting that something is nobody's fault. Our inability to adapt learned beliefs to new information is part of the mechanism that allows us to function at all, by preventing us from constantly reevaluating everything we know. Religion is almost certainly derived from our curiosity and our need to give all phenomena a causal agent, which used to be important for keeping us alive in a hostile world.

The problem is, we can't just switch this stuff off. It doesn't even really matter if we know what instincts are screwing with our reason, although it helps. I can't stop myself being human any more than I can just decide always to be interested and motivated by my work, or be turned on by my girlfriend every time I see her just like the first time.

Frankly, it's a nuisance. The sooner we can engineer the human race to fit better with the modern world, the happier everyone will be. I'm not suggesting doing so isn't problematic, but I am suggesting that not doing so is a dead-end. We cannot continue to be tribal animals in a civilised world. We must change ourselves, or we will drag our world back to join us in the feral tribalism of our instincts.

All people are idiots. Idiots do stupid things. That is not good. Let's change people.

Your god doesn't exist, and I can prove it

2006-06-15T01:32:00.000+01:00

I was very irritated by a radio programme last night. It purported to be a balanced response to the scientific evidence that we are 'hard-wired', in our brains, to believe in the divine. In actual fact, the furthest it got across to the atheist side was the middle, i.e. "It tells us nothing about whether or not those beliefs are true". True, but hardly the point that needed to be made. If we show that belief is hard-wired, and then we show that there are obvious natural evolutionary reasons for those beliefs, then we have provided a god-free explanation for religion. That is highly significant.

However, what really pissed me off was yet another assertion that "we are no closer to proving God doesn't exist" (don't you just love the presumption, as always, of a single God). What do we have to do to get through to people? I prove gods don't exist ten times before lunch, and still people carry on in their delusion of the unassailability of the god idea.

Here's an example of a disproof. A book on Hare Krishna beliefs I am reading insists that if you pray to Krishna for something, you will receive it. Now it has been proven, emphatically, that prayer does not work, no matter how committed and convinced the prayers are. So that god, the one that answers prayers, has been proven not to exist. Absolutely!

But the vast majority of god attributes are tackled logically. There is a wild idea that if you disprove an attribute of god, you haven't actually disproved god. But of course you have! That would be like saying if you prove that god cannot be benevolent, the Christian god could still exist. No! It would be some other god idea, not the Christian one, goodness is intrinsic to the Christian idea.

I've proved you can't have a benevolent, powerful god, or an all-knowing god plus free will, or a 'perfect' god, or a powerful god with intention, or a god with needs or desires, or a god who needs religion to exist, or a benevolent god who allows many religions to exist, or a thousand other attributes that religions describe god as having. It seems like every argument over these proofs ends with some assertion about god's intentions being mysterious and beyond our understanding - but that's just another way of admitting that yes, that particular god doesn't exist, it is in fact some other kind of god that you don't understand. And then there are the other outlets, like redefining benevolence to mean something completely unrelated to what we mean when we describe a person as benevolent, making the whole thing meaningless.

What we are left with, after all the arguments, is an inconsequential god. One (or more) that is indistinguishable from a universe with no god at all. But this is not a god of any religion. It is not a god worthy of respect, or prayer, or time, or money. In that sense, it is no god at all. The god that you all believe in, that has been disproved. It cannot exist. It does not exist.

Jesus: oh so moral

2006-03-30T15:44:00.000+01:00

In the comments section of the Labi Siffre speech transcript over at the March for Free Expression blog, one chap responded angrily to a comment that it was common to ridicule Jesus:

Crusader, you said:
"We have already done our duty challenging, criticising, caricaturing and satirizing Jesus. He is an easy target."
Words of wisdom. How pathetic that we try at all cost to vilify and denigrate a man (and it does not matter in the slightest whether one believes that he was the Messiah or just an extraordinary man), who represented one of the highest moral standards in history (and even the most extremist secularist cannot deny this) of leadership, in the name of the very odd idea of bringing all religious leaders to the same ethical level. I find it quite disgusting.
Will someone please tell me what their problem with Jesus is?
I am waiting in anticipation (of total silence).
What is your problemn with the man called Jesus Christ? Mind you I said THE MAN and not God.

Dear oh dear. It's amazing how few people have actually read the Bible! I was incensed at the suggestion that I could not deny that Jesus is a good representation of moral standards, and responded. For posterity, here is my post:

From the book of Matthew alone:

3:10: "every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."

3:12: "he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire"

5:29-30: "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."

8:12: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

10:15: "Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city."

10:28: "fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

10:34-35: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law."

25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"

See also 15:4-7, 18:8-9, 22:12-13, 24:37, 24:50-51, 25:30.

The Biblical Jesus is every bit as dogmatic and intolerant as every other cult leader in history. Anything he said of any value had already been far better, less ambiguously, and less conditionally articulated by philosophers and religions across the globe. To proclaim him as a representation of the highest moral standards in history is to spit on history's great reformers. Did Jesus free the slaves? Did Jesus empower women? Did Jesus legalise homosexuality? Did Jesus encourage free speech?

No. Jesus' rules were 1)Love God, then 2)Love others. God before people. That says it all really.

Joss
tabtasm.blogspot.com

In many ways, pointing out the bad things Jesus said is a red herring. It's the noticeable things he didn't say. The period of 100 years or so known as the Enlightenment can be credited with a good proportion of the values that we now consider to be quintessential to human dignity and happiness. Consider the truths in the American Declaration Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". Whence are these truths derived? Certainly not from Jesus.

Jesus did not speak out for equality, for all ages, sexes, sexualities, colours and races. Jesus did not speak against slavery. He did not speak out against political religion, yet the diminution of the Church's political power is a crucial element of modern inclusivity and freedom. He made no mention of freedom of speech. In fact, Jesus' message ruled out rebellion, he commanded loyalty and subservience of subjects and servants to their masters (and, ultimately, to the master of all, God). What about democracy? Held up by Western leaders as the ultimate moral political system, yet there is no possible way you could get a call for representative rule from Jesus' example.

Stripped of all references to hell and damnation and adherence to 'every jot and tittle' of the vicious Old Testament laws, Jesus' message is simply to love. I hardly see how that is an astounding moral example since it has been articulated by so many throughout history. And also, it is hardly particularly useful. You cannot go from love to free speech, or from love to separation of church and state - love just isn't the fundamental moral grounding of utilitarian morality, and it is also completely subjective and ambiguous. If I choose to consider Jews, say, as sub-human, there is nothing in Jesus' words that necessarily tells me that his message of love should apply to them. Clearly Jesus wasn't thinking that we should love all living things when he killed a fig tree because it wouldn't bear fruit out of season.

I'll give Jesus credit as having a more compassionate message than most of the other cult leaders, such as Moses and Mohammed. But if I was going to pick a good moral example from history there's no way I'd pick Jesus. Ghandi beats Jesus by a huge long road, and I still disagree with half of what he said.

Labi Siffre's speech

2006-03-30T14:58:00.000+01:00

The March for Free Expression website (www.marchforfreeexpression.blogspot.com) has published Labi Siffre's wonderful speech from the rally. I'm going to do an odd thing and repost it rather than link to it, mainly because I selfishly want to have my own copy, as it were:

Transcript of the “March for Free Expression” speech given by Labi Siffre (Trafalgar Square 25/03/06)

The texts for my speech are taken from my blog in poetry form: “Labi Siffre – Poetry Into The Light”

it matters little that something is true, or not
till someone says you must live a certain way
because they believe something is true, or not

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw has said, "There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. We have to be very careful about showing the proper respect."

Well, I say, not all beliefs are worthy of respect. Racist beliefs, homophobic beliefs, sexist beliefs, beliefs claiming the inferiority of the disabled, and claims to knowledge of the existence of a God, none of these are worthy of respect.

I reject the craven philosophies, “I am sincere ... so I must be right”
and “I am offended ... so you must stop”.

When someone says, “I know God exists and so, you must behave in a certain way": that is offensive, insulting, inflammatory and unworthy of respect. But I would not campaign to ban their right to proclaim their beliefs, no matter how offensive I judge those beliefs to be.

I stand here able to speak in this way because a lot of people, many of whom would not have approved of me, died, so that I could have the right of “freedom of expression”. I have a duty to defend that right they gave their lives for.

To begin with the lie, “I know god exists” makes you an extremist.

*

When anyone attacks, by insisting that their dishonest and offensive claims to knowledge of “god” be “precious and sacred” to me

i will oppose your vacuous regal prose,
and them, vigorously

*

Consider : it is impossible to blaspheme
without proof of god’s existence

Consider : if you apologise
when you have nothing
to apologise for

of what value are your apologies
when you do
have something to apologise for

Consider : Christianity, Islam, Sikhism,
Judaism, Hinduism, the worship of
the little green goblin from the planet absurdity
none of these is a country
none of these is an ethnicity

they are political philosophies
used to persuade or tell people
how they should live

to criticize, ridicule, lampoon
or insult them, or the belief in them,
is not racist

And finally, consider :
In an age when the most powerful man on the planet (armed with weapons of mass destruction) by his own admission believes he receives instruction directly from God

In an age when Christian believers in “Rapture” and Islamic believers in “the return of the hidden Imam” believe it right to speed us to salvation by promoting the chaos and destruction of the apocalypse

In such an age, not only do we have a right to challenge, criticize, caricature and satirize Muhammad, Jesus, Yahweh and other theistic concepts ... we have a duty to do so.

http://www.intothelight.info/

ozz@intothelight.info

Change is slow and subtle

2006-03-30T13:31:00.000+01:00

How do you change people's minds? Activists often give the impression they are looking for some kind of momentous event or revelation to bring everyone over to their cause. In reality, change is much slower and it's much less easy to pin down a precise cause.

Take, for instance, the reason why I became an atheist. There are a multitude of reasons, of course, but it largely stems from the kind of environment I grew up in. An environment where science is lauded, and where superstition is largely considered silly. Critical thinking is encouraged. Ridicule of religion is an important point. Ridicule of religion is both indicative of an environment of religious skepticism and a reinforcer of it. This is why I object to people who say ridicule and mockery is counter-productive.

Every time you watch a TV program or read an article or listen to somebody you are incorporating ideas into your models and beliefs, reinforcing some and reducing others. For instance Sam Harris' book The End of Faith has not convinced me that an aggressive approach to terrorism is the way forward, but it has certainly softened my attitude to such an approach. The books I read and the people I listened to all helped to construct my current set of beliefs. Now, I try to make sure they are justifiable, but most people don't feel the need for that.

And why do I live in a society which allows mockery and ridicule of religion and has quite liberal and progressive social ideology? Because in centuries past, people wrote books that encouraged such an attitude, and these ideas disseminated steadily into society. It's not like everyone who read The Age of Reason just suddenly converted from dogmatic Christianity to deism in a stroke. They won't even have needed to have read it, just to have grown up around people who have.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that we shouldn't be disappointed that we can't convert people to our way of thinking one person at a time just by making good arguments. The struggle each of us makes contributes to an ethos that contributes to the environment in which people formulate their beliefs. Just by writing this blog, I'm helping to increase the likelihood of a curious child finding information on the web that helps solidify their beliefs.

I feel like my efforts on the anti-religion front over the past few years have been neither futile, nor merely a purely egoistic recreation. On Martin's Debate Unlimited forum, for instance, I believe I have already seen people's ideas and beliefs change. I've even, gratifyingly, seen some of my own arguments return to the board through somebody else's keyboard. So, even if I never manage to write these amazing books I've always wanted to write and to change the world like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris can, I've still done my fair share.

Ignorant and happy

2006-03-30T13:10:00.000+01:00

I recently read a New Scientist article about a tribe in South America who, even after a century of contact with the outside world, happily maintain their old traditions and lifestyle. They have very little concept of ownership and no desire to accumulate goods or wealth. Kinship for them only extends to immediate family. They have almost no understanding of the passage of time and seem to live almost entirely 'in the now'. Even after concerted efforts, they have completely failed to learn basic arithmetic and none of them can count as high as ten. Yet they are completely content.

The tribe makes me ponder two points, one philosophical and one scientific. Firstly, this tribe shows us that civilisation is by no means a guarantee of human existence. And without writing to allow the accumulation of knowledge, technology could never arise. And there is no particular reason to assume that writing will always emerge. If the religionists have their way and civilisation is destroyed, I wouldn't be at all surprised (if I was still capable of being surprised at anything) if mankind went back to its simple tribal ways with no necessary drive to change. Mankind had a simple tribal existence for millennia before the first civilisations and the first written language, and it could go back to that for millennia to come. Ponder that - modern civilisation was not inevitable.

Ultimately, most people agree that human happiness is the fundamental goal of life (if they disagree about how to attain it or what exactly it is). These tribespeople are clearly happy. Why do we bother to advance science and technology, and to come up with more sophisticated political and social models? It certainly doesn't seem to make us happier.

My answer is that there's no halfway house: in a world with some learning and competition there will be advance. You cannot easily force it to halt (although the Church gave it a damn good try in the Dark Ages). We could eliminate medicine only to find the learning cropping up again. We could go all the way back to the dawn of the agricultural age, but we'd still have people inventing better tools and better ways of nourishing the soil. I think you really would have to go all the way back to a hunter-gatherer existence to achieve technological and social stability, like this tribe.

But we could do this if we really wanted to. Why shouldn't we want to?

Because modern technology allows us to live longer (so presumably, the same happiness for more time = more happiness?). But more importantly, it is the only barrier we have against extinction. In a simple existence we could be wiped out in an instant by disease, or by a natural disaster like an asteroid impact. I'm not saying we can necessarily defend ourselves against that now, but certainly technology is the only way it can be done.

So I say, if we consider a guarantee of the future existence of the human race to be a necessary part of human happiness, then we need to push on with technology. Push on, or go back, because there's no staying still.

Labi Siffre

2006-03-27T14:48:00.000+01:00

I've discovered why I couldn't find any information about Labi Shiffre - it's cos he doesn't exist! I copy-pasted a typo from the March for Free Expression website. It is really Labi Siffre, the singer-songwriter and poet who wrote the anti-apartheid song "There's something inside so strong".

I understand now why his speech was so lyrical - he was actually reciting poetry!! Check out his website, where there's plenty of poetry on freethought.

Survivors - a note on Apocalyptic prophecy

2006-03-27T01:06:00.000+01:00

One other thing that struck me while reading this book Survivors was what on earth the anti-Christ thought he was doing. I mean, if the whole series of events was written down in Revelations, couldn't he read it? Wasn't he aware that he would ultimately be defeated, that he was really just part of God's plan and being manipulated?

Perhaps the antiChrist doesn't have free will. But mankind does, supposedly. Yet the primary aim of these Jesans (and so, presumably, the real-life Jesus Christians) is to follow the prophecy and see that it is fulfilled. Doesn't this scripted apocalypse contradict free will?

It is, indeed, an obvious flaw of the very concept of prophecy that has caused much disagreement among theologians. Should one cause prophecy to be fulfilled? Should one attempt to counteract it? If one believes that an action one can take will fulfill a prophecy, is one obliged to do it? If not, then surely only people unaware of the prophecy can ever be involved in prophesied events.

Apparently there is a movement among Christians that revered Judas Iscariot because he 'caused' the Messiah prophecy to be fulfilled. Weird.

You can get the whole text of Survivors, and find out more about these whacky zealots, at the Jesus Christians website.

Survivors - of God's indiscriminate slaughter

2006-03-26T03:26:00.000+01:00

Before The End of Faith I read a book called Survivors that I got for two quid off a geezer in the street. I didn't have to give him two quid, he just asked for 'any coin'. But I wanted to at least cover the cost of publishing and distributing it. In retrospect, I probably should be more careful who I'm giving my money to!

The book is by a group called the 'Jesus Christians', who apparently dislike organised Christianity and follow the example of Jesus in a 'pure' way, impoverishing themselves and wasting their lives preaching. Apparently they disagree with the Left Behind series of books produced by a fundamentalist Christian group in a America, which (again, apparently, I don't know much about them) weave a fictional storyline around the (completely factual, of course) story of the coming apocalypse (as detailed in that wonderful Biblical story, The Revelation). So these Jesus Christians decided to write their own story, much shorter and fitting into the one small book, along the same lines and using a lot of the same names, but 'correcting' all the misinterpretations of scripture. The whole thing must infringe the Left Behind's copyright massively since chunks of it are completely plagiarised (I can say this with confidence because the authors admit it throughout. Did nobody tell them it was illegal?). After every chapter is a short tract relating the story to scripture to give you more of an idea of where their interpretation is coming from.

I quite liked it at first because the story was quite gripping, if simplistically written. The Russians, completely unprovoked, destroy America with nuclear bombs and the story follows the experiences of one family in that time. (The Russians! You've got to be kidding me! Apparently America is the new 'great power', therefore the scene of destruction is removed from the Middle East to America, and the attack must from 'from the North', so by Russia over the North Pole.) Then we get a whole period of spiel while the main character, Rayford, discovers Jesus and leads this group of 'Jesans' up to the time of the 'Tribulation'.

At this point it starts to get more and more loopy. In order to follow the Bible literally the authors have to start including more and more fantastical nonsense in the story, turning it into a crazy hallucinogenic trip. The leader of the UN becomes the leader of a world government, then he dies and his body gets inhabited by the antiChrist, who has a scary demon face. The antiChrist sets about slaughtering Christians and having massive orgies in a Jewish Temple he's constructed. Then we have The Mark, which is a chip placed literally in the right hand or forehead allowing us to pay for things (forehead, for goodness' sake). The two leaders of the Jesan sect, which is growing in popularity through its message of living like a pauper and cutting off your hand if you've had The Mark installed, have the power to shoot fireballs from their mouths. Eventually, God's kingdom comes down from the sky looking like a giant glass pyramid and all the good people float up to it for their thousand-year reign over the Earth. (What happens after that was never clear. Is it judgement?)

Except for the fireballs and other magics, the whole thing is hilariously literal, the authors trying to find a materialistic parallel for all the guff in The Revelation. Even heaven, or the kingdom, or whatever this pyramid thing that's floating in the sky is, has its own 'divine physics' governing how things work. They even have the Jesan's website being served through this heaven! However, this literalness in many ways serves to make the story even more unbelievable. With magics and revelations and a return to high levels of superstition you could almost imagine some of this stuff happening, but as it is you're trying to reconcile things like the antiChrist introducing widespread execution for anyone connected to the Jesans (or Twelve Tribes as they become known), while the world's populace seem to join in whole-heartedly.

One of the things that brought me into the story early on was that one of the leaders of the Twelve Tribes started out as a humanist, not really believing in God. Rayford sucks him in with the standard theist method of calling god something else that exists (love, the universal human compassion, or some such), and then going back to using the old definition of God without a blink. Another one of these leaders-in-waiting is a lesbian, another a Jehovah's witness etc. They're all bickering away when God speaks through Rayford in a booming voice. They're all converted instantly on the spot. You see, they get a sign! Not like the rest of us.

God is portrayed as a totalitarian, manipulative, mendacious, vicious sadist. Now that does make a lot more sense! Apparently, the reason why the Bible is so ambiguous and God has allowed so many different Christian sects to crop up is because he's been fucking with us, essentially. Testing us, to see if we would be true to ourselves. That's why he could accept the humanist, you see, because he was true to his beliefs.

However, after they've converted, the humanist accepts there's a god. Worst of all the lesbian is forced to accept that god has a right to choose how he wishes people to express their sexual behaviour, and is converted to the holiness of straightness. God, by virtue of having created us, has a right to use us and control us like tinker-toys, and command us to do whatever loopy crap he deems fit. In His Infinite Wisdom, he has seen fit to create homosexuals (or allow them to come about), who must then deny those urges because God is a colossal sexual pervert and our sexual behaviour is of crucial importance to him (I think there's definitely some Freudian shit going down here, I think God definitely needs therapy).

The book was fascinating because it does show you what a range of beliefs we must combat. If you have bought into the complete literalness of the Bible and the genuine proximity of the Apocalypse, you're not going to be persuaded by arguments. Only a revelation of similar magnitude is likely to break down that wall. Nobody can draw your attention to how ridiculous your beliefs are because you have bought into, and convinced yourself of, ideas that are so utterly preposterous it must almost represent some kind of brain damage.

I'll tell you a little story as an aside to this. When I was going to the Free Expression Rally yesterday, there was a woman at Oxford Circus shouting stuff about God through a loudspeaker. There was a huge space around her as people were trying hard to avoid her. I was already in my activist frame of mind so I went up to her, tapped her on the shoulder and said "I've got news for you: there is no God. It's all a fantasy. It's in your head!" She looked stunned and was completely silenced. I didn't hear her speak again at all as I walked down Regent Street.

Thinking about my little triumph, I had to be realistic. Just consider what kind of state of mind it must have taken for her to take herself out to humiliate herself on the streets in the first place. She must have been absolutely inspired with the urge to spread her message. It must have completely overwhelmed her character. You're not going to crack that nut with a few words. And similarly so with these other lunatic Apocalyptic Christians.

This is why I try to work at the edges, talking to the doubters and the moderates, and the huge numbers of people with very vague, wishy-washy beliefs. The strong believers have just got too much history for their brains to be completely reconstructed. If a man is not open to reason, you must work with his children. He is already lost.

March for Free Expression

2006-03-26T02:10:00.000+01:00

Today Marci and I went to a rally in Trafalgar Square aimed at reasserting our rights to free speech and expression. It was in particular a response to the Mohammed caricature affair but also about the Jerry Springer Opera, the Behzti play about Sikhism, the government's religious hatred bill and so on. The organising website is here.

There was a mixed bunch there. Quite a lot of infidels (I think the NSS had been doing their work), but some people who support free speech not as a matter of principle, but because they have bigotted and offensive things they want to publicise. I'm fine with that, I knew we'd have to expect that and embrace it.

The big disappointment was the turn-out. I think I was less annoyed with the organisation than the apathy and short-sightedness of the general public. I told all my friends, and either got no interest at all, or concern that wishing to express the right to offend was encouraging offensive speech, i.e. the sort of propaganda the Muslim community has been putting out. I'm upset with this blinkered view. Where free speech is concerned, people are quite happy to ignore infringements because it's quite interesting how little, in a free society, the average person feels the need to use it. Well, more fool them, I suppose those of us who fear the anti-Enlightenment approaching must do the work ourselves, on their behalf.

I don't want to parrot everything that was said here. Hopefully transcript and audio will be available on the web. There was great eloquence and ideas of huge importance. I was very moved. I think Labi Shiffre probably said it best for the non-believing activist, and I sincerely hope I can get hold of a transcript of his speech, even though his attendance was unplanned.

I've no idea who he is, actually, hopefully I'll find out soon but even Google can't shed any light on him. His message was essentially what I have been saying as my main point during this affair - how can there be any sense in society adjusting its behaviour for religious sensibilities when it cannot even be shown that god exists? The picture illustrates the point. Should we stop masturbating just in case it might kill kittens?

The rally was largely good-humoured. There were a couple of odd incidents. A guy, apparently a supporter of Maryam Namazie, had been talking to the press before the rally and gathering quite a crowd simply because he was the only one who'd actually put the caricatures on a placard (the organisers only didn't for the good reason that it would probably have led to violent conflict - self-censorship rules once again - but they didn't want to detract from the point of rally). You can see the placard in this picture.

Baffling as it is to me that any practising Muslim can be a supporter of free speech and women's rights, he made a good little speech. However, apparently someone complained about his placard and the police under some anti-terrorist legislation I think, were obliged to insist he stop showing it. On the March for Free Expression website they say the complaint was about showing the Danish flag but I don't understand that. Perhaps the comment on the website is just a cover? Anyway the placard was passed around the crowd on the grounds that the police couldn't arrest everyone, and I was hoping to get a chance to hold it for the cameras (or at least my camera!), but it never came to me.

In one other incident a strange short fat black man dressed in odd get-up caused another stir. He had a Tony Blair caricature mask with no nose on a pole, a Nazi symbol made out of four L-plates, and some ambiguous placards that I think implied he was an 'islamofascist' but I'm not sure. I mean, a black neo-Nazi? Do they exist?!

Anyway, a couple of stewards rushed up to him and asked him to leave, or take down one of his signs, or something, I don't know. He protested, and then some of the crowd nearby started shouting for them to leave him alone. We were here for free expression for goodness' sake, if the guy wanted to express something we disagreed with, then tough - that's the whole point of free expression. In the end it seemed like he was left alone. But the kerfuffle ruined the speech of the eloquent lady who was talking at the time.

It is so sad that we were having to have the rally at all. Those rights were won two centuries ago, through much bloodshed. However, if we must fight the Enlightenment a second time then so be it. We will do it, and we will win it again.

Sam Harris' mystical rationalisations

2006-03-21T16:36:00.000Z

I've read a couple of interesting books recently. One is an Apocalyptic Christian story about the end of the world that I got handed by a street preacher (I have a bad habit of picking up this kind of research material). The other is Sam Harris' The End of Faith. I want to comment on both of them, but I'll start with the latter.

Sam Harris' book is largely about the kind of preposterous ideas that religion peddles, a scathing attack on the idea that these fairytales deserve any sort of special status. It's brilliantly articulated with examples that make it so clear that religion is complete hogwash that I'm envious. It's exactly the sort of book I always wanted to write. Plus, it reintroduced me to the word 'preposterous', which I am now using liberally to describe religious ideas!

However, Harris' last two chapters trouble me. He makes an attempt to show how naturalism can replace the areas to which religion claims to have unique access. I'm in favour of the attempt, I'm just not sure I agree with his analysis. His ideas are ethical realism, and empirical mysticism.

Ethical Realism
Harris says that ethics need not be the closed purvue of esoteric philosophical musings, or religious absolutism. He says that if we get together and agree what we are trying to achieve, eg. maximum happiness for the most people, long-term survival of the species, etc, even getting right down into the nitty-gritty of what precise measurements we are using, then we can study the behaviour that best meets those goals scientifically. No need to invoke a mystical 'force for good' that we have to tap into, we can actually study what is good and bad, and get better at being good.

Fine. I agree completely. But surely the big problem is not deciding what is moral once we've established our goals, but establishing those goals and measurements in the first place. And, from religion's point of view, establishing whether or not there is a moral code 'out there' somewhere that we can find and follow, ie. absolutism.

I think that when we instigate Harris' moral science we're going to come to a lot of conclusions that clash so profoundly with our natural instincts, which are inherently selfish and short-sighted, that we'll find it hard to call them 'moral' at all. It could easily conclude that all disabled or genetically unfit embryos and babies should be terminated for the long-long-long-term good of the species. It would likely conclude that war is justified, that the right to vote should be restricted, and so on. In order to make it satisfactorily 'moral', we'd have to change the goals to be more short-term, selfish, and small-group oriented. In the end, it wouldn't be much more than a study of human social instincts, ie. what do we instinctively feel is good and bad, and that wouldn't produce a consistent message (because it already doesn't).

Even if we accepted the conclusions, whatever they were, having agreed on the premises, how could we come to agreement on the measurements in the first place? And even if we could both agree and follow the conclusions, I still don't see how any system could successfully answer questions like "is cannibalism immoral?". Ultimately there would be a great deal of issues that such a science would have no stance on.

I'm being a little unfair, because I agree that such a science is useful and necessary. But I don't really think it will satisfy the religiots. They don't want utilitarian, Kantian answers to ethical questions, they want the universe to be specifically constructed to divide the good and the ungood. I think such an argument is best kept in philosophical and theological circles attacking the claim that an imposed code can ever be truly moral, or the coherence of a universe that somehow 'encodes' good and evil. Harris' fundamental premise, that there is no moral code except that which we decide for ourselves, is correct, but to people who are unsatisfied with that, one can only say "get used to it, that's the way it is".

Empirical Mysticism
Harris points out that certain forms of mental training and drugs can alter the way we experience our consciousness. He then makes a number of claims: This change of perspective can be empirically studied; it tells us something fundamental and profound that is worthy of investigation; and the erosion of the sense of a strong subject/object divide (the sense of identity and being separate from other things) can lead to an improved respect for others. I don't think Harris argues well for any of them.

For a start, how do you measure a subjective experience? I'm not going to go into it here, it may be possible, but it does seem to beset by the very definition of 'subjective'. Secondly, what precisely does society gain from this profound introspection? And lastly, what evidence is there that these 'mystical' experiences lead to an improved morality? I don't see any perfect societies anywhere near the sorts of places where this kind of mental practice is common.

Ultimately, the sorts of things that Harris is talking about can be duplicated through certain drugs. But to achieve the same state of introspection without drugs takes a certain kind of mental training. This training may indeed be beneficial for an individual, leading to an ability to control thoughts, urges and instincts. But it is the training that does this, not the experiences themselves, neither can we easily claim that society as a whole benefits from individual enlightenment. And the experiences are just trips, they don't tell us anything particularly useful about the way the world is.

The collapse of the subject/object barrier during a meditational enlightenment doesn't actually mean that there is no subject and object! Your thoughts are located in one place, attached to sensory and motor neurons that can sense and act in a particular location. Harris makes out that our sense of identity is a kind of nurtured bias impressed on us from youth. I don't agree; I think it's a valid representation of the self. Yes, we are located in a particular place and have control over these senses and limbs, not other ones. Yes, the 3-space point of convergence of our most acute senses, hearing and vision, is somewhere behind the eyes. The fact that our cognitive functions also take place in the head is indeed irrelevant - they could be going on in another room for all we cared - but I see no reason to believe that if they were in the next room, our sense of self wouldn't be located behind the eyes just the same.

Here's a test - think of the last film you went to that really absorbed you. When you think of the film, do you think of yourself sitting in the cinema watching a screen? Or do you think of yourself as a kind of impassive observer, located wherever the camera is in each shot?

I believe Harris' publishers made a big mistake letting these ideas go out with the political and religious polemic. They need a lot more work, and they detract from the excellent and important principal message.

Thoughts

2006-03-21T16:28:00.000Z

A body without scars has not lived
A face without lines has not laughed
A heart undamaged has not loved
Live, laugh, love, and grow old
Die memorably scathed

Don't use CB Carpentry

2006-03-06T17:16:00.000Z

Brace yourselves, I am shamelessly using this blog as a test of customer power. Maybe nobody reads it, but the googlebot does, and that may be enough.

Oxford people: do not use the carpenter Carl Bridges or his 'company' CB Carpentry. He is a complete cowboy. He spent hours on my door, did a shoddy job, and he needs to come back to fix it but keeps avoiding me, always saying he'll phone to arrange a time but never does. He also put my catflap in wonkily. Basically, he's shit. Spend a bit more and get somebody who actually knows carpentry, rather than just how to board up shop windows after break-ins.

Why I don't believe in gods

2006-03-01T10:22:00.000Z

A new chap is visiting my regular haunt, the atheism board at Debate Unlimited, and firing off huge numbers of posts espousing various Christian doctrines. His endless refrain is that we're intellectually bankrupt because we can't prove that god doesn't exist. Of course we trot out the burden of proof argument that if we must prove gods don't exist, the theist must prove fairies and goblins and all manner of entities do not exist too.

This chap's response has always been that most people through history have believed in gods. Our response, again, is that the truth isn't in the numbers; that millions also believed the sun went around the earth; that there are well-established, understandable reasons why people invent gods; and that, in any case, people have come up with very different gods through history, which demands explanation whether gods exist or not.

However, this whole argument is fraught with the danger of antiprocess. Yes, our arguments are fair, but I must remain aware that I use the argument ad populem on occasion myself, not to prove anything, but to make a point. In particular, when arguing for evolution (goodness knows why I ever have to do that in this modern world, but backwards thinking is scarily prevalent), I sometimes ask what the creationist thinks must be going on in the scientific world that almost every scientist in the world believes evolution to be a fact. Presumably it must either be a massive conspiracy, or all those scientists are incredibly stupid yet have somehow still made it to the lofty heights of academia. But this really is an argument from numbers. I suppose it is possible, if absurdly far-fetched, that god's intervention in the evolutionary process is too intermingled with ordinary 'micro'-evolution to be detectable.

The theist in question has a point, that the prevalence of belief in gods does demand an explanation from the atheists as to why they reject the popular view. I should say that the majority of European atheists are not strongly exposed to theistic culture and the typical reaction is one of indifference to religious belief rather than outright rejection. But for people like me, where are we coming from?

The real answer to this question should be that there is no evidence for gods and therefore no belief in gods. Why would you believe in something you see no evidence for? But this is unsatisfactory as an answer to the typical theist, and also it is not really the true answer in my case. My main reasons for not believing are categorised below. Note that most of these are not disproofs or necessarily logical arguments, they are merely my reasons. The rationalisations have, in many cases, come first, but my mind is somewhat unsatisfied with a list of atheistic rebuttals as a way of establishing its world view, hence these rather more emotive appeals to common sense.

1. The god idea is absurd
Imagine for a second, if you can, that there are no gods. Now reflect on religion: the prayers, the ritual, the faith healing, the tribalism, the conferment of moral leadership on men in funny dresses. All revolving around a complete fantasy. The whole thing is completely ridiculous, almost comical if it weren't so horrifically wasteful and pursued with such gravitas. It is only when you are convinced there is no god that this realisation can become a reason in and of itself: the god concept is self-evidently absurd.

People brought up in non-theistic environment have no problem seeing god for what it is. They have no problem telling you they don't believe in god because the whole idea is no different from any other fantasy. The rest of us must struggle with our in-built conditioning, the social prejudice that sets god aside from other fantastical ideas. In the odd moment of clarity, I found that my brain would process the god idea objectively, and, for a moment, forget to recognise it as special and partition it into whatever protected area of my mind it has for god. And I would almost laugh at the comically infantile nature of the god idea, much as a Western Christian might laugh at the Hindu elephant-god Ganesh or multi-armed Vishnu. Soon, this became the most important reason for my disbelief.

It's nigh on impossible to convey this silliness to anyone living in a god-prevalent culture. Essentially, god is like a child's imaginary friend. This sort of floaty ever-presence, giving us comfort in times of trouble like a baby's blankie. Allowing us to imagine loved ones who have died, frolicking happily for eternity in a land of candyfloss and gummi bears.

This is to say nothing of the utterly absurd theological concepts in religious doctrine. Like the Christian idea of salvation, with god unable just to forgive people and instead having to go through a tortuously round-about process of having himself brutally murdered - that somehow resolving a dilemma of his own creation. The Hindu (and sometimes Buddhist) idea of reincarnation with bad people being reincarnated as dung beetles and the indetectable cosmic essence of Karma permeating the universe and flitting around passing judgement. The Islamic notion that their religion is one of peace when the founder was a confessed conquering imperialist and the strongest adherents keep killing people. The creation of the entire universe in six days. Dinosaurs on the Ark. The idea of 'love' so ineffable it resembles human love only in that it uses the same word. The idea of love being completely sufficient as an inherent purpose to existence. The constant, unending rationalisations of natural disasters; god was angry, god cannot intervene, man brings it upon himself (yeah, man brought down a mudslide to kill 200 children), god works in mysterious ways.

It's sad. But it's also silly. Very very silly.

2. The diversity of religions
This used to be my number one until it was knocked off top spot recently. No matter which way you swing it, there is no consistent concept of god in religion. They all agree that gods exist, but they don't agree what they are, what they're like, what they did, and what they do. Every single religious argument is refuted by another religion. Every argument against another religion refutes your own. People from other religions have ancient texts, ranges of stories, arrays of supposed evidence, and quite equal levels of conviction, personal experience, and revelation.

There is no reconciling religions with each other without throwing out absolutely everything but the concept of intelligent creation - not even heaven is universal or even similar when present. And intelligent creation is irrelevant on its own, it tells us nothing about how to live and how we die.

3. The universe works precisely as we would expect it to were there no god
It is only oneself that is changed by belief. The universe trundles on with complete indifference to us. Prayer has no effect, and the loved ones of theists and atheists alike die in horrendous and pointless ways with complete impartiality. Injustice prevails, deviousness is rewarded and generosity punished. Nature contains, in equal measure, wonder, beauty, cruelty, and ugliness.

4. The indifference of nature is incompatible with a loving and powerful god
The riddle of Epicurus goes "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

Evil, in this case, is of course referring both to man-made evil, natural disasters, and diseases and conditions. Now, we know god must be pretty powerful, because otherwise there wouldn't be much point in appealing to him through prayer etc. But god is also supposed to be loving. No loving human would stand by while natural evils are taking place if they had the power to stop them. That is the very essence of love. But somehow we're supposed to believe god's love is compatible with his doing precisely that.

One argument is that if god intervened it would affect our free will, but I don't see how. Just because a god stops asteroids from hitting the earth or cancer from eating a child's bones, it doesn't mean we don't have free will. Another more esoteric argument is that perhaps the only way the universe can 'work' is if such disasters are allowed; but not only is that ad hoc, it ignores the fact that god is supposed to be able to create matter from nothing. It is hardly conceivable that god can will a universe from the void but cannot do something simple like preventing tonnes of mud from crushing a school. It also contradicts the supposed reports of divine intervention in the past.

Fundamentalists have it much easier than liberal theists. Their god is not just loving, he can be vengeful and jealous, and he reeks his vengeance in a highly indiscriminate manner. It makes perfect sense to Pat Robertson that their god's punishment for America's sins was to fail to prevent the September 11th attacks, regardless of the fact that there were many non-Americans killed, and a huge number of people who would have subscribed to Pat Robertson's values. It makes sense to Hindus that god used the Boxing Day Tsunami in Asia to take vengeance on Muslims, and to Muslims that Allah used it to take vengeance on Hindus and Christians.

But to the liberal, 9/11 and the Asian tsunami were extremely perplexing events. Their bumbling rationalisations bounced from justification to justification, but basically they boiled down to one thing: god works in mysterious ways. God is quite monumentally mysterious, yet these people still claim to know how it wants us to live our lives. The whole thing is unfathomable.

5. The more educated the person about the way science tells us the world works, the less likely they are to believe in god
There is a direct correlation between understanding of the mechanisms of nature, and irreligiosity. There are notable exceptions, but there is no denying the correlation. I am willing to make the conjecture that god is therefore largely an explanation of the unknown to most people, and the more that is known the less god there is.

In surveys, most people say that the reason they believe is not because of design or god-of-the-gaps, but because of the need for purpose and meaning to their existence. This does not detract from the point: this is merely a need. Thinking people recognise that their belief cannot hang entirely on their fears and desires. When the universe is better explained by a godless set of principles, the urge for purpose typically gives way.

I should point out that theistic purpose is inherently shallow; god-given purpose is still unexplained while we do not understand the motivations of god, and it is hardly respectful of my freedom of intellect, or my humanity, to be told that my purpose is defined by another like the communist state deals out job titles to citizens.

6. The only arguments for god worth anything prove nothing but a dead-beat deistic god
All apologetics boils down to arguments for deistic creators. Even if we accept that the universe must have been created, it tells us absolutely nothing. We don't know why the universe was created, or what for; we don't know whether god is still around; we don't know whether it cares what we get up to or not. We certainly know nothing about the afterlife (which does not exist in apologetics and remains eternally a tacked-on product of faith and fear).

That pretty much sums up my main reasons for not believing in gods. I says gods, in the plural, advisedly. I have equal disbelief for the gods of all cultures, past and present. Clarence Darrow said

"I don't believe in God because I don't believe in Mother Goose."

Ultimately, that's the nub of it. No god strikes me as any more special or worthy than any other supernatural, mythical, or fantastical concept, volume of believers notwithstanding.

Why do cats purr?

2006-03-01T10:12:00.000Z

I was motivated to find out why Morphy purrs and perhaps what makes him purr more than most cats. I assumed that science would have an answer to this question. However, after extensive research (i.e. I looked in Wikipedia and one other website) it seems that nobody really knows for sure!

Apparently it's not just an expression of contentment (which would seem evolutionarily odd anyway). The most plausible explanation I see is that it is used as a signal from the mother to her kittens, the kittens being able to feel the vibrations of the purr more easily than discerning any other vocalisations. In adulthood, it is more an expression of friendliness or good will, in a similar way to a person's smile or laugh, to indicate absence of threat. I can understand such involuntary expressions of emotion in a social species, but in more independent animals like cats it is more surprising; hence it seems it must be a remnant of a childhood trait. Perhaps purring has been selected for in domestic cats, making its evolutionary purpose, genuinely, to please people! But be wary of that theory - wild felines purr as well, even cheetahs and tigers!

'Right wing' shight shwing

2006-02-23T14:20:00.000Z

The so-called 'right' and 'left' 'wings' of politics have always been a conceptual mishmash, but never more so than in today's centre-ground-only Britain. "I believe in the freedom to take drugs, I'm left wing!" "I believe in the freedom to shoot guns, I'm right wing!" "I think you shouldn't be allowed to smoke near me, I'm left wing." "I think you shouldn't be allowed to have abortions, I'm right wing." "I think your corporate activities should be curbed to prevent unfairness, I'm left wing." "I believe your social activities should be curbed to prevent social degradation, I'm right wing." "I believe everyone should have a similar standard of living, I'm left wing." "I believe everyone should have similar values, I'm right wing."

People have tried to recharacterise political 'liberalism' and 'conservatism' by dividing it into two, social liberalism/conservatism and fiscal liberalism/conservatism; it turns out the majority of people who call themselves right wing are socially conservative and fiscally liberal; while the opposite is true of those who call themselves left wing (perhaps in the old sense).

But this is all bollocks, let's face it. Right wing and left wing don't have anything to do with your carefully considered opinion on what is best for you or for society, they are just the outward manifestations of the antiprocess that is every adult's eternal burden - the unconscious filtering of information and selective application of reasoning to ensure that prior prejudice is never contradicted.

In this case, the real distinction between the typical 'right' and the typical 'left' is first and foremost whether you are reactionary or progressive, that is, whether you always think everything would be better if it stayed the same or went back the way it was before. And secondly it's about whether you have more to give than to receive. Selfishness is a given, poor people can sound charitable and still be selfish more easily than the rich, that's all.

Of course, this sounds dreadfully bigoted, and it's also unfair on all the genuinely charitable, empathetic liberals, like me :o) But let's not mince our words: left and right wing are hopeless as labels unless you recognise where people are really coming from: 1) their old-fashioned mindset, 2) their wallets.

One thing, however, is for sure. If you want to be not only seen as unselfish but actually be unselfish, you have to be left wing. The idea that low taxes, small government, low regulation and 'family' values are what is best for the majority is quite simply false, and has been proven false by European countries that have successfully implemented compromise socialist societies that are prosperous and fair. I'm thinking, as always, Sweden. Amazingly successful as the US is as a nation, it is not fair to the average citizen. It's all very well to talk about opportunity when you're part of that small percentage of people with the opportunity to talk at all.

The fact is, everyone admits that some 'nanny' statism is necessary (whether it's for stopping corporate exploitation, or smoking, or bad parenting, or homosexual marriage), while as much freedom as possible is generally a good thing (whether it's for taking drugs, or swearing, or tearing foxes to shreds, or working employees as hard as you want). What people disagree on is where the control and freedom should be balanced.

My principle is that the answer isn't easy; where possible, the most benefit or the least harm to the most people should prevail, but it has to be examined case by case, there's no blanket Commandment or backward uneditable constitutional clause that covers everything. People will always disagree about what constitutes harm (is a smoker harmed by being prevented from smoking in a pub?), and by what constitutes freedom, and freedoms will almost always clash. Let's forget the idea of absolutes. Life is just too bloody complicated for that.

The senseless waste of religious study

2006-02-22T14:12:00.000Z

I was watching this programme yesterday and I was thinking, my god, this is so incredibly sad; in fact it's embarrassing. These are grown men, quite old in fact, respectible men in suits and ties, apparently sincerely telling us how we can examine the Bible for prophecies about the future.

Let's set aside for a second the incredible puerility and silliness of the god-concept, and look at the Bible for a second. I mean, have these people ever actually read the Bible? The book is quite literally god-awful. As a history book it is almost pure myth. As a work of literature it is variously ugly, tedious, trite, and impenetrable. As a guide for behaviour it is, at best, hopelessly contradictory, and at worst quite despicable. Even as a work of fiction it is quite simply awful, boring, ugly, and confusing. But without doubt as a work of prophecy it is hopeless, utterly hopeless, failed, and wrong.

How can a grown person not see this? These men are embarrassing to humanity, and they're wasting their lives on bullshit.

We've known and become familiar in the West with Bible study, theological colleges and courses, and so forth. So it wasn't until Oxford started putting up Institutes for Islamic Studies left right and centre that I came to notice what an unbelievably huge waste of time and money is being piled into reading these pieces of shite ancient tomes over and over and over looking for more meaning, as if the last thousand years of study wasn't enough. Of course, the idea of a vitally important book that everyone must value, and inspired by a 'perfect' entity, being so completely impenetrable that it is not fully understood even after a millennium and a half, is nothing short of farcical. But the waste is so depressing. GO AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL WITH YOUR LIVES, PEOPLE!

Religion - it makes you laugh and it makes you cry. But it certainly doesn't make you a good person.

Irving - Martyr for Stupid

2006-02-21T10:24:00.000Z

David Irving, a historian who denies the holocaust, has been jailed for three years in Austria.

A Jewish lawyer on the Today programme this morning said that Irving's bigotry was a step on the road to hateful action against Jews, and therefore constituted a kind of incitement. He said this sort of thing was what led to Fascism.

I must ask the question: what is the biggest step on the road to Fascism, hate-speech, or the invoking of laws that erode civil liberties? Surely that is precisely what Hitler did - he hijacked a supposed threat to encourage Germans to hand over their rights to freedom of speech and movement. That was the first step, not the hateful speech.

Now, I don't want to deny that bigotry can lead to more bigotry, and sometimes violence; that miseducation can be damaging. But I don't see how there can be anything worse than censorship in this dilemma. This kind of utter nonsense can be fought with education, I don't think it can ever be fought successfully with criminalisation.

Irving was sensibly convicted under Austrian law, and he brought it upon himself by going back and talking there when he knew he could be arrested. But the law is wrong. The similarities with the Mohammed caricature fiasco are clear. Freedom of speech must win every time, but it especially must win in these extreme cases.

Men came from women

2006-02-20T01:18:00.000Z

Marci made an astute observation the other day. She's been reading Paradise Lost, and not enjoying it mainly because it is riddled with religious bigotry, particularly sexism. Milton is very keen to make it clear that woman is inferior to man, having been created as his companion and specifically placed under the man's jurisdiction and command. In the poem, and the Bible, woman literally 'comes from' man, being created from Adam's rib.

But Marci noted that all foetuses are female until about the 7th week of pregnancy, at which point a surge of testosterone in males causes male-specific differentiation and development. However, the mark that man came from woman is left, for instance in the man's nipples and in intersex babies (commonly known as hermaphrodites).

Before we knew this we knew that men had X and Y chromosomes, whereas women had only X. So all men are 'half' woman in that respect! And now scientists are experimenting with causing an egg to divide without having been fertilised, meaning a woman can procreate and produce female children without the use of men (these children, by the way, would not be clones, because the woman's genes would still have been mixed up, but they would still be very similar to the mother). However, it's difficult to see how the same thing could be possible for a man, since men don't have eggs, or any means of gestating the child.

Anyway, I think it is very poignant how emphatically wrong all the patriarchal (mainly Abrahamic) religions are in respect of the sexes. We may not all be women, but we all once were women.

Morpheus

2006-02-20T00:23:00.000Z

Morphy continues to be a source of amusement, comfort, and frustration. He enjoys climbing into tightly enclosed places like wastepaper bins, and when he's really happy he sticks his tongue out, which is rather Carrolian (if that's a word - I'm thinking of the Cheshire cat saying that the cat is perverse because he growls when he's happy and wags his tail when angry).

When he's active he's bouncing off the walls. I have to shut him out of the bathroom now because he completely destroys the toilet roll, or at least spreads it all over the floor, if given the chance. He now wakes me up with purring and clawing at 3.30am if I'm lucky, and I pretty much have to put him outside at that point if I want any sleep. It's very sweet really, all he wants to do is cuddle. At least he now goes out by himself and so isn't stuck inside all day getting bored.

Here are some of zillions of pics I have of him. As you can see, he's getting pretty big now. Sitting in Marci's arms he looks a bit like a tiger cub or something.

Hurray for the smoking ban!

2006-02-17T12:31:00.000Z

Westminster has finally got around to catching up with Ireland, Scotland, Wales, some U.S. states and a good portion of Europe, and agreed to ban smoking in almost all public places by the summer of 2007.

I'm a liberal. How can I possibly support such an apparently indefensible encroachment on our civil liberties? Simple. Because the freedom to smoke in a public space encroaches on the liberties of others, namely the right to be free from assault. Where your personal freedoms clash with mine, there must be a debate about who wins. I think the compromise solution is perfectly obvious in these circumstances: take your pollution somewhere where only you have to endure it.

The social smoker says "Fine, ok, so I won't smoke in a shop, or in the bank, or at a concert. But everyone knows the pub is a place where people smoke. When I go to the pub, I am taking my pollution where only me, and other people who have agreed to endure it, must do so." A fair point, and this is where the debate lies. Do smokers have a right make pubs, clubs and bars theirs? Or, more to the point, why don't the non-smokers go to their own pubs, clubs and bars? The answer lies in an analysis of the particular circumstances: there is no simple universal truth to apply here.

First and foremost, cigarette smoke is very pervasive. In Oxford the number of smokers is extremely low. Yet in a smallish pub just one or two smokers can make the atmosphere unpleasant for everyone; it can leave a smell in everyone's hair and everyone's clothes (and everyone's lungs). There is an argument that adequate ventilation is the key, but I haven't seen this happen, or work. Neither have I seen a successful smoking/no-smoking area, which I will discuss later. Effectively, in Oxford at least, a minority of people can bully the majority out of the pub. Inevitably, then, you will have pubs filled with smokers and you can claim that they are the majority. But are they really the majority of people that would use the pub?

So if there are so many potential punters for a no-smoking pub, why aren't there any (or many) no-smoking pubs? I think it's because of the strength of the idea that smoking and drinking go together, and because there are smokers throughout society, not just in particular areas or groups. So, firstly, non-smokers expect to get smoky in a pub, and so put up with it. Which means that landlords don't really notice the business they are losing by allowing smoking (because the people who really can't stand smoke would never go to the pub in the first place). Since no landlord wants to lose any business, they don't see why they should push away their few smokers if nobody is going to be too bothered.

The spread of smokers means that in any group of people going out to a pub, club or bar, there's a good chance there'll be a smoker. The choice about where to go, in an imaginary environment where there are plenty of both smoking and non-smoking places, is defined by the smoker, not by the non-smokers. Why? Because we're lame-arses, and the smokers are often blind to the effect they have, to the extent that some believe that simply making sure they exhale upwards or away from you is sufficient to avoid getting anything on you.

In effect, the smoker in a group is saying: "We can't go to that pub because I can't smoke. I have to smoke, but you don't have to be free from smoke." Since we're lame-arses and we're prepared to put up with it if we must for the sake of cameraderie, the choice is the smoking pub. We've lamely agreed that the smoker's addiction is more important than our own health and enjoyment. Not only is it obvious that this attitude was not going to change, but the health evidence for passive smoking is not yet strong enough. I imagine if we were really certain that our risk of death was high from passive smoking, we would be more assertive. But really it's about putting up with the stink. And we defer to the smoker's condition, not blinking an eyelid at the fact that all the smoker needs to do is go without a cigarette for a few hours, not give up entirely!

If you had any doubts that smokers have this sort of attitude, try testing it: go to a pub with some smokers and some non-smokers (more than one), and attempt to sit in the non-smoking section. You will find first that the smokers try to make you sit in the smoking section, but if you refuse, they will quickly form a group of their own in the smoking section, starting with "I'm just popping into the other room for a fag." The smokers don't see this as selfish. To them it was a perfectly natural evolution of events, not a deliberate decision to be antisocial. But let us not shirk away from what this means: your company is not as important to them as their addiction. Tough, but true.

Smoking and non-smoking areas are not ineffective only for this reason. They are ineffective because they are impractical as well. I personally have seen several attempts to separate the smokers and the non-smokers, and they all fail miserably. And not just because, for some reason, it is the non-smokers who must be removed to a separate area rather than the smokers.

I still don't think I've adequately explained why we can't have smoking and non-smoking pubs, clubs, and bars. Sure, so the non-smokers are not being assertive enough to push for their own places, but that's their fault, isn't it? In the past I might have agreed. I think more assertive non-smokers forcing their smoking friends to join them in non-smoking places might be a better solution for preserving civil liberties. But in policy and public health we must deal with the reality of the human condition. The fact is, only a quarter of the people in Britain smoke at all, yet there are a negligible number of smoke-free pubs, clubs, and bars. Pressure and opinion simply wasn't working. Smokers had the upper hand, forcing people who like to drink (which is an entirely personal pollution) to smoke as well. This balance had to be redressed.

Smoking is not being banned. What is being taken away is a smoker's right to impose a physical assault on other people through carcinogenic and corrosive pollution. And that should never have been a right.

Religidiots

2006-02-16T09:45:00.000Z

The Mohammed caricature affair rolls on, with continued protests in Muslim countries and deaths in Pakistan.

Why are we even having this discussion in the civilised world? (and, yes, I am now prepared to say that many of these Muslim countries must be uncivilised). The idea that a picture should be censured, whether compulsarily or voluntarily, is utterly preposterous. We shouldn't be pandering to this in the slightest. I don't give a shit about people's deeply held religious beliefs, what we should be interested in here is what is right, not what a minority of people think is right. The simple fact is, the Muslims are wrong; as were Christians protesting about the Jerry Springer Opera, and Sikhs protesting about that Sikh play.

Check out this article in the Times from Matthew Parris, which says what I mean. To quote him:

Now it’s very easy to murmur “I am not a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Hindu” as though not being something was terribly inoffensive — a sin, at worst, of omission; a way of avoiding an argument — the suggestion, perhaps, that “your” religion may be “true for you” but, as for me, I’ll sit this one out. But let us not duck what that “I do not believe” really means. It means I do not believe that there is one God, Allah, or that Muhammad is His Prophet. It means I do not believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, or that no man cometh to the Father except by Him. I do not believe that the Jews are God’s Chosen People, or subject to any duties different from the rest of us. It means I do not believe any living creature will be reincarnated in another life.

In my opinion these views are profoundly mistaken, and those who subscribe to them are under a serious misapprehension on a most important matter. Not only are their views not true for me: they are not true for them. They are not true for anyone. They are wrong.

Muslim fanatics, not Muslims

2006-02-07T10:40:00.000Z

I want to make some conciliatory mumblings over the Mohammed caricature affair that I've been commenting on. I understand how frustrating it must be for Muslim moderates trying to correct injustices and give Muslims a voice when violent lunatics keep barging in, trying to identify themselves with your group. I am profoundly against much of the Western foreign policy that has led to this situation, including the "protect our own interests" bias, and the Israeli policy on...well, pretty much everything (except withdrawal, of course!).

It's very hard for me to empathise in this situation. To me, not only is the idea of holding any idea 'sacred' a nonsense, but adhering to a code simply because it is written in some book is profoundly anti-intellectual - verging on the despicable, in my view. But I do understand that we're human, and if I'd been brought up in such a tradition I'd probably believe the same nonsense, such is the strength of indoctrination. So I suppose I can accept that almost any profoundly ridiculous idea might well be considered crucial to a person's identity, if strongly enough imbued (just look at the beliefs of the Scientologists if you want to hear silly).

To an atheist, this whole affair is viewed from a completely different angle to the way it is being discussed in the press. This isn't just about whether the right to be offensive is more important than the right not to be offended. Since religious belief is, to us, just plain wrong, any religious group asking for any kind of favours is basically saying: I want to be allowed to invent any nonsensical view of reality, life, and behaviour I like, and as long as I can convince you I hold those beliefs strongly enough, for those views to be given special respect. This, to me, is asking for trouble, since people can have strongly held profoundly conflicting views.

What kind of a world do we live in where mockery can be a sin? What kind of God are we talking about here, who can't handle being mocked? A petulant, childish one, it seems to me. But I suppose I'm never going to understand, not really.

The other issue is whether a newspaper should be prevented (by law or by guidelines of decency) from perpetuating a prejudiced viewpoint. But one man's prejudice is another's valid assessment! The Daily Mail contains article after article of views that represent poor people as scroungers, immigrants as damaging British culture, liberalism as ill-educated, ill-thought-out, wishy-washy optimism. But they really believe that shit. The battleground is a democratic one: who has the most persuasive argument. The law must stay away, just as violence must.

I'm not denying there are border areas where persuasive prejudice leads to illegal action, and it makes sense to tackle the cause rather than the symptom. But the form that the response takes must surely be a positive one: education and argument, not a negative one of censorship. Why did the July 7th bomber, after being educated in Britain, even want to go to Pakistan to be indoctrinated in a madras?

Joss 1 - 1 Morpheus

2006-02-07T10:03:00.000Z

Morphy gave away a penalty this morning by not only waking me up before 7am, but bugging me continuously with loud purring and lying on my head. Instead of getting up to feed him I just put him out of the room and shut the door. Sorry Morph, but if you want to be in the room, you've got to play by the rules. I'll think I'll keep him out for a few days to catch up on some sleep...

The Electric Light Orchestra

2006-02-07T00:40:00.000Z

Why is it that nobody else in my generation seems to have heard of E.L.O.? A classic band of a classic era? Ah...the sweet rustic sound of the synthesiser, the heady shrill of falsetto... I'd better go to bed, I think I'm delirious.

Wet willy alarm clock

2006-02-07T00:36:00.000Z

Morphy has for some time been waking me at 7.30 or before by jumping on the bed. Now he's discovered a new method of morning torture: licking the ears. First he licked one ear, then, when I turned over, the other. Then I hid my head under the covers, so he started digging his claws into my head. Eventually, I gave up and got up to feed him. Morphy 1, Joss 0.

Family reunited

2006-02-06T18:56:00.001Z

I took Morphy back to my parents' last weekend and he got to see his sisters again. At first they were quite cautious and there was lots of growling and pacing.

Curiosity killed...

Eventually, they were all playing together (and fighting pretty roughly) like they'd never been apart.

Sibling rivalry

So much so, that they spent most of Sunday exhausted...

Pippa after a hard day's nothing

Saffi pooped

Morphy, the lazy arse

Talking is so five years ago

2006-02-05T12:59:00.000Z

Last night, Marci and I had an argument. Well, Marci would call it an argument, I would call it "me saying something that upset her, and then us having a long conversation about it". At first, Marci wouldn't speak to me about it. But we were both in the same room on the wireless network, so I MSN'ed her. We had the whole conversation over the internet, even though we were a metre apart.

For some reason, it was easier to talk online than it was to have the conversation vocally. Perhaps it was because you have time to collect your thoughts before responding, and there's not so much interrupting going on (usually from me). And perhaps it's because we're both getting so used to talking via text now it comes more naturally. But I also found it easier to say what I really meant rather than trying to soften everything as well. I was able to be more honest. Essentially, it seems I'm a different person online as I am in the room.

So we had this long conversation over a wireless link that pointlessly routed everything we said to some distant server and back, eventually ran out of new things to say, and went to bed happily without another word about it. What a strange world we now live in. I suppose many people would say it's a tragic turn of events, but I think the alternative would have been not to say anything, or as much, and we would probably have been less reconciled at the end than we were. So I think it's a good thing. Probably.

My Scott Adams story

2006-02-04T22:06:00.000Z

Scott Adams is the author of the comic strip Dilbert. I read his new strip every day on the web. He has recently started his own blog, which is fairly amusing and I occasionally take a look at it. In it he often betrays good insight, and often deep ignorance of a range of issues, particularly in science, and ignorance he sometimes gives the impression he is proud of. However, the context is usually that he's making a joke, so the fact that he's talking crap seems like part of the joke. Who cares?

Well, a lot of people cared when he started weighing in to the evolution vs 'intelligent design' debate. Not only did he effectively misrepresent the Darwinist theory, but he claimed that since scientists had a vested interest in their work, they could be trusted just as little as the IDers. This caused a lot of hoohah. I'm not going to go into the debate here. I'm sure I will be publishing plenty on the subject of ID over time. And I'm not going to try and discuss the arguments over Adams' posts either. If you want to know about it, go to his blog, find the November 2005 archives, and scroll almost to the bottom to 'Intelligent Design Part I', where the first post happened.

My purpose for bringing this up is that I've had a run-in with Scott Adams' seemingly over-exaggerated opinion of his level of knowledge before. (Actually, Adams continually puts in provisos that he's stupid and probably talking rubbish but I intend to illustrate that this is a bit of a sham.) It has to do with his non-Dilbert book "God's Debris". Fascinated by Scott Adams' opinions on philosophy, I bought this back when it first came out, ooh, about 4 years ago.

I hated it. I hated the fact that it was full of factual errors about science (including evolution). I hated the fact that its conclusions were variously illogical, unoriginal, and idiotic. I hated that it had an air about it that Adams was trying to pass it off as serious philosophy rather than just woolly thinking combined with a willingness to comment on things without research, combined with the use of fame to get something published that would otherwise never have been published. But most of all, I suppose, I hated that online, on Amazon and on discussion boards, so many people thought it was the most mind-blowing thing they'd ever read. I felt I had to put these people right.

On amazon.co.uk I wrote a pretty scathing review ("Flawed 'fact' and poor logic sully a book with potential", November 2001), and I copied it to amazon.com. It quickly generated heated 'debate' on amazon.com (not that you can get much debate on amazon's review board), and eventually similar comments were made on co.uk too. Apparently, according to these other reviewers, I had failed to read the book properly because Adams has a disclaimer at the beginning warning people that the book is just a 'thought experiment' and there will be bad facts and bad logic in there.

Rereading my review, I feel I make it pretty clear that I did read that; my questions were aimed at whether it was possible, as Adams requests, to assume the old man in the book knows everything, when he is talking palpable nonsense; and whether the 'thought experiment' could be expected to succeed when it was relying on misinformation. Adams may have been getting people thinking, but in my opinion, if you weren't aware of the true facts then he'd be getting you to think total bollocks, which hardly seems like a success. My attempt was to review the book, to tell people whether or not they should read it. I assume that most people reading non-fiction want to learn something, not mislearn something.

My other point was that any valid points Adams had made were to a large extent as old as philosophy itself, and if people wanted to learn that stuff they'd be better off reading the work of people who have really thought things through. I did also make it clear that to the extent that Adams was getting people into philosophy who might never otherwise have thought about it, it was a good book. I still think the review was fair.

Anyway, enough of defending my review. My antagonistic stance on the book has softened quite a lot since then and I'll comment on this at the end of this post. On with the story.

Some time after I posted my review on amazon.com, Scott Adams himself posted a 'review', responding to mine. Basically, he said the same stuff about me not getting the point, except being even more scathing than some of the other reviewers had been about how stupid I clearly was. He also, I seem to recall, got upset about the particular point I made about magnet fields. In my review, as an example of false facts in God's Debris, I point to his comment that no matter what object you put in a magnetic field it has no effect, and I say that that is simply false, which it is. His review denied that was true.

Intrigued both by his vehemence, and by the fact that he'd wanted to respond to my review at all, I emailed him. Now I'm afraid that I'm an idiot, and somehow I've let those emails go missing over the years. It is dreadfully frustrating because I'm going to have to drag what was said from memory and that is probably a bit unfair on Scott Adams. But you'll get the gist.

My email basically said that I was curious why he'd responded to my review and said it was irresponsible reviewing, and pointed out that every material has some magnetic conductance, including air, and makes a miniscule or large effect depending on this property. Some materials are 'ferromagnetic' which means, I recall, that its internal magnetic monopoles have a tendency to line up in a magnetic field, which means it will have a stronger effect on the field it is in, distorting it. Anyway, don't take my word for it, I suggest you take a look at the Wikipedia pages on magnetic fields and magnetic permeability to find out more.

His response was both truculent and completely unexpected. He said that my review was irresponsible because, since I had not properly understood the nature of the thought experiment, I was giving potential readers a misleading idea of the book. He said that a lot of business for the book was going to come from amazon, and that I would be responsible for losing him a lot of buyers.

I must say, I couldn't believe it. Scott Adams seemed to be saying that it was irresponsible of an amazon reviewer to give a bad review of a book!! That by reviewing his book I'd somehow bought in to it and the author had a right not only to expect a thoroughly fair and properly researched review, but even a favourable one! And this is amazon, for goodness' sake, where the reviews are published for free, by non-professionals. We're not talking Times Literary Supplement here.

(An interesting parallel is with the eBay seller I bought my TV from. After they sent me two broken TVs, I left them negative feedback, despite the fact that the third TV worked ok. A guy from the company got very upset with me, saying he would lose hundreds of customers as a result and since they replaced the broken TVs I shouldn't have given negative feedback. I said the point of feedback was to reward good sellers and the best way for him to get customers would be not to sell broken TVs. Otherwise, what on earth is the point of the eBay feedback system?)

I wrote Adams a response, saying I hardly thought his business was hinging on my review, and that regardless I could hardly be seen as having any responsibility to his business. I'm not sure he replied to it, I think maybe it was just the two emails from me and the one from him, but there may have been a second response from him, I can't remember. Still, I do remember that it ended with him in a huff, with, essentially, an "I don't wanna talk to you no more" comment.

A while after this fracas, all the reviews from that period, including mine and his, were removed from amazon.com, presumably at the request of the author (mine is still there on co.uk). Actually, perhaps they regularly prune old reviews, I don't know, or perhaps amazon thought it was degenerating too much into a debate rather than a proper set of reviews and pulled it for that reason.

Still, there is an interesting end to the story, and a reason why I am mentioning it now. I have kept a little bit of interest in the book and occasionally checked the reviews on amazon. A little while after Adams started his blog, I saw that he was making God's Debris available online for free (see link above). So I downloaded it and have occasionally been rereading it on the odd break at work.

I haven't finished reading it yet, but I did discover that his section on magnetism has changed. He now says that if you put a magnetic object in a magnetic field, it affects the field, but a non-magnetic object will have no effect. Of course, this still isn't strictly true, every material has some effect, it's just that for non-ferromagnetic materials it is often negligible. However, it did give me the sense that I had been personally responsible for his editing his book!

Of course, what is more likely is that many people mentioned that error and he decided to change the section when republishing the book. I wonder whether he's changed the section about evolution too? I'll have a look.

I wonder what all this editing does for his story that it doesn't really matter whether the Avatar in the story is telling the truth or not, that some bad facts are in there deliberately to trip us up as part of the thought experiment? I cannot comment...

My conclusions
Since I've been revisiting all this stuff I've got it a bit clearer in my head what Adams was trying to do, and although I still think he is trying to punch way above his weight, both in God's Debris and in his blog, perhaps I did judge him too harshly. He had a bunch of ideas in his head and he thought they were interesting enough to publish. Now most of us wouldn't, not just because we're not good authors, but also because we simply don't have the time and inclination to research and reevaluate those ideas properly to make them fit for publication. But Adams could get them published without bothering with research. And, I suppose, so would we all, if we could - if not, why the blog phenomenon? He thought that as long as he told you he didn't know what he was talking about at the start, he could get away with it. But with me, that grated.

A recent reviewer of the book on amazon.co.uk put it much better than I, so I'll repeat his words:

...I realised one of the main sources of this book - 'The Way of the Weasel' - a Dilbert book. By making this a thought experiment and deliberately stating that the facts are not all true etc Scott Adams has instantly freed himself from having to do any research or have any understanding of the 'fact' and ideas explored.

It's philosophy written by Dogbert - he is basically saying 'I haven't made the effort to fully explore what I'm saying, but you can if you want.'

And in some of the reviews I can see that people are falling for the bait - they are getting upset because they are making the effort, or have made the effort, and Adams hasn't. I don't think that he has deliberately put in false facts and false ideas - I think that he hasn't checked because he knows that he didn't need to.

So, basically, Adams is guilty of being incredibly lazy, and unlucky enough to have sycophantic publishers that allow him to sell crap. So I don't, ultimately, feel bad at Adams, I just feel bad for all the people duped into thinking there's a message in God's Debris worth taking on board.

The other stuff about my 'irresponsible' reviewing, on the other hand, is pretty unforgiveable. Adams clearly needs both a reality check and an ego-deflation.

What is the moral of this story? I suppose it's that we should never risk letting people think we know more than we do about something unless we actually intend to deceive them. I'm not anal about this, I'm not like some people who think you have to have a PhD in something in order to be able to talk about it. It should just all be like Wikipedia - if you aren't talking crap then you should be able to back up what you're saying.

If anyone thinks I'm overstepping my own bounds and talking authoritatively on something I don't know about (as in, I'm clearly pretending I know more than I do), please call me on it. I admire Scott Adams' wit, but I don't want to be like him.

Peterborough Head

2006-02-04T22:01:00.000Z

Today I took Marci to the Peterborough Head where she raced with CCAT Women's 1st boat. Her crew did 5k in 18min58sec, coming third out of eight women's Novice 8s. Pretty good for a fairly new crew!

Marci before the race

The crew

Muslim hypocrisy

2006-02-04T01:37:00.000Z

So far I have identified three major hypocrisies in the Muslim protest against these caricatures:

Muslims are always telling us not to assume all Muslims are violent fanatics or bigots just because of a 'few' fanatical elements; and yet they are treating all citizens of a country where a few individuals have published these photos as legitimate targets of protest.
Newspapers in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia have printed scathing representations, in cartoon form and otherwise, of Jews, and of Western countries, which are deeply offensive. Free speech is a valuable commodity when Arab heads of state are denouncing the West, or Muslim clerics are calling on followers to violent action, but Muslims are quick to dispense with it when the boot is on the other foot.
The biggest irony of all: responding to caricatures that paint a picture of Islam as a violent religion by threatening violence.

As many have mentioned in the past few days, Islam has way bigger image problems than that which might be incited by a few offensive caricatures. Perhaps the so-called moderates should worry first about confronting terrorism, bigotry, and human rights offenses before they turn on those who would comment on it.

Muslims are always calling on the West to treat the root political cause of the problem - the unjust offences against Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere, and Western stranglehold on world trade - and not just react to the result. But in what way are they following the source of these cartoons back to their root cause? The cartoonists view Islam in that way for a reason, and I'm afraid it isn't just because they're all indoctrinated by prejudice. You only have to pick up a newspaper to see who the real 'bad guy' is here.

This is a clash of cultures the Muslims cannot win. Why? Because Europeans hold the concept of freedom of speech just as dearly as Muslims hold their religious convictions. To us, it isn't just a principle we uphold - it's a given. It's so natural to us that taking it away is like trying to strip away part of our identity, just as the Muslims say about their faith. As I have said throughout this thing, I think the cartoons were offensive, and probably ill-advised. But there is no way that is a sufficient excuse for censorship. The right to offend is more important than the good sense not to offend.

Denmark = a Dane conundrum

2006-02-03T15:24:00.000Z

Why are these Muslims, protesting over these caricatures of Mohammed, associating the few Danish people that published the drawings with the government and people of Denmark? Not only is recalling ambassadors and boycotting Danish goods a quite infantile overreaction, but it is punishing completely the wrong people!

Again, I can only imagine it is because there are Muslim theocracies, and in these countries there is such control that the state must be complicit in any action for it to be allowed.

How then do the Muslims (in question) reconcile their defence that we shouldn't tar all Muslims with the brush of the 'few' fanatics?

Listen to reason

2006-02-03T14:59:00.000Z

Today I was ordering a kebab in pitta for my lunch, and the guy said "Do you want everything on it?". I looked at the different trays of salads, decided I didn't want everything, and said "I'll have onions, gherkins, and tomatoes". As he was doing this, I realised I probably did want some lettuce on it too. But I decided not to say anything. Why?

I'm thinking it was because it would be changing my mind, and we don't like to change our minds. Perhaps because it indicates weakness to others; perhaps indeciveness is a trait that evolution selected against.

How often do we pointlessly put up with something we don't want or a worse way of doing things just because we don't like changing our minds? All the time, I think. It may be: starting to cycle the wrong way somewhere, getting a few yards down the wrong street and realising it, and then reconciling yourself and deciding to go this route anyway, even if it's longer than it would be to turn around and go back (this is far far worse if anybody's watching you; we go to extraordinary lengths never to turn on our heel when people can see us and make us feel stupid). Or it may be ordering some product or foodstuff, being misheard and given the wrong thing (say, you were given a cheese and mushroom pastie instead of cheese and onion), but you only realise while you're paying and you feel it's too late to say anything for some reason. It happens everywhere.

Of course, this is a self-perpetuating thing, a vicious cycle. The longer you leave a decision to change your mind, the more embarrassing it becomes to do so and therefore the harder it is. This is taken to extremes with religious belief. The more you face up to your doubts, and dismiss them, the more emphatic the evidence must be for you to change your opinion, until basically nothing will - the mental consequences of deconstructing the wall of certainty you have built brick by brick with each reaffirmation become so severe that you cannot possibly face it. The brain gets better and better at ignoring contrary evidence.

Actually, it's more than just religion, it's all our core beliefs and values and prejudices. Most of it, of course, learned from childhood when the ability to appraise the incoming information properly is just not present.

People of reason must learn to question every value that passes through their minds. We must lend a brief thought, even if only occasionally, to the possibility that we might not have properly considered the facts on certain subjects. Every time you find yourself doubting some old truth, you should consider it a victory, not a failure. I've started to do this recently and I must say it is quite liberating. I would say that all my beliefs are open to critical reassessment, including my stance on religion. Of course, it would take a hell of a lot to dislodge that one...

Are you a tolerant religionist?

2006-02-02T19:38:00.001Z

Here's test for your tolerance.

Christians:

Jesus never existed as depicted in the gospels. How does that make you feel? What about if I said that the biblical God is a maniacal bigoted despot? Does that irritate you?

How about: Jesus, if he existed, was an airy-fairy hippy who advocated the principle that bumming off other people was the holiest lifestyle choice, plagiarised some stuff about being nice to people that moral philosophers like Confucious came up with centuries before, viciously condemned swathes of people to eternal hellfire for no better reason than refusing to submit to blind delusion, and generally did nothing whatsoever to help us come up with the moral principles we hold so dear today, such as freedom, equality, and the precedence of reason? Basically, he was a twat. How does that make you feel?

Not much? Didn't think so.

Hindus:

The Vedas is a tissue of nonsensical fairy tales that only a child would be duped by. A little upset? How about if I said that the concept of Vishnu is wholly ridiculous. Anyone who thinks there's a powerful floaty presence with multiple arms must be utterly dense. And as for Ganesh - what on earth's with the trunk for goodness' sake? Are you people crazy?

A trifle angry? Think I've overstepped the bounds of decency?

Muslims:

Your God, Allah, does not exist. Mohammed was a vicious supremacist with shoddy values and bad hygiene. The Koran is not just tripe, it is perhaps the most despicably immoral pile of ************** I wouldn't wipe my ******** ...

Oh dear...I'm feeling nervous now. I've had to self-censor this section, I'm so concerned. I've probably offended your core sensibilities, haven't I? I deserve to be smitten, not just by your God, but by your very hand. I deserve punishment. For some frickin' words.

People, these are just words. They mean nothing without actions. Neither do they incite any actions. Why is it that Muslims seem to find it harder to see that than Hindus, and Hindus harder than Christians? I don't know. Christians believe a complete load of hogwash too, just like all other religionists, so it probably isn't just about the religion itself.

Everyone try:

Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of eldeberries. How's that? Your mother was a prostitute, and your sister is so ugly her face launched a thousand ships - because they were so desperate to get away. Worse? Should I go on?

I have to watch my language because if I don't, I'll be in breach of the contract I made with the good people of blogspot. Why is that? What is it about people that their sensibilities deserve to take priority over other people's actions, regardless of whether those other people know anything about their sensibilities?

If your beliefs are so important to you that they cannot face scrutiny, ridicule, mockery, or offense, then hide yourself away, don't talk to anyone or read anything or listen to anything. Because the world does not revolve around you.

Islam - the tolerant religion

2006-02-02T15:50:00.000Z

At the moment there is a big hoohah going on about some caricatures of Mohammed printed in a Danish newspaper. People have taken to the streets to protest outside embassies with guns, threats have been made, Arab nations have recalled ambassadors...it's pretty unbelievable for something so innocuous. It's making me spit bricks.

Here are the four opinions I posted to BBC's Have Your Say

Perhaps next time the Ayatollah (or Jerry Falwell, for that matter) announces that atheists are evil and deserve to be tortured for eternity in hell, we should cause an international outrage? All religions are a bunch of tripe, and anyone who has been brainwashed into attaching such importance to an object or an idea that they will interfere with freedom of speech to protect it needs therapy, not respect. If God is so great he can defend himself. Pity he doesn't exist then.

All religions believe most other religions are purely or partly invention or delusion. Yet they all agree we must respect those beliefs. Religionists think we have to respect invention! Can I invent my own religion that purports to hold Elvis or Charlie Kennedy sacred and take revenge on anyone who mocks them? The cartoons were offensive and provocative, but they did not incite violence and so were not and should never be illegal.

What is the Enlightened world coming to when an idea must be immune from criticism or mockery just because it is held sacred? Many tenets of religion, such as Original Sin, Holy War, and the place of women offend me to the very core of what I hold dear. Yet I would defend religions' right to offend me as loudly as they clamour to condemn me.

When Bush got a second term I lost my hope that most Americans are reasonable people. Then this 'furore' destroyed my last vestige of hope that Muslims (if not Islam) really were a peace-loving and inclusive people. What a sick animal is man, when dogma and ideology become more important than compassion and humanity. Religion will be the death of us all.

Guess which one made it onto the pages among the hundreds of other comments?
It was the third one, the least controversial, obviously.

I want to believe that most Muslims are really peaceable, tolerant, inclusive people, I really do. But every chance they get to prove they keep blowing it! It seems that even the most moderate Muslim will defend dogma and ideology not just with words, but with hostile, possibly even violent action. I quite regularly hear moderate Muslims say that their faith is so important to them, if called to fight in a religious war they would die for it. I used to hear that with the same sort of shock I have when I hear a Jew say they can't marry a non-Jew because they must "preserve the purity of their race". Now it's just expected.

Of course other religions are not immune. Christians got all up-tight about Jerry Springer and the Sikhs got threatening about that other play a while back. But how often do you see Christians threatening with violence? Sometimes, but definitely not as often, and only from fanatics. Maybe it's because there are Muslim theocratic nations and so Islam becomes not just an idea, but your entire country. I don't know.

It is astounding to me that I must listen with cold compliance to the rantings of religionists the world over, telling me I am degenerate and evil because I'm an atheist; yet I must pander to the transparently infantile sacred beliefs of the many for fear of causing offense. The real reason why we must pander to them? Because there are lunatics among them, a great many. We must concede by force of violence. It is just terrorism by another route.