Charlie's Diary

It seems that they are not only picking on Muslims, at least in Scotland.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=402337&in_page_id=1770

Posted by: Greg Evans | August 27, 2006 3:08 PM

Amen, Brother Stross!

I'd never deny anyone's right to choose and follow a faith of any stripe (with the caveat that they should not be permitted to commit deeds upon others outside of that faith that the faith in question demands, but there's a whole other flytrap).

However, education and religion should be completely separate. If you want your kids indoctrinated into a religion, fine - take them to church, on your own time. But to expose all kids of all persuasions to an outdated and dangerously introspective view of the world, in the name of educating them and preparing them for adult life, is just ridiculous - not to mention dangerous.

This ongoing polarisation of society gets more alarming by the day. I thought I'd outgrown conspiracy theories, but I'm really starting to worry that our glorious leaders have some sort of vested interest in seeing the world torn into pieces over ancient untestable ideologies.

But then, I'm a godless sinner, so I don't have the gentle hand of omnipotence and ineffability to smother my ability to ask questions. Maybe I shouldn't have read D&D spinoff novels during school church services after all.

Posted by: Armchair Anarchist | August 27, 2006 3:15 PM

ISTR from the Radio4 news reports at the time this new commission into muilticulturalism etc etc was being annouced that (surprise!) faith schools are explicitly excluded from its remit.

Blair doesn't want one of his pet projects touched obviously.

Posted by: Phil Armstrong | August 27, 2006 3:28 PM

Greg: it was an Old Firm match. Clue: one side is Protestant and the other is Catholic, and their supporters include a good number of knuckle-dragging bigots who like to beat up on the other bunch. The term "grudge match" could have been invented for it. To put it in US terms (or just terms that are more familiar to people who don't know the Scottish football scene), what the goalie did was equivalent to making monkey-noises at a black player on the opposing team.

Posted by: Charlie Stross | August 27, 2006 3:45 PM

Perhaps I was lucky. The Religious Education classes when I was at school were handled by relatively ordinary Church of England cleric, from one of the local parishes. Possibly not multicultural enough for today's politicians, but hardly trying to convert anyone (and pleasantly surprised when three of us knew what a punt-gun was).

The sort of clerical gentleman who keeps a steam roller, reads Hittite manuals on training chariot horses, or spends a weekend in Oxford attired as a Nazgul, isn't the problem.

|But how do you distinguish them from some hook-handed rabble-rouser?

Posted by: Dave Bell | August 27, 2006 3:57 PM

People don't seem to understand the concept that separating church from state is for the protection of the church, not the state.

Posted by: Anonymous | August 27, 2006 5:22 PM

Well, really, it protects both. It protects the church from people who actually know nothing about spiritual practice, but see the church as a valuable tool for achieving their own ends. And it protects the state from people who would use the church as a means for controlling it.

But how is outlawing religious schools separation of church and state? Here in the 'states, we'd say that was state interference with religion. I'm highly sympathetic to the sentiment, but it seems like a dangerous precedent.

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 27, 2006 6:57 PM

I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments, Mr Stross.

I particularly agree with the -- Gasp! Revolutionary! -- idea that we might more productively try to address falling standards of basic literacy and numeracy.

I'm sorry. The government may claim that ever-climbing exam passes are indicative of improvement in the performance of educators, but that overlooks simple observational evidence.

Back when I was a sixth-former, doing more than three A-levels meant you were a fucking genius. That simple. Now, five A grade passes is not uncommon.

Couple this with the depressingly large number of graduates and/or qualified professionals I encounter on a daily basis who appear to have successfully completed 16+ years of education without ever having had anyone tell them how to correctly deploy a possessive apostrophe or calculate a simple percentage without recourse to a calculator ...

Bah! It makes me blood boil, it really does!

Cheers

Jim

Posted by: Jim Campbell | August 27, 2006 11:21 PM

Ted: There are two issues here. The Islamic schools Kelly is talking about outlawing are private institutions, and she is claiming (rightly or wrongly) that they present such a threat to public safety that they should be closed. The Christian academies are state schools which are discriminating for entry purposes on grounds of parental religion. Not all state religious schools do, but it is increasingly common, and it's not just a few schools - around 1/3 of English state schools (I don't know about the Scottish system) are under some control by religious organisations, and in many areas that means that they are only freely accessible to parents who attend that church.
My primary objection is that it's just plain unfair, but with some of the cities of the North increasingly segregated by race and religion it also seems like a serious threat to integration.

Posted by: brixton brood | August 27, 2006 11:33 PM

Brixton: in Scotland, the state education system is segregated -- about 30% of the schools are Catholic, and the rest are Protestant. "Non-religious" doesn't get a look in, except insofar as "Protestant" is the default option.

Point for US readers: in the British educational system(s), religious education "of a predominantly christian nature" is mandatory by law, and a lot of specifically evangelical schools are state funded (and established under the current government). Separation of Church and State doesn't exist insofar as there is a National Religion (clue: Lizzie Windsor is Head of the Church of England; bishops sit in the upper house of Parliament by right). Please check your preconceptions about religious education at the door -- we do things differently here (and not neccessarily better: while I'd like to see us follow the French model, I'd be happy enough to settle for the American one).

Posted by: Charlie Stross | August 28, 2006 12:16 AM

Anarchist, if you'll try someday to draw up a curriculum for elementary and secondary schools, you'll discover that education and religion can't be separated. If you prepare a list of the things all children ought to learn before they reach adulthood, your list will supply answers to religious questions, adding up to a creed, whatever you do to avoid it. If you don't spell it out, the children will infer it from what you say on secular matters. You can make a curriculum that's Christian, one that's Muslim, or one that's atheist and materialist. But you can't draw up a "non-religious" curriculum, one that Christians, Muslims, and materialists all would agree to be sufficient for their children's education. What all agreed on, none would think sufficient.

That's why the USA doesn't have a national standard curriculum, and why we never outlawed private schools. It's also why Mr. Stross' proposal couldn't succeed, if it were ever enacted.

"The sort of clerical gentleman who keeps a steam roller, reads Hittite manuals on training chariot horses, or spends a weekend in Oxford attired as a Nazgul, isn't the problem. But how do you distinguish them from some hook-handed rabble-rouser?"

I've never found that difficult, myself. But the question you really meant was, why is the rabble-rouser a problem, and the clerical gentleman isn't? May I suggest that it's because the rabble-rouser makes no effort to comprehend the clerical gentleman? He knows the art of rhetoric, and uses it to sway others into condemning the clerical gentleman, as he does. But he doesn't try to enter into the clerical gentleman's mind, to see how one might come to be a clerical gentleman who reads Hittite manuals. He does not, in a word, inquire.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 28, 2006 3:52 AM

Why does the school have to teach moral issues?

It shouldn't be up to the state to indoctrinate children in morals; can't parents teach their kids right from wrong?

Posted by: Keir | August 28, 2006 6:13 AM

I agree that it shouldn't be up to the state to indoctrinate children in morals, Keir. The issue becomes even more sticky when you ask the question "What are morals?" I don't believe anything in the Bible (or, I'm guessing, the Qu'ran) has anything to say about morals that might work in the real world. Plus fundamentalists of all stripes confuse "sex" with "morals".

Posted by: Colin Meier | August 28, 2006 8:14 AM

Something else that I just remembered. When I was teaching here in South Africa, I never attended assembly since it consisted of prayers and a sermon (normally a harangue about the evils of atheism and homosexuality). Now, although it was *legal* to "opt-out" of assembly, it was regarded as a Career-Limiting Move. So there was nothing formal about it, I just didn't go. No-one asked. Unfortunately, the kids didn't have the same option. They had to go, or they would be punished. And that leads me to my point (eventually). What happens to kids who are raised in a Christian home but become agnostic or atheist in their early teens? It happened to me. Between their parents and the school, they simply don't have an option. They *have* to go. The idea that a teenager could have a true objection based on conscience is obviously ridiculous... This is all despite the fact that according to our brand-new Constitution, religion is not allowed anywhere near schools. As usual, the ideal is ignored, and the right-wing reactionary principals and headmasters (and they are *all* the same) do whatever they please. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore and I quit. As a teacher, it's way too easy to commit a "thought-crime".

Posted by: Colin Meier | August 28, 2006 8:42 AM

Holy Mother of God! State-funded religious schools? *Now* I understand. :'}

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 28, 2006 9:54 AM

Um, I was pretty clear on the fact that the Christian idea of God-the-creator-with-a-beard-who's-compassionate-and-allows-suffering had to be mistaken at least as early as twelve. The problem with kids raised in an environment like this is that they come to the conclusion that all spiritual practice is bullshit, and ethics are for knobs, because (a) the two are presented together and (b) they're presented stupidly and unconvincingly.

A parent who really wants their kids to develop any kind of spiritual faith would do well to steer clear of religious schools. Not that that guarantees anything, but at least they'll come out of it with a relatively open mind. By the time I moved out on my own, I had been quite effectively indoctrinated against any kind of religious faith by various well-meaning Christians.

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 28, 2006 10:00 AM

And while she's on the subject, perhaps she'd like to enhance her credibility by doing something about the overwhelmingly Christian fundamentalist faith schools that have been springing up like toadstools under the Blair government (42% of the City Academies trumpeted by Kelly and Blair are avowedly Christian Fundamentalist institutions which in some cases teach creationist nonsense in biology classes) and that two thirds of the UK's population are opposed to?

Hey, you think it's bad that private school are teaching Creationism? Over in the US we have public (state) schools that teach "intelligent design". Every few years some creationist school board is getting elected, then thrown out of office a couple years later.

One interesting thing about the national education system in the US is that it was created in response to private religious schools. A lot of the motivating force behind it was the fear that Catholic schools were indoctrinating students into being slaves of the Pope. :)

Of course, the situation is different in the US...

Posted by: Andrew G. | August 28, 2006 2:13 PM

Andrew G.: the academies teaching creationist nonsense aren't private - they're part of the state sector. It's kind of a public-private partnership for schools - some rich person gives the government money to be allowed to influence the curriculum of the school.

Posted by: Feòrag | August 28, 2006 4:29 PM

Michael Brazier: ...if you'll try someday to draw up a curriculum for elementary and secondary schools, you'll discover that education and religion can't be separated.

I call bullshit. You most certainly can, and should, separate religion and education. As far as I'm concerned the only place that remotely presents a problem is the sciences. In which case, currently accepted science must be taught, and it should be left to the student, and his/her family, to determine how to reconcile scientific fat and theory with ones religious beliefs. Schools should not encroach on this.

Posted by: Q | August 28, 2006 5:53 PM

Andrew G. What public schools are actually teaching intelligent design? I thought Kansas decided to go with the Flying Spagetti Monster instead. The irony is that myself and most of my extended family attended catholic school through high school where we were all taught evolution. In advanced biology we all read "The Origin of Species."- a class taught by a Christian Brother no less. The god stuff was restricted soley to Religion classes. That was almost 20 years ago now.

Posted by: Greg Evans | August 28, 2006 7:55 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1859760,00.html

Looks like the Catholic church might be going to take a more combative/ ID friendly approach to Creationism/ ID.

My understanding, after 18 months of watching this all online, is that few schools are outright teaching ID; rather that many of them are simply ingoring or skating over evolutionary biology, if not downright attacking it and putting out various ID books and creationist literature etc.

The other interesting thing is how little anyone appears to be bothered that creationists are subverting school science teaching. You would have thought this a great story for a journalist- track down the people involved, get hold of some curriculum material, you could get some good quotes from Dawkins et al, as well as barking mad ones from the creationists.
But no, dead silence except for some vague unsubstantiated claims in newspapers. Its really doing my head in.

Posted by: guthrie | August 28, 2006 8:37 PM

Q, you've got it exactly backwards -- the natural sciences present the smallest problem, not the largest. That's because the scientists know exactly what religious assumptions are necessary for their inquiry, and argue for them specifically when challenged, leaving all other questions alone. (If the idea that science needs religious assumptions perplexes you, Google for "occasionalism".)

And if you think religion can be kept out of education, you have never tried it. For instance, "Why does the world exist?" is a religious question. Consider what it would mean to draw up a curriculum in which that question was never answered, and to open a school in which, whenever a student asked it, the teachers were required to dismiss it. Well, that forced silence implies, very clearly, that even to ask that question is irrational, to give an answer to it is doubly so, and only an intolerant bigot would insist that the world's existence has a purpose. Which is, in fact, an answer to the question: the answer given by the 19th century agnostics.

It's given without their arguments, with no arguments at all; it's given by the authority of the school and the curriculum, as dogma not subject to any inquiry. And it's given -- note this, please -- even though the school and the curriculum's designer had no intention of giving it, and honestly supposed they were respecting their students' religion by refusing to discuss it. The same thing happens with every religious question. You can't refuse to discuss them, without suggesting answers to them. And that is why religion can't be kept out of education.

Now it is possible, of course, to keep one particular religion out of education -- but only by putting in another one. You can draw up a curriculum that isn't Christian, if you make sure it is materialistic, or Muslim, or Buddhist. And if you prefer the creed suggested by silence on religious questions, then you'd be well advised to talk of separating religion from education. But you would be talking nonsense and deceiving your audience.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 28, 2006 9:35 PM

"My understanding, after 18 months of watching this all online, is that few schools are outright teaching ID; rather that many of them are simply ingoring or skating over evolutionary biology"

Yes, precisely -- it's just what was done to the Bible in American public schools, at the start of the last century. Don't come out and say the subject is all nonsense; just refuse to discuss the matter, and let the students draw that conclusion on their own. As long as you don't care about truth and reason, it works wonderfully!

It's my belief, by the way, that a careful exposure of the fallacies in Behe's and Dembski's arguments would be a profoundly illuminating way of teaching evolutionary biology, and the methods of rational enquiry. Public schools are not, however, really interested in rational enquiry of any sort -- they were subverted, in that respect, decades ago. The creationists are just one of the factions contending for control of the instrument of propaganda that the subverters turned the schools into. The fix is to restore rational enquiry in the schools; but that's not as simple as you people may think.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 28, 2006 10:16 PM

there's a lots of good bones to pick in this post.
Here's a shotgun approach to various topics, echoing some of the responses

A, While schools having a particular religon don't seem bad, I think it is due to a background effect. To my understanding, most religons have a central classification system [Believers and Non-Believers]. Quite often, this can degenerate through a stage of [Us and Them] to [Good and Bad]. I think that this can progress through ghetto-isation to a split society. People need to see other people as people and not labels. I feel that the best way to ensure harmony for a society is to ensure that the young people mix as much as possible, so we should have mixed schools.

B, In a scottish context since I live here, the thing that I do mind about religious schools is having my taxes pay for it. By allowing Catholic schools to have state funding, we allow any religon to demand state funding for school to serve thier community. This leads to more seperation rather than less and I have to foot the bill, in part. If you want a religious school for your children, then pay for ALL of it. and accept the fact that other groups have the same right in a free country (including a strict muslim school)

C, Answering religious questions in school
I would agree that "Why does the world exist?" is a religious question, but to me, it doesn't have one answer. Some people believe one thing and other believe another. Mr Patel who teaches geography believes in the Hindu faith and Mr Smith is a Christian. There was a book I read, a while ago that had a range of answers to various questions, each answer was pitched at a different level of understanding (from little kids up to teenagers).
Drawing up "non-religious" curriculum is a job for those people who define the education standards and exams (ultimatly the elected leaders). If you don't like what they define then educate your children privately or yourself, it's supposed to be a free country. (now there's a radical notion)

D, Why should School teach Moral Issues ?
The answer to the question "can't parents teach their kids right from wrong?" is that some parents can't (and/or won't). The capability of parents to raise thier kids varies widely from the brilliant to the woeful. Watch the various tv programmes (ie. supernanny in the UK and US) for examples of kids and parents who need help. I think Raising Kids is one of the most difficult, expensive, time consuming and stressfull activities going. But other than a brief discussion of the mechanics of producing one, there are no high schools classes in any helpful subject about raising kids. So you don't have good parents who can teach you in turn, then it's hell of a self-learning course.

E, Ditching of religon teaching
Drop Religon and get more Grammer and Math. It's very tempting given the homework, I see crossing the kitchen table. Perhaps just drop it down to a minor level for background understanding.

Hopefully Blair will go sooner rather than later, even considering the lack of promise in any of the possible successors (in either party).

Posted by: Kite65 | August 29, 2006 12:31 AM

Damn, Just noticed "religon" should be "religion".
That's my points shot in the foot, then.
It's too late to spell properly.

Posted by: Kite65 | August 29, 2006 12:35 AM

"I would agree that 'Why does the world exist?' is a religious question, but to me, it doesn't have one answer. Some people believe one thing and others believe another. "

Allow me to change a few words in that:

"I would agree that 'how do there come to be so many different kinds of animals?' is a scientific question, but to me, it doesn't have one answer. Some people believe one thing and others believe another. "

There are people who say things like that, and sometimes they get elected to school boards in Kansas. Is there anyone here who doubts that such people are obscurantists trying to prevent serious enquiry into biology? No? Then, Kite65, how is your statement not also obscurantism, and a block to serious enquiry into religion?

The point about making non-religious curricula isn't who should be doing it. The point is it can't be done at all. It's like making a perpetual motion machine. If that's what's needed for peace between religions, there can be no such peace.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 29, 2006 4:29 AM

In what might be the mainstream Western culture, some knowledge of the Christian Bible is part of the general context. Stories such as that of the Good Samaritan. for instance. Whether the cultural context that story gives is a correct reflection of what it likely meant at the time it was told is another problem.

We might retell the story today as being about Ian Paisley helping a Catholic: the Samaritans of 2000 years ago had that sort of reputation at the time, and all the people who passed by on the other side were supposed to be closer fellows of the victim.

I don't know what sort of semi-literary, not quite doctrinal, influences other culture's holy books have, but ignoring the Bible is a little like ignoring Shakespeare.

The problem with the religious loonies is that their theology is pretty poor. The professional theologian, Christian and Islamic, who study the texts, are applying the tools of Reason. derioved from the Classical Greek roots of modern philosophy. Remember that Islam preserved a considerable amount of knowledge that was mislaid in Europe.

The Prophet was a successful, well-travelled, merchant. It wouldn't surprise me if he knew the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean of his time (a Greek dialect?).

It's not religion that's the problem, or the educated people who started them off. It's the way that religion has fuelled factionalism, and factions have thrown away so much. You can see it on websites of Christian chruches in the USA. and the charismatic preachers of Christian and Islamic fundamentalism are working on the same human weaknesses as the charismatic leaders of 20th Century Fascism.

So, lets say we cut out religion. What fills the gap? Is it better to have the Church of England as a live vaccine against the potential insanities? Would we rather have people like Canterbury and York, or see them supplanted by some charlatan who can fill the Millenium Dome with his supporters?

Posted by: Dave Bell | August 29, 2006 11:37 AM

I must have missed the memo where it was proven that materialism is a religion, and that it has followers and worshippers and stuff.

As for schools being instruments of propaganda, certainly in the UK, that has been one of their functions since they were founded. Not usually an explicit aim; it was naturally assumed that the dominant culture that founded the school was obviously really good and therefore you should learn this stuff here in order to keep it all going along, and obviously if you disagreed you were a factionalist trying to peddle propaganda. Which other subverters did you have in mind?

As for rational enquiry restoration, do you think we have more of a chance of implementing it in schools first or in newspapers and politics first?

Posted by: guthrie | August 29, 2006 12:09 PM

Um.... right. I think your just being obtuse for the fun of it. You CAN separate education and religion, have I tried it? Yes, I lived it. My own education. Why does the world exist? is definitely a religious question, and there is no reason to address it in public education. The answer is "We don't know, but this is how science believes the world came to be."

Public education answers the verifiable or that which can be tested. Religion addresses matters of faith. I firmly reject your proposition that the are inseparable.

Posted by: Q | August 29, 2006 12:33 PM

I think some folk need to separate 'religious education' from 'religious indoctrination'. You can learn about all kinds of religion (and ergo as a child decide to persue an interest, if you are so inclined) without being told "This is right".

Religion as a lesson shouldn't be kept out of schools - to be taught about the various religions scattered across our fair world of dirt is a necessity, to try and reduce tension caused by the unknown.

However a specific religion should not be forced upon anyone as a given. And education should be dictated by knowledge, not cash. The academy schools will soon suffer from far more trouble than just religious directive (funded by whichever subset can 'sponsor' the school the most).

Soon the larger corporations will start their sponsorship, and we will have indoctrinated closed source software, burger flipping for beginners and 'Prada - how to wear it' lessons.

Posted by: Serraphin | August 29, 2006 1:51 PM

Then, Kite65, how is your statement not also obscurantism, and a block to serious enquiry into religion?

I can answer than one - there's no such thing as serious enquiry into religion, because it doesn't matter any more than a discussion of which is better, Star Wars or LoTR.

Religious people arguing over religion are no different than comic book nerds arguing over who would win in a fight, Superman or Green Lantern.

Posted by: Andrew G. | August 29, 2006 1:59 PM

Andrew, there is a big difference: people arguing over Superman and Green Lantern do not, generally, have any significant impact on the large-scale actions taken by nation states. Religious differences have, demonstrably, been of large-scale practical impact in the past, whatever one may think of the substantive content of the arguments.

"Public education answers the verifiable or that which can be tested. Religion addresses matters of faith."

Well, no. Science answers the verifiable; public education covers many things which are not verifiable. Most of history is not, strictly speaking, testable or verifiable. And should philosophy be a part of public education? It is in France, which has a very secular public system. If philosophy is allowable, should we restrict it to epistemology, or allow in metaphysics?

The theory behind the statutory requirement for relgious education in England reflects a view of a unified society organized by parish and with Church and State in a single, unified whole which began to break down officially with the repeal of the Test Act and which has not had much relation to the way in which matters are conducted, in practice, for a long time. But even without the Establishment, there isn't an automatic separation of Church and State: I was exposed to much the same sort of lacklustre, by-the-numbers religious education in Ontario, forty years ago, as currently is the norm in England, despite the fact that there hadn't been an Established Church since the mid-Nineteeth century.

It is possible to address matters of religion in school without endorsing any particular brand; but only if there is not implied authority in the fact that a teacher is not endorsing something (i.e. that absence of endorsement is not perceived as endorsement of a position which automatically rejects adopting any position in other contexts). And that gets into a much broader question of dechooling society, or de-authoritarianising (is that a word?) the schools.

Posted by: James | August 29, 2006 4:30 PM

Just an observation, it seems that religion in schools was/is fairly common in the Commonwealth, but in a lackluster sort of way, without much real feeling.

By contrast, in the US there's usually strict official separation, but a strong religious influence on education. Besides the evolution/creation controversy, I've attended schools in the 80s and 90s where Disney's Fantasia was protested when it was shown to a group of 1st graders because it "promotes black magic". I've also been to a school where there was a "student led" prayer circle every morning at the flagpole, and were a GLBT Club was banned. I've also been to schools were there was significant censorship by parent's groups over what could be placed in the school library. My favorite highschool history teacher was fired when it was discovered he was gay, and even though he won the eventual lawsuit they stuck him with the less prestigious classes and problem students.

Posted by: Andrew G. | August 29, 2006 4:50 PM

Q: "You CAN separate education and religion, have I tried it? Yes, I lived it. My own education."

And I suppose you think you don't have any religion, but stand surveying all the religions, judging them with a clear, objective eye; rather like the editors of the New York Times.

guthrie: "I must have missed the memo where it was proven that materialism is a religion, and that it has followers and worshippers and stuff. "

Nothing easier. If materialism is true, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, et al. must be false. Therefore materialism belongs to the same kind as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, et al. and the name of that kind is "religion". Maybe your sticking point is the lack of materialists performing public rites of worship? But ritual isn't part of the definition of "religion".

"As for rational enquiry restoration, do you think we have more of a chance of implementing it in schools first or in newspapers and politics first?"

Schools first of all, of course. I don't recall when or where politics has ever been a form of rational enquiry. By the way, one of the problems of a state-supported school is that setting its curriculum becomes a political matter ...

James, teachers have implied authority by the very nature of their job. To be educated is to accept a teacher's authority. And if a teacher fails to endorse any of a set of alternatives, the student cannot help but perceive that as endorsing the falsehood of the whole set.

Posted by: Anonymous | August 29, 2006 8:48 PM

OK, so your going to implement rational enquiry in schools first, which would one imagines take a rational inquiry minded populace, which to my mind would be rather unlikely.

Actually, my sticking point is the lack of divinity in materialism. Last I knew, religions were defined as concerning divinities and controlling supernatural agencies. Materialism says nothing about said entities. That the philosophy of materialism says that everything happens with stuff is besides the point. Perhaps you can point me to some evidence for the supernatural?

By the way, surely if Hinduism is true, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc are false? And if Buddhism is true, Christianity and Islam are false also? Do you see there is a small problem of consistency here?

Posted by: guthrie | August 29, 2006 9:00 PM

Materialism is a belief system, whether you call it a religion or not. On a subtle level, materialism is the belief that the answer to any question beginning with "why" either doesn't exist, or can only be reached by examining the interactions of observable things.

On a gross level, the way that this usually manifests is in the belief that the cause of my happiness can be the stuff that I buy, or the people that I control, or the sex that I have, or whatever. It's why we believe that if you kill someone hard enough, they will stop doing whatever it is that bothers you - e.g., lobbing rockets over your border. And this is in fact the prevalent belief system in our society, among people of many religions and people with no religion.

And at least in the U.S., materialism really is the religion being taught to most children. For the deep practitioners of materialism, the scientists, this belief system works works, because in fact a lot of things can be addressed by examining their material causes. You can do a lot of good for people by pursuing materialism in a deep way. So on that level, the belief system can be held to be valid, if not supreme.

But it leaves a lot of important questions unanswered, and, indeed unanswerable. And for people who are not deep practitioners, it leaves them with a lot of useless crap in their houses, and a lot of their deepest questions, their greatest fears, unaddressed. Or a lot of blood and rubble where their houses used to be, depending on where they are unlucky enough to live.

So yeah, it is a real thing, and whether you call it a belief system or a religion, it deserves to be examined with the same degree of skepticism as any other belief system or religion.

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 29, 2006 10:45 PM

Most of this post is some notes on Micheal's response

It's interesting the effect of going from a "Why?" question to a "How?" question can have.
"Why?" speaks to purpose, motivation and intent.
"How?" speaks to the physical or mental process involved in doing something.

"Why did the chicken cross the road" leads to all sort of possibilities (some of them funny).
However "How did the chicken cross the road" leads to either walking or flying (and no jokes).

My 'Why was the world created' changes radically into 'how do there come to be so many different kinds of animals'

I quite enjoyed the quick transformation of an hopefully open-minded response to a philsophical question (why does the world exist), to essentially (to me) a process driven question and on through the school boards in Kansa to a charge of obscurantism.

From wikipedia
"Obscurantism favors limits on the extension and dissemination of knowledge, and on the questioning of dogmas.
"Obscurantism is the opposite of free thought and is often associated with religious fundamentalism by its opponents."

I do think we should question dogma, both religious and secular. I think that is a vital freedom to be able to question, investigate and analyse common beliefs within an society. While Richard Dawkins view of Religion as Dangerous Nonsense (it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own right, it teaches enmity to others etc) might be going too far, there might be some value in that position.

My statement said different people held different beliefs about why the world exists and said nothing about how correct those people were.
I would agree with Serraphin, in that there is a big difference between 'religious education' from 'religious indoctrination'.

Religion is a fundamental part of how the world actually works, both in a local way and internationally. This has been true for hundreds of years and will continue for a good long while as well.

Try to teach history (especially Medieval European) without an good understanding of the different faiths involved, the motivations and actions of different parties would be hard to understand. Or try to explain the recent fighting in Lebanon and how remote the chances of long term peace are, without mentioning religion.

Part of education, to me, to about building a person who can contribute to society in a valuable way and that is much easier if you understand the influences and values of all the people in that society.

Rather than continue these points which are gettin worn, how about 2 futures

A, Will more people embrace more and stricter religion as a comfort in a world of ever faster change ?
B, Will the internet and multiple 24hr mass media kill off (or further decimate) the old religions ?

Posted by: Kite65 | August 29, 2006 11:31 PM

Guthrie, getting rational enquiry into state-run schools would require an electorate that supports rational enquiry, and as you say that isn't likely. This is why private schools are a good idea. And as Mr. Lemon's pointed out, "the supernatural doesn't exist" is a good deal more to say than nothing.

Though, Mr. Lemon, scientists are not "deep practicioners" of materialism; up to the 19th century practically all scientists were confirmed theists, and many important ones were priests, ministers, or rabbis. Enquiry into material causes does not require belief that no other causes exist.

Kite65, I'm glad you enjoyed my remarks, but I'd be much happier if you had understood them. Regarding your 2 futures, the Internet's main political effect has been to discredit the mass media and damage its power to write the agenda of political debates. Since the mass media is staffed by people whose knowledge of religious matters could be stuck under my left little fingernail without discomfort, the damage to their power can only help "the old religions", not hurt them.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 30, 2006 3:11 AM

Mr. Brazier, you're right about the history of science and scientists, although frankly many of the things done in the name of science in the 19th century strike me as being pretty unchristian. But in any case, while I think a lot of scientists identify as being members of some faith even today, that is no longer a given, because it is no longer required, as it was of a student of natural philosophy back in those days.

And a lot of folks today take refuge in science the way someone in the 19th century might have taken refuge in Jesus or Buddha or whomever. Possibly with good reason, since science is not shy about showing its miracles.

And I don't think I'm mistaken in my impression that by and large, people who are really serious students of science nowadays devote much more of their mental space and energy to understanding their particular branch of scientific inquiry than they do to understanding God, or emptiness, or some other branch of spiritual inquiry.

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 30, 2006 4:37 AM

If Christianity as a whole were going through the sort of fit of violent lunacy that Islam currently is, I would second Charlie's conclusions.

But it's not. In point of fact we're not threatened by Christian fundamentalists trying to kill people in grand swathes or set up a theocracy.

There -are- Christian idiots of that sort ("Christian Identity" or Dominionists, as they're known here in the US), but even in America where most people are believers and many quite militantly so there aren't enough of -that kind of believer- to be a serious threat.

It's laughable to treat any sort of Christian as a real menace in Europe, or to treat Opus Dei as if it were going to restore the Spanish Inquisition. There are probably a lot more practicing Wiccans in Britain than Christian fundies of that ilk.

In a British context, the only real religious threat to social integration comes from Islamic fundamentalism. Nearly everybody, in their heart of hearts, knows this and only misplaced "sensitivity" prevents it from being said honestly, and that's breaking down under the pressure of reality.

The same is true in a global sense. It's false equivalence to point out that Wahabbism/Salifism is paralled by similar idiocies on the fringes of Christianity.

As Marx pointed out, a sufficiently large difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, and there are so many more Muslim nutjobs than Christian nutjobs, and they're so much more mainstream in their context, that they're a problem of a wholly different order.

There seems to be an element in Britain (and Europe more broadly) who find all actual practicing religious belief so strange that they can't distinguish between the common-or-garden variety of believer and raving loonies.

It's like being unable to distinguish between a Social Democrat and a Stalinist.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 30, 2006 6:00 AM

"Why does the school have to teach moral issues? It shouldn't be up to the state to indoctrinate children in morals; can't parents teach their kids right from wrong?"

-- well, actually, that's a state interest of the most basic sort.

After all, the fundamental social activity (after self-defense) is passing on the torch to the next generation. Any society is organized according to a moral code: some things are right, some are wrong. This is simply inevitable and it's a universal human phenomenon. If the society's educational institutions are not passing on this set of memes (which will of course vary over time and sharply between different cultures) then they're not doing their job.

A person without a moral code is, functionally, a sociopath.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 30, 2006 6:11 AM

"And if you think religion can be kept out of education, you have never tried it. For instance, "Why does the world exist?" is a religious question."

-- mmmm... no. That's only so if you assume that lack of religion is itself a religious position, which it ain't.

Science procedes from an assumption of naturalism.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 30, 2006 6:14 AM

"It's why we believe that if you kill someone hard enough, they will stop doing whatever it is that bothers you - e.g., lobbing rockets over your border."

-- this is, in fact, demonstrably true an has been throughout human history. Dead people don't launch rockets, or do much of anything else.

Eg., there are no Beothuk terrorists in Newfoundland, despite their being the aboriginal inhabitants of the island. This is because the last Beothuk(*) died in captivity in 1823.

And when was the last time you met an Albigensian? The Albigensian Crusade and the Holy Inquisition between them ensured that the Cathars became a historical footnote. This is a complete rebuttal to the "you can't kill an idea" hypothesis. Of course you can.

On a less extreme plane, it's also true that, generally speaking, if you kill enough of a group of people you can terrify the survivors into doing what you want. All history testifies to the truth of this proposition.

We essentially massacred the Japanese into becoming pacifists, for example, which would not have seemed at all a plausible scenario in 1942.

One has to keep in mind, however, the profound truth of Machiavelli's observation that it is very foolish to do an enemy a _small_ injury.

If you want good results from a policy of putting the knuckle on someone, be prepared to go all the way or don't start. Half-measures don't work and indeed are likely to exacerbate your original problem.

(*) I have Beothuk ancestors, which is a different thing altogether. Some very thin strain of their genes survive, but their memes do not.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 30, 2006 6:26 AM

Mr. Stirling, I'm afraid I find myself not buying any of your recent arguments. For one thing, democracy in the U.S. is in fact under attack by religious extremists, and these extremists are "christian," not "muslim." And they have succeeded in seriously compromising all three of the branches of government in the U.S. - we can only hope not fatally.

Of course, as far as I can tell, none of the extremists to which you refer, professing either faith, actually follow the teachings of the prophets of their respective religions.

I think it's better that we not discuss the issue of whether war is functional. We disagree in such a fundamental way that all we would do would be to spam the good Mr. Stross' blog, with no hope of ever coming to agreement. It was a very minor point that I intended as an illustrative example about materialism; I should have known that it would be pointlessly controversial, and I apologize for using it.

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 30, 2006 7:18 AM

Ted: Mr. Stirling, I'm afraid I find myself not buying any of your recent arguments.

-- that doesn't bother me. If you've got facts or logical inferences therefrom which contradict me, go right ahead.

I'm not the Pope and don't pretend to infallibility.

>For one thing, democracy in the U.S. is in fact under attack by religious extremists, and these extremists are "christian," not "muslim."

-- mmmmm, no it isn't, as far as I can see.

In 1960, the US had nondenominational school prayers and Nativity scenes in public places, and it wasn't a theocracy.

I can't see that reinstituting either now would turn it into one.

The "no Establishment of Religion" clause in the Constitution does not mean that the State has to be officially atheist, and was not so interpreted throughout the first centuries of the Republic.

>Of course, as far as I can tell, none of the extremists to which you refer, professing either faith, actually follow the teachings of the prophets of their respective religions.

-- well, in the case of the Muslim ones, I'm afraid they do, in many cases.

The foundation documents of Islam explicitly approve of aggressive war against non-Muslims and deny the legitimacy of any but an Islamic government. This position is supported by most early Islamic jurisprudence and has remained the majority position ever since.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 30, 2006 7:50 AM

Kite65: A, Will more people embrace more and stricter religion as a comfort in a world of ever faster change?

-- alas, on current trends, this would be the way to bet.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 30, 2006 7:56 AM

I don't think any of my American cousins are at the frothing suicide-bommber level of religious extremism, but if they didn't have that family connection, they're freakish enough that I would pass by on the other side.

And, looking from the outside, I see echoes of their attitudes in a lot of US politics today. Love thy neighbour as thyself? Why, that might even lead to dancing!

Posted by: Dave Bell | August 30, 2006 8:48 AM

I dont quite get ted lemons point.
I am not saying that materialism as a philosophy should not be critically examined. But that has little to do with the methodological naturalism in science, since science deals with stuff that can be reliably observed. The problem here is that religious and supernatural experiences have so far defied reliable observation. And in the instances in which they have been subjected to reliable observation, they invariably turn out to have material causes.

Moreover, I wouldn't quite call myself a materialist, because I like to leave the door open for anything else to come in. The problem being the lack of evidence for anything else. Where is your evidence for non-material things and goings on?

As for your example the cause of happiness of someone- I am not sure I understand it fully- are you saying that the cause of happiness has no physical existence at all? Or that happiness has no physical existence? Yet I would argue that happiness does have physical existence, as patterns and structures and processes in the brain; what stimulates that happiness is partly internal, your response to something (Are jokes materialist?) such as conversation, or a new car or something.
Or are you trying to say that sociology, phsychology, etc are not studying anything?

Though I would agree that materialism, as consumerism, is the religion of many people who profess in belief in some other religion or none at all.

So, to schoolchildren. I am not sure it is sensible to conflate materialism and consumerism. Certainly consumerism seems to be a major part of USA'ian society. But for you to claim that materialism is being taught in schools, your going to have to show how the USA seems to have so many religious people despite the alleged teaching of materialism in schools, and also what it is that is actually taught. Or are you going to start claiming that it is wrong to teach science? In fact you do say that science and materialism is fruitful. But obviously you think that more should be taught in schools with regards to ideas and philosophy, though exactly why this is inimical to materialism as you call it I cannot see why, unless you wish to posit dualism.

[quote]
But it leaves a lot of important questions unanswered, and, indeed unanswerable. And for people who are not deep practitioners, it leaves them with a lot of useless crap in their houses, and a lot of their deepest questions, their greatest fears, unaddressed. Or a lot of blood and rubble where their houses used to be, depending on where they are unlucky enough to live.[/quote]
WEll, yes, but I cannot see how this is related to materialism except by yourself. Clearly people need more on philosophy, ideas, and politics as well.

[quote]
So yeah, it is a real thing, and whether you call it a belief system or a religion, it deserves to be examined with the same degree of skepticism as any other belief system or religion.[/quote]
So is materialism real in a physical sense, or real as in an idea in our heads? Or not real at all? I would however place it in the category of belief systems, if they are defined as philosophical systems which help shape our oulook on the world.
(I'll have to work out a better definition later. I'm not a philosopher)

Posted by: guthrie | August 30, 2006 9:33 AM

As for the USA and its way of life etc, I suggest that in terms of deaths, Islamic fundamentalists will cause more than Christian fundamentalists, but the Christian ones have as much, if not a much better chance, of changing the society for what many people would regard as the worse.
From this side of the pond, things look somewhat finely balanced, for example IIRC there was an increase in votes for Bush at the last election from what we would call Christian fundamentalists, which matched any increase in the Democrats votes.
On the other hand, i don't see Bush trying to get any legislation through which would harm his business base.

Posted by: guthrie | August 30, 2006 10:16 AM

If Christianity as a whole were going through the sort of fit of violent lunacy that Islam currently is, I would second Charlie's conclusions.

Steve, Christianity is going through the same sort of fit of violent lunacy as Islam. You are merely in a privileged position where it doesn't affect you directly, while observing Islam through a media lens that focusses on the most badly-affected parts of a 1.5 billion person religion. You're also applying a double standard, exculpating present-day Christians from the sins of their grandfathers 90 years ago, while holding Islam to account.

Evidence? Let's take the Church position on contraception, which on current showing has cost something like 25 million lives over the past two decades (from AIDS deaths in Africa alone).

The Churches also implicitly condemn about half a billion people (of whom you are not one) to second-class social status by insistently defining them in terms of of their reproductive capacity. Under their code, if you're female and of reproductive age then you forfeit many of your most basic human rights in favour of someone else. (I maintain that an assertion that the rights of a foetus override the desires of a pregnant woman is tantamount to saying that the pregnant woman's right to self-determination is subordinated to the needs of the foetus: a more loaded word for this relationship is slavery.) I suspect you might have to re-examine your attitude to christianity if you found yourself suddenly inhabiting the head of an 8-week-pregnant 18-year-old black woman in South Dakota, Steve.

Let's also take the regular outbreaks of Church-inspired violent homophobia in the Orthodox countries (notably Russia and Greece), which regularly claim lives and are not notable for being the cause of much public hand-wringing or investigation. Or the similar groundswell of homophobic propaganda in the US, from the more militant protestant fundamentalist churches, who have a real desire to see homosexuals persecuted into invisibility. (Which overspills routinely in Africa where, for example in Zimbabwe, homosexuality now carries the death penalty).

If homosexuals were dealt with as an ethnic group or religion, the prevailing attitude to them of most Christian churches could only be described as being of genocidal intent within the strict letter of the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Slightly more tenuously, going back sixty-seventy years a certain modernist ideology with its roots in the "respectable" Christian anti-semitism of the 1870s murdered a bunch of my relatives. Asserting that "Hitler was an atheist, so his anti-semitism wasn't Christian" is a thin fig-leaf; the majority of the people he led were Christian and their anti-semitism was Christian. Luckily that aberration was stomped flat and the wreckage bombed until the rubble bounced, but it isn't out of keeping with the way Christians behave towards other religious minorities when they can get away with it. (Where was that last pogrom against Jews in Poland? The one in 1946 that murdered a bunch of concentration camp survivors who'd made the mistake of returning to their homes?)

Nor are the supposedly mild and enlightened Christians of today fast at despatching the discriminatory relics of an earlier age. It remained legal to discriminate against Jews in the UK (in employment, certainly) as recently as 1977, and the Act that finally made such discrimination illegal was heavily criticized at the time and experienced much push-back.

Despite this, I don't have a problem with most Christians -- as long as they don't expect me to adopt their beliefs or live by their strictures. Nor do I have a problem with Sufi mystics; except that for the past 80 years the west has systematically been encouraging the most violent, intolerant strains of Islam at the expense of those that are more introspective and less aggressive.

But from my point of view, as an antitheist rather than an atheist (I think Dawkins' only error is in being rude to the people he thinks are idiots: a little politeness doesn't hurt) of non-Christian and non-Moslem origins, all the Religions of the Book are pernicious and dangerous creeds that encourage intolerance and, ultimately, genocide directed against outsiders. And the only difference between Christianity and Islam today, in practice, is that Christianity has better PR machinery and the deaths it inflicts usually take place quietly in sick-beds rather than messily in public shootings or stonings.

Posted by: Charlie Stross | August 30, 2006 1:14 PM

"Why does the world exist?" is a religious question.

The honest answer to question is simply: "There is no answer."

It is possible to expand this answer into a severe logical reasoning based on Gödel's Theorem ("This statement cannot be proved" expressed as "The existence of this universe cannot be proved") which shows that the question really is, and always will be, and always will have been, pointless.

Now, if the question had been put this way instead -- "HOW does the world exist?" -- you might get somewhere...

Posted by: A.R.Yngve | August 30, 2006 2:10 PM

Nothing easier. If materialism is true, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, et al. must be false. Therefore materialism belongs to the same kind as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, et al. and the name of that kind is "religion". Maybe your sticking point is the lack of materialists performing public rites of worship? But ritual isn't part of the definition of "religion".

So, but the same logic, if Christianity is true then fairies, elves, broken mirrors and black cats causing bad luck, etc. must all be false. Therefore Christianity belongs to the same kind as those beliefs, and the name of that kind is "supersition"?

You could also say that Relgion as well as chemistry, physics, and biology are all ways of explaining the world, called science. And under the rules of science relgion is unprovable and therefore false by it's own rules.

I think there's a flaw in your logic, myself...

Posted by: Andrew G. | August 30, 2006 4:23 PM

Let me add that I didn't want to start a pro/anti religion flame war here.

The issue I'm bringing up is the question of avowedly religious schools of a fundamentalist stripe -- one type is funded by the government (at the enthusiastic behest of ministers who share the religion in question), while another type is funded privately and deeply frowned on by those same ministers.

The issue is, in other words, political hypocrisy and rabble-rousing bigotry (not "my religion is better than yours").

Posted by: Charlie Stross | August 30, 2006 6:26 PM

Steve, the constitution is interpreted by the Supreme court, which has been systematically stacked with religious and political extremists starting in the Reagan years and continuing right up to the present. No truly moderate justice has been nominated since I was a child.

As for your example the cause of happiness of someone- I am not sure I understand it fully- are you saying that the cause of happiness has no physical existence at all? Or that happiness has no physical existence? Yet I would argue that happiness does have physical existence, as patterns and structures and processes in the brain; what stimulates that happiness is partly internal, your response to something (Are jokes materialist?) such as conversation, or a new car or something.

Well, you could say that the cause of happiness is endorphins. But if you said that, then the logical next step would be to arrange to provide your brain with a constant supply of endorphins. And we call that drug addiction. Not happiness.

Computer programs are patterns, and it's a popular science fiction theme that you can make a sentient computer that is self-aware. But I doubt you can even prove to me that you are self-aware, even though I'm sure you believe you are (and I don't dispute that you are - I'm just saying you can't prove it). Ultimately the way computer programs work is that you have a bunch of inputs, and a bunch of processing, and a bunch of output. And this is done step by step - the computer itself never has any gestalt appreciation of the data - it just iterates over it and produces some result.

In your example, I think what you're suggesting is that there's a pattern in there somewhere that has as its output, "I am happy." But if that's so, then you don't need the pattern. The pattern is just a program whose output is the input of the part of you that decides whether or not you are happy. So if you could just replace the program with a 1 bit, you'd be set, wouldn't you? You'd always be happy, regardless of what was going on. But is that really happiness?

Posted by: Ted Lemon | August 30, 2006 6:50 PM

The issue is, in other words, political hypocrisy and rabble-rousing bigotry (not "my religion is better than yours").

Isn't, at it's heart, that sort of political hypocrisy and rabble rousing just "my god can beat up your god"? To a truly religious person it isn't a matter of being tolerant or intollerant, but preventing dangerous false ideas from taking hold. Thus, a muslim school would be bad, while a chritian school would be tolerable as long as it wasn't too far from your own beliefs. If Mormons openned a religous school would they be as accepted as Catholics or Evangelicals? And if, god forbid, Scientologists tried to what would happen?

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, I'm a Deist and Discordian, not an Atheist.

Posted by: Andrew G. | August 30, 2006 9:54 PM

If the Scientologists ran a school for children, they'd charge the parents a tuition fee.

Posted by: Dave Bell | August 30, 2006 11:08 PM

This is, in fact, demonstrably true an has been throughout human history. Dead people don't launch rockets, or do much of anything else.

Eg., there are no Beothuk terrorists in Newfoundland, despite their being the aboriginal inhabitants of the island. This is because the last Beothuk died in captivity in 1823.

And when was the last time you met an Albigensian? The Albigensian Crusade and the Holy Inquisition between them ensured that the Cathars became a historical footnote. This is a complete rebuttal to the "you can't kill an idea" hypothesis. Of course you can.

Was that your reason for writing the Draka books - to make the case for "justifiable genocide" not being an oxymoron?

Posted by: Anonymous | August 30, 2006 11:31 PM

Anonymous,

According to friends and acquaintances who have witnessed such encounters at conventions - some of whom are by no means his fans - Stirling becomes quite upset when anyone professes admiration for the Draka.

I dub thee netcoward.

Posted by: Steven Rogers | August 30, 2006 11:49 PM

>political hypocrisy and rabble-rousing bigotry
Ok, Getting back on track....

Looking at the current crop of Politicians, it seems that they are much worse than the previous generation.
They seem to lack the ability to achieve stuff, even for thier core supporters. There are disppointed republicans in the US, who thought Bush would be more actively right wing (abortion etc). There are certainly union groups in the UK, who are wondering exactly what sort of labour party are currently in power.

I'm not sure whether the root cause is short-term thinking (i.e. what can I do to stay popular this week) or just plain incompetence.

Perhaps the most effective leader is the monomanical one, who believes and drags everyone else along towards the promised land. If you want CHANGE, perhaps you need to have leaders like Thatcher to drag everyone towards the final goal. Perhaps if there is any sort of compromise, the political process and vested interests slow and stop any proposed change before it can happen.

Recently, it appears to be impossible to get a straight answer (or even rarer an indication of any sort of failure) from any Politician. Even statements which total nonsense "UK action in Iraq has not made the UK more of a target for terrorism" seem to be OK and defensible.

I always liked the statement "No matter who you vote for, a politician gets in".

Watch in the future for the politicians (in all parties) campaign for the grey vote cos the young are just too weird and don't actually vote.

Posted by: Kite65 | August 30, 2006 11:52 PM

(By the way, sorry I forgot to enter my name first time round)

According to friends and acquaintances who have witnessed such encounters at conventions - some of whom are by no means his fans - Stirling becomes quite upset when anyone professes admiration for the Draka.

I don't admire the Draka at all. What I am asking is "Does SM Stirling believe that Muslims are real-live Draka, IOW a people so horrifically evil that their genocide would be justifiable?"

Posted by: George Carty | August 31, 2006 12:46 AM

George,

Please accept my humble apology. I was mistaken on the point of your post.

Posted by: Steven Rogers | August 31, 2006 1:03 AM

Apology accepted :)

Posted by: George Carty | August 31, 2006 1:31 AM

Andrew: "So, by the same logic, if Christianity is true then fairies, elves, broken mirrors and black cats causing bad luck, etc. must all be false. Therefore Christianity belongs to the same kind as those beliefs, and the name of that kind is 'supersition'?"

Actually, Christianity doesn't have anything much to say about fairies, elves, or bad luck from breaking mirrors. It wouldn't even be difficult to imagine a world where all of those, and Christianity, were true. It's some sciences which would need rethinking if fairies turned out to be real ...

Mr. Stross: "Christianity is going through the same sort of fit of violent lunacy as Islam."

If you do any research into theological support for "fits of violent lunacy", you will come across R. J. Rushdoony on the Christian side, and Sayyid Qutb on the Muslim side. However, if you're honest in your research, you'll also find that the number of people who hold Qutb's views exceeds the number of people who hold Rushdoony's by several orders of magnitude. I doubt that the typical American evangelist has even heard of Rushdoony, never mind following him.

As for the rest of that post, gosh, Charles, if that's what you really think, why aren't you shouting "ecrasez l'infame!" with Voltaire? Why are you willing to tolerate theism and theists at all?

Mr. Stirling: "Science procedes from an assumption of naturalism."

If you mean, scientists begin their enquiries under the hypothesis that supernatural agencies are not involved, yes, that's true. If you mean, however, that scientific enquiries are logically impossible if supernatural agencies can influence events, no, that's absolutely wrong.

Mr. Lemon: "the constitution is interpreted by the Supreme court, which has been systematically stacked with religious and political extremists starting in the Reagan years and continuing right up to the present."

And after 25 years of this systematic stacking, the count of SC Justices who reliably vote as the GOP would wish them to is ... 2 out of 7. (Roberts and Alito haven't been on the bench long enough to tell.) Not a very effective bit of stacking, that.

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 31, 2006 3:05 AM

"If Christianity as a whole were going through the sort of fit of violent lunacy that Islam currently is, I would second Charlie's conclusions."

Perhaps a little late to respond to this, but I think you have to look at the behavior of "Christians" in the third world. Just the existence of The Lords Resistance Army in Uganda illustrates that Christians in the modern era can be just as horrific as Muslims.

In our society as was pointed out earlier separation of Church and State is more important for the idea that it protects a small religion being suppressed by a larger religion. In the US a lot of little Protestant churches acted to prevent the larger better financed Episcopalian and Catholic churches from dominating them politically. The only thing they could agree on is that they didn't want to be supressed.

Most Muslims who have moved to Western nations appreciate this, it protects them. Radicals raised in other cultures aren't quite so appreciative, Christian or Muslim.

We had to go through the horrors of the Wars of the Reformation to learn our lesson. Hopefully others learn it quickly, and we don't forget it.

Posted by: Brian Rempel | August 31, 2006 3:06 AM

About that suggestion, way back when, that the time spent on religion in schools should instead be devoted to math and grammar:

"I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted by: Michael Brazier | August 31, 2006 5:37 AM

On the qestion of evil characters, I wouldn't want to make specific accusationsm although we all know of one obvious writer to refer to.

It's the problem of Orcishness. Tolkien partly handles it by putting Sam and Frodo into the middle of the Orcish world, both witnessing Orcs bitching about the iniquities of their life, and later in disguise. But it's also apparent, in what his son selected for publication in The Silmarillion, that Orcs and Elves are two sides of the same coin: not human, not like us, not necessarily soulless, but in their own category, which seems to allow for a healing of the Spirit before reincarnation.

Tolkien struggled to be consistent with his Christian beliefs, while his depiction of Orcishness is colouted by his experience of war. They are something that we all might become.

Even the great villains of his world are Fallen Powers: they were not created as Evil.

OK, we're not all the sort of lunatic that Tolkien was. It seems silly to think of the creation of Middle Earth as a symptom of PTSD, but could it have existed without the Great War?

Not every mustache-twirling villain is a cheap plot token, but they are a snare and a temptation for authors. You need conflict, so introduce something evil. You don't have to explain evil. It doesn't have to have a motive.

And, I'm sorry to say, if that cap fits anyone here, I rather think it will fall over deaf ears.

There's a steady thread of such thinking in fiction, and it seems to be fiction which is popular with a lot of people. It sells books. It could be a mindless zombie horde, a sadist thrown out of his own time, or a whole culture of homo superior who see us as the Orcs. It is the spectre of Al Quaida, and SPECTRE itself. And, by being evil, it takes away from the heroes of the fiction any need to make a hard moral choice. Kill them all, we know how God will decide.

(Of course, if they're already dead, we can assume that God has decided, but he can't sign off on the paperwork until they stop shambling.)

And if you want subtlety, you go somewhere else. You move from The A-Team to Doctor Who, choosing cardboard sets over cardboard chanracters.

But which way does religion push you? Does it give you an easy answer, or a problem. Kill the heretics, or we are all neighbours?

And if God exists, why does he allow pain and evil? Why are there orcs, beyond our fantasies?

Posted by: Dave Bell | August 31, 2006 6:47 AM

Stirling : If the society's educational institutions are not passing on this set of memes (which will of course vary over time and sharply between different cultures)

You use this to justify teaching morals to childrens. Firstly, that is the parent's job. Secondly, WHAT set of morals are you going to use (Christian morals? Satanic morals? Flying Spaghetti Monster morals?) And thirdly, nearly of all our moral code (don't kill, don't steal), etc., is innate (i.e. evolved into our genes) and is universal across cultures. We only need to learn the "local flavour" (i.e. covering every inch of flesh in clothing - including your eyes - so as not to provoke lust).

I apologize

Posted by: Colin Meier | August 31, 2006 9:07 AM

Not killing and not stealing are innate? Then why do various societies expend so much energy hammering home the point that such practice is a Bad Thing?

Posted by: Steven Rogers | August 31, 2006 9:43 AM

My local MP is a Muslim (*), among other things. I should probably write to him and ask what he thinks about this.

(*) References to his religion seem to have vanished from his website since the last time I looked. I find this ominous.

Posted by: Sam Dodsworth | August 31, 2006 9:45 AM

Michael: As for the rest of that post, gosh, Charles, if that's what you really think, why aren't you shouting "ecrasez l'infame!" with Voltaire? Why are you willing to tolerate theism and theists at all?

As Oliver Cromwell said, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken".

Despite holding pretty firm convictions, I will concede the possibility that I might be wrong (however unlikely I think it is). My opinions don't rely on some religious revelation of ULTIMATE TRUTH, so I can't be absolutely certain that they're correct. Consequently, the theist extremist's intolerance (which is born of the knowledge that they have the one, true answer and everyone else is wrong) is unsupported by antitheism. (Or should be unsupported. There are always going to be people who take a set of conjectures and raise them to the status of absolute truth.)

Intolerance is the root of the problem I have with theistic neighbours, and I don't see antitheist intolerance as being in any way less ugly or more righteous than any form of theist intolerance. So I refuse to condemn absolutely anyone who doesn't condemn others absolutely.

Clear?

Posted by: Charlie Stross | August 31, 2006 10:43 AM

Not killing and not stealing are innate? Then why do various societies expend so much energy hammering home the point that such practice is a Bad Thing?

I'm not trying to say no-one does these things. I'm just saying that people who do these things are aware that society disapproves; murder is only justifiable to a soldier or a cop who uses his gun in the line of duty; in extremis. Normally people don't steal and don't kill, and don't have to be told not to do so. In fact, when you think of the intense basic training most soldiers undergo, one of the purposes of that training is to remove that inhibition to kill.

You may or may not agree with that, but schools are teaching facts and techniques, not for "moulding" - which is really just a euphism for brainwashing. And besides, as I asked previously whose morals should we teach?

Posted by: Colin Meier | August 31, 2006 10:58 AM

Sorry to go on like this, but...anyone who kills simply for pleasure and finds no wrong in it is mentally damaged in some form (e.g. schizo, sociopathic), and would not have been prevented from his course of action by anything he learned at school.

Posted by: Colin Meier | August 31, 2006 11:05 AM

Charlie: Steve, Christianity is going through the same sort of fit of violent lunacy as Islam.

-- oh, Charlie, this is just totally absurd.

Example: how many Christians will kill you for making a film disrespectful of the Bible, and then stick a manifesto to your body with a dagger?

To pose the question is to answer it.

Christianity is a 'soft target'; that's why people are more eager to attack it. It's much less dangerous to do so.

>while observing Islam through a media lens that focusses on the most badly-affected parts of a 1.5 billion person religion.

-- since that amounts to about 350 million people, minimum, I think I'm being quite accurate.

>Evidence? Let's take the Church position on contraception

-- as if anyone paid any attention? And since when were Roman Catholics synonymous with Christianity?

>The Churches also implicitly condemn about half a billion people (of whom you are not one) to second-class social status

-- Charlie, try comparing women's status in Christendom with that in the House of Islam, both now and in the past.

Islamic civilization _is_ misogynist, grotesquely so.

Not that the West has been free from sexism, but again, a sufficient difference in degree is a difference in kind. Which precisely describes the situation here.

Again, the Muslim mainstream are equivalents of fringe loonies in Christendom.

Is there a Western country where women aren't allowed to drive? No? Didn't think so.

>I maintain that an assertion that the rights of a foetus override the desires of a pregnant woman

-- Charlie, I'm for abortion rights too.

However, I don't consider it unbearable if people disagree with me.

My particular opinions (and yours) have no inherent right to exercise ideological hegemony. Free marketplace of ideas and all that.

>if you found yourself suddenly inhabiting the head of an 8-week-pregnant 18-year-old black woman in South Dakota, Steve.

-- ummmm... Charlie, that's a rather unhappy rhetorical example.

Like, for starters you can drive across the entire state without meeting any black people to speak of? People of scandinavian and German descent, ya, you betcha. And Indians.

You _do_ know that there are substantially more restrictions on abortion in most of Europe than in the US?

And that black people here have a _much_ higher abortion rate than whites?

>Let's also take the regular outbreaks of Church-inspired violent homophobia in the Orthodox countries

-- like official ceremonies where gays are buried under walls by bulldozers, as formerly in Kabul?

>Or the similar groundswell of homophobic propaganda in the US, from the more militant protestant fundamentalist churches

-- Charlie, they're entitled to their opinions, however wrong you or I may consider them.

And their opinions are simply the ones which everyone held until recently.

>Asserting that "Hitler was an atheist, so his anti-semitism wasn't Christian" is a thin fig-leaf

-- well, no, it's a pretty thick one, more like a banana frond.

Hitler wasn't only an atheist, he and his movement were militantly anti-Christian and intended to destroy the Christian churches.

You can scarcely blame Christianity for an explicitly anti-Christian movement that expressely wanted to eliminate it!

OTOH, note where the Protocols of the Elders of Zion currently have the most currency.

>but it isn't out of keeping with the way Christians behave towards other religious minorities when they can get away with it.

-- ah... haven't noticed any mobs killing Jews here recently, and this is the most Christian country in the world. Or at any time in the past couple of centuries, come to that.

Really, Charlie. Come on, now.

>Nor do I have a problem with Sufi mystics; except that for the past 80 years the west has systematically been encouraging the most violent, intolerant strains of Islam at the expense of those that are more introspective and less aggressive.

-- oh, great, we're responsible for Salafism. Rolling of eyes.

>But from my point of view, as an antitheist rather than an atheist

-- well, Charlie, globally most people are believers, always have been, and always will be.

We atheists are a minority and that's probably the way it's going to be forever and ever, amen.

Secularism turns out to have been a temporary regional fashion rather than the wave of the future; and one with an inherent tendency to self-destruct.

Eg., regular churchgoers have an average of 3 or more children here in the US. Secular types average 1. Extrapolate the trend.

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 31, 2006 12:24 PM

"Steve, the constitution is interpreted by the Supreme court, which has been systematically stacked with religious and political extremists starting in the Reagan years and continuing right up to the present. No truly moderate justice has been nominated since I was a child."

-- well, that depends on how you define "extremists". I define "extremist" objectively; as someone who holds beliefs on the far end of the spectrum.

I'm afraid you seem to be using it in the sense of "someone who I deeply disagree with".

Posted by: S.M. Stirling | August 31, 2006 12:27 PM

"The issue I'm bringing up is the question of avowedly religious schools of a fundamentalist stripe -- one type is