What's so Important About Blasphemy Day?

"I blaspheme everyday", said an atheist friend in response to my explanation of what blasphemy day is. Which got me to thinking, why do we have blasphemy day? For my answer, I need to start off by making a comparison to faith.

Many devout theists worship everyday, yet they go out of their way on a few special occasions to truly displace their faith. Think Easter or Ramadan, just to name two commonly known events.

Now many may cringe at the use of faith to illustrate a day that is viewed as inherently anti-faith. However, like a certain "religious" holiday in the West that need not be named, blasphemy day can have a secular edge to it. In this case, secular can include the involvement of theists willing to stand up for what, I feel, is blasphemy day's true purpose, free speech. While blasphemy day is, for the most part, a day in which non-believers take time to mock the more absurd aspects of faith. It can also be viewed as a day to stand up for free speech in general. An idea that you should stand up for regardless of whether or not you believe that you are drinking the blood of the son who is actually his father sent down to Earth to become a zombie that oddly does not eat brains. Or that a cartoon of some man who wrote a book that reads like it was written by a schizophrenic in a cave is a reason to kill.

Did you find those last two sentences offensive? If yes, good. I've achieved my goal in writing them. This is what free speech (blasphemy day) is all about. You can disagree with what I have said, you can even be offended. You cannot, however, under any circumstance work to deny me or others the right to say such things. In turn, we shall allow you to do the same.

Happy Blasphemy Day 2010.

Beyond New Atheism? | Caspar Melville | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Beyond New Atheism? | Caspar Melville | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Caspar Melville
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 September 2010 15.38 BST

Today I have been defending New Atheism in the morning, and will be attacking it in the evening. At 9am, I debated the Christian theologian Alister McGrath, author of the wittily titled Dawkins Delusion and critic of New Atheism, on Christian Premier Radio. You can bet I swotted up on my Dawkins and Hitchens for that. But at 6pm at the Royal Society of the Arts the magazine I edit, New Humanist, will be hosting a debate called "After New Atheism: where next for the God debate" where the panellists – award-winning novelist Marilynne Robinson, conservative philosopher Roger Scruton, historian Jonathan Rée, the whole thing chaired by Laurie Taylor – will be invited to consider how we can move beyond the crude and simplistic perspective on religion popularised by New Atheism.

Does this make me a hypocrite? I'm going to say "no", though I would wouldn't I? The fact that I can both defend and attack it represents my ambivalence about the phenomenon of New Atheism, or more precisely my certainty that New Atheism is very good at some things and bad at others. For the purposes of what follows I use New Atheism as a somewhat baggy but, I think, useful shorthand for the trenchant anti-religion polemics of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett (though he is more scientific and more polite) and AC Grayling, plus a few others.

One thing it's certainly good at is generating interest: speaking as a professional godless editor, New Atheism has been very good for business. Hundreds of column inches have been generated by New Atheism and responses to it – not least in my magazine – and, if at times the debate has all the subtlety of It's A Knockout, it has also been educative, instructive and popular, in the important sense that it has been conducted in a language that most people can understand. It's sold a lot of books, too.

New Atheism is also good at answering back to particular kinds of arguments. The origins of the New Atheists' impulse, according to philosopher Richard Norman, lie in 9/11 and the reappearance of a particularly aggressive strain of Christian religious fundamentalism. If, as Norman also argues, New Atheism can be over-generalising and crude in its response to religion, this is because it is a response to crude and nonspecific articulations of religiosity – what could be less specific than bombing a skyscraper, or cruder than Biblical creationism?

In the light of this, irascible, rhetorically florid, sweeping, intellectually arrogant New Atheism certainly has its place – some arguments are just asking for it. Perhaps the classic New Atheist quote is Dawkins's response to those who accuse him of dismissing theology from a position of ignorance: "Look," he told Laurie Taylor, "somebody who thinks the way I do doesn't think theology is a subject at all. So to me it is like someone saying they don't believe in fairies and then being asked how they know if they haven't studied fairy-ology."

There is a crisp logic here. I agree with Dawkins. But in another interview, this time with a fierce critic of New Atheism, Terry Eagleton says: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology." Put this way, Eagleton seems right. I agree with him, too.

Because entertainment value aside it is surely false, as well as politically unwise and, well, pretty impolite, to say that "all theology" is irrelevant (some of it is moral reasoning, isn't it?), still worse to say that "religion poisons everything", or that without religion there would be no war, or that bringing a child up within a faith is tantamount to child abuse, or that moderate religious believers are worse than fundamentalists because they prepare the ground for extremism, or that "all" religion is this, or that, or "all" faith is misguided, or to suggest that those who believe in God are basically stupid, or that science, and only science, can answer our questions.

The picture of religion that emerges from New Atheism is a caricature and both misrepresents and underestimates its real character. "Religion," Richard Norman writes "is a human creation … a mirror which humanity holds up to itself and in which it sees itself reflected. Human beings attribute to their gods all their own human qualities – cruelty revenge and hatred, but also love and compassion and mercy. That's why you can find a justification for anything, good or bad, in religion."

This may be less fun than denouncing the pope and all his works, but it's closer to reality. For Norman, as a humanist, the requirement is to be less strident so as to create alliances with moderate religionists on specific topics – faith schools, fundamentalism, terrorism – of concern to all. I second that, but I have a more base reason for wanting to move beyond New Atheism. I'm bored, and I fear my readers are becoming so too.

So the purpose of this evening's event is to see if we can find a mode of inquiry into religion, faith, belief and non-belief, more consistent with William than with Jesse James.

It might be that we will map out a new, specific, patient and subtle future for the God debate. But let's be clear, no matter where we decide to go we wouldn't be where we are now if we hadn't had five good years of irascible, impatient, blunt, godless discourse – New Atheism – to leave behind.

Showbiz - News - Maher: 'Emmys will never honour atheists' - Digital Spy

Showbiz - News - Maher: 'Emmys will never honour atheists' - Digital Spy

Comedian Bill Maher has said that he has never won an Emmy award because he is an "outspoken atheist".

The Real Time With Bill Maher host asserted that awards committees will never acknowledge him because he made the documentary Religulous that openly challenged organised religion, according to Reuters.

"A panel of, like, ten people watches one tape. If half of those people are religious, that probably eliminates me right there," he said. "A lot of people wouldn't vote for such an outspoken atheist, someone who made Religulous."

Maher also stated that he plans to continue to criticise religion on his talkshow, but he will not release a new documentary on the subject.

He explained: "I have no desire to make another [documentary]. I had one subject that I wanted to paint on a bigger canvas than I could in television and in a place that would live in a more permanent way.

"It took me ten years to finally get a studio crazy enough to make the movie and the right director, and having made it I feel I have harpooned my Moby Dick."

Thoughts? As the Emmys are an American thing this wouldn't surprise me. Then again maybe Maher is just looking for an excuse as to why he didn't win.

The Associated Press: Atheist billboard provokes Oklahoman Christians

The Associated Press: Atheist billboard provokes Oklahoman Christians

By SEAN MURPHY (AP) – 4 days ago
OKLAHOMA CITY — Atheists in Oklahoma City have erected a billboard seeking fellow non-believers, and Satanists have scheduled a conference in a city-owned building, drawing criticism from ministers in a state where more than eight out of 10 people say they are Christians.
"It's not a question of 'Can you?' It's a question of 'Should you?'" said Dan Fisher, pastor of the Trinity Baptist Church in Yukon. "It's kind of like they're poking a finger in your eye."
Nick Singer, the coordinator of a local atheists' group called "Coalition of Reason," recently received $5,250 from its national counterpart to erect the billboard along Interstate 44 near the Oklahoma State Fair, which opens Wednesday. Its message reads, "Don't believe in God? Join the club."
Similar billboards were recently put up in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Texas and Washington.
"The billboard was designed to get a little bit of a response, but it's not meant to be directly insulting," Singer said. "It's just a sign to like-minded people that we are here."
Oklahoma wears its religion on its sleeves.
Around the holidays, owners of downtown skyscrapers leave on nighttime lights in the pattern of a cross, which across the flat landscape can be seen for miles. The Ten Commandments were on display at a courthouse lawn in northeast Oklahoma until a federal judge ordered it removed, and a move is afoot to erect a similar monument at the state Capitol.
Legislators pray in their chambers, led by a "minister of the day," usually Christian. The Oklahoma City Thunder is one of the few NBA teams to begin each contest after a non-denominational prayer delivered by a minister on the public address system.
One state lawmaker wants to change the state's motto from "Labor omnia vincit" — Latin for "Labor conquers all" — to "In God we trust."
Oklahoma also has various "God" billboards that purport to pose questions and observations from the Almighty, like: "You think it's hot here?" and "What part of 'Thou shalt not ...' didn't you understand?" and "Life is short. Eternity isn't."
That campaign was funded by an anonymous donor in 1998 and later expanded as part of a public service campaign of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, an industry trade group.
No one has questioned the constitutional right of atheists to erect a billboard or Satanists to rent a public hall, but there are questions about how much of a crowd they'll draw.
"People here, the vast majority, still hold a regard for scripture and traditional biblical values," said Paul Blair, pastor of the Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond. "If liberalism, if the Devil himself, can make inroads in Oklahoma, that would be a great victory (for them) to be trumpeted across the land."
Oklahoma ranks eighth in the nation for percentage of residents who self-identify themselves as Christians (85 percent), according to an analysis of the 2008 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life. Mississippi ranked first, at 92 percent, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives, which analyzed the Pew Center's data.
Ryan Dragg, 35, of Norman said he wasn't offended by the billboard.
"I just blew it off," Dragg said. "That's what's great about this country. You've got an idea, you can express it."
Some religious leaders had other issues on their minds.
"It's not the people who don't believe in God that worry me," said Robin Meyers, senior minister at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City and a professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. "It's some of the people who do.
"Fundamentalism is the enemy worldwide, no matter what the strain."
The Satanists, calling themselves the Church of the IV Majesties, have reserved a room at the Oklahoma City Civic Center for a "blasphemy ritual," said James Hale, a founding member.
"I guess you could say we're poking a dog with a stick. That's the point of Satanism — to question all things," Hale said.
Singer, from the atheists' group, said his group has no connection to the Satanists.
"As far as Satan goes, we don't believe in him either," he said.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Creationists seek to insert their own brand of 'truth' into education | Paul Sims | Science | guardian.co.uk

Creationists seek to insert their own brand of 'truth' into education | Paul Sims | Science | guardian.co.uk

Thirty reasons why man is not descended from apes may seem an unlikely thing for children to learn on an educational school trip. But that's just one of the treats in store at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm, a creationist establishment near Bristol which was recently awarded a "quality badge" by the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom.

The council's deputy chief executive, Elaine Skates, defended the decision by saying she believed that "an important aim of learning outside the classroom is allowing children and young people access to education that challenges assumptions and allows them to experience a range of viewpoints."

What Skates is endorsing here, though probably unwittingly, is a notion known as "teach the controversy". The term was coined by the Discovery Institute, America's most notorious creationist organisation, as a means of arguing for the teaching of Biblical creation alongside evolution in US schools.

Operating ostensibly from the principle of free speech, its proponents argue that the purpose of education is to allow children to reach their own conclusions, as though there are no facts, and all knowledge is subjective.

Perhaps it sounds reasonable to be open-minded. But those arguing for "teach the controversy" in this area do so disingenuously – it's a convenient way of inserting their own brand of "truth" into education.

There are controversies in all disciplines, including science. But the scientific "controversies" covered by the teach-the-controversy brigade tend to highlight problems that don't actually exist. Just look at the examples provided by Answers in Genesis, a website run by Ken Ham who is also founder of Kentucky's Creation Museum. Here you can learn why the Earth is 6,000 years old, or why "dinosaurs make perfect sense in light of the biblical history of creation and the Flood".

Away from creationism and intelligent design, the main area in which "teach the controversy" has been invoked is climate change, with conservatives in some US states campaigning for children to be taught alternative explanations to anthropogenic global warming. There is even evidence of creationists adding climate change to their list of controversies, in order to create the impression that their concern is not with religion, but with the balanced teaching of science in general.

We're used to hearing about these things happening across the Atlantic, but "teach the controversy" appears to be making inroads in the UK. The decision to award Noah's Ark Zoo the "quality badge" was welcomed by no less a figure than Ann Widdecombe, who used her weekly Daily Express column to accuse critics of the zoo, particularly the British Humanist Association, of stifling free speech. "The British Humanist Association does not believe that children should be allowed even to discuss creation or to be exposed to any evidence that might support it," she said.

But what "evidence" for Biblical creation might children observe at Noah's Ark? Having spent a delightful summer's day there last year, I can confirm it's a lovely zoo – there are tigers and giraffes, a petting zoo for the really little ones and lots of fun slides in the picnic area. But try and learn anything about natural history, and things become less straightforward. Ever wondered why birds sing? To "praise their maker", of course. How about why rhinos are practically bald? "It is likely that God's earliest design for the rhino had both nose horns and hair, but these were lost in some species later." Stroll over to the "Noah's Ark Exhibition", which contains a "scale model" of the ark, and things take a turn for the sinister – "All the people in the world come from Noah's sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. Caucasian from Japheth, Semitic from Shem, and Negroid/Mongoloid/Redskin from Ham." It's everything you need for a school trip – fluffy animals, slides and creationist racial theory.

In his recent documentary, Faith School Menace?, Richard Dawkins
witnessed the effects of "teach the controversy" first hand, meeting a class of 15-year-olds at a Muslim faith school who all believed evolution to be false. Writing on Comment is Free the day after the documentary was broadcast, Erfana Bora, a science teacher at an Islamic school in Leicester, suggested this isn't a problem – in faith schools like hers, students learn one perspective in science lessons and the other in religious studies, and then "literally make their own minds up as to what they believe". It makes for an inquisitive class too, with pupils approaching Bora with questions like "Do humans really share a common ancestor with apes?" She didn't say how she answers this question – does she tell them yes, or does she say that while scientists would say yes, Qur'anic scholars (who the pupils are used to seeing as authority figures) would say no?

Proponents of teach the controversy would have us believe that this is the purpose of education – to allow children to think for themselves, it is necessary to teach them things that aren't true alongside things that are. But if a child leaves school thinking that humans don't share a common ancestor with other apes, isn't the truth just that the education system failed them?

Paul Sims is the news editor of New Humanist magazine and blogs at
blog.newhumanist.org.uk

Science is not about using evidence to present different opinions. It's about presenting the evidence as it is. Nothing more.

The passion of Nate Phelps | Troy Media Corporation

The passion of Nate Phelps | Troy Media Corporation

From Chris Bowerman:

Nate Phelps balked at the opportunity to run the Calgary chapter of the pan-global, multidisciplinary Centre For Inquiry, a charity that posits itself as a “hub for rationality and critical inquiry worldwide.”
After all, he was a cab driver. He didn’t know how to run a professional institution on the provincial level, let alone direct its unorthodox coterie of secular humanists, atheists, naturalists, pagan dissenters and garden-variety infidels.
But since his own family had already condemned him, what did he have to lose?
Phelps took the executive director post this spring. Taking his newfound mission seriously, he said his job is to “interact with a diverse group of people, engage in debate over issues I’m passionate about, and try to understand ideas I would otherwise never encounter.”
Emancipated from hateful Phelps clan
Phelps was emancipated some 30 years ago from the notoriously hateful Phelps clan.
His father, “Pastor Fred,” leads the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., known for its varied slogans, such as “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for 9/11.” Fred’s fanatic followers also picket and hector mourners at military repatriation ceremonies.
Nate escaped these foul clutches when he turned 18; two of his 12 siblings also made it out, but the others stayed.
Phelps moved to Canada
Free at last, Phelps traveled west, eventually winding up in Canada. Although distanced from the tyranny of his father’s hell-and-brimstone religiosity, he still suffers the psychological trauma of his brutal childhood indoctrination.
But he finds that talking about it allows him to gain new insight. “l’ve learned that by being more active and outspoken, I’m a tiny bit more in control of my life,” he explains. “Every day that I’m able to successfully combat the tapes in my head – to use my capacity to reason through an issue – I feel like I’ve succeeded at defying the hatefulness I was taught to embrace.”
Which securely places him on the CFI’s stated mission: “To foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.”
The CFI challenges the kind of power-brokering imbued with mythology, largely supporting the separation of church and state; it’s opposed to the “principles that recognize the supremacy of God,” as the preamble goes in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms – the country’s moral bedrock, if it has one.
Somewhere between a modern-day Rosa Parks and a multinational buttinsky, the organization deserves a seat on the human-rights bus.
Science, reason and religious ideology
“A large percentage of Canadians still embrace some form of belief in God,” Phelps says. “By and large, science and reason are viewed as adversarial to religious ideology, and rightly so. The inability to separate the positive aspects of religion – such as charity and kindness toward fellow citizens – and the mythological components creates this constant tension between the secular perspective and religious groups.”
As Phelps sees it, “It’s a war of words between secularists and monotheists, both feeling disobliged and spiritually offended by the other.”
But words are OK, Phelps says. “Public discourse is important in all instances,” he adds, “because it shines light on human ideas and exposes them to consideration and, ultimately, acceptance or rejection by society.”
Secularism’s neutral position
Secularism, in theory, is a neutral position. The CFI can’t rightly say that it always maintains that ideal, but it does avidly promote civil discourse. Even in the most fixed dichotomies, human rights, controversy and debate often catalyze social progress. In the atheism-monotheism divide, says Phelps, both sides are heard, equanimous, and, perhaps more often than not, agreeable to disagreement.
Using dogma to justify hate
Theistic groups such as the Catholic Civil Rights League adhere to “Sacred Scripture,” allowing them free religious expression – but the parameters are vague.
Where does free speech cross the line into hate speech, Phelps wonders? “This is a very difficult area for me,” he goes on, “having grown up in America, where freedom of religion is sacrosanct. The overarching notion of hate speech speaks to the direct connection between the words and violence perpetrated on an individual or group. Of course, this extreme is rarely realized.”
In America, any notion of restraint in speaking one’s religious convictions is aggressively challenged, says Phelps. “A primary argument against restraining speech is the slippery slope. Too often, people use their dogma to justify hatred of another individual or group. This is abhorrent because it gives individuals the right to express hatred without taking personal responsibility for it.”
Could godless nonbelievers – infidels – become a prime new target for human-rights discrimination?
In The God Delusion, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins writes: “The status of atheists in America today is on par with that of homosexuals fifty years ago.”
Phelps carefully considers these notions in the context of rural Wyoming, circa 1998, and a 21-year-old gay man named Matthew Shepherd. Shepherd was tortured and bludgeoned to death by two teenage homophobes.
The case ultimately galvanized lawmakers, after bringing state, federal, and international attention to the issue of hate crime. Shepherd’s funeral, sadly, was picketed by Phelps’ estranged father, Pastor Fred, with his vile placards.
“There is certainly a thread of conversation within the extreme religious groups that argues the idea that atheists are satanic and represent a threat to God and country,” says Phelps. “That perception is an uphill battle for mainstream nonbelievers – but I don’t see the fundamentalist fervor that is visited on gays translating over to the atheist community.”
As Phelps sees it, atheists struggle with social alienation and unfair characterizations of immorality, not loss of life. “I just don’t see the extremists beating an atheist and leaving him to die, hanging on a fence in rural Alberta,” he says.
“God willing,” he adds, borrowing a phrase from his past.