Atheist Ireland’s 25 blasphemous quotes

From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we in Atheist Ireland begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

Publication of 25 blasphemous quotes

In this context we now publish a list of 25 blasphemous quotes, which have previously been published by or uttered by or attributed to Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Mark Twain, Tom Lehrer, Randy Newman, James Kirkup, Monty Python, Rev Ian Paisley, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Frank Zappa, Salman Rushdie, Bjork, Amanda Donohoe, George Carlin, Paul Woodfull, Jerry Springer the Opera, Tim Minchin, Richard Dawkins, Pope Benedict XVI, Christopher Hitchens, PZ Myers, Ian O’Doherty, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Dermot Ahern.

Despite these quotes being abusive and insulting in relation to matters held sacred by various religions, we unreservedly support the right of these people to have published or uttered them, and we unreservedly support the right of any Irish citizen to make comparable statements about matters held sacred by any religion without fear of being criminalised, and without having to prove to a court that a reasonable person would find any particular value in the statement.

Campaign begins to repeal the Irish blasphemy law

We ask Fianna Fail and the Green Party to repeal their anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act that is included within the Act. We ask them to hold a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution.

We also ask all TDs and Senators to support a referendum to remove references to God from the Irish Constitution, including the clauses that prevent atheists from being appointed as President of Ireland or as a Judge without swearing a religious oath asking God to direct them in their work.

If you run a website, blog or other media publication, please feel free to republish this statement and the list of quotes yourself, in order to show your support for the campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law and to promote a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.

List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

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Trailer for video on new Irish Blasphemy law

This is a two-minute trailer for a ten-minute video about the new Irish blasphemy law, produced by Baz Grant of Atheist Ireland. The full video will be released next month, when Justice Minister Dermot Ahern plans to sign the commencement order for the law.

All of the lines spoken by the actors (Yvonne Usher and Angelica Grant) are direct quotes from the politicians involved in the blasphemy debate, going back to Eamon DeValera in 1937.

The trailer has been entered in the Darklight ‘Democracy and Dialogue’ viral video competition 2009. 25% of the marks go for the amount of views the trailer gets on youtube, so please feel free to ‘pass it on’.

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Christian church promotes gay rights

A Christian Church in Texas has launched a public billboard campaign in support of gay rights.

The slogan is Would Jesus Discriminate? and it is run by five of the worldwide Metropolitan Community Churches. And the Rev Dr Cindi Love has published a book of the same title.

I believe that atheist and humanist groups should be working with religious groups like these to promote an ethical and secular society.

The billboards will be displayed in north Texas throughout September, and their use of scripture has already been challenged by other Texas Christians. One local baptist Pastor, Sam Dennis, while agreeing that Christians shouldn’t hate gay people, told CBS: “I’m hard pressed to find that scripture advocates that it’s alright to live in a gay lifestyle.”

Bizarrely, he felt the need to add: “Just like I’m hard pressed to find that scripture advocates that’s it’s alright to live in an adulterous relationship or as a wife abuser or as a murderer.” So that’s the collective category in which Rev Dennis places gay people in his mind: alongside adulterers, wife abusers and murderers.

The first Metropolitan Community Church was founded in 1968 in Los Angeles, as the world’s first church group with a primary, positive ministry to gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender persons. The Churches now have over 40,000 members in 22 countries.

The Would Jesus Discriminate? campaign is organised in several American States as well as in the UK and Australia. You can download campaign materials from their website.

The campaign asks Christians to consider, “What if we are wrong about the issue of gay people’s place in society and in our churches? What if we offered them full citizenship and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? How would our country improve if we simply stopped oppressing at least ten percent of our best and brightest people?”

The Metropolitan Community Churches also support initiatives like next year’s Soulforce Q Equality Ride in which young adults travel around America to illuminate the damaging consequences of discriminatory religious doctrine through non-violent resistance.

And here is a speech by Rev Candy Holmes, a lesbian clergywoman with Metropolitan Community Churches, giving testimony to a US Congress Committee in support of domestic partnership benefits and obligations.

My question is, what are the possibilities for formal campaigns on secular and equality issues, organised jointly by atheist and humanist groups and Christian groups like these? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How could such campaigns work in practice?

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Campaign to repeal new blasphemy law

Today the Irish President, Mary McAleese, signed into law the Defamation Act that includes the newly-defined crime of blasphemy. This law will become operable when the Minister for Justice signs an order making it so.

Atheist Ireland will now campaign for the repeal of this anachronistic and dangerous blasphemy law, and for a referendum to remove the blasphemy reference from the Irish Constitution, as part of our wider campaign for an ethical and secular Ireland.

We call on the Minister for Justice to delay signing the order that would make the blasphemy sections of the Defamation Act operable, until such time as a referendum can be held to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Constitution.

Ministerial Order

The Minister has the power to sign different provisions of the Act into law at different times.

He has already said that he does not want blasphemy to be illegal. He repeatedly told the Oireachtas that he only included the blasphemy sections into the Defamation Act because he was advised that he was constitutionally obliged to do so, and that to not do so would result in him having to withdraw the entire Defamation Bill.

The Minister has now satisfied the obligation that he stated himself to be under, and he has also succeeded in his more important stated aim of passing the Defamation Act. He should now delay making operable the sections of the Act that he says he does not want to be illegal, and give the Irish people the opportunity to address the issue by referendum.

Constitutional Issues

A citizen charged with blasphemy can still challenge the constitutionality of this law.

• It is inconsistent with the guarantees in our Constitution of freedom of equality, freedom of conscience and religion and freedom from religious discrimination.
• It reverses the burden of proof to the defendant in a criminal trial, and it does not meet the standard of prevention of public disorder that made the old English blasphemy law compatible with the European Convention of Human Rights.
• The definitions in the law are too vague to allow citizens to regulate their conduct, and it could make it unlawful for a religious citizen to inform his co-religionists about a statement he believes to be blasphemous.

Original Concerns

As well as the constitutional issues, our original concerns with this law still remain.

• It does not protect religious belief; it incentivizes outrage and it criminalises free speech. Instead of incentivizing outrage, we should be educating people to respond in a more healthy manner than outrage when somebody expresses a belief that they find insulting.
• It treats religious beliefs as more valuable than secular beliefs and scientific thinking. There is no equivalent of a blasphemy law for scientific ideas. We should respect people as individuals, but beliefs as abstract ideas should always be open to scrutiny and challenge.
• We should be removing 1930s religious references from the Irish Constitution, not legislating to enforce them. For example, conscientious Irish atheists are precluded from becoming President or judges because of the religious oath in the constitution.

Today we begin our campaign for the repeal of this law, as part of our wider campaign for an ethical and secular Ireland.

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New campaign website at Blasphemy.ie

Do you want to stop the Irish government from reviving the medieval crime of blasphemy? Do you want to promote a rational, ethical and secular society in Ireland?

Atheist Ireland has put a campaign website online at http://blasphemy.ie as part of our campaign against this proposed new law. 

It includes analysis and news items about blasphemy and free speech, and examples of material that could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed. 

Please let people know about http://blasphemy.ie, and we can intensify this important campaign over the coming weeks.

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Debate – is God fraud?

There is no creator god, and no supernatural moral guide and lawgiver. I recently took part in a debate in University College Cork on the theme God is Fraud. You can see the contributions of the British humanist philosopher and author Peter Cave, and of the Irish religious correspondent and author TP O’Mahony, on the Atheist Ireland YouTube channel. Here is the text of my contribution:

Thank you for inviting me, and it is a pleasure to be here. I would like to start with a repudiation of Pascal’s wager by the great theologian Homer Simpson, who, when Marge was trying to get him to go to mass, replied “but what if we’ve picked the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder.”

I am going to suggest this evening that the ideas of God as an intervening personal supernatural being, and God as a moral guide and lawgiver, are both false. And I am going to suggest that the ideas of God as a personal commitment to unconditional love and goodness, and God as an impersonal force, are separate ideas that need to be disentangled from the first two false ideas.

God as a supernatural being

Let’s start with the false idea of God as an intervening supernatural being.

I’m including in this all of the supernatural claims attributed to God, from creating the world out of nothing, to impregnating a virgin in order to give birth to himself, to answering or ignoring millions of prayers every day, to turning pieces of bread and volumes of wine into his own body and blood every time a validly ordained priest of the human species on the planet Earth chooses to pronounce a certain set of words.

This type of thinking exists in the same intellectual realm as magic and superstition and witchcraft and sorcery. Last year the Pope announced a special promotional offer: if you visited Lourdes during 2008, you would get a free ‘plenary indulgence’ which would give you early release from a place called Purgatory after you die, and this would get you to a place called Heaven faster.

In any other field, making claims like this, particularly claims aimed at sick and vulnerable people, would be clearly seen as fraudulent. And I suggest that we should apply the same criteria to fraudulent claims about Gods.

God as a moral guide

Now let’s look at the second false idea, which is that of God as a moral guide

Wherever we get our morality, we do not get it from books like the Bible and the Koran, regardless of whether we read these books literally or metaphorically.

Here’s what happens what we read these books. When we see passages telling us that it is good to love your neighbour as yourself, and to be kind and forgiving to each other, or we read the story of the good Samaritan, we say: yes, those are morally good ideas.

When we see passages telling us that it is good to stone a man to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, or to stone a woman to death for not being a virgin on her wedding night, or to kill Babylonian infants by dashing them against rocks, we say: no, those are morally bad ideas.

Let’s be clear about what is happening here. In each case, we are applying our own sense of morality to the passages that we read in this book, and not the other way around. At best, you can use the supposed words of God, to selectively vindicate your already-existing sense of right and wrong, but not to get your sense of right and wrong.

God as a personal commitment

Thirdly, I want to look at the idea of God as a personal commitment.

To contextualise this, in recent centuries, at least in the western world, science has weakened the idea of God as a supernatural being, and secular democracy has weakened the idea of God as a moral guide. And so today there is a greater emphasis on the idea of God as a personal commitment to universal values such as unconditional love and goodness, as reflected in ultimate reality.

This can be a useful belief. It can give a sense of meaning and hope. And it can lead to helpful behaviour such as people being kind to each other. But the problem is that this useful idea has become entangled with the first two false ideas of God. So, in order to manifest your personal commitment to unconditional love and goodness, you have to reconcile it with the creation myths and underdeveloped morality of Bronze Age and Iron Age tribes.

And so you end up with tragic situations like Mother Teresa, the world’s most famous closet atheist, who we now know spent the last fifty years of her life in continual inner torment because she did not believe in God, yet also fervently believed that she had to believe in God in order to manifest her personal commitment to unconditional love and goodness.

She wrote regularly to her superiors, asking them for advice, but all that they could tell her was to offer her spiritual dryness to God as a special gift. Whereas they could and should have been able to say: you know about Adam and Eve and the talking snake and the burning Bush and the flood, and how we now recognize that these are all only metaphors? Well, the same is true about God. God is also a metaphor. He doesn’t really exist. Now continue on with the good work that you are doing in helping sick and vulnerable people.

God as an impersonal force

Finally, I want to look at the idea of God as an impersonal force.

This is a very different idea to any of the first three ideas of God. At its broadest, this idea can be that the universe and the laws of nature are God. This idea is harmless in itself. But it creates an illusion that there is greater support for the idea of a personal God, because it uses the same label to describe a very different idea.

For example, surveys show that approximately nine in every ten Americans and Europeans believe in God. But when you go beneath this question, you find that only two thirds of Americans, and just over half of Europeans, believe in a personal God. So, for the sake of clarity, we should stop attaching the label God to the very different idea of an impersonal force.

Conclusion

I want to close by saying that I am not suggesting that people who believe in these ideas are themselves fraudulent. There is no doubt that the Bible itself has been deliberately and fraudulently altered over the centuries. There is even a word for this: pious fraud. But false ideas of God are usually spread more like a pyramid scheme, with innocent people unwittingly passing on false ideas to other innocent people.

However, underneath that, I want to make the following suggestion: if you make claims about the nature of reality, particularly if you make unlikely claims about the nature of reality; and if you encourage other people to change their behaviour, or indeed change their lives, based on those claims; then you take on the onus of proof that the claims can deliver what they are promising.

Otherwise, the claims are fraudulent. And so I second the motion that God is fraud.

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Atheist Ireland first radio interview

Soon after Atheist Ireland was founded, I was a guest of Simon Maher (pictured here) on the Dublin radio station Phantom 105.2 FM, where we discussed atheism in Ireland, in the context of the UK atheist bus adverts, and the formation of Atheist Ireland.

Here’s a recording of the interview, and a complete transcript.

Recording

You can listen to the interview here.

Atheists in Ireland

Simon Maher: We were talking last week about the atheist bus campaign in England, where there are advertising posters saying ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’ And it got us talking generally about religion and atheism, and we said let’s try and apply it to an Irish context. And luckily enough there is a man called Michael Nugent who is a well known blogger at michaelnugent.com, where he writes about happiness, atheism and life, and a man who we’ve tallked to before here on Phantom Daily, and he joins us here in the studio. Good afternoon, Michael. Good to have you with us in the studio today.

Michael Nugent: Good afternoon. It’s nice to be here enjoying life and not worrying.

SM: Good. That’s a good start. I suppose the question we asked people when we talked about the feature last week was how the poster campaign might go down if it was to happen on buses trundling around the streets of Dublin?

MN: Well, I think there’s an awful lot of people in Ireland who aren’t particularly religious. We don’t go about shouting about it a lot, despite the temptation to do so given the way that non-religious people are treated by default here. But if you look at the last census, there are almost 190,000 people who said that they had no religion. And then there’s another 60,000 people who didn’t answer the question. So you have about a quarter of a million people who either said they have no religion or else didn’t answer the question. That’s quite a sizable minority.

SM: I was going to say, it is. A quarter of a million people in a population of 4.2 million or 4.3 million there or therabouts.

MN: Yes, technically, it’s the second largest grouping after Roman Catholics.

Atheists and Reason

SM: And when it comes to something like this, to give people a bit of background on atheism in general, its very much based on the idea of facts and evidence and reason, isn’t it?

MN: It is. Well, at it’s simplest, it’s either one or other of two things. It’s either saying that there’s no god, or else not saying that there is a god. And they’re both particularly unremarkable claims. You know, if I said that I don’t have five heads, it’s not a particularly remarkable thing to say. Equally, saying that there are no supernatural beings intervening in our lives and creating the universe, that isn’t particularly remarkable.

The default position is that rational thinking makes several things more likely. It makes enquiry more likely, in terms of trying to find out rationally what is true. It makes empathy more likely, in that people are going to treat each other as fellow human beings rather than being told what to do by deities, and it makes equality more likely, in that you’re going to have a secular society that’s based on respect for everybody rather than on rules that are handed down by a book that was written several thousand years ago.

SM: I don’t think anybody would disagree with any of that, but the idea of needing rational explanations for everything… you know, there’s a lot of things that go on in our lives. And we were talking before about the idea of love and marriage, which is probably one of the more irrational things that happen in our lives. Do we need a rational explanation for everything?

MN: It’s not so much that we need a rational explanation. It’s just that, whatever explanation that we come up with, we come up with by discussing it among ourselves. And we decide as natural beings, well, this is what love means to us, or this is what humour means to us… that’s all that it is, really. It’s not dictating what your ethics should be, or what love is. It’s just saying that it comes from within us, that it isn’t dictated to us by an imaginary being who wrote a book two thousand years ago.

The Atheist Bus Ads

SM: Right. And if we did see, let’s just say, the campaign that’s running now in the UK with ‘There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.’ If those buses did start chugging down O’Connell Street, do you think that people would have a problem with the idea of it, or would have a problem with the wording of it?

MN: Well, I’ll put it to you this way. As you know, there is a complaint in England about it. If people did have a complaint about it on the basis that you can’t prove there is no god, they should equally have much more complaints with promotions of the idea that there is a god, because the evidence certainly, in all probability, is leaning towards there not being a god.

If you take for example, it’s not technically an ad, but last year there was an ad banned by the Advertising Standards Authurity for slimming pills. And it was banned on the basis that the company couldn’t substantiate its claim that it would soak up fat from your food, and so on. Now, the reason I remember that particularly is that, on the same day that ban was announced, the Pope was announcing an even more unsubstantiatable special offer, which was that if you visited Lourdes with a year, you would get time off from Purgatory, and you would get to Heaven earlier, when you die. Now, on any basis, those types of claims are far more unsubstantiatable than the unremarkable claim that the world is, broadly speaking, as it seems to be.

Atheists and Faith

SM: Right. And when it comes to atheism, and the idea of proving – and once again, we are back to our rationality once again – if in a hypothethical situation, someone was to come along and present evidence, that an atheist was to find convincing, of something, in this case, the existence of god… that’s a large part of atheism, that you’re willing to accept that evidence then.

MN: Sure. Exactly. And, you know, whatever is true is true. We don’t know what it is. We’re not claiming that we know certainly what it is. All that we’re saying is that, on the basis of the evidence we have so far, we’re living beings, that live in a natural world, that is part of a natural universe. And it is up to us to figure out the nature of the reality that we live in, and to figure out how best to live together, and how to treat each other, and how to be kind to each other, and to have a society built on those values.

SM: And when it comes to the idea, then, of faith, obviously people themselves have an idea, they have an notion in their head. And if they take comfort from the fact that they have faith or belief, they may not perhaps be able to rationally explain to you… is that something that is maybe missing from atheism? Or is it something of an alien concept to you, the idea that you have faith in something yet it doesn’t necessarily have a rational explanation.

MN: No. Well, you don’t necessarily have to be able to explain everything. You know, there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘I don’t know.’ I mean, we can’t know everything. There are things that, centuries ago, people didn’t know that we now know. And there are things that we don’t know now, that in a couple of centuries time, people will know. At any given time, there are things we don’t know. And some people, in any given generation, happen to call those things God, and say God did it.

Atheist Ireland

SM: Right. And you yourself, and some like-minded individuals, have now got involved in the Atheist Ireland project.

MN: Yes, it’s a group that we’ve started off with a meeting last month, and we’re going to be formally launching it soon. It arose out of a website called Atheist.ie, which is a discussion forum where people can discuss atheist related issues in Ireland. And we have now formally started an organisation called Atheist Ireland, and its aim… we have two aims. One is to promote atheism and reason over superstition and supernaturalism. And the second aim is to promote a rational, ethical and secular Ireland where the state does not support or fund or give special treatment to any religion.

And arising from that, the tpe of things we are going to be looking at initially are promoting a secular Irish Constitution… currently our Constitution starts off by saying that all authority comes from the Holy Trinity and that we humbly acknowledge our obligations to our Divine Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, it’s quite fine for people to do that, but it shouldn’t be in the Constitution.

And there are some extraordinary claims in the Constitution, such as ‘The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God’. That’s not actually a defence of the right of people to worship God. That’s a defence of the right of this God to be worshipped. We’re placing the rights of the Gods within our Constitution. And it may sound like it’s just picking holes, but there are cases where fundamental rights have been interpreted on the basis that we have a Christian Constitution, so they have to be interpreted that way.

So the Constitution is one thing, and the second main thing that we are looking at is the education system, and the need to have a secular education system where people can be taught rationally. And they can learn whatever religion that they want from their religions, but not from the education system.

Conclusion

SM: Very good. Well, if people want more details, they can go to the website, Atheist.ie.

MN: And they can get involved either in discussions, or indeed get involved in the preparations for the launch of the organisation, by going to Atheist.ie and just getting involved in the chat generally there.

SM: Michael, thanks very much for coming in and talking to us.

MN: Simon, you’re welcome.

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Welcome to Atheist Ireland

I had the honour last Sunday of being elected the first chairperson of Atheist Ireland, which is Ireland’s first atheist advocacy group. Our mission to provide a platform for people who wish to work together to build a rational, ethical and secular society free from superstition and supernaturalism.

We have two aims. One, to promote atheism and reason over superstition and supernaturalism. And two, to promote an ethical and secular Ireland where the State does not support or fund or give special treatment to any religion.

Our priority goals include promoting our aims, initially to Irish people of no religion, and campaigning for a secular Irish Constitution and a secular Irish education system.

We will be launching the group formally in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we would welcome any help or interest from people with relevant experience. If you want to find out more or get involved, please visit the discussion forum at www.atheist.ie, which is the website that brought together the friendly and committed group of people who have founded Atheist Ireland.

Meanwhile, here is some background on three of our immediate goals:

Promoting Atheism and Reason

Many people define atheism in different ways, and most atheists also share common values that arise from our belief that we are natural beings living a natural world. We will promote a greater understanding of atheism in Ireland, and of the benefits of reason and science and evidence over superstition and supernaturalism. We will do this through debate, publications and networking with relevant groups.

At first, we will focus our attention on Irish people of no religion. In the 2006 Irish census, there were almost 190,000 of these. And another 70,000 did not answer the question about religion. That is over a quarter of a million people, more than 6% of the population, and considerably more than 6% of the adult population as most children are likely to have been included under the religion of their parents.

Promoting a Secular Irish Constitution

The preamble to the Irish Constitution states that all authority of both men and States comes from “the Most Holy Trinity”, and that the people of Ireland humbly acknowledge our obligations to “our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ”. Actually, all authority (in the sense of legitimate power) comes from agreed relationships between people, and not from any gods that some of those people imagine to exist.

Article 44 begins with an extraordinary claim: “The State acknowledges that the homage of public worship is due to Almighty God.” This is not a guarantee of the right of Irish citizens to worship a god, but of the right of this god to be worshipped by Irish citizens. The next line—the State “shall hold His Name in reverence, and shall respect and honour religion”—also protects the rights of this god, not the rights of Irish citizens. And the State’s respect for religion flows from the rights of this god to be revered, not from the rights of its citizens to revere it.

Articles 12, 31 and 34 prescribe religious oaths in which the President, Councillors of State and Judges must ask God to direct and sustain them. Article 40 makes blasphemy an offence. Partly because of these references in our Constitution, the courts have found that certain personal rights of Irish citizens “flow from the Christian and democratic nature of the State”.

Promoting a Secular Education System

We believe that children should to be educated on an equal basis, regardless of the religious beliefs of their parents. As an overall aim, the State should own at least a majority of Irish schools, and should manage them with a rational, secular ethos. As an immediate short-term goal, we are going to focus on the issue of schoolchildren being able to opt out of religious education classes.

Members Welcome

We have other short-term goals, some of which are about the practicalities of setting up a new national organisation. As I mentioned earlier, we will be launching the group formally in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we would welcome any help or interest from people with relevant experience. If you want to find out more or get involved, please visit the discussion forum at www.atheist.ie.

Photo: Ireland Landscape by Obbino (cc)

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Atheist and humanist groups

How do Atheist groups differ from Humanist groups? And how can we best work together to promote a rational, ethical and secular society?

This article examines the aims of American Atheists, Atheist Alliance International, the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and ten Atheist or Humanist groups in various countries around the world, and concludes:

(1) The labels are unimportant in themselves. Most atheists and most humanists share most of the same fundamental beliefs and values. We reject the idea that gods exist and all that follows from that idea, and we usually support rational enquiry into the nature of reality, mutual empathy as the basis of ethical relations, and secular equality as the basis of civic government.

(2) The labels are useful in practice. They enable independently-minded people to socialise and bond together using whatever self-description that we each feel most comfortable with, and whatever nuances of emphasis that we each prefer. They can also enable us to promote our aims using whatever label we feel is most useful in different circumstances, whether that be atheist, humanist, secularist, rationalist, skeptical or freethought. 

(3) If we are to achieve a rational, ethical, secular society, then all people and groups who reject the idea that gods exist should work together, in a series of shifting alliances, on a series of issue-based campaigns and projects, at whatever level of involvement we feel most comfortable. We should find ways to use our differences in emphasis to jointly promote our shared aims.

In this article, I examine: What is atheism? What is humanism? How do atheism and humanism differ? What do Atheist groups want? What do Humanist groups want? How do Atheist and Humanist groups differ? And how can we best work together to promote a rational, ethical, secular society?

1. What is Atheism?

Many people define atheism in different ways, but all atheists reject the idea that gods exist. Some people define weak atheists as people who lack a belief that gods exist, and strong atheists as people who have a belief that gods do not exist. Some people define agnosticism as a subset of atheism, because agnostics lack a belief that gods exist. And some pragmatic atheists simply ignore the idea of gods as being in practice irrelevant to their lives.

But how do active atheists define themselves? American Atheists, which was founded in 1963, is an umbrella network for over sixty affiliated Atheist groups. It grew out of two legal cases related to separation of church and state. In those cases, they defined Atheism as including: “An Atheist seeks to know his fellow man rather than to know a god. An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death… He wants an ethical way of life… He believes that we are our brothers’ keepers, and are keepers of our own lives, that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”

Atheist Alliance International, which was founded in 1991, is another umbrella network for almost sixty Atheist groups, most in the United States and the rest in ten other countries. Atheist Alliance International promotes these beliefs and values: (1) Atheism is living one’s life without the supernatural. (2) Every human being is entitled to freedom of conscience. (3) Scientific inquiry has proved the best process for improving the physical welfare of humankind. (4) Human compassion and empathy are crucial to improving the human condition. (5) Reason and cooperation are essential to meeting the challenges that confront humankind. (6) We are responsible for humane interaction with other animals and for the preservation of our habitable planet. (7) Humanistic atheists work toward fostering cooperative diversity among humans.

2. What is Humanism?

Many people define humanism in different ways, and some may call themselves secular humanists or even religious humanists. The International Humanist and Ethical Union, which was founded in 1952, promotes one set of widely accepted definitions. The IHEU brings together over 100 Humanist and related groups in more than 40 countries. (The IHEU call their life-stance Humanist, with a capital H and no qualifying adjectives. I follow this custom in this article.)

All member groups of the IHEU must agree this minimum statement: “Humanism is a democratic and ethical life-stance, which affirms that human beings have the right and responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives. It stands for the building of a more humane society through an ethic based on human and other natural values in the spirit of reason and free inquiry through human capabilities. It is not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality.”

In Amsterdam in 2002, the IHEU adopted these points as defining world Humanism: (1) Humanism is ethical. (2) Humanism is rational. (3) Humanism supports democracy and human rights. (4) Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. (5) Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion. (6) Humanism values artistic creativity and imagination and recognises the transforming power of art. (7) Humanism is a life stance aiming at the maximum possible fulfillment through the cultivation of ethical and creative living.

3. How do Atheism and Humanism differ?

Technically, Humanists include some but not all atheists. Some people say atheism is simply the absence of a belief in gods, while Humanism is a specific naturalistic life-stance. (Humanists coined the word life-stance to describe a person’s relationship with whatever they accept as being of ultimate importance. The word life-stance can be applied, neutrally, to religion and alternatives to religion). So let us examine this proposition.

In reality, atheism is more than simply the absence of a belief in gods. If you reject the idea that gods exist, you automatically also reject the ideas that gods are responsible for revealing truths about reality, or creating ethical judgments, or governing our lives. So you automatically accept that we as humans are responsible for self-determining these aspects of our lives. This is not an added positive belief, separate from atheism: it is a necessary part of atheism to automatically adopt a positive naturalistic life-stance.

What, then, of the specific principles of the life-stance labelled Humanist? For most atheists, they are simply the type of principles that flow naturally from the type of thinking that led us to atheism in the first place: rational enquiry into the nature of reality, mutual empathy as the basis of ethical relations, and secular equality as the basis of civic government. The life-stance of most atheists is broadly the same as the life-stance of most Humanists.

Atheism and Humanism are, therefore, in most cases, two different labels for the same thing: rejecting the idea that gods exist and adopting broadly the same naturalistic life-stance under one or other label. So why do some people prefer one label over the other? Is it merely because of the etymology of the labels? Or is there a serious difference of emphasis? To examine this further, let’s look at the aims of ten sample groups in different countries.

4. What do Atheist groups want?

Explicitly ‘Atheist’ groups share a broadly similar core of aims, adapted to local circumstances. As one example of the many such groups in the USA, the Atheist Coalition of San Diego has these aims: (1) To keep a firm, tall, and wide wall separating church and state. (2) To promote atheism as a worthwhile and wholesome point of view. (3) To promote science literacy.

The IBKA in Germany has these aims: (1) To represent the political interests of non-religious, agnostics and atheists. (2) To support human rights, rational thinking, individual self-determination and tolerance. (3) To support the separation of church and state. (4) To criticize religion as an ideology, and the socio-political role of the churches.

The Atheist Foundation of Australia has these aims: (1) To encourage informed free-thought on philosophical and social issues. (2) To safeguard the rights of all non-religious people. (3) To serve as a focal point for the fellowship of non-religious people. (4) To offer reliable information in place of superstition and to offer the methodology of reason in place of faith. (5) To promote atheism.

Atheist Centre in India has two broad sets of aims: (1) To counsel victims of, and to challenge, issues such as the untouchability and caste systems, superstitions, witchcraft and sorcery. (2) To promote issues such as science, ecology, environment, social cohesion, sex education, family planning, and secular and humanist education, art and culture.

The Atheist Association of Finland has these aims: (1) To protect the legal and cultural interests of atheists. (2) To separate the state from both state churches. (3) To enlighten and educate citizens. (4) To promote freedom of atheism, religion, belief and civil rights. (5) To promote secular and atheistic culture. (6) To investigate scientific atheism.

5. What do Humanist groups want?

Explicitly ‘Humanist’ groups also share a broadly similar core of aims, again adapted to local circumstances. The American Humanist Association has these aims: (1) To be a clear, democratic voice for Humanism. (2) To increase public awareness and acceptance of Humanism. (3) To establish, protect and promote the position of Humanists in society. (4) To develop and advance Humanist thought and action.

The Society for Humanism Nepal has these aims: (1) A rational society wherein all enjoy equal status as human beings. (2) To influence people from all walks of life. (3) To promote a scientific way of life. (4) To promote democracy and justice with a Humanist bias. (5) To promote Humanistic ethical practices. (6) To raise awareness about human obligation.

The Humanist Society of South Australia has these aims: (1) To promote a Humanist approach to personal living and society. (2) To facilitate Humanist interaction and communication. (3) To lobby State and Federal Governments about important issues of the day. (4) To tackle issues on which politicians have a “conscience vote”. (5) To hold social events and outings.

The British Humanist Association has these aims: (1) To promote Humanism. (2) To support and represent people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs. (3) To work for an open and inclusive society with freedom of belief and speech. (4) To work for an end to the privileged position of religion – and Christianity in particular – in society.

The Nigerian Humanist Movement has these aims: (1) A rational, constructive approach to human affairs. (2) To offer a positive alternative to all religious and dogmatic creeds. (3) To uphold and defend the human rights of Humanists and of the general public. (4) To improve social conditions. (5) To support the widest conception of education and enlightenment.

6. How do Atheist and Humanist groups differ?

Most Atheist and Humanist groups share broadly the same fundamental aims, though each group phrases them differently. They usually support rational enquiry into the nature of reality, mutual empathy as the basis of ethical relations, and secular equality as the basis of civic government. And they usually campaign to promote these aims within society.

There are some differences in emphasis. Some groups that label themselves as Atheist can be more assertive in how they campaign, and less deterred by how others might perceive the word atheist. Some groups that label themselves as Humanist can be more focused on creating a common Humanist identity as an alternative to religion, and may conduct secular services for weddings, baby-naming and funerals.

But these differences in emphasis do not depend on the labels. Any of the above groups could conduct their activities with integrity under the label Atheist or Humanist, or indeed Secularist, Rationalist, Skeptical, Freethought or Freedom from Religion. In practice, the labels and activities of each group reflect the diversity of personalities and self-definitions among independent thinkers, and the historical and social circumstances in which each group operates. 

For example, Britain has three main national groups that have been active since Victorian times. The National Secular Society, founded in 1866, campaigns against religious influence in government, education and public life. The British Humanist Association, founded in 1896, campaigns on the same issues, and also conducts secular funerals, weddings and baby-namings. The Rationalist Association, founded in 1899, supports and promotes humanism and rational enquiry and opposes religious dogma, primarily through publishing. 

In other countries, similar groups were formed in different times, in different circumstances, and with different labels. However, while the labels are unimportant in themselves, they are useful in practice. They enable independently-minded people to socialise and bond together using whatever self-description that we each feel most comfortable with, and whatever nuances of emphasis that we each prefer. And they can enable us to work together on shared aims, using whatever label they feel is most useful in different circumstances.

7. How can we best work together?

Here are ten things that people who reject the idea that gods exist can do together to promote a rational, ethical and secular society, whether or not we choose to join an organised group. Naturally, as we are independently-minded people, each of us will do only whatever combination of these things that we feel comfortable with. But we should find ways to use our differences in emphasis to jointly promote our shared aims.

1. Act as an individual to support relevant groups and campaigns.

2. Join any group or groups that reflect your own preferred self-description.

3. Establish a new group or groups with like-minded people. The group can be based on a shared geographic area, or a shared interest in a specific topic.

4. Don’t try to represent all of the people who reject the idea that gods exist. Just set a specific set of aims for your group, and work to promote those specific aims.

5. Keep the aims and structure simple. Keep the focus outward, on promoting your aims within society. Encourage initiative and avoid complicated approval procedures for activities.

6. Build alliances of small autonomous groups, if necessary with with overlapping memberships. If a group gets too big to function effectively, split it into two groups. Join relevant umbrella networks, whatever label they may use.

7. Respond to relevant issues as they arise. Write to or telephone the media. Question politicians and institutions. Discuss topical issues with friends and colleagues.

8. Run specific pro-active campaigns or projects on specific issues. Each campaign or project can be jointly organised by any combination of groups and or individuals.

9. Brand each campaign or project distinctly, so that it can be supported by people who may not agree on other issues that are distinct from that specific campaign. Have specific, measurable and achievable goals. Keep your focus on a manageable number of projects at a time.

10. Each campaign or project could focus on one specific aspect of: (a) promoting scientific enquiry and challenging dogmatic creeds about the nature of reality; (b) promoting mutual empathy and challenging supernatural commands as the basis of ethical relations; or (c) promoting secular equality and challenging religious control as the basis of civic society.

Image: Godless Americans March on Washington by Anosmia (cc)

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Why atheism is important

The idea of gods is bad for society, because it spreads irrational dogma that causes good people to do bad things. This affects three practical areas of our lives: the quest for knowledge, treating people fairly, and civic society.

Rational thinking makes the following more likely: Enquiry: an ongoing unbiased quest for knowledge and truth. Empathy: adult ethics, based on relating to other living beings. Equality: a secular society that protects everybody’s rights.

And irrational dogma makes the following more likely: Creeds: accepting, as truth, imaginary answers to big questions. Commands: childish ethics, based on orders, desire and fear. Control: unjust laws that are influenced by religious dogma.

Enquiry vs Creeds

Nearly four thousand years ago, a man gazed inquisitively at the night sky over what is today near Baghdad, and he started to record the movement of the stars. This scientific breakthrough was used to create omens, such as: ‘If in month one the Demon with the Gaping Mouth rises heliacally, for five years there will be plague, but it will not affect cattle’. Today NASA has mapped the oldest lights in the universe, the ancient Babylonian omens have evolved into vacuous horoscopes, and religions have embedded gods into seasonal celebrations of nature.

Throughout time, this is the pattern of the quest for knowledge. Inquisitive and rational thinking has steadily helped us to understand more about how nature works – the latest major breakthrough being the map of the human genome, the ‘book of life’ which will dramatically improve healthcare – while superstitious and dogmatic thinking has hindered and corrupted this quest for knowledge, by teaching imaginary answers instead of seeking the truth, with the odd stoning to death or roasting alive thrown in for people who dared to disagree.

Empathy vs Commands

When I was five, I knew that I had to be good coming up to Christmas because Santa Claus was looking down from the North Pole and judging the behaviour of every child in the world. For many adults today, an imaginary creator of the universe has taken over Santa’s job – God’s making a list, he’s checking it twice; he’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice – except this time, instead of a present or an empty stocking, you get the bliss of paradise or the torment of hell, for eternity, after you die.

Throughout time, religious belief has corrupted our morality, by extending childish thinking into adulthood. The reason that we should be fair to other people, and to all sentient beings, is because we relate to them as fellow living beings. This is known as the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. It is common to atheists, agnostics and theists alike. It requires no belief in gods, particularly gods that boast of drowning every living being in the world except the passengers on an ark.

Equality vs Control

In Ireland in 2007, an advert for slimming pills was banned because the company could not substantiate its implausible claim to ‘soak up’ fat from your food. This is how society protects vulnerable people from being conned. In the same week, the Pope announced an even more unsustainable special offer: if you visited Lourdes within a year, you would get a free ‘plenary indulgence’ and early release from Purgatory after you die, thus getting you to Heaven faster. But there was no legal mechanism to protect vulnerable people from being conned by this claim.

Throughout time, religious leaders have influenced the law and culture of civic society. Today, many States officially protect, subsidise, encourage or even enforce religious dogma at the expense of the rights of their citizens. In recent years, Islamic States have sentenced homosexuals to death and a female rape victim to be lashed. More subtly, an atheist would be almost unelectable as President of America. In a State that respects everybody’s rights, government should be secular, culture should be pluralist, and beliefs should be personal.

Image: Pantheon of Gods by Grizzli (cc)

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