Cultural Map of the World

Religion and wealth are the two main factors that influence cultural values around the world. The influence of religion can be measured on a scale from traditional values to secular-rational values, and the influence of wealth can be measured on a scale from survival values to self-expression values.

Traditional values are highest in Africa and Latin America, and secular-rational values are highest in Japan and Protestant Europe. Survival values are highest in Africa and ex-communist countries, and self-expression values are highest in Protestant Europe and English-speaking countries.

That’s according to the World Values Surveys, which is the largest ever cross-national survey of social change. It was conducted from 1990 to 2005, in over eighty countries spanning all six inhabited continents, by a network of social scientists at leading universities around the world.

Cultural Values Map of the World

Based on these surveys, two political scientists (Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michegan and Christian Welzel of Jacobs University Bremen) have devised this Cultural Map of the World:

Religious societies typically emphasise parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values, as well as national pride. They reject divorce, abortion, euthenasia and suicide.

Wealthy societies allow young people to grow up taking survival for granted, and to focus on subjective wellbeing and quality of life, which in turn can have an influence on traditional values.

In most societies, although more slowly in Africa, cultural values have been shifting towards both secular-rational and self-expression since the first World Values Survey was conducted in 1990.

Human Constraints versus Human Choice

Here’s how Prof. Welzel analyses this trend. He says both dimensions actually measure human constraints versus human choices, on the community and personal levels. When a community has strong traditional values, it emphasises human constraints such as religion, patriotism, authority, obedience, and traditional family structures. When a person has strong self-expression values, she emphasises human choices such as freedom and self-direction, taking part in public expression, tolerating nonconformity, and trusting people.

Prof. Welzel says this shift in values is a central aspect of human development. More wealth enables younger people in particular to feel more independent in material means, intellectual skills and social connectivity. They then feel more safe and secure, and thus more able to escape from unchosen community ties. They also feel more self-directed, and thus more able to develop their creative human potentials. And all of this leads to what Prof Welzel calls postmaterialistic liberty aspirations, where people both value democracy more and are more critical of the actual performance of democracy.

Sources

• World Values Surveys
• Professor Ronald Inglehart
• Professor Christian Welzel

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Social networks spread happiness

Happiness is infectious. It spreads through social networks, infecting people that you don’t even know. And it spreads more strongly than sadness does. That’s according to a recent study that examined the happiness of almost five thousand people over twenty years from 1983 to 2003.

The study was compiled by professors James Fowler of the University of California in San Diego and Nicholas Christakis of the Harvard Medical School. They examined records from a long-established heart study that included details of the emotional states of families and friends.

They found that, when you become happy, any friend of yours who lives within a mile becomes 25% more likely to also be happy. Amazingly, they also found that a friend of that friend becomes 10% more likely to happy, and a friend of that friend’s friend has a 5% increased chance of being happy.

They also found that people at the core of a local social network are more likely to be happy than people at the periphery. And they say that  the reason seems to be that being at the core of the social network increases your happiness. It is not that being happy brings you to the core of the network.

Social networks spread happiness

The study followed the social networks of almost five thousand people over twenty years, including connections at one, two, three or more levels of separation. It found that happy people tend to be connected to each other. The clusters of happy and unhappy people are much larger than could be explainable by chance.

This takes into account several possible associations between happy people: your happiness might cause someone else to be happy; you might become connected because you are both already happy; or you might both be experiencing the same social conditions that might make you happy.

On average, you are 15% more likely to be happy if a person directly connected to you is happy. The chances increase or decrease depending on how close you are to the person. Mutual friends who live nearby have the strongest effect, and distant friends who live more than a mile away have little or no direct effect. Interestingly, neither do co-workers.

Happiness spreads more strongly through same-sex relationships. This means that your friends and neighbours might influence your happiness more than your spouse does. And your impact on a friend’s happiness gradually wears off over time, unless of course you keep in touch and stay happy.

However, there is an indirect effect that does not even depend on knowing the person. You are almost 10% more likely to be happy if a person two removes from you is happy (a friend of a friend). And you are over 5% more likely to be happy if a person three removes from you is happy (a friend of a friend of a friend).

Also, people at the core of a local social network are more likely to be happy than people at the periphery. And Christakis and Fowler say that  the reason seems to be that being at the core of the social network increases your happiness. It is not that being happy brings you to the core of the network.

So, on average, having additional social contacts will help to make you happy – but only if your extra social contacts are happy themselves. Interestingly, happy people spread happiness much more strongly than unhappy people spread unhappiness.

However, the main effect on your happiness is your previous happiness: if you were happy the last time you were asked, you are three times more likely to be happy now than if you were unhappy the last time you were asked.

How the study was conducted

The Framingham Heart Study is an ongoing study, based in Massachusetts, that has examined 14,000 people spanning three generations of people, and their spouses. The three generations enrolled in 1948, 1971 and 2002.

Christakis and Fowler study focused on the middle group, because there is information available on their relationships with both their parents and their children, as well as with their friends.

On average, each person was connected to ten family members, friends or coworkers, and an indeterminate number of neighbours. Also, because the study took place in the same area, many of the connected people were also part of the study themselves.

The study measured people’s happiness by asking them how often they experienced four specific feelings during the previous week: “I felt hopeful about the future,” “I was happy,” “I enjoyed life,” “I felt that I was just as good as other people.”

Other studies have shown that these four questions are a reliable way of measuring happiness, and that the answers to each question are highly correlated to each other. As well as examining people’s happiness, this study also examined by how much their happiness changed over time.

Conclusions of the Study

Fowler and Christakis conclude that the spread of happiness seems to reach up to three degrees of separation, just like the spread of obesity and smoking behaviour. They believe that this finding has relevance for public health. Human happiness is not merely the province of isolated individuals.

They outline the following as already being known before their study: 

• Previous work on happiness and wellbeing has focused on socioeconomic and genetic factors.
• Research on emotional contagion has shown that one person’s mood might fleetingly determine the mood of others.
• Whether happiness spreads broadly and more permanently across social networks is unknown.

They say that their study adds the following new information:

• Happiness is a network phenomenon, clustering in groups of people that extend up to three degrees of separation (for example, to one’s friends’ friends’ friends).
• Happiness spreads across a diverse array of social ties.
• Network characteristics independently predict which individuals will be happy years into the future.

Illustration

• The illustration shows happiness clusters in over a thousand people in the Framingham social network during 1996 and 2000.
• Each node represents one person. Node colour indicates mean happiness of each person and all directly connected (distance 1) people: yellow is most happy, blue is least happy and green is in between.

Sources

• The full text of the study: Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study
• Homepage of James Fowler of the University of California in San Diego
• Homepage of Nicholas Christakis at Harvard Medical School
• Happiness Is A Collective Phenomenon
• The Happiness Virus

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Vatican opposes gay rights at UN

The Catholic Church, through its pretend State in the Vatican City, is joining with Islamic States to try to stop the United Nations from protecting the equal rights of gay people throughout the world.

Gay people can be executed in seven Islamic countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Mauritania and parts of Nigeria and Pakistan.

And gay sex between consenting adults in private is a crime in almost eighty other countries.

France wants the UN to pass a declaration calling for an end to these laws. It wants all States to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.

The Catholic Church has joined with Islamic States in opposing this move. The Vatican complains that the move would “add new categories of those protected from discrimination”. They also fear that it could lead to gay people being allowed to marry.

The French Declaration

Laws against against consensual gay sex are a violation of human rights. Even if they are not systematically enforced, their very presence on the statute books leads to fear, prejudice, hostility and discrimination against gay people.

In September, Rama Yade, the French minister of human rights and foreign affairs, announced that she would be asking the United Nations to call for the decriminalisation of homosexuality throughout the world.

The French declaration condemns human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity, in particular the use of the death penalty, executions, torture, arbitrary arrest or detention and deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights.

It urges States to do the following:

• To ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.
• To ensure that human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are investigated and perpetrators held accountable and brought to justice;
• To ensure adequate protection of human rights defenders, and remove obstacles to them carrying out their work on issues of human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity.

Over fifty countries have signed the declaration, including all 27 European Union countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The Vatican Opposition

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s representative at the UN, opposed the move as it would

“add new categories of those protected from discrimination”.

He also complained that it would

“create new and implacable discriminations… For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure.”

After protests by gay rights groups outside the Vatican, and a statement by the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup, Vatican Radio later claimed that Migliore’s real concern was:

“the introduction of a declaration of political value, which could result in control mechanisms according to which, norms that do not place each sexual orientation on the same level, would be considered contrary to respect for human rights.”

Removing the double negatives, and translating the gobbledegook into plain language, it seems that this may be the part of the French resolution that the Vatican has problems with:

We reaffirm the principle of non-discrimination which requires that human rights apply equally to every human being regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

In essence, the Vatican is complaining that respect for human rights would include placing each sexual orientation on the same level. And preventing this from happening is more important than preventing gay people from being executed, tortured or jailed.

The Toy Vatican State at the UN

This would not matter so much if the UN treated the Catholic Church like it does all other Churches: by allowing it to make submissions as an ordinary nongovernmental organisation.

Instead, despite having no citizens, territory or economy, the Catholic Church is the only religion in the world that can attend and vote at UN conferences and co-sponsor drafts of UN resolutions and decisions.

Why? Because its pretend State, the Vatican City, issues its own stamps.

Here’s an earlier post where you can read the background to the Vatican’s bizarre involvement with the UN.

Sources

• The French Declaration on LGBT Rights
• ILGA publishes State-sponsored Homophobia report
• MEPs call on Vatican to embrace LGBT rights

Photo: Pope Benedict by Roblisameehan (cc)

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Medieval faith vs reason Part 1

Many medieval philosophers tried to reconcile their belief in a god with the logic and reason of Greek philosophy. In this article, I outline how ten of them tried to do this:

Augustine (354-430), an Algerian Christian.
Boethius (480-524), a Roman Christian.
John Scotus Eriugena (810-877), an Irish Christian.
Psuedo-Dionysius (6th Century), a Syrian Christian.
Al-Farabi / Abunaser (870-950), a Turkish Muslim.
Ibn Sina / Avicenna (980-1037), a Persian Muslim.
Anselm (1033-1109), an Italian Christian.
Ibn Rushd / Averroes (1126-1198), a Spanish Muslim.
Moses Ben Maimon / Maimonides (1135-1204), a Spanish Jew.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian Christian.

In part two of this article, I will look at how successful they were in their attempts to reconcile faith and reason. First, here is a summary of their efforts:

4th and 5th Centuries: Augustine

Augustine (354-430) was an Algerian who found Platonic and Neoplatonic thinking full of wisdom, but said that he ‘never really fully understood either until he converted to Christianity’. He then sought to incorporate Platonic – indeed, all – human wisdom into this new understanding. 
(Martin, 1996: 58, 73).

Like others before him, Augustine adapted Plato’s Good and Forms.

• The Jewish philosopher Philo (30 BCE-45 CE) had equated them to God and God’s thoughts respectively. 
• The Neoplatonic Plotinus (204-270) had argued that everything emanates from The One to The Nous, or divine intellect. 
• Augustine equated God the Father to The One, and God the Son to The Nous, with Plato’s Forms present to humans through Christ.
• Plotinus had argued that evil is the absence of good. Augustine adopted this belief to reconcile the existence of God with the presence of evil.
• Because he saw God as the source of all wisdom, Augustine saw philosophy – ‘love of wisdom’ – as identical to ‘love of God’. He thus devalued the scientific research of Aristotle.

(Stevenson, 2002: 82; Van Fleteren, 1992: 59; Collinson, 1987: 27; Moran, 2003: 9-12)

6th Century: Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius

Boethius (480-524) was a Roman aristocrat and an orthodox Christian.

• His Consolation of Philosophy presented Neoplatonic ideas in a Christian context, arguing that this world is a shadow compared to the true, eternal, timeless world.
• His Latin translation of, and commentary on, Porphyry’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories was ‘the book that originally stimulated medieval philosophical debate’.

(Moran, 1993: 9-9; Aubert, 1987: 362).

Psuedo-Dionysius (6th Century) was a Syrian Christian who was later mistakenly identified with Dionysius, a 1st Century convert of Saint Paul.

• Augustine, influenced by Plotinus, had emphasised ‘the interiority and immediacy of God’s presence in the human mind’. 
• Pseudo-Dionysius was influenced by Proclus – a later Neoplatonist – and he instead proposed ‘a hierarchical universe in which the Divine Light spread downward through a series of intermediate agents to humanity and the lower orders.’

(Dutton, 1992: 175)

9th & 10th Centuries: Eriugena and Al-Farabi (Abunaser)

John Scotus Eriugena (810-877) was an Irish Christian monk who moved to France. He was ‘the most original synthetic thinker between the times of Augustine and Aquinas’ (Dutton, 1992: 170).

Eriugena translated, from Greek, Eastern works of Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor. Maximus had taken the hierarchical emanation of Pseudo-Dionysius, and added the idea that everything is brought together again when the Divine Goodness returns to God.

Eriugena then sought to reconcile this with Augustine’s work. This was the first major attempt to combine Neoplatonic and Christian thought from the East and the West.

Eriugena’s major work is the Peryphyseon, or On the Division of Nature. In this he argues that:

• Nature is the general name for all things, whether being or nonbeing. 
• There are five modes of interpretation for ‘being-and-nonbeing’.
• Humans exist in the fifth mode, combining bodies in the material world and Souls in the intelligible.
• The whole universe is, in this sense, contained in humanity and will return to God.
• Humans can only know that God is, not what God is.

Eriugena augmented his Neoplatonic influences with a Pythagorean-style mystical discussion of the number eight as a supernatural cube, with the five parts of nature combining with the triad of God on the eighth day-the Resurrection.
(Dutton, 1992: 168-184).

Al-Farabi (870-950), sometimes Latinized as Abunaser, was a Turkish Muslim known as ‘the Second Teacher’ (i.e. second only to Aristotle).

Al-Farabi saw reason and revelation as complementary, and saw philosophers as similar to prophets.

• Aristotle saw God as the first unmoved mover. Al-Farabi saw God as the cause of the being, as well as the motion, of everything.
• Aristotle had other unmoved movers, superior to embodied Souls but inferior to God. Al-Farabi saw these as angels.

Al-Farabi then followed a Neoplatonic model: God’s contemplation of Himself overflowed into the existence of a First Intelligence, and thence onward through emanation to all else. His main work, The Virtuous City, was inspired by Plato’s Republic.

(Speake, 1979: 9; Moran, 2003: 9-22; Black, 1992: 115; Feldman, 1987: 408)

10th & 11th Centuries: Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Anselm

Ibn Sina (980-1037), Latinized as Avicenna, was a Persian Muslim who further developed Al Farabi’s attempts to synthesize all knowledge derived from reason and faith.

• He drew on Aristotle’s theory of Eudaimonia to argue that the highest aspect of any human being, its intelligence, seeks to reach its perfection.
• He then drew on Neoplatonism to argue that the way of seeking that perfection is to return to unification with the One from which all emanates – God.

(Gohlman, 1987: 569)

Anselm (1033-1109) was an Italian-born Christian Bishop of Canterbury.

He is best known for his ontological argument for the existence of God: essentially, that ‘that-than which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’ must exist, because if it did not exist, then it would not be ‘that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’.

Whatever the merits of this argument, Anselm thus ‘introduced to the West the idea of proving the existence of God’.

(Lesconcy, 1992: 30)

11th & 12th Centuries: Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ben Maimon (Maimonides)

Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), Latinized as Averroes, was a Spanish Islamic Judge who became known as ‘The Commentator’ on the works of Aristotle.

He strongly defended the study of philosophy against theological-legal challenges of heresy under Islamic law.

• Ibn Rushd argued that not only did the Koran not forbid the study of philosophy, but it demanded it of those capable of doing so.
• He argued that such study must be built on all previous learning, especially that of the ancient Greeks. 
• Differences with the Koran must be reconciled, as both are forms of truth and ‘truth does not oppose truth, but accords with it and bears witness to it’.

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) had made influential arguments against Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina in his The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Ibn Rushd responded with his The Incoherence of The Incoherence.

• Ibn Rushd defended Aristotelian ’cause-and-effect’ against the argument that only God caused any effect, and did so directly. 
• Ibn Rushd responded that denying causality denies not only the existence of essences, but the possibility of knowledge.

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) first seemed to accept the Neoplatonic emanation-of-God theory supported by Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Later he rejected it as a metaphor.
(Black, 1992: 68-79; Hourani, 1987: 567)

Moses Ben Maimon (1135-1204), Latinized as Maimonides, was a Spanish Rabbi and the leading intellectual of Medieval Judaism.

His major work, The Guide for the Perplexed, sought to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Judaic revelation. He argued that

• Anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Bible are metaphorical: ‘The Torah speaks in the language of man’.
• God can only be described in negative terms: God’s ‘wisdom’ is not the specific presence of wisdom, but the absence of ignorance or defect of knowledge.
• Spirituality is integrated with reason; reason is the proper means to attain spiritual goals; mystical doctrines do not stand up to reason.
• Some of the archaic ritual Judaic laws only came about in the context of the struggle between Judaism and paganism in the ancient world.

In seeking to reconcile pagan philosophy with the Torah, he argued that

• Platonism may seem consistent with the Torah, with prime matter coexisting eternally with God, but it limits God’s power, however slightly.
• Aristotelian metaphysics are more compatible, to the extent that Aristotle himself at times concluded that the question of the origin of the world is beyond demonstration: it was only later Aristotelians who thought otherwise.

(Wigoder, 1989: 454-455; Dobbs-Weinstein, 1992: 272-273)

13th Century: Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an Italian Christian who sought to reconcile Aristotelianism with Christianity.

Aquinas was particularly impressed with the work of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in translating and interpreting Aristotle.

Aquinas disagreed with Ibn Rushd’s interpretation of Aristotle’s view of the nature of the human intellect.

• Ibn Rushd had interpreted Aristotle as saying that intellect is not a faculty of the soul, and there is a single intellect for all humans.
• Aquinas countered that Aristotle held neither position, and that neither could be rationally defended. 
• Aquinas believed each human has an individual intellect; a position more in line with Christian teaching.

His five Ways of proving the existence of God draw heavily on Aristotle, and to a lesser extent on Plato and Neoplatonism.

• The first three Ways – Change, Causation and Contingency – rely on causal chains that end at Aristotle’s concept of the first mover.
• They also rely on a distinction between actual and accidental causes which Aquinas adopted from Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
• The fourth Way – Gradation – relies on Aristotelian physics and on absolute standards analogous to Plato’s Forms.
• The fifth Way – Finality – relies on Aristotle’s biological theory that all of nature moves towards a goal.

(Aquinas, De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas;  Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.2.3; Moran, 2003, Unit 11)

Part Two

In part two of this article, I will look at how successful these medieval philosophers were in their attempts to reconcile faith and reason.

Sources

• Aquinas, Thomas. De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas. In McInerney, Ralph M., 1993. Aquinas Against The Averroeists: On Their Being Only One Intellect. USA: Purdue University Research Foundation.
  
• Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. In McDermott, Timothy, 1993. Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings. London: Oxford World Classics.
  
• Aubert, Roger, 1987. Platonism, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Black, Deborah, 1992. Al-Farabi; Averroes, both in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Collinson, Diane, 1987. Augustine, in Fifty Major Philosophers: A Reference Guide. Kent: Croom Helm.
  
• Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit, 1992. Moses Maimonides, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Dutton, Paul Edward, 1992. John Scottus Eriugena, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Feldman, Seymour, 1987. Aristotelianism, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Gohlman, William E. 1987. Ibn Sina, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Hourani, George F., 1987. Ibn Rushd, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Losconcy, Thomas A., 1992. Anselm, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Martin, Christoper J.F., 1996. An Introduction to Medieval Philosphy. Edinburgh University Press.
  
• Moran, Dermot, 2003. Medieval Philosophy. In Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy 1. Dublin: Oscail, Dublin City University.
  
• Speak, Jennifer (Ed), 1979. A Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Pan Books.
  
• Stevenson, 2002. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy. Second Edition. Indianaoplis: Alpha Books.
  
• Van Fleteren, Frederick, 1992. Augustine, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Wigoder, Geoffrey, 1989. The Encyclodedia of Judaism. Jerusalem, Israel: G.G. The Jerusalem Publishing House.

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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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4 funny songs by Tim Minchin

I’ve just added Tim Minchin to my directory of famous atheists. Minchin is an Australian comedian, composer, songwriter, pianist and actor whose songs include the politically incisive Peace Anthem for Palestine, the inanimate love song Inflatable You, and the environmental mega-anthem Take Your Canvas Bags. Minchin is also responsible for probably the most comprehensive atheist-related song lyric in the history of atheist-related song lyrics, in the culmination of If You open Your Mind Too Much…

If You Open Your Mind Too Much

Peace Anthem for Palestine

Inflatable You

Take Your Canvas Bags

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Nothing can be objectively known

This is the first article in a series about why I assume two things about reality: (1) that nothing can be objectively known, and (2) that reality is basically as it seems to be. This article is about the first of those assumptions – that nothing can be objectively known.

This is a summary of why nothing can be known:
1. I seem to interpret the universe, and make assumptions, using my thinking.
2. But I can never know if any of my interpretations or assumptions are correct.
3. It is possible that this assumption may itself be incorrect.
4. However, that possibility does not prove that anything can be known.

And here is the detail of each of these points:

1. I seem to interpret the universe, and make assumptions, using my thinking.

The universe is all that exists, whether thoughts or things. Some of these:

■ I am aware of experiencing (conscious thoughts, my house, eating ice cream)
■ I experience but am not aware of (subconscious thoughts, my 42nd eyelash)
■ I am aware of but do not experience (composing an opera, visiting the moon)
■ I neither experience nor am aware of (thoughts I have not had, specific aliens)

These entities seem to change, combine and interact in complex ways. I must therefore interpret my awareness of them, then make assumptions based on my interpretations. I call the mechanism with which I do this, ‘my thinking’.

2. But I can never know if any of my interpretations or assumptions are correct.

Why? Because I can only interpret their correctness by using the very mechanism whose ‘efficiency-in-being-correct’ that I am testing (i.e. ‘my thinking’).

■ If I assume that my thinking always produces correct interpretations, then this assumption may itself be an incorrect interpretation, caused by flaws in my thinking about which I am unaware.
■ If I doubt my thinking’s reliability in always producing correct interpretations, then I must also doubt its reliability in testing the correctness of those interpretations.

3. It is possible that this assumption may itself be incorrect.

■ It may be that something can be known, using mechanisms other than ‘my thinking’, and that ‘I’ am simply not yet aware of how this can be done.
■ If I am shown a proof that ‘something can be known’, then I will change this assumption.

4. However, that possibility does not prove that anything can be known.

■ To prove that ‘something can be known’, it is not sufficient to undermine the certainty of this or any theory of why ‘nothing can be known’.
■ Indeed, undermining the certainty of this assumption can reinforce it, unless the undermining is accompanied by a positive alternative proof.

■ To prove that ‘something can be known’, the onus is on the ‘knowledge-claimer’ to show how this can be done, using a proof that does not rely on the very thinking that is itself being tested.
■ Until this happens, this seems the safest and purest working assumption to make about the nature of the universe: that, based on what seems to be my experience so far of the universe, nothing can be known.

Five Possible Theories of Reality

In the next article in this series, I will examine five possible theories of what reality might consist of.

Photo: The Thinker by Brian – Progressive Spin (cc)

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The pretend Vatican State at the UN

The Vatican is by far the smallest State in the world, being just over a hundred acres in size. It plays at being a real State by issuing its own stamps, but it has no proper citizens (just transient employees of the Catholic Church), few public services (Italy provides it with police and water) and no real economy (though it does have a novelty ATM machine that issues instructions in Latin).

But that does not matter, because the toy Vatican State does not generally interact with other real States. Instead, an entity called the Holy See, which is the central government of the worldwide Catholic Church, masquerades as a State and deals with actual States from its base in the Vatican.

This distinction is very important. It is the openly religious Holy See, and not the theoretically civic Vatican State, that swaps diplomats with actual States, and that has Permanent Observer status at the United Nations and other bodies. But the Holy See does not have any citizens, or any defined territory, and all that it governs is the religious affairs of some citizens of actual civic States.

Preaching to Diplomats about God

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI gave a ‘state of the world’ address to all foreign diplomats to the Holy See. He told them that ‘law can be an effective force for peace only if its foundations remain solidly anchored in natural law, given by the Creator,’ and that ‘God can never be excluded from the horizon of man or of history.’

In a particularly patronizing passage, he added that ‘my thoughts today go especially to the nations that have yet to establish diplomatic relations with the Holy See: they too have a place in the Pope’s heart.’ But he could be forgiven for sounding smug: compared to the 176 States that have diplomatic relations with the Holy See, there are only seventeen that have not (nine of which are Muslim, and four communist).

Vatican Issues its own Stamps

How did this happen? How did the worldwide leadership of one religion come to be accepted as not only a civic State, but an influential one, while it is preaching to diplomats about God?

Well, in 1929, when Mussolini’s Italy recognised it as a State, the Vatican started issuing its own stamps. Because of this, in 1951, it got to attend UN meetings through its membership of the Universal Postal Union.

In 1957, the Vatican delegates persuaded the UN to refer to them as ‘the Holy See’. There was no vote on this, just an exchange of letters with the Secretary General. With this political sleight-of-hand, the Catholic Church could now officially act as a State.

Vatican Gets Status at United Nations

In 1964, the UN gave the Holy See permanent observer status, allowing the Catholic Church to attend and vote at UN conferences.

Pope Paul VI quickly set the tone when he colourfully told the next General Assembly that the UN must ‘not favour an artificial control of birth, which would be irrational, in order to diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life.’

Since then, because the UN takes most decisions by consensus, the Holy See has been able to frustrate negotiations on population, contraception, reproductive health care and women’s rights.

Vatican Status Upgraded at United Nations

In 1999, a campaign called ‘See Change’ tried to get the UN to treat the Catholic Church in the same way as it treats other religions – by allowing it to make submissions as an ordinary nongovernmental organisation. A reasonable suggestion, you would think.

Instead, in 2004, the UN upgraded the Holy See to having all of the rights of a full member State except voting at the General Assembly, which they didn’t want to do.

And so today, because the toy Vatican State can issue stamps, the Catholic Church is the only religion in the world that can attend and vote at UN conferences and co-sponsor drafts of UN resolutions and decisions.

I am of course exaggerating for effect here. The Vatican did not get to attend UN meetings solely because they could issue their own stamps. It was also because they ran their own radio station.

Photo: Vatican Postbox by Dear Barbie (cc)

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What makes Australians happy?

The more money you earn, the less impact that your extra money has on your happiness. If you earn $15,000 a year, an extra $7,000 would make you one percent happier. But if you earn $250,000 a year, it would take an extra $625,000 to make you that same one percent happier. That’s one finding of a report that summarises seven years of research into what makes Australians happy.

The report is published by the health insurance company Australian Unity, in partnership with the Australian Centre on Quality of Life which is based at Deakin University. They also found that Australian women are more satisfied with their lives than men, and that the happiest Australians include those who are getting older, those who live with their partner, especially married people, and those who volunteer generally.

Seven Years of Research

Psychologist Bob Cummins, who wrote the report, says that wellbeing is a longer-lasting, deeper sense of contentment than momentary joy. The seven years of research have examined personal wellbeing elements like health, relationships, safety, standard of living, achievements, and national elements such as social, economic, political and environmental conditions.

Cummins says that the results demonstrate a theory called homeostasis – that wellbeing is maintained by an automatic internal system that enables us to keep feeling positive, even when things go wrong. This means that our wellbeing fluctuates a little, but it holds relatively steady over time. When this self-regulatory system fails, the result is what we know as depression.

Eight Ways to Be Happier

The report suggests eight ways to increase your happiness:

• Connect with family and friends. They’re your best source of support when you need it, and they have the strongest influence on your happiness.
• Watch your spending and save for the proverbial rainy day when money really counts. Happiness gained through buying new ‘things’ is fleeting.
• Engage in activities that give you a sense of achievement. Consider becoming a volunteer or taking up a hobby that challenges your mind or body.
• Review your home and personal security. Also avoid situations that make you feel unsafe, such as walking alone at night.
• Find a balance between work and leisure that is right for you. This balance is different for each person – there is no simple formula.
• Look after your health. Staying healthy is all about balance. Eat reasonably well, be active and have regular doctor checks.
• Get involved in your community. Get to feel connected by knowing your neighbours, volunteering, and being involved in local activities.
• Keep some of your life simple. Take some time out of your day for personal time. Try concentrating on your breathing for two minutes.

Sources:

• Photo: Botanic Gardens, Melbourne by Tim Parkinson (cc)
• The Report in PDF form
• Australian Unity website
• Australian Centre on Quality of Life
• Bob Cummins homepage

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The unelectable atheist President of the USA

An atheist running for President of the United States today faces roughly the same level of prejudice from voters as a female candidate would have faced in the 1940s while women workers were being sacked to make way for returning soldiers.

Or as a black candidate would have faced in the 1960s while Martin Luther King was delivering his ‘I have a Dream’ speech. Or as a gay candidate would have faced in the 1980s while many of the straight community were blaming gay men for an AIDS epidemic.

In 2007, a Gallup poll revealed that most Americans would not vote for a well-qualified atheist as President. Incredibly, half of all American moderates, and three in ten liberals, said they would not vote for a well-qualified atheist who was nominated by their own party. If you look at similar polls since the 1930s, you will see that black and female politicians are gradually escaping from this prejudice – or, at least, voters are less willing to openly admit such prejudice to pollsters – but atheist politicians, like gay politicians, still have decades of catching up ahead of them.

The question that Gallup asked, for USA Today, in Feb 2007, was: If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [atheist etc], would you vote for that person?

Gallup has asked similar questions in Jan-Feb 1937, Sep 1949, Sep 1958, Mar 1969, Jul 1978, Jul 1987, Aug 1987, and Feb 1999.

Photo: The White House by David Paul Ohmer (cc)

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Is this the World’s happiest man?

When Tibetan Buddhist monks meditate for many years, they gradually change the molecular structure of their brains.

MRI scans show they experience more activity in the left pre-frontal cortex, a part of the brain that is associated with happiness, and less activity in the right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts.

And Mathieu Ricard, the 62-year-old French interpreter for Tibet’s Dalai Lama, has happiness levels that are literally off the scale of the measuring instruments. That’s the conclusion of American neuroscientist Richard Davidson, who has spent over fifteen years testing these theories.

The idea that we gradually reshape our brains is not new – taxi drivers change the parts of their brains that deal with spatial awareness, and concert musicians the parts that deal with musical pitch – but Davidson was among the first to apply the tests scientifically to an area that seemed much more abstract and subjective.

Richard Davidson’s Tests

Davidson and his team began by travelling to India to study the brain activity of monks who practiced three different types of meditation:

• Focused attention, where the monks specifically train themselves to focus on a single object for long periods of time
• Cultivating compassion, where they envision negative events that cause anger or irritability, and then transform by applying compassion
• Open presence, where they are acutely and purely aware of whatever thought, emotion or sensation is present, without reacting to it.

They soon discovered that monks who had completed more than ten thousand hours of meditation had high levels of brain activity associated with positive emotions. Then some Asian monks traveled to Davidson’s lab in the University of Wisconsin in America, where their reactions were compared to those of volunteers who had only some limited training in meditation.

The MRI scans measured brain activity that is associated with happiness, on a scale of +0.3 at the negative end to -0.3 on the positive end. One monk, Mathieu Ricard, scored literally off the scale at -0.45. He may well be the happiest man in the world. So who is Mathieu Ricard and how did he reach this state?

Mathieu Ricard’s Life

Ricard was born in France in 1946. His father, Jean-François Revel, was a philosopher and mother, Yahne Le Toumelin, was a painter. Ricard studied classical music, ornithology and photography and in 1972 completed a Ph.D. in cellular genetics at the Institut Pasteur under Nobel Laureate François Jacob. He then moved to the Himalayas to study Tibetan Buddhism. He has lived since then as a Buddhist monk at the Shechen Monastery in Nepal, also acting as French interpreter for Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

Ricard has written many books, including

• The Monk and the Philosopher, a best-seller that consisted of dialogues with his father Jean-François Revel
• The Quantum and the Lotus, a conversation with the astrophysicist Trinh Xuan Thuan
• Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill, written with Daniel Goleman
• Motionless Journey, a photographic record of a year-long retreat in the foothills of the Himalayas.

He gives the proceeds from his books to humanitarian projects in Tibet, Nepal, India, and Bhutan. Since 2000, he has been an active member of the Mind and Life Institute as well as participating in the scientific research on brain plasticity headed by Davidson.

Ricard’s Views on Happiness

In the video below, you can listen to Ricard discussing happiness at TED (an annual four-day conference on Technology, Entertainment and Design, that takes place in Monteray in California).

Sources:

• Results of the study: Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice, PNAS, November 16, 2004, vol. 101 no. 46 16369-16373
• Mathieu Ricard Website
• Richard Davidson Homepage
• The Happiest Man in the World? Anthony Barnes, The Independent, 21 January 2007
• Is Buddhism Good for Your Health? Stephen Hall, New York Times, 14 Sep 2003

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But will it make you happy?

Why do people believe that living in California would make them feel happier than people who do live in California actually are?

And why do people, who are afraid of being rejected, want more drugs than people who have actually been rejected?

There are several reasons.

If you are a typical human being, you are bad at remembering why you felt happy in the past, good at knowing how happy you feel now, okay at predicting roughly what will make you feel happy in the future, but bad at predicting how happy you will feel if specific events happen. That’s the conclusion of scientists who have researched this fascinating area.

Past, Present and Future

How happy were you last year? That’s too much detail to calculate, so your mind takes a short cut. You focus mainly on your highest highs, your lowest lows, and the most recent events. However, if I had asked you, at random times during the past year, how you actually felt at that moment, and I combined your answers, they would be different – and more accurate. This has been tested by using randomly-timed buzzers to alert people to write down how they are feeling, then checking later what they remember about their feelings.

Are you happy now with your life in general? Again, your mind takes a short cut: if you’re in a good mood, you’re more likely to say yes. Nevertheless, your answer is likely to match with external ways of checking how happy you are, such as physiological signs and how happy your family and friends think you are. Are you satisfied with your work? Hobby? Marriage? Now that’s more specific. Regardless of your mood, your mind compares how things are with how things could be. Again, pretty accurately.

What will make you happy next year? You can predict most things fairly accurately. However, you are also influenced by your mistaken beliefs about what made you happy last year. And your mind over-predicts the impact that changes will bring. Lottery winners are less happy than we expect, and crippled accident victims less unhappy. When we think of these events, we focus on the change of becoming a lottery winner or accident victim, not on the ongoing reality of being one. Over time, we adapt to most changes. Millionaires face new problems. Disabled people develop new interests.

Impact Bias

Three psychologists and an economist pioneered much of the research on how we predict our feelings, and how accurate our predictions are. They are Daniel Gilbert in Harvard, Tim Wilson in Virginia, Daniel Kahneman in Princeton and George Lowenstein in Carnegie-Melon. They call this ‘affective forecasting’ (in psychology, the word ‘affect’ means feeling or emotion). Here’s some of what they found.

Broadly speaking, you can accurately predict that winning the lottery or seeing your sports team win a trophy will make you feel happy. However, you mistakenly believe that these events will make you feel happier, and for longer, than they actually do. That’s why Daniel Kahneman and others found that people believe that living in California would make them happier than people who do live in California actually are.

Also, broadly speaking, you can accurately predict that a serious illness or a death in the family will make you feel unhappy. However, you mistakenly believe that these events will make you feel unhappier, and for longer, than they actually do. That’s why Tim Wilson and others found that people, who are facing possible rejection, want more mood-enhancing drugs than people who have actually been rejected.

Daniel Gilbert calls this ‘impact bias’ or ‘miswanting’. And it gets worse. Because, when you do get the new trinket you have coveted for ages, and when it gradually dawns you that you are not as happy as you thought you would be, you often react by ‘miswanting’ something else instead, and the cycle continues. The same thing happens with bad events. When something bad happens to you, and when it gradually dawns you that you are not as unhappy as you feared you would be, you often start instead to fear a different bad event more than you should do.

Empathy Gap

Your mood when you decide what you want is also a factor. When you are calm, reflective and rational, you cannot accurately predict what you will want when you are aroused, anxious or fearful. That’s why it can be a bad idea to go food shopping when you are hungry, or to go on a date without a condom. George Lowenstein calls this ‘the empathy gap’ between being in a ‘cold state’ or a ‘hot state’.

There are many other examples of this empathy gap in action. Some are summarised by Elizabeth Dunn and others of New South Wales in their 2007 paper on what they call ‘Emotional Time Travel’.

Once you own something, you can become more attached to it than you thought that you would before you owned it. That’s why buyers (who don’t yet own an object) often think that the seller is demanding too much money, and sellers (who do own the object) often think that the buyer should be prepared to pay more.

Women often predict that, if they were sexually harassed, they would feel angry and confront the harasser, whereas women who are actually sexually harassed are more likely to feel afraid and to avoid confrontation. That’s why female jurors often give less credibility than they should to the evidence of women who have been sexually harassed.

Also, you think differently about events that are further away in the future. If you are choosing a series of videos to watch later, you are more likely to include a serious high-brow movie, but if you are choosing just one video to watch now, you are more likely to choose a low-brow entertaining movie.

Possible Solutions

Here are four ways of becoming more accurate when you are predicting how future events will make you feel.

The first is very simple – just knowing that impact bias and empathy gaps exist, can help you to counter them.

Secondly, when remembering how past events made you feel, try to remember a series of events, not just one. If you just remember one event, it is likely to be an extreme, untypical example. If you do only remember one, at least remind yourself that it may be extreme and untypical.

Thirdly, when predicting how future events will make you feel, try to put the event in context. Think of the inevitability of change. Think of many different possible outcomes. Think of bad aspects of good outcomes, and good aspects of bad outcomes. And think of other things that will also be happening in your life that will distract you from the event in question. For example, your social relationships can help to counter career problems, and vice versa.

And finally, get older. Older people are less likely to over-predict how future events will make them feel, simply because they have been through so many similar events in their lives.

Sources

• Photo: California by Scott Klettke (cc)
• On Emotionally Intelligent Time Travel: Individual Differences in Affective Forecasting. Dunn et al. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 2007; 33: 85-93
• When to Fire: Anticipatory versus Postevent Reconstrual of Uncontrollable Events. Wilson et al. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 2004; 30, 1-12
• The Futile Pursuit of Happiness, by John Gertner, article in New York Times Magazine, Sep 7 2003
• Well-Being: the Foundations of Hedonic Psychology, Russell Sage, 1999
• Does Living in California Make People Happy? A Focusing Illusion in Judgments of Life Satisfaction. Schkade and Kahneman, Psychological Science 1998; 9, 340-46

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Why I am an atheist

I am an atheist because I reject the idea that gods exist, in the same way and for the same reasons that I reject the ideas that that the earth is balanced on the back of a sea turtle, that homeopathy is more useful than a heart transplant, that Rapunzel wove her hair into a ladder or Rumpelstiltskin wove straw into gold, that stepping on a pavement crack will break my mother’s back, that a deposed Nigerian prince wants to email me several million dollars, that Uri Geller can bend spoons with his mind, that I am in danger from vampires or zombies or broken mirrors, or that I am protected by angels or leprechauns or horseshoes.

Reasons to Believe

Like many people, you may sincerely accept some of the above ideas as being true, either because you have experienced something unexplainable that has caused your brain to generate a belief in your God or Uri Geller, or because you feel happier when you believe in heaven or homeopathy, or because you prefer your life to be guided by holy writings or horoscope readings, or because you think that people behave better when they are being scrutinised by Satan or Santa, or because life is just simpler when you seem to believe what most people seem to believe.

Absence of Evidence

However, I reject all of these ideas simply because there is no evidence that any of them are true. Of course, I might be wrong about any or all of them. And I will happily change my mind if I ever get evidence that an alien spacecraft crashed at Roswell in 1947 and that successive US Governments since then have been hiding the aliens at a military base near Groom Lake in Nevada, or that the creator of the universe visited one small planet and caused a virgin of one species to give birth to himself so that he could die, return to life, and then write his story in a book.

Atheism is a Way of Thinking

I think I am very unlikely to get such evidence, because the ideas are so improbable, but if I get it I will not resist it. And this is the key to understanding atheism. It is far more about a way of thinking than it is about the outcomes that result from that thinking. Atheism involves believing in the power of reason to pursue knowledge, accepting ideas because of evidence, rejecting ideas because of lack of evidence, and always being prepared to change your mind if you learn something new.

Photo: Unicorns by Erika Hall (cc)

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America’s top elected atheists

Americans elect a lot of public officials – over half a million, from the President down to school district level. If atheists and other nonbelievers were represented fairly, you would expect about 50 in the US Congress and another 50,000 at State and local level. In 2007, the Secular Coalition for America tried to find them. They found only five. Three were very local officials: a school board president, a school committee member and a town meeting member. And the two most senior were both in their seventies, much closer to the end than the start of their political careers.

Pete Stark, United States Congressman

The first, Pete Stark, was born in 1931 and served in the Air Force and founded a bank before being elected to Congress in 1973 to represent a liberal district in California. He grew up a Republican, but had switched sides when he opposed the Vietnam War. He is a Unitarian Universalist, a congregation in which members seek their own truth about theological issues. Stark does not believe in a supreme being, saying that he is more interested in people, though he adds that the Stark family does recognize a supreme being – his wife Deborah.

So what horrific future would this openly atheist Congressman inflict on Americans? His shocking priorities are universal health care, ending the war in Iraq and protecting Medicare. He wants higher taxes for the wealthy and on cigarettes. He wants incentives for teachers to work in low-income schools. He wants higher payroll taxes to better fund social security. He wants better job re-training, child care and housing assistance. He supports the UN, the Kyoto protocol, abortion, gay marriage and affirmative action. He opposes the death penalty, and wants to restrict sex and violence on television. May God protect us all from Pete Stark.

Stark is unruffled by religious fanaticism, saying that ‘the leading candidates all agree that they believe in a supreme being, but forget about it as soon as they are elected.’ He believes that religion affects the style, rather than the substance, of the main political debate in America, which he says is between the Democrat view that government makes our lives better and the Republican view that government is dangerous for us. On ‘coming out’, he looked forward to ‘working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social service.’

Ernie Chambers, Nebraska State Senator

Next comes Ernie Chambers, the only openly atheist lawmaker at State level. He was born in 1937 and worked as a barber before he became a local civil rights leader in the 1960s. He was first elected as an independent candidate to the Nebraska Senate in 1971, and is the State’s only black Senator, its longest serving Senator and the only one to wear blue tee-shirts and jeans instead of a suit. His crimes against God include ending corporal punishment in state schools, getting equal state pensions for women, and blocking the legalization of concealed weapons. He strongly opposes the death penalty, and starts every legislative session by proposing its abolition.

Chambers got world attention in 2007 when he took a legal case against God. In a different case, a Nebraska judge had barred a woman from using the words ‘rape’ or ‘victim’ while alleging that she was a rape victim. He insisted that she describe what happened as ‘sex’, which is a bit like calling a mugging a ‘financial transaction’. The woman took a lawsuit against the judge, but her case was dismissed as being frivolous. Chambers took her side, arguing that the Nebraska constitution allows anyone to sue anyone. To make this point in a satirical way, he sued God in the district court of Douglas County, Nebraska.

Chambers wanted an injunction ordering God to cease certain harmful activities including the making of terroristic threats as well as ‘fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornados, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like.’ He argued that the court had jurisdiction because God, being omnipresent, was personally in Douglas County, and that he should not have to serve legal papers because God, being omniscient, already knew about the case.

Three Local Elected Officials

The three local officials who responded to the Secular Coalition were Terry Doran, president of the School Board in Berkeley, California.; Nancy Glista on the School Committee in Franklin, Maine; and Michael Cerone, a Town Meeting Member from Arlington, Massachusetts. And that, in the early twenty-first century, was the extent of openly atheist elected officials in America: Pete Stark married to his supreme being in California, Ernie Chambers suing God in Nebraska, and three local officials scattered across three million square miles of land.

Clearly there are many, many more elected atheists in the American closet. If one in every ten citizens rejects belief in gods, then about fifty members of Congress should do so. The Secular Coalition says there are 21 others who are not yet willing to go public. Even if this is true, it would still be less than half the amount that would be proportional to the overall population. It is time for elected American atheists to stand up for their rational beliefs.

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Where to live a long happy life

The best six countries in which to live a long happy life are Switzerland, Denmark, Iceland, Austria, Sweden and Australia. If you live in one of these places, you can expect to have sixty or more ‘happy-years’ of life. ‘Happy-years’ are calculated by multiplying happiness levels by life expectancy.

Denmark, Switzerland and Austria have the happiest citizens, describing themselves as eight out of ten in satisfaction with their lives. Japanese citizens live longer than any other nation – almost 81 years on average – but have a low happiness score of six out of ten.

Top 25 Countries for Happy-Life Years

(happiness levels multiplied by life expectancy, 1995-2005)

• 63.9 Switzerland
• 62.7 Denmark
• 62.2 Iceland
• 61.0 Austria
• 60.8 Sweden
• 60.7 Australia
• 59.8 Canada, Finland
• 59.3 Norway
• 59.0 Luxembourg
• 58.7 Netherlands
• 58.3 Ireland
• 58.2 Malta
• 57.0 USA
• 56.5 Belgium
• 55.8 New Zealand
• 55.7 Germany
• 55.3 Mexico
• 55.2 Britain
• 54.2 Italy
• 54.1 Spain
• 53.7 Cyprus
• 53.0 Kuwait
• 52.9 Singapore
• 52.2 Israel

Top 25 Countries for Average Happiness

(satisfaction with life on a scale of one to ten, 1995-2005)

• 8.2 Denmark
• 8.1 Switzerland
• 8.0 Austria
• 7.8 Iceland
• 7.7 Australia, Finland, Sweden
• 7.6 Canada, Guatemala, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Norway
• 7.5 Malta, Netherlands
• 7.4 USA
• 7.3 Belgium
• 7.2 Germany, El Salvador, New Zealand
• 7.1 Britain, Honduras
• 7.0 Kuwait, Saudi Arabia
• 6.9 Italy, Spain, Cyprus

Top 25 Countries for Average Life Expectancy

(measured in years, 1995-2005)

• 80.8 Japan
• 79.5 Iceland
• 79.4 Sweden
• 79.2 Canada
• 79.0 Switzerland
• 78.9 Australia
• 78.6 Italy, France, Spain
• 78.5 Israel
• 78.4 Norway
• 78.1 Greece, Netherlands
• 78.0 Belgium, Cyprus
• 77.8 Austria, Malta
• 77.6 Britain, Germany, New Zealand, Singapore
• 77.4 Finland, Luxembourg
• 76.9 USA
• 76.6 Ireland

Sources:

• Photo: Switzerland by Francisco Antunes (cc)
• Report: Veenhoven, R., Happy Life Years in 95 nations 1995-2005, World Database of Happiness, Rank Report 2006-2b

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