The Labour Humanist

Is Karl Rove an atheist?

Here's a fascinating thought, is Karl Rove actually an atheist and, indeed, is George W Bush not quite the fervent believer he is often portrayed? This article, if it eventually turns out to be true, is amazing stuff and would show the Bush administration to be far more cynical than even most of its critics would have believed.

Egg on faces at the Guardian as they miss out Reggie Perrin from their list of all time great speeches

The Guardian newspaper is currently reprinting as booklets "great speeches of the 20th century"; Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, that kind of thing. As important as all these speeches have been, the Guardian has made a real howler, egg on faces all round because they have failed to include Reggie Perrin's legendary Bilberry Hall speech.

For those of you who don't know, shame on you, Reggie Perrin was the central character in the 1970s BBC sit com The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. The comedy follows the main character's fall into total alienation from the middle-class grind of his surburban life and middle-management job - culminating in his fake suicide on the beach. Already utterly disenchanted Reggie is asked to make a key note speech at British Fruit Association seminar:

Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you, Mister... whatever your name is. When my boss said to me "Reginald Iolanthe Perrin, you are a senior sales earwig at Sunshine Desserts, and they are holding a seminar on instant puddings at Bilberry Hall and I want you to talk on 'Are We Getting Our Just Desserts?'", my first thought was: 'What a pathetic title for a talk!' (C.J. scowls). But then I thought again (C.J. loses his scowl). My second thought was: 'What a pathetic title for a talk!' (C.J. finds his scowl again). But I come here anyway because I have something very important to say to you all. We are told that we need more growth: 6% per year. More chemicals to cure more pollution, caused by more chemicals. More car parks for more tourists who want to get away from more car parks. More food, to make us more fat, to make us use more slimming aids, to make us take more pills, to make us ill, to make us take more pills, to make more profit. More boring speakers, making more boring speeches, at more boring conferences.

Dr. Hump
(mutters to Mr. Watkins): This is rubbish. (Reggie overhears).

Reggie:
More rubbish, that's a very good point, thank you Hump. But what has all this growth done for me? Well, I'll tell you. One day I'll die, and on my grave it will say: "Here lies Reginald Iolanthe Perrin. He didn't know the names of the trees and the flowers, but he knew the rhubarb crumble sales figures for Schleswig Holstein." Look outside at those trees - beautiful. But soon they will all be cut down to make more underground par carks (sic). But I have got good news for you, because half the parking meters in London have got Dutch Parking Meter disease.

C.J.:
(to Elizabeth) I wish he'd stick to the point! I didn't get where I am today talking about Dutch Parking Meter Disease.

Reggie:
In the audience, my boss C.J. Let's have a big hand for C.J. (there is scattered applause as C.J. half-rises in acknowledgement). OK, that's enough. Ladies and gentlemen. You see, we become what we do. You show me a hero who makes fondue tongs, and I'll show you a happy man who earns his living perforating lavatory paper. "But what do YOU believe in?" I hear you ask. Do I hear you ask? Well I'll tell you anyway: I know that I don't know. I believe in not believing. You see, for every man who believes something, there's somebody who believes the opposite. What's the point? How many wars would have been fought, how many people would have been tortured if nobody ever believed in anything? Have you ever heard of 'The Wars of the Apathetic'? Or 'the persecution of the apathetic by the bone idle'?

Dr. Hump:
(Mutters to Mr. Watkins) I think we've heard enough of this!

Reggie:
But if we try and complain about it, we're told we're standing in the way of 'progress'. Progress! There's a word that begs the pardon. I beg your parsnips. I'm sorry, it doesn't beg the parsnips, it begs the question.

Dr. Hump:
I think he's drunk.

Reggie:
That's funny, so do I. [Doc Morrissey stands up and leaves the room]. Oh, there he goes, Doc Morrissey, 'the wizard of the aspirin'. Off to the bog 'cause he's frightened of C.J.'s fishing contest. He's gone to practice his flies!

Dr. Hump:
Get rid of him Watkins!

Reggie:
Old 'baldy Hump' here. You know why he's bald, don't you? Made a right cock-up. Put pesticide on his hair, hair restorer on his plums. Now he's as bald as a coot, got a garden full of hairy plums! Anybody here from Canada? Anybody here from Australia? Tarporley? Anybody here from Tarporley? Stand up, all those from Tarporley and shake hands with the person on your right.

C.J.:
Come on, Perrin! I didn't get where I am today shaking hands with the person on my right!

Reggie:
Oh C.J., I want to help you! What use has life if it isn't for the people who have to live it? [Several people rise to remove Reggie from the podium, including Dr. Hump] Oh, here he comes, old 'baldy Hump'. 'Lecturer in Applied Manure at the University of Steeple Bumstead'! [Reggie is removed, and Mr. Watkins tries to restore order.] Get your hands off me! Oh God, he's got me right in the balls!

Mr. Watkins:
(At the podium, trying to divert attention from Reggie's removal) Thank you, thank you for a most stimulating address. (To Dr. Hump) Oh, fair do's!

Dr. Hump:
He didn't call you 'baldy'!

Mr. Watkins:
I'm not bald!

Elizabeth drives Reggie home, stopping for him on the way at a public lavatory in the town. Reggie leaves by another exit, catches a taxi to Sunshine Desserts, where he borrows a lorry of loganberry essence and drives it to C.J.'s country estate. After a threatening letter to C.J. promising that 'blood will flow', he releases the loganberry juice into the river from which C.J. and his guests are all fishing. Having completed his last 'snook' at society and the people who have made it hell for him, he drives to the Dorset coast and dons a new disguise, leaving Reggie's old clothes on the beach.

 

We look forward to the Guardian correcting this stunning omission!

Bishops bashing Radio 1 - update

The media empire strikes back. Following the astroturfed attack on Radio 1 for not being "religious" enough by church leaders Radio 1 Newsbeat editor Rob McKenzie has hit back. Responding to the bizarre attack for not running Easter as a news story Mckenzie says:

"Do we mention Diwali, Ede or Passover - or Christmas Day - just for the sake of it? In my view, no. To be a news story there has got to be something happening. That something needs to be interesting, relevant and significant for the target audience. Clearly a statement from the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury may be highly relevant and interesting for some audiences - but not for others.

Like it or not, our audience research demonstrates what most of us instinctively feel - that organised Christian religion isn't exactly, well, massive for younger audiences. It currently rates near the very bottom of a list of subject areas under 30s want to hear more about, according to work commissioned by BBC News.

On the day in question there were some very interesting news stories around competing for attention: The 15 sailors and Marines held captive by Iran had been told they could sell their stories to the media, and a storm was breaking over that decision. The Mujahedeen Army had posted a message on the internet claiming responsibility for a roadside bomb that killed four British soldiers in Iraq. Nato forces were claiming success against the Taleban in Afghanistan, we carried a police appeal over the stabbing of a teenager in south London, there was a Grand Prix and Premiership action - and just a couple of minutes an hour or less to cram it all into. For my money, the Easter messages just didn't cut the mustard."

The churches are making themselves a laughing stock for this attack on Radio 1 we can only hope for more to come!

Rumbled! The church's astroturfed attack on Radio 1

Well fancy that, the "ordinary" Radio 1 listener who was quoted this week as complaining about the lack of religious output on the nation's fav music station was - an Archbishop's press officer. Yes, the Church of England is taking astroturfing to new levels!

Arun Arora was quoted by the Press Association as a "regular Radio 1 listener who had complained: "You would not have known, listening to Radio 1, what Easter was about, or the fact that Easter was a Christian festival just by listening to Radio 1."

It turns out the churches' lobbying effort to force a youth-orientated radio station into a propaganda outlet couldn't actually find any real listeners for its press relations work and so had to rely on one of its own press officers - Arora works for this blogs' fav archbish, the Archbisop of York - shoddy work chaps!

With huge hat tip to the York Press.

The death of (another) trade union activist

I never "forget" how in so many countries trade unionists are persecuted, but maybe, I should write about it more on this blog. So thanks to Harry at three score years and ten for reminding us of the sad murder of Moaaid Hamid who was the vice president of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW).

The Islamic extremists who are currently engaged in an orgy of killing and cruelty in Iraq find it very easy to hate their fellow human beings for all kinds of reasons. One category of human they don't like is trade unionists - salt of the earth, on the side of the little guy - trade unionists.

No matter how wrong the invasion of Iraq was, it gives absolutely no justification for the persecution of trade unionists by the religious nutters currently swaggering around that poor country.  It also reminds us of the hostility of many religious activists around the world to people coming together in trade unions.

Now the bishops are bashing Radio 1

Here we go, now the churches want to tell BBC Radio 1 what it should broadcast, and no they're not calling for more garage punk or dancehall on the nation's most popular music station. The Independent reports that catholic and anglican bishops want Radio 1 to broadcast more...drum roll...religious output...there's a surprise.

What made me laugh, aside from the bare faced cheek of it all, was the claim that religion played a "major part" in the life of our youth and that they had a "thirst for spiritual input".

Let's do some fact checking on this claim. First let's see what kind of thirst for religious broadcasting exists amongst the nation's youth. How about TV viewing data? Ofcom's annual review of UK broadcasting tells us on page 94 that people aged 16-24 watched on average 1.1 hours of religious programmes on TV. Is that 1.1 hours a week? A month? Every three months? No that would be 1.1 hours during the whole of the year. Wow, an insatiable thirst there don't you think!

Ok what about the claim that religion played a "major part" in the lives of young people?  let's be generous why not refer to the findings of the church's own inquiry into the "spirituality" of youth called Making Sense of Generation Y. In the report John Sentamu - the Archbishop of York no less - said:

“The research suggests young people are happy with life as it is, that they have felt no need for a transcendent something else and regard the Church as boring and irrelevant.”

The report also found:

“...the data indicated that they found meaning and significance in the reality of everyday life, which the popular arts helped them to understand and imbibe.”

So there you go, young people don't choose to watch religious broadcasting and the church's own research says they find the church "boring and irrelevant". But hey, who expects religious leaders to keep to the facts when they are involved in a bit of blatant lobbying for ever more special privileges and subsidies?

As naturalyoghurt puts it: "I know the church has problems recruiting believers to their fantasy beliefs but if they want to get media bandwidth they should have to pay for it like any other single issue group."

Organisation that wants to run a growing number of schools is slammed over child protection

An organisation which is planning to take over the running of an additional 100 secondary schools in England has been slammed for its "irresponsible" behaviour and "covering up" child abuse by its staff. The controversy covers one of its staff members who was jailed this week for abusing three school boys. When the organisation found out about the child abuse, they did not tell the police and arranged for their employee to leave his position "quietly".

A senior spokesperson for the organisation said that at the time - 1990 - this was the "way things were done" and "I think that we make the mistake of trying to read back what we now know and how we now do things."

If you haven't guessed yet, the organisation involved here is the Church of England and the spokesperson who didn't "know" covering up for child abusers was wrong in 1990 was Reverend Mark Rudall of the diocese of Guildford.

And yes, this would be in the same week when the Archbishop of Canterbury accused politicians of lacking "moral leadership" and arrogantly asserted that we need the religious to know more about morality - implication that us non-religious folk don't know right from wrong whereas bishops and reverends would.(try telling that people who were abused as children only to see the local bishop attempt to cover up the crimes)

Of course, if anything this week's events has demonstrated the opposite, showing how religion can pervert normal morality by putting the interests of the church, over the interests and rights of children. It's not an untypical or isolated case as some experts are estimating payments to victims of sexual abuse by priests in the United States could reach $1bn.

The Church of England's first instinct was to cover up. It has taken secular advances in social care and human rights to drag the reluctant churches at least partially into the modern era.

Dawkins vs O'Reilly on Fox News

Here is a video of Richard Dawkins' appearance on Fox News last night with right wing ranting demagogue journalist Bill O'Reilly.

So we have 4 minutes to discuss life, the universe and everything with O'Reilly using his unique understanding of what an interview is supposed to be by attempting to berate his guest and quickly trying to move on every time the guest starts to score points:

The video is also on the Dawkins web site where it is debated, and more debate as well as a transcript available on evolutionblog.

A new flag carrier for political atheism

Step forward a slightly surprising flag carrier for political atheism - Matthew Paris - who has launched a rallying cry for the non-religious to make their voices heard in the public square. The article is in today's Times and is a response to the large number of critical emails he received after recently writing an article urging "intelligent Christians" to fight back against nonsense such as the idea that Pope John Paul II might have cured a nun from his grave. Paris says many emailers were basically telling him that if he didn't believe then he should "shut up" and stop writing about such stuff. This is a familiar line for Paris who recounts his time as a Conservative MP and how one Tory Chief Whip  who explained he never felt the need to tell anyone about his personal atheism in case it "astonished" some of his local voters.

Here is Paris' response, it's worth reproducing one large chunk of the article:

"How do we reply? An ad hominem response would be to remark that when the Church had the upper hand it was happy to persecute, imprison or behead non-believers and fight crusades against other religions. Now it has lost its boss status it simply asks us to keep our opinions to ourselves (but still wants laws to criminalise us for mocking its pretensions).

On the back foot at last, it discovers (first) a brotherhood between all its sects. Then as the situation deteriorates Christianity discovers within itself a respect first for Judaism (suddenly we are all “Judaeo-Christians”), then women with a Christian vocation, then for divorcees, and finally finds a common purpose with religions such as Islam, too (the “faith” community). Needs must.

And as the Devil (or falling church attendance) drives, these “members of the faith community” cease enforcing their moral imperatives upon a secular world and retreat into whimpering about their “freedom of conscience” to carry on persecuting the minority groups upon whose sinfulness they can still find a consensus. Freedom of conscience, my eye! If only there were an afterlife: Martin Luther would have loved Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s protests. They don’t like it up ’em.

As mainstream Christian church attendances fall farther still I predict that the Church of England, and finally the Roman Catholics, will be driven to conclude that they cannot even afford to make enemies of homosexuals, unmarried couples and family planners, and start welcoming them in too. I expect they’ll call it the “love community”. In truth it’s the “can’t afford to be choosy” community.

But there I go again. Getting passionate, fighting dirty. But we have a better argument than “you’d do the same to us if you could” — though they would, and until about half a century ago they did.

It is that they will again, unless we non-believers are watchful, and energetic and — yes — passionate. I hate ending up in scraps with nice Anglicans and thoughtful Catholics because the Church of England and intelligent Catholicism are not the problem. They are the best kind of Christians, but the best lack all conviction. It is the worst who are full of passionate intensity. Look at the evangelical movement in America, and to some extent, now, here. Look at the Religious Right in Israel. Look at fundamentalist Islam. What they share, what drives them, the tiger in their tanks, is an absolute, unshakeable belief in an ever-present divinity, with plans for nations that He communicates to the leaders, or would-be leaders, of nations. They are the very devil, these people, they could wreck our world, and their central belief in God’s plan has to be confronted. Confronted with passion. Confronted because, and on the ground that, it is not true.

Disbelief can be passionate. Sometimes it should be. Agnosticism can be passionate. A sense that we lack certitude, lack evidence, lack the external command of any luminous guiding truth, may not always lead to lassitude, complaisance or a modest silence. Sometimes it should provoke a great shout: “Stop. You don’t know that. You have no right.”

I hit you, earlier on, with a burst of the admirable David Hume. But he was not always right. “Opposing one species of superstition to another,” he wrote, “set them a-quarrelling; while we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philosophy.” No, David. Listen instead to Nietzsche. “This eternal indictment of Christianity,” he said, “I will write on walls, wherever there are walls.”

We who do not believe must be ready with our paintbrushes, our chisels and our cans of aerosol spray. Disbelief can be more than an absence of belief. It can be a redeeming, saving force. "

What is equally interesting about Matthew Paris is that he is a Conservative. In Britain, the most prominent advocates of secular politics have always come from the left. What we may be seeing now is the ongoing growth of secular attitudes in the UK finally reaching the far bastion of organised religion - the Tories. Which can only be a good thing at the end of the day.

Pat Robertson and other US evangelicals are turning their attention to Europe

I wasn't aware of this one, so thanks to evangelical right for highlighting the growing number of American right wing evangelical organisations - including one set up by Pat Robertson - who are starting to lobby and interfere in various domestic European issues:

"-- In Britain, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), an organization founded by American evangelical leaders, is funding a lawsuit brought by a Christian man who was fired for refusing to work on Sunday. It is also helping to develop the legal strategy.

-- In Sweden, ADF played a key role in persuading the Supreme Court to dismiss charges against Ake Green, a pastor who was convicted of hate-crime charges after he delivered a sermon in which he called gays a "deep cancerous tumor in the entire society."

-- In Aruba and the Czech Republic, Pat Robertson's legal organization, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), helped defeat bills that would have legalized same-sex unions.

-- In France, ACLJ affiliate ECLJ (the European Center for Law and Justice), is staging a legal challenge against an antisect law that it says is being used to clamp down on evangelical Christian churches.

-- And on the European Union level, ECLJ is lobbying to block funding for embryonic stem-cell research."