Happy Zombie Jesus Day

Well, it’s that time of year again — the long-weekend that a number of Western nations observe as a national holiday: the pagan festival of ?ostre, better known as Easter, where millions of people gleefully glorify in the brutal killing of their god, who was the son of their god sent by their god to cleanse the world from sins stipulated by their god, for the appeasement of their god.

I have a computer wallpaper that describes it succinctly:

Christianity, n.: Sending telepathic messages to a Jewish ghost letting him know that you will accept him as your master and to ask him to remove a magical curse that was passed down to you because an old woman that was made from the rib of her partner ate a piece of magical fruit from a magical tree because a talking snake told her to.

Ask me again why I’m an Atheist?

Those who recognise that monotheism is one god too many, know it as:

Zombie Jesus Day!

The Parody
According to popular culture and today’s political-religious voices, this holiday all began with…

…the death of a Jewish martyr named Eashoa or Yashua (depending upon which etymology you follow) — who most people know by his translated name of Jesus or Isa — around 2,000 years ago. And then a few days later, it ended with…

…the apparent resurrection of the martyr to the least objective audience possible: Mary Magdalene, sometimes considered to be a love interest or equal leader. Major opposition to this last point is usually from the same people who naïvely think Jesus’s mother died a virgin. (All of this accepts, for the sake of argument, that the people in the story actually lived at that time, that Jesus was born to Mary, that he had a group of followers, etc).

Then some time afterwards, this strange and little-known sect was chosen to replace the polytheistic Roman pantheon as the official religion of the Roman Empire. The Roman Catholic Church was born, complete with its equally absurd Doctrine of the Trinity (one god is three gods but is really just one god — presumably to keep the polytheistic migrants from pantheism happy).

Protestants, particularly ones from modern fundamentalist sects, don’t like this fact but: Catholicism is Christianity. There was no distinction and, with the exception of the schism over the power of the Pope which lead to the formation of the Eastern Orthodox Church, it remained that way until the 16th century Reformation.

For those who haven’t yet completely signed over their rational and critical faculties, here’s the official story for those looking to join the club…

…and is only sanctified by you joining in the cannibalistic ritual of eating the god/man/father/son’s body and drinking his blood. No brains required. Brains…

The Reality
The festival of the Anglo-Saxon pagan goddess ?ostre (or Ôstarâ) celebrates the rebirth of life after the long cold winter by marking the coming of spring, and observes the lunar calendar (as seasonal events have done throughout much of civilisation). Most people know it as Easter, and have bought into the claim that it originated with the death of a religious fanatic around 2,000 years ago.

Easter did not originate with the death of Jesus any more than Christmas originated with his birth. As with most Christian holidays, it was piggy-backed onto pre-existing holidays of the culture in which it spread, and then was later enforced and rewritten by the Church as if the original never existed. Hence the ?ostre/spring symbolism and timing for Easter, and the Yule/winter solstice symbolism and timing for Christmas. Easter is timed to mark the end of Passover — a national & religious celebration of the story of a brutal god murdering thousands of innocent infants — making them follow a lunar, seasonal calendar. Hence the fact that both occur at seemingly random times between late March and late April, matching the Jewish month of Nisan (also called Aviv, or spring), marking the timing of the barley harvest. And don’t forget the Easter egg and its symbolism of new birth/life.

Rebirth, new life, resurrection… recognising an ongoing theme?

The Incredulity
I’ve clearly parodied the stories surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus, basing them in a more Catholic setting than Protestant as the former has been around the longest and the latter is cherry-picked from the former, but they serve to outline the outlandish beliefs surrounding the holiday being celebrated. I say celebrated, but the facts are that only a tiny percentage of the Christian population actually observe (or even know) all the requirements of this holiday, and the number of people who actually know the popularised Easter story is dwindling yearly. For most of the Western world, Easter is simply a 4-day long-weekend where we may have some nice meals and catch up with family, get away for a few days to the coast or snow, or do some DIY around the house to wash away the winter and prepare the house and garden for the coming spring and summer.

The latter is really what Easter is all about. We’ve come through the harsh winter, those of us left alive and healthy will now rebuild what winter has damaged, and life will begin again for the year — as can be seen all around with plant growth, spring lambs and the returned warmth of the Sun.

It’s a shame that some people voluntarily hang on to Bronze Age superstitions, from a time when humanity wasn’t enlightened enough to realise the reality of the annual wonders occurring around us this time of year. I understand why church and political leaders encourage and propagate such absurdities as it ensures their unrivalled power — particularly when you can threaten disobedience with eternal torture in a place that the threatened cannot be certain whether such an evil torment exists or not (enter the fallacy of Pascal’s Wager) — but for otherwise intelligent lay-people to do the same thing feels like collusion or appeasement. Something similar to knowing that you don’t need to outrun the lion chasing you to stay alive, merely that you have to outrun the person next to you. It’s a sick rationale from a sick system borne of sick minds.

Despite what believers reading this may think or say: I do not hate people of religion. I can respect the person while despising the belief, whether religious or political. Beliefs do not stop a person from being human, nor from being worthy of treatment as such. That’s the nature of secular humanism.

Humanity is more important than invisible friends.

Is the economic crisis really that bad?

There’s definitely a lot of talk going on about the global economy — along with the obligatory wailing and gnashing of teeth — but it’s either an incredibly slow slide, or perhaps something else is going on or it’s not as straightforward as it appears. I say this after conversations with colleagues and friends who — aside from preventative job losses and the news about banks — have not really seen what all the fuss is about.

Of course it may be that myself and everyone I’ve chatted to is sufficiently insulated from the situation that it’s not affecting us directly yet (it certainly didn’t take long back in early 2001 when I experienced my first redundancy). Yes, it’s likely that one of our glorious capitalist system’s regular “busts” is happening, as part of the recognised boom and bust cycle, but is it actually any worse than the 2-3 such situations over the last 15-20 years? It’s hard to tell when you raise your head above the reportage, which seems prudent as the news media are hardly objective sources of information.

I’m beginning to wonder if this might be a combination of regular bust — exacerbated by globalisation, monopolisation and near-absent regulation (if they’re bringing in the money…) — combined with media hysteria, post-9/11 politics, and the changing face of media and advertising. The news media are currently saying that it’s the worst economic situation since World War 2, which is a highly emotive statement in the UK and Europe. I’m guessing they’re leaving Great Depression references to pull out as a trump card at a later date. Perhaps it’s time to declare shenanigans.

The post-9/11 politics of the West, in particular, is markedly different to society before 2001. These changes can’t be justified by saying it’s a more dangerous world now, as countries like the UK have suffered terrorism from organisations such as the IRA since before World War 2. A cynic might say that the rules changed when an attack happened on American soil — and that might not be entirely incorrect — but that notwithstanding, there has been a systematic worldwide change in global politics since those awful events in 2001. There seems to have been a visible shift in government’s perspective on the public, resulting in a state of perpetual suspicion of the citizen and systematic erosion of hard-won liberties. And with the advances in technology such as biometrics has followed unending attempts at forcing or sneaking through legislation to mandate biometric identification of populations – with all the idealism, hopes, fears and dread that such measures make. And none of that deals with the wars we’ve created and funded, whatever the validity or justification, and the economic costs of prolonged warmongering.

And of course the media hysteria. Thanks to the proliferation of what currently passes for journalism, the public seem convinced that every male teacher is an unproven paedophile, that they will be mugged if they walk any town at night, serial killers exist in every village, all parents who discipline their children are child abusers, that all teenagers are knife-wielding, crack-smoking, drunken, granny-bashing louts, that violent games/films cause violent acts (yet comedy doesn’t cause humour on the streets…), and so on ad nauseum. Just watch Sky Two in the evenings, or read any Red Top or Daily Whatever newspaper.

But is there any reliable evidence that it’s statistically any worse than it was a century ago? It reminds me of the 1970s song by the Australian band The Skyhooks, called Horror Movie: Horror movie… it’s the 6:30 news. (I couldn’t find the uncensored lyrics, so you’ve got the video instead). If you go back to 1970 or 1940 or 1910 you’ll find the exact same “society is falling apart, we’re all doomed!” spoken as fact. I’m not sure it hasn’t always been like that so, instead, please cast a skeptical eye on the spoon-fed news and political talking heads.

I don’t know the truth, but common sense suggests that it’s not neat enough to fit into a 15 second soundbyte or 3 newspaper column inches.

How to win an argument… at any cost

How often have you encountered a debate in the social arena–particularly around election time — where you see one of the debaters using tactics that seem simply to score points against his or her opponent, but when you examine the point in greater detail you could drive a bus through the argument — but by then the crowd has cheered and sneered, the show is over and it’s too late? Politicians use it every time they take the pulpit, as do captains of industry and even health and medical professionals. It’s manipulative and unethical at best, but it happens every day.

But don’t take my word for it. Read on and find out for yourself…

As a thinking person, you may be well aware of the numerous logical fallacies and cognitive biases that can be used to evaluate an argument, however it might be conveyed. Rather than list them here, I’ll point you to that sometimes dubious ([1] [2] [3]) oracle of knowledge, Wikipedia:

• List of cognitive biases. Low-level or even unconscious behaviour or error in evaluation. A common example of this is to do, say or believe something just because others do (Bandwagon Effect, aka herding or group mind); the number of people who do or believe is unrelated to whether it is real, true or correct.
• List of logical fallacies. Higher level errors in reasoning, logic or understanding. A common example of this is the “if you are not for me then you are against me” threat (False Dichotomy, aka False Dilemma or Argument of Excluded Middle); a position somewhere in the middle ground (such as neutrality) is completely ignored or implied to infer aggression.

Even a basic understanding of a handful of these makes for a completely different view of the political world around us.

Given enough time and data, anyone with a passing understanding can judge whether a position is likely to be true or false — often when you don’t have a specialist understanding of the topic itself. A good thing, too, as the sheer number of decisions we’re asked to make on a variety of topics in our lives: purchasing decisions, local and national politics, child raising, etc.

The sad truth is that the vast majority of people don’t bother to check their facts or even the truth of the arguments that are presented to them. This makes this kind of arguing very successful against the general public, and the reporters from whom many of us rely on for bite-sized summaries (you could think of it as outsourcing your thinking in favour of cutting to the chase), as most aren’t properly schooled in debating, critical thinking or evaluation. I wasn’t. Even after a few years of university I’d never heard the term cognitive bias or been told about logical fallacies, critical thinking and how to apply them. And it’s something that shocked and angered me, so I’ve set to resolve the gaping hole in my knowledge and understanding of how the world works–you’re seeing that process here in posts like this.

So when I read Dr Steven Novella’s How Not To Argue article on Skepticblog — which is based on Arthur Schopenhaur’s original list — I recognised a useful approach to the problem. If people aren’t learning about logical fallacies and cognitive biases, why not have a check-list of what to watch for? That is, a list of dirty tricks you’re likely to see used in a debate, news report or on a political pulpit which will then encourage you to look deeper into the topic. Great idea!

So here is a list of ways that you will see an argument manipulated to the unethical (or ignorant) arguer’s advantage:

38 Ways To Win An Argument

1. Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
2. Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.
3. Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
4. Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
5. Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.
6. Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
7. State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
8. Make your opponent angry.
9. Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.
10. If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
11. If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
12. If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favourable to your proposition.
13. To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
14. Try to bluff your opponent.
15. If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
16. When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
17. If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
18. If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
19. Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
20. If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
21. When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
22. If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.
23. Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
24. State a false syllogism.
25. If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
26. A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.
27. Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
28. When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
29. If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion–that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
30. Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
31. If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
32. A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
33. You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.
34. When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
35. Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
36. You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.
37. Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.
38. Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.

The full article with detailed explanation of each point can be found here or from Steven’s original source — please give it a read.

Next time you see someone trying to convince someone else (probably you) of something, check if one or both parties have tried to sneak in one of the above tricks into the argument. Then you know what to do… call shenanigans!

Have I told you about the dragon in my garage?

Every now and then one comes across something that illustrates a certain point supremely well. And when it’s written by one of my personal heroes, I have to share it. It’s probably an excellent allegorical response to works such as C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, which many understand are in themselves an allegory for Christianity. Not to mention new age beliefs, other religions, and other forms of belief.

The Dragon In My Garage
by
Carl Sagan

“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.”

Suppose (I’m following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you’d want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

“Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle–but no dragon.

“Where’s the dragon?” you ask.

“Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected to mention that she’s an invisible dragon.”

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon’s footprints.

“Good idea,” I say, “but this dragon floats in the air.”

Then you’ll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

“Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.”

You’ll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

“Good idea, but she’s an incorporeal dragon and the paint won’t stick.”

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won’t work.

Now, what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I’m asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.

The only thing you’ve really learned from my insistence that there’s a dragon in my garage is that something funny is going on inside my head. You’d wonder, if no physical tests apply, what convinced me. The possibility that it was a dream or a hallucination would certainly enter your mind. But then, why am I taking it so seriously? Maybe I need help. At the least, maybe I’ve seriously underestimated human fallibility.

Imagine that, despite none of the tests being successful, you wish to be scrupulously open-minded. So you don’t outright reject the notion that there’s a fire-breathing dragon in my garage. You merely put it on hold. Present evidence is strongly against it, but if a new body of data emerge you’re prepared to examine it and see if it convinces you. Surely it’s unfair of me to be offended at not being believed; or to criticize you for being stodgy and unimaginative– merely because you rendered the Scottish verdict of “not proved.”

Imagine that things had gone otherwise. The dragon is invisible, all right, but footprints are being made in the flour as you watch. Your infrared detector reads off-scale. The spray paint reveals a jagged crest bobbing in the air before you. No matter how skeptical you might have been about the existence of dragons–to say nothing about invisible ones–you must now acknowledge that there’s something here, and that in a preliminary way it’s consistent with an invisible, fire-breathing dragon.

Now another scenario: Suppose it’s not just me. Suppose that several people of your acquaintance, including people who you’re pretty sure don’t know each other, all tell you that they have dragons in their garages–but in every case the evidence is maddeningly elusive. All of us admit we’re disturbed at being gripped by so odd a conviction so ill-supported by the physical evidence. None of us is a lunatic. We speculate about what it would mean if invisible dragons were really hiding out in garages all over the world, with us humans just catching on. I’d rather it not be true, I tell you. But maybe all those ancient European and Chinese myths about dragons weren’t myths at all.

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they’re never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon’s fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such “evidence”–no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it–is far from compelling. Once again, the only sensible approach is tentatively to reject the dragon hypothesis, to be open to future physical data, and to wonder what the cause might be that so many apparently sane and sober people share the same strange delusion.

Fantastic, isn’t it? Using his renowned ability to instruct and correct kindly and sympathetically, and without the frustrated emotion and insults that many of us succumb to, he manages to illustrate and educate this point brilliantly. A true humanist, skeptic, educator and ambassador for science and reason.

A lot can happen in 20 years – Part 8

This follows on from Part 7.

As mentioned in Part 1, I realised that it’s exactly 20 years since I entered the full-time workforce, and a lot can happen in that time, so thought I’d share my road to reason. This is the final part.

While I can understand how religion appeals to those seeking absolute certainty, there is no proof of any given religion’s validity beyond its own self-referential written text and its adherents. And there are countless religions with their own texts and followers, each claiming to be the truth, and many of them damn non-followers to their own version of hell as punishment for not making a choice in their favour. So a failure to choose correctly, when there is so much confusion and noise all around, religiously speaking, will result in an eternity of torture and brutality. And you call that a caring, just god? I don’t think so.

A book that has “This is the truth” written in it doesn’t make it true. Billions of people claiming that a book is true doesn’t make it true. Even if we might want them to be true.

That’s not to say that all religions are definitely false and that there are definitely no gods — that would be both hubris and an unsubstantiatable belief — but rather there is no irrefutable evidence in favour of them. Welcome to uncertainty: mind your step…

In case someone wishes to raise the question of whether I can afford to take the risk where eternal damnation is the cost, I would simply point to Bertrand Russell’s famous teapot. Just because something can be imagined and the concept of an after-life (with eternal punishment) can also be conceived for it, it doesn’t mean that it exists or that is should be followed. Otherwise, where would it end? Roman pantheism – haven’t we already tried that…?

As I see it, there is no proof or evidence of a god that doesn’t include something like:

• “Look around you… there must have been a creator!“
• “Science can’t explain [something], so it must be god!“
• “How could 2 billion people be wrong?“
• “It must be true, because the [book] says so!“

These are all logical fallacies that prove nothing. Not a sausage. Nada. Zip.

It is for these reasons, founded in actual experience and investigation, that I confidently and unequivocally declare… that nothing is certain. (Anticlimax?) After all, it’s the only truly neutral judgement. All the odds (and evidence so far) are that we created all these gods in our own image and they are mere fantasy or perhaps projections of our own desires, hopes, prejudices, greed, or possibly a coping mechanism for the fears we had when cowering in the caves while thunderstorms raged outside or volcanoes erupted. But perhaps not. To state otherwise would be belief, and that’s a voluntary shackle I’ve chosen to undo.

It brings me to the definition of atheist (with a little ‘a’) from my first post. As I see it, the only neutral position is one that mirrors that point in our lives before our family, friends or teachers impressed (cynics might say infected) the unseen and unempirical upon us. So a-theism means the absence of theism (supernatural belief). Simpler days indeed.

For many atheists like myself, however, it is not enough simply to eschew supernatural thoughts and superstitions, but also the millennia of religiously-inspired rules, laws, beliefs, restrictions and horrors forced upon mankind for no other reason than they appear in one or another translations of that nation’s or continent’s holy book, and they kept its leaders in the lap of luxury. It’s very easy to point to things such as schools, hospitals and charities run in the name of a god, but it’s more distasteful pointing to the slavery, torture, rape, genital mutilation, oppression (race, class and gender), genocide, conquests, and wars that are all happening this very day in the name of any given god and his book. It’s deplorable and shameful.

So a step beyond simply divorcing oneself from such… taint is to look at ways of living that do not involve Stone Age edicts meant to keep superstitious nomadic desert tribes alive in this scientific, largely urban, modern world.

Enter Secular Humanism, a non-theistic system or philosophy of looking at and living in the world with reason, ethics and morality foremost, and without the irrelevant encumbrances of religious or supernatural thoughts or beliefs. It’s about being good and striving for goodness, justness, and morality for its own sake and for your fellow human, not because your fear hellfire or damnation. (Would you really do awful things if you weren’t afraid of a god or eternal punishment? What kind of person does that make you?) And it’s beautifully liberating — you can be a good person and knowing you’re doing it because you can and want to, not because it’ll go into some imaginary ledger for use against you in some Miltonian judgement.

There is enough beauty and majesty, cruelty and suffering in the world. Why do we insist on wishing for more of the former by creating more of the latter?

Instead, perhaps we should marvel in what we have with those we love for whatever time we may have.

A lot can happen in 20 years – Part 7

This follows on from Part 6.

As mentioned in Part 1, I realised that it’s exactly 20 years since I entered the full-time workforce, and a lot can happen in that time, so thought I’d share my road to reason. This is a continuation.

Muslims are taught to pray 5 times per day — always facing towards the Ka’aba, the ornate black cube-shaped structure (satellite map) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in which is contained the fabled Black Stone — at various offsets of the rising and setting sun. The times vary based upon the seasons and latitude, but typically take place before sunrise, around noon, mid-afternoon, early-evening and late-evening. The higher the latitude, the more these times vary: for example, in London these times are (shows the variation for each prayer over the year):

• 02:30-06:00 – Fajr
• 11:45-13:00 – Dhuhr
• 13:30-17:30 – Asr
• 15:45-21:30 – Maghrib
• 17:45-23:30 – Isha

This is because the sun rises and sets at quite a varied range of times throughout the year (ignoring the different ways used to calculate sunrise and sunset, which itself is controversial in Islam), again using London as an example:

• 04:45-08:00 – sunrise
• 15:54-21:30 – sunset

It gets worse at even more polar latitudes, at its extreme resulting in the midnight sun, which makes literal adherence to any schedule based on sunrise and sunset an impossibility. The prayer system does not seem to have been designed with all of the world in mind, apparently favouring more equatorial locations.

Praying at the required time and in the correct direction (the Qibla) is a relatively simple task in some locations on earth (both in terms of latitude and culture), but in some locations at some times of the year it can mean waking up twice in the night to pray. This is aside from the day’s normal tasks (such as commuting, working, classes, recreation time, etc) during which Muslims are expected to stop to pray — which you see in many Muslim countries, with even bus and lorry drivers pulling over on the roadside to pray. Various Islamic societies and groups have different ways of dealing with this problem: some do them all exactly when required, some have a window of time, others skip one or two (sometimes “making them up” later in the day), and some groups “stack” their prayers and do them all at the beginning or end of the day. I have met Muslims from all over the world for whom each of these is permitted in their culture, though the ruling used in the mosque I was visiting was the window method: if a prayer was meant for 13:00, you could pray that prayer from something like 12:00-14:00 and it would still be “valid”.

There is a strong concept of valid/invalid in Muslim actions, suggesting that an act of devotion to god would either be accepted or rejected by god based upon the validity of your actions, the way you did it and in what circumstances. One example is that it is forbidden to pray in any room that has a toilet in it (e.g. large bathroom, jail cell), and some groups think prayer is invalid if there is a toilet between you and the Ka’aba (e.g. if you are facing Mecca and the toilet is in an adjacent room in front of you) — to do this would make that prayer invalid. This, and the black-and-white concepts of haram (forbidden) and halal (permitted) have meant that Islamic jurisprudence is a big deal, with these scholars issuing fatawa (non-binding religious opinions, though often treated as a requirement if it suits — the 1988 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, for example) on whether an action is permitted or forbidden. It is effectively deciding whether god considers it a sin or not, in much the same way that the Catholic Pope has done throughout history. Since the end of the last Caliphate in the 1920′s there are now many such scholars in Islam, though this cannot be a unique criticism, as this is comparable to Protestantism — also without a central authority or head — where each church’s leader (minister, pastor, father, priest, etc) acts in the same capacity, declaring this or that a sin under god. Probably because of this, both have the same problems of fragmentation, isolationism, and a easier tendency to extremes of belief, interpretation and opinion. The religious component of American politics is one such example.

All Abrahamic religions have a holy day each week, and Islam is no different. While attendance at mosque for prayers is preferred/ideal whenever possible, and in practice many even devout Muslims are lucky to manage two visits a day, attendance at Friday’s midday prayer, Jumu’ah, is considered almost compulsory (it is mandatory in some places). Jumu’ah is similar to the other mosque attendance throughout the week, except it includes a story or lesson from the Qur’an by the prayer leader, and is the closest thing to a sermon in Islam. This communal prayer is also a way to ensure that the Ummah are together at least once a week, and furthers the bonds of friendship and brotherhood.

While I can fully appreciate why Muslims value their community so highly, as it really does provide a sense of belonging that is more universal than other religions I’ve seen and experienced, it suffers from a number of problems — some of which are shared with other religions and others that may be unique to Islam. The absence of a central authority — the Caliph — is a new problem for Islam as it has always had one in the past to unify and prevent splinter groups forming, but since the Caliphate’s demise I think it is unlikely to ever be replaced as in the presence of any power vacuum, many self-appointed authorities have now stepped up in its place often with vastly different agendas, interpretations and priorities, and I can’t see how they will all voluntarily bow down to one leader, regardless of how regular and orthodox his election might be. Also, a large portion of the Islamic world lives in areas of strife and war that, whether or not the strife is religious in origin or not, has polarised its inhabitants into believing it is a religious struggle — and the Qur’an speaks quite a bit about religi
ous struggles, and the call to and justifications of jihad. This fallacy provides an opportunity for agenda-driven self-appointed leaders to steer people to suit their own ends.

There are other issues on which I could elaborate, but the final, undeniable stumbling block is again the beliefs and dogmas. As with Christianity, this too has its requirement of belief in a god and its attendant dogmas and practices, along with quite extreme punishments should any member decide to enact them, with only its text and adherents as proof of its truth. For many that is more than enough.

Continued in Part 8.

A lot can happen in 20 years – Part 6

This follows on from Part 5.

As mentioned in Part 1, I realised that it’s exactly 20 years since I entered the full-time workforce, and a lot can happen in that time, so thought I’d share my road to reason. This is a continuation.

Having had my fill of what could probably be considered the traditional religion of the “white western world”, Christianity, and living in the UK (that contains a large immigrant population from outside that region), it seemed natural to look into one of the world’s other dominant religions, Islam. Up to 2 billion people follow or were born into it, and many reports say that it is growing in popularity, and may even be the world’s fastest growing religion.

Before reading on, note that all words in Islam are Arabic, as Muslims believe Arabic is the only language in which their holy book can be read or understood (perhaps even so far as to believe that “Arabic is the language of god”). All translations are considered merely guides, which is why translations of the Qur’an are always have the title prefixed with The Meaning of… In addition, transliterations of Arabic words can be spelled various ways — my understanding is that there is no ‘correct’ way to spell them outside of the Arabic character set: hence Islam, Islaam, Muhammed, Mohamed, Mohammed, Mahomet, Qur’an, Quraan, Koran, Muslim, Moslem, etc.

Islam is seen by Muslims to be the third and last in the line of Abrahamic religions, that is a monotheistic religion with Abraham as its original prophet. Contrary to what most right-wing people or extremist members of each religion will say, all three of these religions worship exactly the same god: the god of the Jewish prophets Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus. All three originated in a small area of the Middle East and have essentially the same roots, regardless of whatever branding and localisation may have happened where you live. The most obvious differences between the three religions are what they call their god, what level of importance they place on notable people in their holy books, and who they consider to be their authoritative prophet. Muslims believe that Muhammed is the last and greatest prophet of the Abrahamic god, whom they call Allah. Allah is simply the transliterated Arabic word al-Lah, meaning “the (only, one) god.” To make that perfectly clear: Allah is literally the Arabic word God — not actually a name. They do not believe that Muhammed (often simply referred to as The Prophet) was divine, though many critics seem unable to discern a difference between the Islamic treatment of Muhammed and the Christian treatment of Jesus.

It was not my intention to convert to Islam, though I did want to give it the attention to detail and respect that it deserved, so I observed many of the rules of the religion — to the consternation of some of my family and friends.

I began my exploration of Islam via the Islam Channel on TV, the Internet (which can be a minfield, as with all topics that polarise beliefs and opinions), and an Islamic centre not far from where I work. This centre and an Islamic Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel (or ‘chatroom’) would enable me to talk with Muslims, to learn and to get an idea of the varying opinions, sects and beliefs. On IRC I quickly found people who ranged from mature, moderate live-and-let-live responsible global citizens to angry young men (and women) screaming for jihad against the West with every breath. These people ranged from 3rd generation Americans and British citizens through to people sitting in Internet cafes in war zones. Putting up your hand in such an environment to say that you’re a white Anglo-Saxon, and not a Muslim, always gets a variety of reactions: some will immediately seek retribution (expulsion from the channel, attacking your computer, verbal abuse and threats, etc), many will raise an eyebrow but continue on as normal, and a few will be happy for the change of perspective. For the most part, once I’d been there for a couple of hours nobody asked who I was, and I was able to have interesting and meaningful conversations with a number of people. No pretending or lying was required on my part.

A few weeks into my online experiences — which also included reading numerous websites, online web forums, and a PDF copy of the Qur’an — I decided to visit the nearby Islamic centre which was open one evening per week. They were attached to a local mosque — both taking up 2-3 shops in a small strip mall — and the centre was manned by two Pakistani friends who felt it their duty to reach out to the wider community, in much the same way Christian churches sometimes do, by providing a drop-in and information centre for those who were curious. On my first visit I was struck by the difference in appearance of the two men, particularly as the UK seems to consist mainly of a fundamentalist version of Islam (which includes uncut facial hair and traditional clothes, among other things), as one had some of the typical appearance of what I had seen on TV and the other was wearing western clothes and was cleanly shaven; the former was a medical writer and the latter a school teacher. The centre itself took up one of the shops and had a glass front, school desks and chairs set up in a square in the middle, a few armchairs in one corner, and shelves on the walls with Islamic books, CDs, bookmarks, posters, and the usual kinds of things you find in a religious bookshop.

Over the next few months I visited the centre periodically, and then started going into the mosque during prayer times as the evening prayer began when I was there, so I took the opportunity to watch exactly what went on. Eventually I started to take part in the prayers, and found the process quite complicated with the movements changing depending upon which prayer you were doing, it had to be in formation with the other people there, and there were words to learn that had to be mouthed quietly throughout the prayer. Regardless of the political opinions that I knew some of the members had (I spoke with some of them before/after prayers), every single person there made me feel welcome, even though I was the only white person in the building. There was no sense of not belonging, no hint of malice, no racial awareness — each person treated me as a brother, no matter whether they spoke English or not (many didn’t). There’s a lot to be said for that sense of family, and I can see how it binds good people and bad people, and provides that global sense of community, the Ummah.

Continued in Part 7.

A lot can happen in 20 years – Part 5

This follows on from Part 4.

As mentioned in Part 1, I realised that it’s exactly 20 years since I entered the full-time workforce, and a lot can happen in that time, so thought I’d share my road to reason. This is a continuation.

Upon coming to a decision about Buddhism, I then chose to examine an aspect of Christianity that had I no experience of: the Religious Society of Friends (or Quakers). They seemed to be non-existent where I grew up, so it wasn’t until I moved to the UK that I learned more about them in passing, and eventually decided to investigate them in greater depth. My understanding is that the Quakers in the UK are notably different from those in the US — my friends there speak of Quakers there as if they are fundamentalist or fire-and-brimstone organisation, which is nothing like the Quakers I’ve come across here.

In the UK they meet in a Friends Meeting House (a church by any other name, but usually without many of the trappings) with the chairs arranged in a rough circle so that everyone can see one another, and the meeting consists of everyone sitting in silence. There is no preaching, no sermon, no tub-thumping, no agenda being cast down from the pulpit — just people sitting and quietly reflecting. It remains this way until someone feels moved to speak, at which point they will stand and calmly say their piece, then resume their seat; later on someone else may feel moved to speak (sometimes in response, sometimes not), and this continues until the meeting finishes. Once finished, everyone stands and shakes one another’s hands with a smile, and then everyone retreats to the canteen/dining area where everyone shares lunch, with most people having brought a plate of food to share.

With the exception of one meeting where a member clearly felt strongly about his son being sent to war and subsequently feeling moved to speak out against it (followed by another member gently providing Biblical platitudes, resulting in the same man feeling moved to speak out again against his son’s predicament, and so on), which drove home the unfortunate nature of the concept of “being moved to speak”, all of my attendances at Quakers meetings were delightful. Regardless of such instances of emotion-driven speeches, it is a truly welcoming and peaceful environment. In fact, one of the members of the same local Buddhist group I once attended is a regular attender at the Quaker meetings — they are so welcoming that one does not even have to profess Christianity (or indicate that you’re willing to “sign up”) to attend and be truly welcome, unlike every other religious organisation I’ve ever attended, before or since.

My experience with the Quakers showed that they are as much, if not more, about community and spirituality than religion and dogma, and those are attributes that I’m sure anyone can respect, admire and appreciate. However, they are prey to the same faults as other Christian groups: the adherence to the Bible as infallible, the belief in God/Jesus/Holy Spirit (the Trinity), and to the belief in the concept of “being moved” to speak. My biggest concerns were that nearly all such motions were from the speaker’s personal life or recent headline news. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to fathom that the source is mundane, not divine.

Continued in Part 6.

Finding the balance

It struck me today that it’s quite difficult to find a happy balance between the consumption of information — from blogs, newspapers, periodicals, etc — and contributing to the public sphere. I have a voracious appetite for knowledge, including conscious revision of prior Did you know…? “facts” that often turn out to be erroneous or unproved, but the trick seems to be working out an acceptable ratio of input (reading and watching) to output (writing and blogging). As someone with a reasonable level of research skill and a high level of  Internet experience, it’s extremely easy to spend all my time consuming what the world has to offer.

Even with a good RSS reader like Bloglines or GReader, consumption of information can take all of my time if I’m not careful, particularly as I’ve always felt that one should have more than just a passing familiarity with a topic before opining on it. After all, as we’re so often told these days, once you hit the Publish button on your blog, you are a published author… in the eyes of litigators, at least. And I have quite a few personal and professional interests.

I suppose I’m like most people: there are a number of topics on which I am an expert, some on which I am a keen hobbyist or competent lay-person, and a limitless amount for which I haven’t a hope of being able to bluff my way through. The trick is where to draw the line and to recognise that, although one might not know a particular topic in any depth, the application of critical thinking and logic should provide enough to enable a fair appraisal of it, even if it’s not feasible to become an authority on it.

Of course, a shortfall with this approach is that faulty thinking, idealogy, emotions or subjectivity can allow for conclusions that are not based in reality. I’m sure every person already holds numerous such “facts”, but having them in our heads doesn’t make them real. It now depends on whether you’re prepared to re-evaluate them or not.

A lot can happen in 20 years – Part 3

This follows on from Part 2.

As mentioned in Part 1, I realised that it’s exactly 20 years since I entered the full-time workforce, and a lot can happen in that time, so thought I’d share my road to reason. This is a continuation.

It astonishes me to this day that this kind of surgical excision of my entire life could have happened. This elder and his wife had lied to everyone, peers my age had simply accepted it without question, and none thought to contact me — even on the side, just in case (or to wish me well). I could just have easily contacted any or all of them, but that would have misses the point of my choice to stop making contact.

It wasn’t the appalling behaviour of some of the people I’ve mentioned that has made me “hate God”, as is the common accusation levelled against atheists. I don’t hate God or even the concept of a god. It’s far too easy for our black and white views of the world — particularly in areas of high emotion, usually around the age old controversies of origin, religion, race, creed, politics and gender — to encourage us to pigeon-hole one another. Theists and atheists are often equally to blame, as it’s due to the logical fallacy of False Dichotomy (or Excluded Middle) which completely excludes the middle ground that nearly always exists. It’s what governments, leaders, politicians and advertising companies use against us on a daily basis and is quite likely to be a natural tendency (the same goes the truth of “sex sells”), so it takes thought and reason to both see and avoid.

So once I realised how things stood with the church congregation — my “loving family” and community — I ceased all religious activity. It wasn’t only because of the hurt and shock, as I was then unaware of what the elders had done on my departure, but rather because I felt as though my eyes had been opened and I was finally able to examine the previous 3-4 years of my life and the material, dogma and beliefs that had been accrued. And it was staggering. I did not consider myself an atheist at that point, in fact at that time I still consider myself a Christian, albeit non-practising. This examination included taking stock of the beliefs, policies, behaviours and dogmas of the churches I had attended, the contents of the Bible (particularly the sections chosen, those used as justifications, and those specifically ignored), and of course soul-searching my own beliefs now that I was out of the self-reinforcing environment of a congregation.

Outside of the community, it’s amazing how much time you have to think and, while you may not have someone to immediately seek advice or answers from, that is not necessarily a bad thing. There is, after all, often a difference between a fact and the party line (and that doesn’t just apply to religion). Until leaving I had mainly received the party line or an on-the-spot made up answer based upon the teachings of the party line… and it usually differed from even the written word in the Bible. Such is the nature of interpretive preaching and cherry-picking.

Continued in Part 4.