Archive for December, 2006

Richard Dawkins has admitted he erred in signing the controversial petition mentioned in the previous post, and in a comment on Ed Brayton’s blog, says the following: I did sign the petition, but I hadn’t thought it through when I did so, and I now regret it. I have asked the organizer to remove my name. Unfortunately, it seems that the list has already gone off to Downing Street but the organizer, Jamie Wallis, has kindly asked their web manager to remove my name. I suspect that he himself may be having second thoughts about the wording, and I respect him for that. It isn’t always easy to get the exact wording right. I signed it having read only the main petition: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16.” I regret to say that I did not notice the supporting statement with the heading, “More details from petition creator”: “In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching or be allowed to be defined as belonging to a particular religious group based on the views of their parents or guardians.” If I had read that, I certainly would not have signed the petition, because, as explained in The God Delusion, I am in favour of teaching the Bible as literature, and I am in favour of teaching comparative religion. In any case, like any decent liberal, I am opposed to the element of government coercion in the wording. Furthermore, the Prime Minister, thank goodness, does not have the power to ‘make’ anything ‘illegal’. Only parliament has the power to do that. I signed the main petition, because I really am passionately opposed to DEFINING children by the religion of their parents (while ‘indoctrination’ is such a loaded word, nobody could be in favour of it). I was so delighted to hear of somebody else who cared about the defining or...
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Richard Dawkins has been a huge hero to the atheist community for some time, not only for his years of tireless advocacy of science, but, most recently, for his work in bringing atheist views into the mainstream with his bestseller The God Delusion. But recently, his support of a rather alarming petition in his native England has disturbing implications. The petition, authored by one Jamie Wallis using a service on the #10 Downing Street website that allows users to write their own petitions and gather signatures right there for the PM’s consideration, reads as follows: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16. In order to encourage free thinking, children should not be subjected to any regular religious teaching or be allowed to be defined as belonging to a particular religious group based on the views of their parents or guardians. At the age of 16, as with other laws, they would then be considered old enough and educated enough to form their own opinion and follow any particular religion (or none at all) through free thought. Whoa. Let’s run through this. The first and most obvious thing that comes to mind is that what the petition asks is something that in America is unequivocally unconstitutional: government intrusion in private religious practice. Ed Brayton, over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars, has gone into outrage overload at this whole thing, declaring that “as far as I’m concerned, this pretty much removes Dawkins from any discussion among reasonable people.” He goes on to a laundry list of entirely valid criticisms. This proposal is every bit as noxious and totalitarian as a proposal from Christian reconstructionists that those who teach their children about witchcraft or atheism should be thrown in jail would be. Just imagine what you would have to do to actually enforce such a law. No one could take their children...
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The demented duo, Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron, are at it again. I’ve already posted lengthy responses to their “Way of the Master” series, covering episodes on atheism and evolution — but it seems they haven’t bothered to read and learn. Their latest endeavor is a new board game called “Intelligent Design versus Evolution”. According to Kirk Cameron, We are very excited about this game because it presents both sides of the creation evolution argument, and in doing so, shows that the contemporary theory of evolution is perhaps the greatest hoax of modern times. Which means that they haven’t actually presented both sides, they’ve simply presented their side along with their grossly misunderstood view of the actual science that supports evolution. The goal of their game is to collect “brain cards” and the player with the most brain cards wins. The irony is so thick that the responses nearly write themselves… Endorsing this brain trust is Ken Ham, the creationist responsible for www.AnswersInGenesis.com and quotes like: I don’t use science to prove my religion. I use the Bible to build my science. Evidently Dr. Dino is a little busy.

Evidently the Christians are having some major holiday today. To me, it’s a very quiet Monday. The weather’s pretty, though. Very nice change from the rains yesterday. I don’t see any reason to treat December 25 any differently from any other day, whether for “cultural” reasons or any other. They’re all unique, you only live them once, so enjoy them as best you can!

What do you want to bet this will be blamed on godless libruls?