Why are prisoners who don’t even have the right to vote given so many privileges when it comes to faith?

Belief is its own reward

At the moment convicted British prisoners can’t vote  although a change in the law is under consideration for those whose sentence is less than four years. Why is a real and tangible process such as voting denied to them when something as frivolous as faith is permitted?

It seems that all religions, even the weirdest ones, are well respected in British prisons and prisoners of even minority faiths are furbished with all sorts of accessories and privileges so that they can “worship”.

Pagans can have a hood-less robe, a flexible twig for a wand, incense, jewellery and rune stones. They are also allowed to have Tarot cards as long as a “risk assessment” is made by the prison authorities and no prisoner uses their Tarot cards for fortune-telling with other prisoners. In addition to being allowed to have all this stuff, pagans can choose two holidays per year, from a list, when they are excused from work. This list of days includes Samhain, as Hallowe’en is know in paganism, the vernal equinox and the midsummer solstice.

According to figures published this month the population breakdown of faiths in British prisons is as follows:

26,000 Atheist
23,000 Anglican
14,000 Roman Catholic
9,795 Muslim
366 Pagan
340 Rastafarian
6 Nation of Islam

Ignoring the fact that Judaism seems to have been left out of the figures all together it is interesting to note that the majority of prisoners are atheists. Does this mean that there is a greater tendency towards criminality among atheists? I hope not.

I don’t know whether I am in favour of prisoners being given voting rights as it is not something I’ve really ever thought about enough to have formulated an opinion. I am very surprised however that our society affords even prisoners so much respect for their belief in the supernatural.

See:
“Privileges ease spell in prison for pagans”
(The Times 01.08.09)

Filed under: Atheism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Paganism, Religion, Special Religious Dispensation, Prison, Voting Rights

Afghan rape laws for the “modern” world… A husband’s right to have sex a minimum number of times per week has been abolished but now he can legally starve his wife for refusing his sexual demands

Progressive President Hamid Karzei

With Afghanistan in the midst of election fever its “enlightened” and relatively fresh young president, Hamid Karza, has apparently just signed an amended version of the marital rape laws.

The clause that insists that men have the right to sex with their wives a certain number of times a week has been withdrawn and men will only have the right to deny their wives food for withholding sexual favours.

Courts will also be able to grant guardianship of women’s children to fathers and grandfathers should wives be lacking in the lust department.

In addition the “marital rape laws” will grant men who are guilty of the “petty” crime of rape the chance to get away with their crimes so long as they can pay to avoid prosecution.

Reporting in The Times newspaper today Melanie Reid writes:

“[It] would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. The British Army, decent and professional and upstanding as ever, now finds itself fighting to within an inch of the polling stations in order to allow Afghan men to continue mildly unpleasant habits such as withholding food from their wives, insisting on sex and imprisoning them in their own home. (Which makes you wonder exactly what the problem with the Taleban was.)”

See:
“Right to rape: is that what we’re fighting for?”
(The Times 18.08.09)

Filed under: Afghanistan, Islam, Religion, Stupidity, Hamid Karza, Marital Rape Laws, Rape

Atheist morals. Are atheists “bad people” just because they are atheists?

Occasionally people ask me “But if you are an atheist then where do you get your sense of morals from?” and I am always amazed by this question.

One does not need religion to have a moral stance. Morals are a moveable feast anyway. On a Venn diagram of the moral codes of different religions any given one would rarely fit into exactly the same set of another. Real morals do not come from scriptures. The easiest moral for anyone to comprehend is “Do unto others as you would be done by”. In other words treat others as you would want to be treated. This is scripture, yes, but it is also fundamental and can cover pretty much any moral situation.

I don’t drop litter because I know that I appreciate a tidy, ordered and clean world. I find litter ugly and aesthetically displeasing. However, I don’t just take care not to drop litter in my own immediate surroundings. I drop no litter in places which I know I will never return to. Why? First because of a perceived mutual benefit. I simply figure that if I don’t mess up somebody else’s neighbourhood then someone from that neighbourhood will be less likely to leave rubbish in my own area should they ever be visiting it. Second, I have some respect for the natural environment and simply want to do my bit to keep the world a beautiful place.

Most of my other moral values come from this common sense approach and although I could call myself a cultural Christian, having been brought up in that faith, the morals that I use today are a mixture of those that I learned parrot-fashion in Sunday School and subsequent additions or subtractions derived from my own experience of the differences between living a good and productive life and living a bad and destructive one.

I think that certain morals are inherent. We all know that it is wrong to lie. We feel it when we tell an untruth. We know that it is wrong to kill. How can it be right to take life away from another when we know how precious our own lives are to us?

Much the same can be said of all the other “sins”. Greed, gluttony and sloth are obviously to be avoided. No one needs a bible to realise that. If one is greedy then someone else suffers by having too little. If one is a glutton then one is being partitive and concentrating too much on one aspect of life. Laziness or “sloth” leads to inaction and we all know that this world is action-powered; leaving the action up to others is a recipe for the world coming to a stand-still.

The Bible, Koran and Talmud all contain some pretty terrible stuff but even the religious amongst us manage to sift out the wheat from the chaff. What moral compass are they using to do that?

One of my most cherished values in life is balance and this has helped to guide all my actions yet I don’t remember ever being taught about balance from religion. Robert Anton Wilson said “Life is a balancing point between something and nothing and if one can stay balanced on that tightrope one can get something for nothing”. That impressed me and made me think long and hard about the importance of balance. No god taught me that; it was another man.

No one needs a bible or any other piece of ancient desert text to tell them what is right and wrong. The path to sanity is that path which our hearts and minds tell us to take. Surely nothing could be simpler than that.

Filed under: Atheism, Morals

Flying rabbis attempt to save Israelis from swine flu by getting the horn

Up,up and away with Swine Flu

When I fist read the BBC News headline I had to rub my eyes then I was glad I had rubbed them because I had got it wrong after all. It was not “Flying Rabbits Fight Swine Flu” but rather “Flying Rabbis Fight Swine Flu”. Phew! Now flying rabbits are one thing but flying rabbis are a totally different kettle of fish.

It seems that a whole bunch of rabbis actually boarded a plane and flew over Israel performing a ritual in an effort to protect Israelis against swine flu. How much more normal could it be. The BBC article reports that they were accompanied by Jewish mystics and for a brief moment I wondered what they might be. Then it dawned on me. They are obviously people who are even more experienced in the silly-hats-department than most orthodox Jews, who mutter incantations and spout so much bullshit that even the most devout are taken in by them.

According to Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri their group got into a metal container with wings and presumably a few engines and then blew a horn while they were over Israel to “stop the pandemic so people will stop dying from it”. (Most Israelis don’t refer to the virus “Swine Flu”. Disliking pigs they prefer to call it “H1N1” which is ironic because that is the preferred term used by the World Health Authority WHO (boom, boom) failed miserably in persuading most of the world to actually use it.)

Well now I’ve seen everything.

See:
“Flying rabbis fight swine flu”
BBC (12.08.09)

Filed under: Israel, Judaism, News, Religion, Stupidity, Flying Rabbis, Swine Flu

More “birkini” madness – No longer optional but compulsory at some UK swimming pool sessions

I have just telephoned my local swimming pool in Hornsey and asked if a (fictitious) Muslim friend could use the pool wearing a “birkini”. They told me straight away that she would be welcome. I also said that I had no swimming trunks and asked if I could swim in my jeans shorts. The answer was “no”. They told me that I would have to have “proper” swimming trunks in order to enter the pool.

As if having special swimming times for women wasn’t already bad enough, according to a piece in yesterday’s Telegraph newspaper:

“Across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.”
and that
“Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.”

Surely such measures are divisive and fly in the face of common sense and community cohesion. Is this is not bound to cause resentment from non-Muslims towards Muslims?

If I was to go to my local pool dressed in pirate garb on September 19th, which is a holy day for Pastafarians known as “Dress and Talk Like a Pirate Day”, do you think they would let me go for a swim? I wonder.

Having Muslim-only swimming sessions is yet another example of special dispensation for religions. This kind of policy divides people rather than bringing them together and because there are so many religions, taken to its logical conclusion, one that would exclude the majority most of the time.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Maybe the saying “if you can’t beat ’em join ’em” applies here and the only way to show some local councils how truly stupid they are being is for all religions and minorities to demand that they have their own special swimming times. Wouldn’t it be great if atheists could get organised and demand atheist-only sessions so that they could swim in peace without being surrounded by weak-minded faith heads.

See:
“Swimmers are told to wear burkinis”
(Telegraph 15.08.09)

Filed under: Atheism, Islam, Neo-puritanism, News, Special Religious Dispensation, Stupidity, Birkini, Blackbird Leys Swimming Pool, Croydon Council, North Woodside Leisure Centre, Scunthorpe Leisure Centre, Swimming Pools, Thornton Heath Leisure Centre

Road safety is a load of bollards these days

The Autons walk among us

Leicester City Council have found a novel way of adding to the local street furniture by placing plastic children on pavements. They are there in an attempt to make drivers cut their speeds but could such an idea really work or are the council members who conceived of the idea the real dummies.

Some drivers have already complained that the plastic replicas are spooky, scary and reminiscent of the Autons in the Doctor Who TV series. With wild staring eyes and expressionless faces the dummies are to be found on roads surrounding a local primary school.

When I was learning about road safety traffic lights were designed purely for motorists. For pedestrians there was neither a button to push nor a  “little green man” to indicate that it was safe to cross. I still remember the confusion that the flashing yellow light caused for motorists when it was phased in. As pedestrians we just kept our eyes open and followed “the green cross code”. Looking back with the mindset of one of today’s road safety planners it is no doubt a wonder that we lived to tell the tale.

Today we have a residential speed limit of 20 mph, railings at places that are unsafe to cross and a plethora of other road safety measures. One would have thought that in conjunction with road safety education in schools children would be relatively safe.

If anything detracts from pedestrians’ safety today it is surely the abundance of “street furniture”. We have more road signs, utility junction boxes, CCTV camera posts, and other obstacles than ever before. Even our bus stops are super-sized; not that this stops ill-bread idiots standing right in the middle of the pavement so that those walking by need to step into the road to get by.

So whose crazy idea was it to add plastic dummies to the list of obstacles that pedestrians have to traverse? What do mothers with push chairs think about them I wonder, in a world where they already have to scrape by a multitude of objects to get anywhere. How about the elderly and partially sighted? It is easy to imagine some good potential comedy situations here but I will resist. Road safety is a serious matter after all.

That's spooky !

Besides the obvious hazard of placing more obstacles in the way of pedestrians might not these dummies actually cause drivers to be less attentive? Their spooky faces are a sight to see. In addition there is the added possibility that drivers may become de-sensitised to them and mistake real children for them who are standing still at the side of the road patiently waiting to cross.

Thankfully I have no children but if I was a parent the very first important lesson of life would be to drive home the fact that we are born once, we have one life and then we die.

Specifically when it comes to road safety I would teach them the simple code that I learned when I was young.

The Green Cross Code.

1. Find a safe place to cross where there are no parked cars and where you can clearly see oncoming traffic and just as importantly, a place where drivers are able to see you.
2. Keep looking left and right while waiting for a suitable time to cross and wait for a time when there are no cars approaching from either direction.
3. When it is safe to cross, do so but keep looking left and right all the time until you reach the other side.

I have no way of knowing exactly how many roads I’ve crossed in my lifetime of almost half a century but this system seems to have worked so far. I’ve never cut corners to catch a bus either. I’ve always remembered that it is better to wait for the next bus than loose the only life I have.

Children are not dummies and with the right education they don’t need plastic bollards in order to be safe on our roads.

See:
“The child bollards that are so lifelike they’re scaring motorists.”
(Daily Mail 16.08.09)

“The Green Cross Code with Kevin Keegan (1976)”
(Old Public Information Film at YouTube)

Filed under: News, Stupidity, Autons, Child Bollards, Doctor Who, Green Cross Code, Leicester City Council, Road Safety, Street Furniture

Speedos, “birkinis” and the strange mixed up world of modern bathing apparel

Bathing costume styles are high on the agenda in this week’s “silly season” news stories.

It seems that some men like to wear shorts whilst others swear by skimpy Speedos and women can choose between a one-piece suit or a bikini ensemble. A few (as reported in my last post) like to let it all hang out by wearing nothing at all. But now there is a new way to bathe. Yes, this week saw the addition of the “burkini” to our repertoire of swimming apparel.

Purple Track Suit with Blue Scarf

This week saw Carole, a 35-year-old Muslim woman banned from wearing a “birkini” in a small provincial French Parisian suburb by the chief lifeguard of a swimming pool. He is reported to have banned her on the grounds of hygiene.

Described as “a head-to-toe swimsuit to aid Muslim women in their quest for modesty”, the “birkini” completely covers a woman’s body except for the face.

I lived in France for a year and in Germany for much longer. Such are the swimming pool by-laws. It is just a fact. Men are not permitted to wear heavy shorts but must wear lightweight briefs because an abundance of absorbent natural cotton-type material is said to be able to harbour more bacteria than thinner man-made fibre. I’m not sure just how much scientific evidence there is for this and I suspect that wearing one thing or another wouldn’t really make much difference; swimming pools are chlorine saturated environments anyway but that’s not the point is it. Rules are rules and exceptions and special dispensations should not be made only for one particular section of the community; especially not for the one section that seems to believe that is is always a “special case”.

A Naughty "Package"

In another bathing-costume-related story this week we read about a ban on Speedos at Alton Towers on the grounds that men’s “packages” were too shocking for children to see although many believe that the story probably originated from Alton Towers’ management in a publicity-seeking attempt during a summer that was promised to be a scorcher but instead turned out to be a very damp squib.

In the case of the banned Muslim woman in France, thankfully sanity prevailed and her complaint to the local police on the grounds of discrimination was met with scorn. Carole, who was born into a traditional French family became a convert to Islam when she was seventeen. She bought her “birkini” whilst on holiday in Dubai. The French police told her that she was in contravention of the hygiene laws and she was warned not to be such a silly girl and then sent on her way. I suspect that her subsequent threats to “leave France” have been met with roars of approval.

At any rate, Carole and others of a similar mind are welcome at beaches all along the French coast where their additional bacteria can do no harm in the already heavily polluted salty water. As for Speedo-wearing men with large “packages”… well they should surely have better things to do than visiting tacky amusement parks.

See:
“French Muslim woman wearing ‘burkini’ banned from Paris swimming pool”
(Times Online 13.08.09)

“Alton Towers bans men in Speedos”
(Guardian 10.08.09)

Filed under: Islam, News, Religion, Alton Towers, Birkini, Emerainville, Speedos

Naturism in the Noughties – A new era of prude and the bastardisation of reality

I happened upon a video article in the online version of The Guardian newspaper today and was just astounded by the prudishness of it. For a long time, I’ve been telling people that we are living in a new era of puritanism, a sort of 50s in the Noughties. Now I know I got it right. Our times will surely be looked back on with amusement by future generations.

The reality is that we are all born naked and that we all have much the same bodies with similar bits and pieces attached so why are we all so afraid of nakedness?

Red Faced Guardian Reporter

Paul MacInnes’ video story in the Guardian concerns the de-designation of a naturist beach by Waveney District Council. MacInnes talks seriously with several of the naturists on the beach about the planned closure before his inevitable de-robing which provides enough amusement to secure a viewing audience.

As three young boys growing up at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, my two brothers and I often ran around naked. In our own garden we would play in a large paddling pool with friends and I remember several visits to a naturist beach near Brighton with my parents. One would have thought that since those days attitudes about nakedness in society would have further mellowed but nothing could be further from the truth.

Not only has this sort of freedom all but disappeared but I seriously worry about some of the few treasured family photographs I have of myself, my brothers and friends. I have visions of the proverbial “knock on the door” one day by State officials and I am always hesitant to show these half dozen or so photos to people; skipping through them quickly whenever my family photos are brought out. How sad is that?

There are many who will say that covering up is purely a question of aesthetics and that nakedness accentuates our differences but I suspect that this is not the true reason for our prudishness. In the traditional religious faith of Britain nakedness is viewed as synonymous with “original sin”. Even Adam and Eve, the originators of this lie, are always depicted with strategically placed fig leaves.

A further reason perhaps for the prudometer having swung back the other way is perhaps the predominance of another even more prudish faith than Christianity; namely Islam. How can anyone be seen to be running around naked in a land where some women cover themselves with bell tents to preserve their modesty? In the 60s and 70s only a few vicars and a dying breed of Mary Whitehouse types were there to offend. The majority enjoyed the new freedoms that came with the culural revolution. That has now changed and there are both many more people who might be offended and a greater hesitancy in society to do anything that might offend anyone at all. It seems as though causing offence has suddenly become a major crime. Whatever happened to the right to offend and the right to be offended? I was taught that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me”. Yet this principle has been up-ended today. Now it is a case of “sticks and stones will get me locked up for a few hours but using the wrong words will get me life”.

The Guardian video is amusing and well worth a watch, if only to see a couple of local fossils bringing sexuality and “deviance” into the argument by comparing the impulse that naturists have to shed their clothing and walk around freely with perversion. One man who is interviewed even talks of “gay men jumping out of the bushes” and at another point in the video, when Mr. MacInnes is undressing behind a large screen to cover his “naughty bits” from the camera, he even says “It’s like page three”. Hillarious stuff.

See:
“The end of naturism”
(Guardian 15.08.09)

Filed under: Neo-puritanism, News, Corton, Naturism, Waveney Council

Is there really cause for concern over the growth of Islam in Europe?

Whenever harsh Islamic laws in Muslim countries come into question it seems that British Muslims are quick to defend those laws by pointing out that above all, Islam preaches that Muslims must have respect for the laws of the country in which they live. If pushed, British Muslim leaders admit that true Islamic law calls for the death penalty for those who leave Islam and convert to other religions or for those who become atheists (AKA apostasy).

On the weekend two different articles published in the Telegraph newspaper predict that a fifth of the European Union will be Muslim by the year 2050 and if this figure is accurate then what changes to our laws might we very well expect to see as a result?

Many will point out that if even if the forecast of 20% is accurate, Christians will still remain the sizeable majority but while this may very well be true, what is sometimes forgotten is that all religions are not equal. Christianity, for all its past and present evils, is a relatively benign force when compared to Islam. In addition a child growing up within the Christian faith is sooner or later free to decide whether to stay or to leave the church. The same can not be said for Muslims.

In recent history American fundamentalist Christians were responsible for several very violent anti-abortionist attacks and another, Timothy McVeigh, blew up a building full of innocent people. There have been a few other examples of this sort of extremist behaviour but the violence by Christian fundamentalists has hardly been on a par with attacks by Muslims on the rest of Christendom or even with attacks by Muslims on other Muslims.

Of course many British Muslims would disagree. They would no doubt argue that our armed forces have been marching all over Muslim countries killing people just like the Crusaders did in the eleventh and twelfth centuries but surely this is unfair as Christianity was not the driving force behind their actions. The reasons for their presence have little to do with any Christian versus Muslim mentality. They are there to attempt to promote stability for the majority of the indigenous people of those countries. Indeed some of our soldiers are themselves Muslim and wherever possible their agenda has been largely one of training police and armed forces so that those countries will eventually become responsible for their own stability.

I am an atheist who is moving more towards anti theism with each fresh atrocity that I see perpetrated in the righteous name of religion. My ideal world would be one without any gods; one in which a child born in Dublin would be labelled neither Catholic nor Protestant but would just be seen as a child. We would never call a child whose parents were bird-watchers an “ornithologist child” so why with religion do we label a child from birth and thus make it someone’s enemy before it has even learned to walk?

I think that there is a cause for concern over the growth of Islam in Europe. However much we would like to pretend that all religions are equal, they plainly are not. Islam has been so slow and unwilling to adapt thus far. Its core beliefs are rooted in dogmatism of the purest immovable order and its most central belief, that the Koran is the literal word of God, makes it unlikely to change. The majority of its followers are taught that the rest of the world will adapt in order to accommodate and incorporate Islamic belief rather than the other way around. What hope can there be when faith explicitly forbids compromise?

See:
“A fifth of European Union will be Muslim by 2050”
(Telegraph 08.08.09)
and
“Muslim Europe: the demographic time bomb transforming our continent”
(Telegraph 08.08.09)

Filed under: Islam, Religion, Apostasy, Sharia

Life is more than a Rorschach Inkblot

Why do so many want to believe that Paul McCartney is Dead?

As a relatively simple species living in a complex world we are often tempted to cut corners to fill in gaps. The need to at least attempt to make sense of our surroundings is, I suspect, hard-wired into our brains and however miserably we fail the overall frequency of success is always rising. Hence we are constantly getting better at interpreting our world in more meaningful ways. Truth and untruth make up the whole and as truth increases there is less room for untruth; the stuff we invent in order to fill in the gaps.

It always amazes me the extent to which some will go to find meaning where there may not necessarily be any. Why are we so ready to make “sense” of Rorschach Inkblots whenever we encounter them?

Forty years ago western middle class youth had more free time on its hands than perhaps at any other time in history. Living off accumulated parental wealth came easily to those who could afford it and for the resulting hippy movement, just being became a worthwhile and “respectable” pursuit. Of course these post-beatnik beatniks were relatively few. The real working class youth, as opposed to the middle class pseudo working class, was too preoccupied with survival to break their shackles.

In 1969 an extreme example of misdirected energy being used to find meaning was the so-called “conspiracy” of Paul McCartney’s death, a subject given extensive coverage in the Mail today. How was it possible for so many to have believed that the four Beatles on the now-famous Abbey Road crossing represented Paul’s funeral and where did the seed for such a theory originate?

I suppose that all it took was for one stoned hippy to latch onto the idea of John Lennon in a white suit at the front of “the procession”. From that germ of a false idea the creator and/or others might easily have extrapolated the rest. In a small hippy community an originator might not have been taken seriously at first but who was it who said “If you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”.

That so much “sense” can be made of nonsense is a truly amazing thing. Paul, a left-handed person, is holding his cigarette (a coffin nail) in his right hand and is out of step with the rest of the band. A line drawn through the right tyres of the parked cars passes directly through his head (thus signifying that he had died from a head injury in a car crash).

Abbey Road - Paul must "Die"

There are even some small indentations on the wall to the left of the Beatles back-cover street sign which some suggest, when joined together, make up the number three. This supposedly signified that there were only three Beatles left.

This is nonsense of course. It took my humble brain only a few minutes to find the “real” solution. The letter “B” is the second letter of the alphabet and Paul McCartney appears on the cover second from the left. The dots on the wall represent the numbers one to six which are the numbers on a “die”, clearly signifying that the real McCartney had died and that there was a conspiracy between the authorities, police and the remaining members of the band to keep this fact from the public.

Why is the human species so ready to join the dots and create meaning from thin air? Why have thousands of people made pilgrimages to see images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary on every imaginable object from bathroom doors to a piece of grilled cheese toast.

The phenomenon of the human mind creating meaningful images from nothing is called “pareidolia” and although fairly harmless when used by Beatles fans to “prove” that the real Paul McCartney is pushing up the daisies it is a phenomenon that has helped to perpetuate that evil of all evils, religion.

Why can’t we be content to know that we don’t know everything but that we are learning more and more about how our world works with each new day. Why do we so often feel compelled to have an answer even when sense dictates that that answer is the wrong one. How can any old answer be better than none?

Filed under: Conspiracy, False Idols, Beatles Conspiracy, Hippies, Pareidolia, Paul McCartney, Rorschach Inkblot