Contents
Editorial
Bill Cooke
Rationalism in the Third Millennium
India Leads the Way
Bill Cooke
No more "holy ash"
Sai Baba exposed by Rationalists
K Vasudevan
Adam's Rib
Anne Ferguson
Humanist Manifesto 2000
A Call for a new Planetary Humanism
The Millennium Awards
Bill Cooke
Bishop's trial puts Church in dock
Chris McGreal
Stranger Than Fiction
Elizabeth McKenzie
Southern Lights
Russell Dear
Current Comments
Book Reviews
Letters to Editor
Oddities
In order to obtain maximum objectivity, we must entertain only a minimum of preconceptions.
Edward O Wilson
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Editorial
The decline and fall of agnosticism
For more than a century the term "agnostic" has been one of the most widely
used descriptions thoughtful people have used to describe their view of the universe.
But it is becoming ever more apparent that agnosticism has had its day. This is because
the central contention of agnosticism is no longer valid. It was once held as axiomatic
that because we couldn’t be certain about the non-existence of any god, it was foolish
to use the term "atheist", which implied such a certainty. This notion lingers
on in those people who, with a certain smugness, declare that they "don’t have
enough faith to be an atheist".
We all know that the word agnostic was coined by Thomas Henry Huxley. What is less
well known is that the English writer Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) was just as
influential in popularising the term as Huxley himself. Stephen began his influential
essay, An Agnostic’s Apology with a definition. "The Agnostic is one
who asserts - what no one denies - that there are limits to the sphere of human intelligence."
Stephen went on to put theology outside the realm of human knowledge. But equally,
of course, he expelled atheism as well. Stephen saw atheism as necessarily dogmatic,
and as he put it, "a rare phase of opinion."
Now on the face of it this is all very sound. After all, the essence of freethinking
is free thinking. Such thinking is, by definition, to be free from dogma, and what
could be more dogmatic than saying one knows that there isn’t a god?
Well, the main trouble with this is that atheists have never claimed to know
that there is no god. The agnostic position gets its credibility by portraying atheism
falsely. To illustrate this we need to understand a few things about atheism. Atheism
does not claim to know that there is no god: it claims that belief in god is not
justified and that disbelief in god is justified. There are two versions of atheism
here. The claim that belief in god is not justified is called negative atheism, because
of its focus on what we can’t know. The claim that disbelief in god is justified
is called positive atheism, because a positive statement is being made.
The most exhaustive argument for this position is Michael Martin’s Atheism: A
Philosophical Justification (1990). In Part One of this extraordinary book, Martin
demonstrates, point by point, that belief in god is unjustified. All the traditional
arguments for god are examined and found to be untenable; no reliable form of verification
of god’s existence can be found, and the evasive claim that faith is the proper relationship
with god is blown out of the water. Thus far he has established the negative atheist
position. But then in Part Two, Martin takes the next step by showing how good the
positive belief that god does not exist is. Again, Martin goes painstakingly through
the various arguments and shows that, in each case, disbelief in god is the most
justifiable position to take. In other words, Martin has shown that negative and
positive atheism are intellectually sound positions.
It is becoming ever more apparent that agnosticism has had its day.
It’s important to see what has happened here. Martin has not said that we now know
god does not exist. Of course we can’t know that, and no sound atheist has ever claimed
that. The claim being made is that the evidence for the belief that god does not
exist is much stronger than the evidence that any god exists. Incidentally, Martin
has also put the conclusions of his philosophical work into a condensed, short story
format publication, set in the future, called The Big Domino in the Sky (1996).
This is well worth reading.
Because few atheists could defend the positive atheist claim before the sixties,
the agnostic position of claiming not to be able to know whether god exists looked
respectable. But since the positive atheist position has become intellectually defensible,
the agnostic view has looked more like a behind-the-times evasion. The agnostic position
of remaining uncommitted due to inadequate information ignores the massive body of
argument against the existence of god(s) and assumes that we need absolute knowledge
before a sound position can be taken. But as we have seen, even positive atheism
does not claim to have absolute knowledge. It says that the evidence against the
existence of god is good enough to justify non-belief in god.
Nowadays, the only way agnosticism could be defended in the light of Michael Martin’s
work would be to challenge the positive atheist claim that we have sufficient reasons
to justify non-belief in god. Nobody has done this yet. Until that happens, agnostics
will have justify why they refuse to engage with the question of god’s existence
in light of recent scholarship. In other words, they will have to justify why they
choose to remain on the fence when the gate has already been opened for them.
Bill Cooke
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Rationalism in the Third Millennium
India Leads the Way
Bill Cooke
What a way to start the millennium! Attending the conference to mark the golden jubilee
of the Indian Rationalist Association, held in Trivandrum, Kerala, between the 17th
and 21st of January 2000. The Indian Rationalist Association was founded
in December 1949 and has members across the country. Two of its past presidents,
Sir Raghunath Paranjpye and Gora visited New Zealand (in 1946 and 1970 respectively)
and were guests of the NZARH. The current president is Joseph Edamaruku, and his
son, Sanal, is the Secretary General.
More than anything, this conference was a personal triumph for Sanal Edamaruku. It
was due to his extraordinary energy that such a distinguished group of Rationalists
and Humanists from around the world made the trip to Trivandrum. As well as being
Secretary General of the Indian Rationalist Association, Sanal is a journalist, based
in New Delhi, and author of several Rationalist works and the excellent web-based
magazine, the Rationalist International. He has also, I was delighted to find
out, translated several works of Joseph McCabe into Malayam, the language the people
of Kerala speak. McCabe has also been translated into Hindi and Tamil.
The conference programme was so full that it took five days to hear all the addresses.
There was also a breathtaking evening of miracle-exposure. The Indian Rationalist
Association (IRA) has made its name principally for its programme of exposing miracles,
including those claimed by Sai Baba (see the article on page ??) The IRA trains volunteers
to perform these "miracles" around the villages of India in the hope of
dissuading people from giving hard-earned money and gifts to fraudulent god-men.
This didn’t simply involve harmless tricks. One of these volunteers stuck a silver
spike through his tongue and then through both cheeks before our eyes. Godmen do
this in temples and "prove" their godly status because no blood comes from
the wounds. But it is a simple fact of anatomy that there is very little blood in
these parts of the body. The absence of blood has nothing to do with being intimate
with the gods. The hall was packed, with standing-room only for this miracle-exposure.
There were around 350 to 400 people in the hall to watch.
Not all the tricks were as painful as these. Most involved simple tricks from any
school chemistry set: turning wine into water, blood oozing from coconuts, and so
on. But it is on the strength of these simple tricks that the claims to divinity
from people like Sai Baba to the most modest village god-man rest. They are charlatans
and criminals, and the Indian Rationalist Association is doing magnificent work in
combating this cynical abuse of people’s credulity.
This is why Rationalism and Humanism in India has so much to teach the west. In India,
Rationalists and Humanists actually go out and undertake real tasks of eradicating
superstition and ignorance. When they are not doing that, they are directly involved
in helping the downtrodden and dispossessed, as the Atheist Centre does in Vijayawada,
or as Dr Parikh does with women in Mumbai. In the west, we have become careless of
our standards of education, and sit back while postmodernists and others speak up
on behalf of superstition and magic, trying to sound profound and modern by saying
that these are just as meaningful as way of thinking as those of science and reason.
This is nonsense, and dangerous nonsense. The paper I gave to the conference was
called "What Indian Rationalism Can Teach the West" and was on this theme.
It will appear in a later issue of the NZ Rationalist & Humanist.
Paul Kurtz, the most important individual on the world Humanist scene at present,
was clearly the star billing of the conference. In his Inaugural Address to the conference,
Kurtz described Rationalism as "the single most important contribution to human
civilisation". Without the ability to reason one’s way through a problem to
a solution, homo sapiens would never have got to the stage of development
they have reached. Kurtz took the basic rationalist principle to be that given by
William Kingdon Clifford (1845-79) as "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for
anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." By exercising this
principle as consistently as we can, we have forsaken blind faith and superstition
in favour of an informed scepticism and preference for reason.
In alliance with Rationalism is Humanism, which Kurtz saw not as an attack on religion
so much as an affirmation of life. Together, Rationalism and Humanism stand for the
following things. They stand for planetary humanism. This is outlined well in the
Humanist Manifesto 2000. They stand for a commitment of rational thinking
to the solution of social problems. Rationalism and Humanism also require a genuine
free market of ideas and secular societies in which to provide the maximum number
of people equality of opportunity.
Not surprisingly, Paul Kurtz was awarded the International Rationalist Award. The
award is a beautiful wheel made of bronze. The wheel symbolises the constant cycle
of change and progress. Truly, he does deserve it. Paul Kurtz has travelled more
than anyone else to give support to humanist organisations around the world. He is
genuinely committed to building a world-wide humanist movement that can, one day,
take the churches on. He has written some of the best books in print on all aspects
of Humanism, and has sponsored organisations of academics and sceptics to provide
some balance to the torrent of religious propaganda that floods the world.
The Kerala model
Among the many Indian speakers, one of the most interesting was Professor M A Ooman,
an economist from the Centre for Social Studies. Professor Ooman outlined the salient
features of what is known as the "Kerala model" for development. Kerala
is the stand-out state of India. Its male literacy rate is near-universal and its
female literacy rate is 87%, as compared with 68% in China. The leaders of Kerala
have appreciated, in a way rare in Asia, the importance of educating women to any
sustainable model of development. The single most important statistic about Kerala
is its fertility rate. At 1.6%, Kerala’s rate of population growth is less that the
United Kingdom or France (at 1.7%) and China (with its one-child policy, still at
1.9%). This low rate of growth gives hope to Kerala’s future. Furthermore, it has
been achievedwithout the drastic and punitive measures China has had to undertake
simply because Kerala has taken care to ensuring women have the intellectual ability
and social scope to make important decisions about the number of children they are
going to have. If that is not Humanism in action, I don’t know what is.
From this foundational fact, other features of Kerala’s development follow. Infant
mortality in Kerala is comparable to western nations. Life expectancy is 76, also
comparable to western nations, and significantly higher than countries like Russia,
where the life expectancy of men has dropped from an average of 64 to 57. The key
features of Kerala’s model of development, Professor Ooman said, have been based
on solidly Humanist principles of education, public co-operation with responsible
non-government organisations (NGOs) and the empowerment of women. Another speaker,
Dr K N Raj, former Professor at the Delhi School of Economics and Vice Chancellor
of Delhi University, gave a similar analysis. He ascribed Kerala’s development to
universal primary education and especially the education of women. He also emphasised
the importance of rural health centres. It will surprise few people that Kerala has
had a succession of left-wing governments since the state was created in 1957.
Another interesting feature of Kerala is the religious harmony the region enjoys.
As well as its Hindu majority, Kerala has significant Christian and Muslim minorities.
There is even a tiny but ancient Jewish community in Kerala. And, let us not forget,
there is also a significant number of non-believers. The Indian Rationalist Association
is well represented in Kerala. Most of the Indians attending the conference were
highly trained people, lawyers, teachers, child psychologists journalists and students.
The reason behind the communal harmony in Kerala is the overtly secularist nature
of the state government. It has become fashionable in the west to bemoan secularism
as a dominant ideology and a deadening influence. But if such doomsayers chose to
look further afield, they would see that secularism is at the core of the Indian
constitution, and can take the credit for the communal peace that exists there. When
religious riots and deaths occur in India, it is usually at the hands of extremists
who have specifically repudiated secularism.
The conference was addressed by Mr Neelalohithadasan Nadar, the Minister of Transport
in the Kerala state government. Mr Neelalohithadasan’s support for secularism was
unequivocal. Secularism does not mean denigrating religion, he said, but it does
mean that the state should actively discourage religion. This received respectful
attention in the New Indian Express the following day. Press coverage of the
conference was very good - far better than such a conference would get in most western
countries. It was gratifying to see that secularism was still valued by the younger
generation of Indians. The Times of India conducted a poll of students from
eight large cities and found overwhelming support for the secular clauses in the
Indian constitution. Secularism was held, correctly, to be the basis of social harmony
in India, and an antidote to "majority communalism and thoughtless minorityism".
(Times of India, 26.1.2000, special report, p 1) A popular response was that,
without secularism, Indian society would crumble. Would that westerners be so far-sighted.
Secularism remains in danger in India, as the BJP government, which has core values
of Hindu nationalism (known as Hindutva), is seeking to reshape the constitution.
So far it is saying that the basic character of the constitution will be untouched.
But they have been coy as to what parts are up for change. The secular clause could
well be in their sights. The BJP government is under pressure from its own militants
to return to the stronger, more bigoted Hindutva nationalism it originally made its
name for. This pressure has risen in the wake of the hijacking of an Indian Airline
plane by Muslim militants recently. The hijacking was widely seen as an embarrassment
for India at the hands of an old foe - Pakistan.
Irrationalisms: theirs and ours
The range of speakers at the conference was remarkable - too remarkable to report
fully in one article. Sanal Edamaruku is going to put together a publication arising
from the conference, which hopefully will be available in a few months. But a few
deserve mention here. Levi Fragell, the President of the IHEU, gave a powerful speech
outlining the Humanist position. We are not against fables and tales, he said. There
are good stories and some wisdom in the Mahabharata and the Bible.
We are not against religious art, nor do we necessarily oppose church charities,
or even people coming together in temples and churches to worship.
What Humanists are opposed to is the irrationality in religions. We are opposed to
irrationalism for four reasons:
- irrationalism is dysfunctional. It hinders personal and worldwide development and
perpetuates ignorance and superstition.
- irrationalism is harmful. Chanting over impure water or opposition to blood
transfusions causes more harm than good.
- irrationalism is evil. Where harmful irrationalism is unintentional, some
irrationalism, like religious bigotry is positively designed to foment hatred and
violence, and as such is evil.
- irrationalism is ridiculous. Cults follow behaviours and require beliefs that
are plain stupid and diminish those who practice them. Irrational beliefs are so
obviously untrue that they distort truth on a wider scale.
Levi Fragell confessed to feeling some warmth of resentment against these irrationalisms.
He had come to Humanism from a narrow evangelicalism, and well remembered these forms
of belief from his earlier days. Even more angry was another Norwegian, Dr Torve
Beate Pedersen, a psychologist and former Director of the Norwegian Gender Equality
Council. Dr Pedersen gave an address entitled "No Humanism without Feminism".
The speech was basically a long list of the gender grievances of Norwegian women,
which seemed to involve little more than inequity of housework undertaken by men
and women. While Dr Pedersen’s points were doubtless valid, I couldn’t help feeling
that these complaints seemed trivial and in bad taste, given that they were aired
in India, where gender issues are a little more pressing than that.
Dr Pedersen also supported discrimination against men in the name of gender equality.
When asked about the totalitarian implications of this policy, she agreed that there
was that risk, but that the end justified the means. The fundamentalist implications
of this line of thinking were not lost on the audience. Despite these problems, Dr
Pedersen was an asset to the conference because she acted, quite consciously, as
an irritant to majority opinion, and thus got people thinking. She criticised the
organisers of the conference for having far more male speakers than female. Only
one Indian woman addressed the conference in a prepared paper. In the wake of Dr
Pedersen’s criticisms two more women were given opportunities to speak.
Among other speakers, Lavanam, Director of the Atheist Centre and Honorary Associate
of the NZARH, warned us against domination by institutions and praised the IHEU for
its role in making Humanism a truly international movement. The future of Rationalism
and Humanism, Lavanam declared, lies in recognising the centrality of freedom and
equality among humans. Jim Herrick, editor of the New Humanist, made a plea
for emotions within Rationalism, and Jane Wynne-Willson, vice-president of the IHEU,
spoke about a rational view of death. Another very significant speaker was Jean-Claude
Pecker, Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, and President of the Association Francaise
pour I" Scientifique, Union Rationaliste. Professor Pecker is among the very
top of the intellectual elite in France. He agreed with me about the menace of postmodernism,
but reassured me that Derrida is a prophet without honour in his own land. While
Professor Pecker agreed Derrida’s influence was pernicious, he admitted that Derrida
is very agreeable company as a person. Jan Loeb Eisler, from the United States outlined
her efforts to provide Humanist support networks, particularly for women. This is
an area the Christians have presumed to be their preserve. Eisler produces a periodical
called Family Matters. Roy W Brown, a board member of the World Population
Foundation, sounded a note of warning. It is not, he said, the population increase,
per se, that is the issue: it is the energy use that attends population growth
that is the central cause for concern. Unless the United States is able to reduce
its energy consumption in the next fifty years, and unless India and China reduce
their plans for increasing their energy consumption over the same period, the future
of the planet will be very bleak indeed.
Almost as depressing was the evidence of postmodernism in India. One speaker, Professor
Sudheesh, Professor of English Language at Kerala University, seemed totally enmeshed
in postmodernist jargon in his address. Most people agreed with my claim of the dangers
of postmodernism, but thought that postmodernism has passed its peak and no longer
poses a serious problem. I remain unconvinced.
There were many other capable speakers I have not mentioned, but perhaps the flavour
of this wonderful event has been given. The important point is that Rationalists
and Humanists can take heart. We are part of an international movement that attracts
capable, passionate and intelligent people. Even more important is the action that
accompanies the talk. Here, more than in any other field, India leads the way for
other Humanists to follow. Over and above the differences of emphasis and outlook,
there is a fundamental agreement on the care values of Humanism and the centrality
of Rationalism to the propagation and realisation of those values.
This common ground was reflected in the final session, when the speakers returned
to the stage and gave short overviews of what they thought the immediate priorities
for the movement are. I worked mine out with Aby Abraham Valliazhuthu, an IRA member
who works in the medical college in Trivandrum. Our priorities were:
- Take on a specific programme of public support or charity, so that the Association
becomes known for that type of work.
- Consciously inculcate an awareness of the principles of Rationalism and Humanism
in our children.
- Work for influence in governments and government agencies.
- Give due priority to the scientific method and raising appreciation of what science
has provided humanity in our publications.
- Consciously foster relationships with other Rationalist and Humanist organisations.
- Try and avoid personality disputes within the movement.
- Recognise the value of a central building to act as focal point for the organisation.
- Defend secularism at all times.
Our priorities were worded slightly differently than the other speakers and had a
more practical focus, but basically all speakers had similar priorities. This was
a fitting and suitably chastening way to end the conference. It was a privilege to
represent the NZ Association of Rationalists and Humanists at this conference.
Joseph Edaramuku
Joseph Edamaruku, the President of the Indian Rationalist Association, is a remarkable
man. Originally from a Syrian Catholic family (the Syrian Catholic Church being prominent
in Kerala), Edamaruku was disowned by his church and family when, while training
to be a priest, he became a rationalist. Since then he has been a prolific journalist
and author, writing over 150 books in Malayalam. He spent two spells in prison, in
1970 and again in 1975. His most recent work, an autobiography called The Times
that Raised the Tempest won an award from the Kerala Literary Academy as the
best autobiography in Malayalam from the years 1997-9.
A book he wrote called Christ and Krishna Never Lived (1981) sold over 100,000
copies, and, on the strength of those sales, is one of the best-selling freethought
works in existence. This work has gone through 13 editions. Joseph Edamaruku also
wrote The Koran - A Critical Study in 1983. This book attracted considerable
hostile attention from outraged Muslims, but they could not prevent the work selling
80,000 copies and going through nine editions. This book is being translated into
English at the moment. As well as rationalist works, he is a notable cultural historian
of Kerala.
(Source: Rationalist International)
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No more "holy ash"
Sai Baba exposed by Rationalists
K Vasudevan
"To uplift His devotees and to provide them merit the Lord in His mercy has
Himself come down to Delhi" rejoiced a full-page advertisement on March 11 1999,
announcing the arrival of Satya Sai Baba, the godman of India’s rich and powerful.
Sai Baba visited Delhi after a gap of seventeen years to inaugurate the "Sai
International Centre", which houses Delhi’s largest auditorium. Amongst other
dignitaries the Indian Prime Minister was scheduled to attend the function.
Sai Baba is seen as the most powerful Indian godman. His public appearances are marked
by the presence of half of the Indian cabinet; his devotees include top politicians
across all partylines, diplomats, high bureaucrats and the top industrialists of
the country. His seventieth birthday in 1993 was a state event and kept high profile
national media attention over several days. Anybody expecting his visit to Delhi
to be a similar sensation would be disappointed.
Something had changed. Sai Baba’s power connections may still be intact and he may
still be India’s godman number one (at least since his competitor Chandraswami is
facing criminal prosecution), but the fame of his miraculous capacities has taken
serious damage since his glory days. Sai Baba’s visit to Delhi showed that the public
awareness about the simple tricks behind his allegedly divine "miracles"
has increased considerably thanks to the work of rationalists.
"Sai Baba has a trick up his sleeve, Rationalists tell PM", titled the
Asian Age, one of the leading national English-language newspapers. It was
reported that Sanal Edaramaku had called upon Prime Minster Vajpayee to abstain from
Sai Baba’s function, as the PM prostrating himself in front of the religious leader
was a contravention of the secular principles envisaged in the Indian constitution.
Moreover Sanal was quoted denouncing Sai Baba as a charlatan and fraud and challenging
him to perform his "miracles" under fraud-proof conditions.
This challenge had been already put up back in 1965 by the famous rationalist Professor
Abraham Kovoor, who was the first to expose Sai Baba’s "miracles". Since
then Indian Rationalist Association had from time to time called upon Sai Baba in
public forums and in letters to face up to this demand, but for more than thirty
years now the Baba kept mum. Meantime the Asian Age quoted Sanal Edaramuku,
Sai Baba was caught red-handed: during the celebration of his 69th birthday,
he "materialised" a golden chain by plucking it away from the bottom of
a plaque, where it had been pasted up. The scene was filmed by a cameraman of the
national television Doordarshan. Though Doordarshan had blacked out
this clipping, copies of a smuggled-out cassette from Doordarshan studios
were circulated all over India and abroad. The famous British documentary Guru
Busters on Indian Rationalists, which was originally telecast by Channel 4 in
the UK in 1995, reproduced this clipping in slow motion. The documentation has by
now been shown in twelve countries. Sai Baba or his institutions could not deny its
authenticity.
Sanal Edaramuku’s statement in the Asian Age, followed by reports in several
other newspapers and in the TV evening news during the next few days sent out shock
waves. Alarmed by the PMO, police appeared in the headquarters of the Indian Rationalist
Association to politely enquire about further action plans. Did we prepare a demonstration
at the Sai International Centre? Did we plan to embarrass the PM of the Baba during
the inauguration? Or had we already sent our troops to the airport to ridicule Sai
Baba upon arrival? We told them we didn’t intend to do wither, but to be on the safe
side, security arrangements were stepped up massively. The police was there in all
its strength during the few public appearances of the godman. For all greeting ceremonies
and "darshans", the public was strictly limited to handpicked VIP devotees with
invitations, amongst them the Prime Minister (who did not abstain), India’s Vice
President, the former President, several cabinet ministers, the Chief Justice and
the Speaker of the parliament. If there was a crowd, it consisted of volunteers of
Sai Baba’s organisation: eight thousand volunteers were brought to Delhi and camped
for several days in the premises of a big school compound. They were entrusted to
look after security and other arrangements for the functions.
But not only was the general public barred from his meetings. Especially the media
were kept at a safe distance from the Baba. Most of the few press photos which appeared
had to be taken with teleobjectives. The godman made it a point that during the "darshans"
all press personnel had to leave the premises. Sai Baba has become very careful.
So this time there was not a single picture, neither in the print media nor on TV,
that showed Sai Baba in action performing miracles. Not even his trade mark miracle
- producing holy ash - was seen. There was not a crumb of holy ash anywhere to be
seen. Sai Baba’s media appearance was limited to comparatively short reports, most
of them in the inner pages and marred by mentionings of the rationalists" criticism.
Some TV channels did not cover the event at all.
But holy ash was produced abundantly the next day: The Star Plus TV Science Show
Eureka! had invited Sanal Edaramuku as special guest to speak about so-called
miracles and explain all of Sai Baba’s trade secrets, including the producing of
holy material from the mouth of a volunteer. Since the volunteer was not a godman
but a sportsman, Sanal explained to the amused audience in the studio, no holy statues
would come from his mouth - only tennis balls.
This article is reprinted courtesy of the Modern Freethinker, the magazine
of the Indian Rationalist Association.
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Adam's Rib
There, but for the grace of a good home
Anne Ferguson
A psychologist, trying to prove the argument that man is a rational being, once said
that if you got on a bus you would expect your bus driver to remain in his cab and
drive the bus to the appropriate destination. If he were to get off the bus and start
picking flowers you could rightly deduce he was suffering from severe stress and
needed to go on sick leave. People as a rule behave in reasonably predictable ways
and this applies equally well to individuals as to groups.
At the last election we saw this at work in a way which, on the face of it, gave
the impression the New Zealand voting population was totally schizophrenic. We got
a leftish government, the one supposed to recognise the existence of the old, the
sick, the young and the poor and to pledge itself to helping them. Alliance’s campaign
slogan was to put the heart back into politics and the Greens, bless 'em, are all
heart. And yet, by a thumping majority, a referendum was won calling for tougher
penalties for law breakers. Leaving aside the fact that the wording of the referendum
was so bad as to render the result worthless, it seems extraordinary that the same
electorate which also voted for the supposedly caring, compassionate government should
also vote for the harsh, revenge-driven referendum option. How could this be?
Most people’s political persuasions, influenced by family tradition, education, social
status and tough or tender attitudes, become set at about the time they are old enough
to vote and remain substantially unchanged throughout life. If governments change
it isn’t that the people as a whole have a change of opinion but that the "swinging
voter" with no particular party allegiance is swung by, at best, worthy issues
or, at worst, by "what’s in it for me?" criteria. "Hello, hello! This
is the voice of Liberalism", booming out from a car cruising the district was my
first introduction to electioneering. The car was owned by a neighbour so, from a
tender age, Liberalism assumed for me a stamp of acceptability even though, during
my lifetime, the UK Liberal Party has never been other than an "also ran"
in the political race.
Reviewing my own voting choices, my criteria have never really changed, even if the
party label has. In England, making what I thought was an independent choice, I voted
Liberal. Later I discovered not only that my parents voted Liberal but that there
existed a photo of my grandfather collecting tickets at a Liberal Club garden party.
So much for my fond notion I was a rebel!
Voting and religious belief trends, it seems to me, follow a similar pattern. Individuals"
voting preferences, like their religious beliefs, evolve from their early conditioning.
Real revolutionaries, people with true individuality of thought, are pretty rare
creatures. I recall some eminent paediatrician, addressing a Parents" Centre
gathering, reassuring us that we really need not worry too much about how our infants
will turn out. "They’ll end up much like you," he said. Decades later,
I know this to be true. While it is reassuring to basically decent parents that their
children will become decent human beings too, it follows, of course, that scallywags
are also going to perpetuate scallywaggery.
Most people are basically decent: when these basically decent people learn of someone
treating someone else badly, their natural reaction is to feel angry and, if there
is the possibility they themselves could be on the receiving end, they feel threatened.
Adrenaline flows, the flight or fight response kicks in. The so called "home
invasion" threat is particularly frightening. "Home" should be where
you flee for sanctuary. But, if that retreat is cut off, what is there left to do
but fight?
The quick and easy way to get in the first blow is to make a mark on a referendum
form. Much more difficult is the slow change of institutions and attitudes which
needs to come about before people’s perception of their own homes as being safe will
return. Yes, the justice system does need to change. It needs to change from the
punitive, ineffectual one which, at enormous expense to those aforementioned basically
decent people, locks up miscreants. It has to change from being confrontational to
being conciliatory, from being punitive to restorative, the spirit of the law - a
decent society - has to be the guiding principle. Thankfully, that dreadful referendum
is not binding on government. Thankfully, our prime minister is intelligent enough
to know and accept the proven ineffectiveness of longer prison terms.
Moves towards change are afoot. For the well-being of us all let’s hope they arrive,
and soon.
Return to Contents
Humanist Manifesto 2000
A Call for a new Planetary Humanism
Prospects for a Better Future
"For the first time in human history we possess the means - provided by science
and technology - to ameliorate the human condition, advance happiness and freedom,
and enhance human life for all people on the planet. Many people who talk
about the new millennium are fearful about what will ensue. Many make doomsday forecasts
about coming calamities - whether religious or secular. Pessimists point to the brutal
wars of the twentieth century and warn that new forms of terrorism and unrest may
engulf humanity in the coming century.
We think a more positive and realistic appraisal of the human prospect in the twenty-first
century is in order. We wish to point out that in spite of political, military, and
social unrest, the twentieth century has witnessed a great number of beneficent achievements.
However disappointing to naysayers, prosperity, peace, better health, and rising
standards of living are a reality - and likely to continue. These great technological,
scientific, and social achievements have often been overlooked. Although they apply
largely to the developed world, their benefits are now felt virtually everywhere.
We need to list some of them.
- Scientific medicine has improved health enormously. It has reduced pain and
suffering, and it has increased longevity. The discovery of antibiotics and the
development of vaccines, modern techniques of surgery, anaesthesia, pharmacology,
and biogenetic engineering have all contributed to these advances in health care.
- Farsighted public health measures and improved water supplies and sewage disposal
have greatly reduced the incidence of infectious disease. Therapeutic remedies,
widely applied, have dramatically reduced child mortality.
- The Green Revolution has transformed food production and increased crop yields,
reduced hunger, and raised the levels of nutrition for large portions of the globe.
- Modern methods of mass production have increased productivity, liberated
workers from many forms of physical drudgery, and made possible the benefits and
luxuries of consumer goods and services.
- New modes of transportation have reduced distances and transformed societies.
The automobile and airplane have enabled people to traverse continents and overcome
geographical isolation. Astronautical research has opened the human species to the
exciting adventure of space exploration.
- Technological discoveries have vastly accelerated new modes of communication on
a worldwide basis. In addition to the benefits of telephone, fax, radio, TV, and
satellite transmission, computer technology has radically transformed all aspects
of socio-economic life. No office or home in the developed world is untouched by the
information revolution. The Internet and the World Wide Web have made possible instant
communication almost everywhere on the globe.
- Scientific research has expanded our knowledge of the universe and the place of
the human species within it. Human inquiry is now able to advance and to have its
findings confirmed by science and reason, while the metaphysical and theological
speculations of the past have made little or no progress. The discoveries of astronomy,
physics, relativity theory, and quantum mechanics have increased our understanding of
the universe - from the scale of micro-particles to that of galaxies. Biology and
genetics have contributed to our knowledge of the biosphere. Darwin’s nineteenth-century
theory of natural selection has enabled us to understand how life evolved. The discoveries
of DNA and molecular biology continue to reveal the mechanisms of evolution and of life
itself. The behavioural and social sciences have deepened our knowledge of social and
political institutions, the economy, and culture.
Many positive social and political developments have also occurred in the twentieth
century and these bode well for the future:
- The colonial empires on the nineteenth century have all but disappeared.
- The threat of totalitarianism has abated.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rightsis now accepted by most nations
of the world (in word if not in deed).
- The ideals of democracy, freedom, and the open society have spread widely to
Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa.
- Women in many countries now enjoy personal autonomy and legal and social rights,
and have taken their place in many areas of human enterprise.
- As national economies have become globalised, economic prosperity has been
carried from Europe and North America to other parts of the world. Free markets and
entrepreneurial methods have opened underdeveloped regions to capital investment and
development.
- The problem of population growth has been resolved in the affluent countries of
Europe and North America. In many areas the population grows not because of birth
rate but because of the decline of the death rate and the increase of longevity
- a positive development.
- Increased education, literacy, and cultural enrichment are now available to more
and more children in the world - though there is still much more that needs to be done."
STOP PRESS:
Thirty-seven more prominent people from 17 countries around the world have signed
the Humanist Manifesto 2000. They include Salman Rushdie, Polly Toynbee, respected
columnist for The Guardian in Britain, Sol Gordon, Emeritus Professor of Syracuse
University, Tel Aviv, Israel, Gopi Upreti, president of the Humanist Association
of Nepal, and Lei Yongsheng from the Chinese Political College of the Young, in Beijing,
China. Kurt Baier, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh,
and now living in New Zealand, becomes the second New Zealander to sign the Manifesto.
Return to Contents
The Millennium Awards
The winners and the losers
Bill Cooke
Who has been the most influential person of the millennium? Well, among the many
people this supreme award could be given to, my pick would have to be Sir Isaac
Newton (1642-1727). Born in the year Galileo died, it was Newton, more than anyone
else, who revolutionised our thinking. At the beginning of the second millennium,
our thinking was pre-scientific and superstitious. In its ignorance, humankind constructed
religions and superstitions which placed us at the very centre of the universe. Among
the many people who contributed to our more mature outlook, none was more influential
than Newton. It was Newton who systematised what Galileo had worked out beforehand.
Without Newton’s discovery of gravitation, all the new scientific speculation would
have remained just that. And it wasn’t the discovery of gravitation on its own that
was so important, but the understanding that there is only one force of gravity which
works in the same way throughout the universe, and on all objects without prejudice.
Without Newton to knock presumptuous humanity of its cosmological pedestal, it is
difficult to see how we could have understood Darwin’s later realisation that we
also did not deserve to sit atop a biological pedestal. And without a Newton there
certainly could not have been an Einstein.
If we could have an award for the greatest scientist (excluding Newton), then I think
it would have to be Charles Darwin (1809-1882) for his epoch-changing discovery
of natural selection as the mechanism by which all living things evolve. That, as
I said, was the second major displacement of humanity’s arrogant assumption that
it was central to the workings of the universe.
Among the other "best of the millennium" people, one award seems easy.
Who could rival William Shakespeare (1564-1616) as the finest man of letters
of the millennium? No other playwright has achieved such international prominence
as the Bard from Stratford. Few other categories are as straight-forward as this.
Greatest artist? For me it would have to be Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
Leonardo deserves this award because of the breadth of his brilliance. He was pretty
much the archetype of the universal genius; the Renaissance man who was well-read
in all important subjects and a master in several. Leonardo was a painter of genius,
the Mona Lisa is a work etched in the consciousness of anyone with leisure.
But he also drew, sculpted and wrote. Greatest poet? Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792-1822) perhaps deserves this title. Shelley is unique in the inspiration he
gave to generations of radicals and reformers as well as the solace he has provided
to the sad, the quiet and the lonely.
Greatest philosopher? Difficult, given the range and brilliance of philosophers in
the last thousand years. I, however, cannot see anyone as greater than Bertrand
Russell (1872-1970). Russell cleared up muddles in logic that has lingered since
Aristotle. Many would see Kant as the most brilliant philosopher of the millennium,
and this is probably correct, but Russell did something Kant did not do. Russell
was the first philosopher of genius to address philosophical works to the general
reader. He was the first to make historic breakthroughs in philosophy and
care about the understanding the general reader has about the world in which we live.
Greatest statesman? A dead-heat here between Abraham Lincoln (1808-1865) and
Nelson Mandela (1918-) Most great statesmen are flawed characters ("complex"
is the politer term). People like Winston Churchill were very great and very flawed
at the same time. But Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln are both straight-forwardly
good men. Coincidentally, both devoted their lives to ending institutional racism.
What about the greatest villain? Here the competition truly is tough. Genghiz Khan,
Tamerlane, Hitler, Mao Ze Dong? All credible candidates, but in terms of sheer brutality
Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) would have to be the pick here. The Gulag he created
was an even more efficient and large-scale holocaust than that created by the Nazis,
and was responsible for death of more people. It also poisoned a greater doctrine.
Socialism had something to offer humanity in a way Nazism clearly did not, and Stalin,
more than anyone else, poisoned this potentially liberating doctrine for ever. Indeed,
the failure of socialism could be seen as the greatest disappointment of the millennium.
If socialism was the greatest disappointment, which organisation was the most consistently
unhelpful to the progress of humanity. No doubts here. The Roman Catholic Church
has done more over the last millennium to hinder progress, favour reaction, indulge
in political and spiritual corruption, and generally perpetuate misery than any other
organisation. And what is more infuriating, it has usually been accompanied by more
rhetoric about goodness than any other organisation.
What, then, is the most beneficent organisation of the millennium? Again, no problems
in deciding this one. The United Nations, founded in 1945 out of the ruins
of the Second World War, was created on humanist principles of mutual respect and
international interdependence. No organisation is perfect, and the UN has had its
problems, but without doubt it is the brightest hope that humanity has that it will
escape environmental oblivion and nationalist bloodletting.
What has been the greatest disaster of the last thousand years? Again, the result
is a tie. The Black Death spread through Asia and Europe in the middle of
the fourteenth century killing millions of people. Many parts of Europe were depopulated.
As well as a staggering loss of life, the plague encouraged religious hatred. Thousands
of Jews were persecuted by fanatical Christians, who saw the plague as a divine visitation.
But just as catastrophic as the greatest plague in recorded history is the First
World War. As well as killing off millions of people in an utterly pointless
conflict which lasted four years, the first war led directly to the Second World
War, which did the same, this time across the entire globe.
What are some of the more significant milestones of the last millennium? Well, perhaps
these. 1095, Pope Urban II preaches crusade against the Muslims. This unleashed
centuries of vicious wars between Christian and Muslim and even Christian and Christian.
After all, the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204, the home of Orthodox
Christendom. The legacy of hatred and suspicion between Christianity and Islam that
is still with us today is the legacy of Urban’s sermon. One rather understated milestone
was the vote of the United States Congress to make English rather than German
the official language of that country. I have not been able to find the exact
date of this momentous decision, but would anyone like to speculate how twentieth
century might have developed had that decision been different? Speaking of which,
the most significant milestone of the twentieth century would have to be the Battle
of Stalingrad (1942-3). This ruthless battle cost the lives of more than half
a million soldiers and an unknown number of civilians on top of that. But it was
a genuine turning point in the Second World War, that most necessary of all wars.
After Stalingrad, the initiative passed from the Axis powers and irrevocably into
the hands of the Allies.
And to finish off these awards, the finest overall development of the past millennium?
The series of scientific discoveries and humanitarian reforms that have allowed millions
of people to enjoy a life undreamt of by even the most well-off of the year 1000.
We live longer, eat better, and smell nicer. Our knowledge is infinitely more accurate
than then and we are more compassionate about those we don’t know and those who are
weak or disadvantaged. But, of course, this ties in directly with the greatest challenge
of the next millennium. Overpopulation. There are too many of us to all enjoy these
benefits. Oh, and most appropriate title-author combo of the millennium? The Prophecies
of Nostradamus, by Erika Cheetham (Corgi, 1982)
Return to Contents
Bishop's trial puts Church in dock for Rwanda massacre
Chris McGreal
A Roman Catholic bishop goes on trial this week accused of
acts of genocide in Rwanda, in a case that is being seen as a
judgment on the Church's moral failure and complicity during
the 1994 mass murder of Tutsis.
The trial will throw the spotlight on the Catholic Church's silence
as about 800,000 Tutsis were killed, its protection of priests
accused of mass murder and what critics describe as its lack of
repentance.
Bishop Augustin Misago is accused of handing over dozens of
children to death squads and turning away thousands of Tutsis
who sought sanctuary with the Church, knowing they would be
murdered. The bishop, who denies the charges, says he is being
persecuted by a Tutsi-dominated government out to victimise
prominent Hutus.
He appeared in court briefly last week in the Rwandan capital,
Kigali, to request more time to prepare his defence. Bishop
Misago, 58, was brought to trial after a campaign by genocide
survivors who accused him of working with the Interahamwe
Hutu militias that led the killing. They are particularly angered
by his failure to express remorse.
Asked in a television documentary why he failed to provide shelter
to Tutsis, the bishop said there was no room at the inn. "The
reason is very simple. There is no room in the house to take more
than two people. A crowd of 5,000 people - one cannot put them
here," he said.
When Bishop Misago was arrested in April, the Vatican leapt to
his defence and called the charges a "wound" against the Church.
Critics saw the Vatican stance as further evidence of the Catholic
Church's determination to deny responsibility for contributing
to the climate of killing and the murders committed by individual
priests and nuns.
The London-based group African Rights has accused the Church
hierarchy of "surrender in the face of evil". "Even more than its
silence, the [Church] must answer for the active complicity of
some of its priests, pastors and nuns in the genocide," it said.
While some priests put themselves at great risk to save Tutsis,
others dispatched their own colleagues to their deaths. But it is
the highest levels of the Catholic Church that stand accused of
promoting Rwanda's "final solution".
The Catholic archbishop of Kigali, Vincent Nsengiyumva, was a
de facto member of the ruling party's social affairs committee
for 14 years until the Vatican put a stop to this role just before a
more pluralistic system was to be introduced.
The archbishop was a friend of Juvenal Habyarimana - who was
president from 1973 until his death in early 1994 - and personal
confessor to his wife, one of the more notorious Hutu extremists.
Once the slaughter was under way, Archbishop Nsengiyumva
attempted to justify it by blaming Tutsi rebels for provoking the
bloodshed.
The Church's silence was interpreted by Rwandans as
endorsement of the killing. Archbishop Nsengiyumva was
"murdered with two bishops and 13 priests by Tutsi rebels.
The Anglican archbishop of the day, Augustin Nshamihigo, was
little better. Also a friend of Habyarimana, he held a press
conference at which he blamed the rebels for most of the killings.
The Churches did belatedly call for the killing to stop, but
misleadingly attributed responsibility to "both sides", buttressing
the Hutu extremists' claim that killing Tutsis was a form of
defence.
Former Archbishop Nshamihigo is living in exile, shunned by
the Anglican Church and facing arrest in Rwanda. He was last
seen in Kenya. The new Anglican archbishop publicly apologised
on behalf of the Anglican Church in Rwanda for its silence during
the genocide. The Pope has taken a different line, saying
individual priests may be guilty but the Church as a whole carried
no responsibility.
The Catholic Church has in inglorious history in Rwanda. During
most of the colonial period it was allied with the Belgian rulers
and the minority Tutsi elite. Shortly before independence, it
switched allegiance to the majority Hutus.
Successive archbishops were allied by oppressive Hutu
governments. Some missionary organisations, particularly the
White Fathers, supported the Hutu extremist philosophy.
Bishop Misago is among more than 20 priests and nuns awaiting
trial in connection with the genocide. Two priests have been
sentenced to death for organising the murders of about 60 people
and the massacre of about 2000 Tutsis who took refuge in a church
in Kibuye.
This article originally appeared in the Guardian Weekly at
Aug 26-Sep 1 1999.
We thank the Guardian Weekly for permission to reprint this
article.
Rwanda - A demographic trap
'In 1993, 4.2 children were born per 100 of the population and each woman was expected to have 8.5 children during her lifetime at the
present birth rates. The complete collapse of the Rwandan ecosystem predicted 20 years ago could not be prevented: Rwanda has a very
Catholic population and a powerful Catholic Church with a long tradition of strong opposition to family planning. The collapse took only a
little longer than anticipated and the consequences when they came were, as we know, utterly hideous, with the death by murder of several
hundred thousand, perhaps a million, people, in a few weeks.'
Excerpt from Enemies of Hope: A Critique of Contemporary Pessimism, by Raymond Tallis (New York: St Martin's Press, 1997). Raymond
Tallis is Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester and the author of 130 medical publications. He is the editor of the
medical journal Reviews of Clinical Gerontology.
Return to Contents
Stranger Than Fiction
Genetic Engineering
Elizabeth McKenzie
Does the public understand genetic engineering enough to make decisions about its
applications? More importantly, do the politicians that represent us understand
genetic engineering enough to make the decisions on our behalf?
Much of the demand for research in genetic engineering has come initially from the
animal rights groups and "back to nature" movement. For example, to replace
the use of "chemicals" (chlorine) in the bleaching process, special enzymes
are produced from a genetically modified bacterium which bypass reprocessing required
for chlorine bleaching. Vegetarian cheese uses a genetically modified organism to
reproduce the enzymes normally obtained from slaughtered animals. To prevent deficiency
diseases in vegetarians, genetic engineering could potentially be used to add essential
amino acids to vegetarian food.
Other groups wanted alternatives to blood products because of religious reasons.
Genetically engineered bacteria produce large quantities of insulin and interferon,
free of potentially infectious particles which were previously derived from blood
products. However, there is now a backlash against this technology by the very same
groups who initiated the demand. Now the whole science of biotechnology is accused of
"playing God" by the religious and accused of "playing with nature"
by the animal rights and "back to nature" movements.
For those who feel they are being pressured into one camp or the other, a balanced
position is possible, if you take the time to read the literature and think rationally
about the issues. So, to begin with, how does genetic engineering work?
Genes with a desired effect are isolated from one organism and are directly introduced
into another living organism. The mechanism for transport of the genes may be a bacterium
or virus, or the genetic material may be introduced directly by means of a tiny projectile.
Bacteria have the advantage of being able to carry extra genetic material such as indicator
genes, which may fluoresce if the gene is successfully expressed, or show resistance to
antibiotics, which will kill non-transformed material (when the new genetic material has
not been incorporated). Genetic engineering does not include cloning, which is simply
non-random production of identical twins.
Risks deriving from genetic engineering include the possibility of developing antibiotic
resistance through transference of antibiotic-resistant genes from genetically engineered
food to human gut bacteria. Some of the more undesirable uses of genetic engineering lie
in the equally undesirable "intensive" farming. For example, featherless chickens
are being developed to make the trip to the dinner table more rapid. Cows are being genetically
engineered to produce more milk, but at an unacceptable price. They have a reduced life-span,
suffer from heat stress, and are more likely to develop mastitis (infection of the milk glands).
On the other side of the coin, the development of self-shearing sheep means reduced stress
(from shearing and handling) for the sheep, and a reduction in miscarriages associated with
shearing. The farmer simply has to trek around after the sheep and pick up the wool.
Also, due to the somewhat casual sex preferences of plants, there is the possibility of
cross-pollination of weeds with herbicide-resistant crops, resulting in herbicide-resistant weeds.
Incidentally, herbicide-resistant genes used in crops come from the soil bacteria that naturally
break the herbicides down. There are precautions that can guard against uncontrolled herbicide
resistance. For example, ‘terminator’ genes can prevent the crop from reproducing, and thus from
spreading herbicide resistance to weeds, a practice that is not very different from the use of
hybrid plants. Benefits from using genetically engineered crop plants include: frost resistance,
resistance to fungal infection and resistance to insects and invertebrates. Spin-offs from
genetically engineered insect resistance include: reduced water contamination by insecticides,
reduced mortailty of non-targeted insects, and reduced spray-operator poisoning.
The biggest benefits from genetic engineering are in medicine. Gene therapy has the potential
to "silence" leukemia, haemophilia, sickle-cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis and muscular
dystrophy. Research of this type is currently banned in New Zealand, because it involves
modification of DNA in human sperm and ova. Genetically engineered plants and animals can produce
a specific vaccine (for example, the tuberculosis vaccine) in their fruit or milk, enabling cheap
mass production of vaccines ("pharming") in poor countries. One of the greatest concerns
would be the position of Maori who maintain abhorrence of genetic engineering as part of their
cultural belief system. Given that the Maori population have the highest incidence if diabetes,
many people would die if insulin was withheld because of cultural beliefs (all insulin is now
produced by genetically engineered bacteria).
As rationalists, what basis do we have for our emotional feelings towards genetic engineering?
If we feel it is wrong, does that feeling come from a conviction that nature should not be
tampered with? If so, (aside from the fact we have been tampering with nature for thousands
of years) what makes nature so perfect that it should not be tampered with? Of course,
creationists believe that we can’t improve on nature, because God made everything perfectly.
But why should rationalists feel it is wrong to change the status quo? Haven’t rationalists been
"playing God" all along? Given our promethean ethics, why should it be a problem now?
Like any new technology, genetic engineering has the potential to be used for our benefit.
But scientists cannot find out about possible risks associated with genetic engineering if
they are forbidden by government to undertake the research required to assess the risks.
Recommended reading:
The Biotechnology Question (pamphlet produced by the Independent Biotechnology Advisory Council).
Eat Your Genes (Stephen Nottingham; Zed Books)
Genetic Engineering: dreams and nightmares (Edward Russo & David Cove; W. H. Freeman Press)
Return to Contents
Southern Lights
Religious Vote?
Russell Dear
Well, that’s another general election over. We’ve sort of settled on who we want
to run our country for the next three years. Perhaps we couldn’t quite make up our
minds but minority rules, O.K? That we’ve just had a general election, though, suggests
a wicked thought. How would it be, do you think, if we did the same for religion?
That is, every three years we had a national election to decide which religious group
should take care of our spiritual needs.
It wouldn’t be the same as politics. Most of us tolerate politicians of a different
persuasion. We’ll even let them run our affairs for a while without objecting too
much, but religion, that’s another thing. We’re not very good at tolerating other
denominations. Can you imagine, for example, a Seventh Day Adventist accepting spiritual
guidance from a Catholic, even for only three days, let alone three years? Most religious
groups would not accept surrendering autonomy to another, however temporarily.
Does this contrast between the lack of religious tolerance and the greater acceptance
of political differences, I wonder, suggest that we consider religion more important
than politics or maybe that religion is more fundamental to our psyche? Is it that
the underlying principles of politics are discussion, sharing ideas and comparing
strategies while religion, on the other hand, is agreement to pre-set non-negotiable
values? I leave that with you.
If we did have a religious election, would there be a party that could form a majority
government? Apparently not, according to the last census. Some groups do have reasonable
numbers but none hold a clear majority. We couldn’t look to parties like the Christian
Democrats or Christian Heritage, they can’t even poll five per cent in a normal election
and the chance that they could work together to gain some collective credibility
is also low, judging from flounderings in that direction over recent years.
Minority coalition, anyway, probably wouldn’t work. Or are there some groups who
would be prepared to get along, in the interest of cohesive government or just for,
what I suspect is more likely, the chance to exercise power? How about the Anglicans
and the Methodists? Could they rub along? It’s doubtful if they’d have to; even together
they don’t represent a majority of spiritual belief in this country. Maybe the Anglicans
and Presbytarians might swing it, given that voter turnout is likely to be low.
But where would that leave the majority, that is, the don’t knows, don’t cares and
don’t bother-me-todays? What about the no-religion category? There were almost 900,000
of those in the last census. There’s no provision for a no-politics vote in the general
election so how would an electoral system for religious voting account for those
who claim no religion? Now there’s an interesting side-thought. Should there be provision
for voting no-politics in a general election? How is it that we can have no religion
yet not no politics? That sounds like the sort of discussion Bill Cooke would like
to get into.
Then there’s the complication of humanism? Humanists, no doubt, don’t consider themselves
a complication but would they form a party to contest a religious election? Would
they finally accept religious status and hope for a majority, maybe even picking
up all those no-religion votes? Rationalists, on the other hand, are on record as
saying they are non-party so I can’t see them contesting an election. In a situation
like this would Rationalists vote Humanist, one wonders?
There’s another difference, of course, between political and religious electoral
systems. It is customary, nay expected, that when the situation arises our politicians
are heckled and even ridiculed. It would surely be less acceptable to challenge priests.
Is that because religious leaders are seen to have more authority than politicians,
I wonder. Still, it paints a delightful picture. They would, after all, expect to
be challenged if they were to pontificate in a parliamentary forum. Wouldn’t it be
refreshing if one was able to stand up in church during a sermon and shout "bullshit".
It would force the men of the cloth to defend their untenable positions. They might
even have to cope publically with losing face. Perhaps that’s why, in democracies,
religious parties don’t thrive.
Return to Contents
Current Comments
Secularism attacked
Amid all the commentary and appraisal that attended the symbolic end of the millennium
came some predictable criticisms of the principle of secularism. Bruce Logan, the
fundamentalist Christian in charge of the so-called NZ Education Development Foundation
Logan said we were celebrating the millennium in an historical vacuum. "Secularism,"
he wrote, "simply cannot confront the truth about itself. It is naked in the
moral universe. It would claim the millennium as its own invention, but it is a recipient,
not an initiator.' (NZ Herald, 29.12.1999, p 17)
A moral universe? What science has he been reading? But that howler aside, Logan
is trading on the notion that we should fall on our knees and remember the Christian
origin of the millennium celebrations. All this sounds plausible enough until one
remembers that it is the principle of secularism that allows us all to live in peace
and harmony. In pre-secular days, nations were deemed healthy according to level
of religious conformity was displayed. Notes of dissent, as his is, would have been
treated as blasphemy and dealt with accordingly. But now, Bruce Logan can vilify
the secular society that gives him the security to vilify without molestation.
And it was this that we were celebrating. Most of us knew perfectly well that the
millennium was just a calendrical convention which gave us the opportunity for some
historical assessments and some optimism for the future. Mostly, the millennium was
used intelligently to assess how far we had come and the direction we needed to go.
And let us remember that we were celebrating how far we had come from the conformist
days of enforced, stifling Christendom. The mantras we use today about multi-cultural
society, knowledge economy, open society, about society free from intolerance and
prejudice, are all different ways to celebrate our post-Christian, secular society.
That does not suggest a vacuum. That suggests a level of social innovation far more
liberating and refreshing than any religious orthodoxy could ever imagine.
Cultural Sikhs
There was an interesting little exchange at the Indian Rationalist Association Conference
which is worth recording. A spokesperson of the Tarksheel (loosely translated as
"Rationalist") Society of Punjab gave a short presentation outlining the history
of their organisation. Following his presentation, he was asked why, given he is
a Rationalist, does he continue to wear a turban and sport a beard, which are, of
course, outward signs of submission to the Sikh religion.
His answer (sadly, I did not record his name) was interesting. Yes, he continues
to wear a turban and sport a beard. He is happy to maintain this outward sign of
identification with Sikh culture, but has specifically rejected the religious
associations. This seems eminently sensible. Rejecting the religion of one’s culture
does not require one to reject other cultural symbols. To do so would be to accord
far too great a significance to religion in culture. Many Jews now speak of themselves
as cultural, as opposed to religious Jews. This split forms the basic division is
Israeli politics today. Having thrown the religious bathwater out, we are under no
obligation to also eject the cultural baby.
Animist Superstition
Associate Professor Paul Dunmore, of Victoria University in Wellington raised some
eyebrows in the middle of February when he refused to attend the opening of a new
faculty building at the university because the building was to receive a Maori blessing.
Such blessings have become customary now. Associate Professor Dunmore is reported
to have replied that "I find it culturally offensive that, in this institution
dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, we propose to inaugurate our new premises
with an act of animist superstition. Will there be space above my door to mount my
lucky horseshoe?" (NZ Herald, 11.2.2000, p 3)
Predictably, Dunmore received a flood of abuse. Associate Education Minister Parekura
Horomia dismissed his objection as "dogmatic and ignorant" and said that
such blessings are an important part of Maori life.
It’s immediately obvious that this raises some very interesting questions for Rationalists
and Humanists. On the one hand we are clearly opposed to animist superstitions on
the grounds of their irrationality and inefficacy. Every public building in the country
has probably been blessed by now, and yet cases of sexual harassment, bullying, embezzlement,
and other types of non-saintly behaviour within such buildings continue. Other buildings,
despite being blessed, continue to damage the health of their occupants by leaking
asbestos flecks, or by collapsing during earthquakes. Clearly such blessings are
a nonsense in terms of having any practical value.
But on the other hand, such blessings are indeed an integral part of Maori life,
and New Zealand is, rightly, committed to multi-cultural openness and tolerance.
This is probably a case where Rationalists and Humanists can put their money where
their mouth is and practice tolerance of cultural diversity. This does not mean that
complaints shouldn’t be made. Associate Professor Dunmore is to be congratulated.
There is no reason why we should be door-mats. But, having made our reasonable criticism,
then let them get on with it.
Return to Contents
Book Reviews
Irrationality: The Enemy Within
(Penguin, 1994), by Stuart Sutherland.
ISBN: 0-140-16726-9
Stuart Sutherland has a distinguished record as a writer and a scholar. He has contributed
as a reviewer to the Times Literary Supplement, The Observer, Daily
Telegraph, New York Times and more. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology
at the University of Sussex. In this challenging and fascinating book Sutherland
indicates how to recognise irrationality as well as speculating on its causes. Psychology
meets mathematics and the result is surprisingly entertaining and delightfully instructive.
The author systematically catalogues about a hundred different causes of the all-too-human
capacity for arriving at the least probable answer, our persistent knack for achieving
a less than optimum outcome, and the wondrous skill we have for constructing the
masterpiece that is a carefully considered screw-up. Few of us, and even fewer of
our institutions, are consistently sound in our methods of decision-making, and hence
our actions are often counter-productive.
Here we find explanations for our constantly foolish, and occasionally disastrous,
behaviour. Bad choices may result from overvaluing a single sample. For example,
an unhelpfully flattering (or negative) notion of a product or a person may be gained
from just one false impression. We will often give recently acquired information
priority over earlier material without considering relative merit. As the author
puts it, "everyone is irrational some of the time and in particular everyone
is susceptible to the availability of error". Unfortunately the pestiferous
"availability of error" comes in several guises and it is but one of a
host of pitfalls. Decisions are sometimes just too complicated for our minds to process
quickly and so we are left to fall back on dodgy shortcuts.
It is a trap to imagine that carefully planned actions are always preferable to spontaneous
responses. The monkey climbs any tree to escape a predator, deliberating over
which is the best tree could be a fatal waste of time. In human company, a
carefully considered reply may sound ponderous and insincere and long pauses in conversation
or delays in reaching decisions can be tiresome; there is a clear need for spontaneity
in inter-personal relations. One reason that our species has flourished despite our
poorly developed decision-making skills could be that the overwhelming majority of
judgments we make in our personal lives are trivial, another is that satisfactory
(as opposed to optimal) results are still possible in the face of dubious choices.
Stuart Sutherland has a gift for expressing himself with elegant simplicity and a
fine understanding of his subject. He has produced a witty and accessible work that
rewards the reader by stimulating thought, and he provides at the end of each chapter
a list of "morals" that might serve as defensive tactics to thwart "the
enemy within". If this book were to be used as a secondary school text, Statistics
might well be everyone’s favourite subject.
Peter Murphy
Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
(Viking, 1999), by John Cornwell
ISBN 0-670-87620-8
When I put this book down I can genuinely say I was shocked and angry. There is a
large literature on Eugenio Pacelli, who from 1939 to his death in 1958 was Pope
Pius XII. Pacelli has become one of the most controversial popes in the history of
that institution - a strong claim. The controversy revolves around the conflicting
opinions on his behaviour toward the Nazis and the Holocaust before and during the
Second World War.
John Cornwell is Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and has a number
of important publications on aspects of Catholic history to his name. He is a practising
Catholic with a refined and civilised idea of what constitutes Christian duty. When
he began his book on Pius XII, he gained unprecedented access to papal records and
to the records of the beatification hearings going on at the moment to determine
whether Pacelli is suitable for promotion to sainthood. Being a saint, of course,
means that pious Catholics are allowed to pray to you, such is your holiness deemed
to be. Cornwell assured the papal archivists he was on their side, and was rewarded
with this unprecedented level of access to the records.
"By the middle of 1997, nearing the end of my research," Cornwell writes,
"I found myself in a state I can only describe as moral shock." What follows
is the most comprehensively researched, and best written, account of the dark history
of Pius XII. Pius emerges as a man of undoubted religious zeal, and utterly devoted
to his calling. But he also emerges as instinctually authoritarian and reactionary.
At all times his first thought was "What effect will this have on the Roman
Catholic Church?" And by Roman Catholic Church, he meant the papacy. And as
he was pope, "the papacy" meant his own power. Rival questions about the
"Christian" thing to do, the humane thing to do, the just thing to do,
did not enter his head.
Cornwell goes through case after case: abandoning the Catholic Centre Party in Germany
at the price of his Concordat with Hitler; turning a blind eye to successive Nazi
outrages against liberty, human rights, peace in Europe, even the Holocaust itself.
The only time Pacelli bleated was when he felt Catholic interests had been undermined
or threatened. Cornwell’s shock turns progressively to anger as the book proceeds.
His strongest single condemnation comes after relating Pacelli’s criminal silence
with regard to the Holocaust. "That failure to utter a candid word about the
Final Solution in progress proclaimed to the world that the Vicar of Christ was not
moved to pity and anger. From this point of view he was the ideal Pope for Hitler’s
unspeakable plan. He was Hitler’s pawn. He was Hitler’s Pope."
Doubtless Catholics more bigoted than Cornwell will complain that he is "not
a proper Catholic" in an attempt to fend off these wide-ranging accusations.
This book has already occasioned a blast of controversy in the United Kingdom. But
it’s going to be difficult to side-step these well-researched accusations made by
a principled and intelligent Catholic scholar. Difficult, but, it would seem, not
impossible. In principle, the process of determining whether Eugenio Pacelli deserves
saintly status is rigorous, but Cornwell shows that Father Peter Gumpel, SJ, the
man in charge of the beatification process, regards any even remotely negative comment
about Pacelli as "unjustifiable and calumnious attacks against this great and
saintly man." So the man who constantly badgered the Allies not to station coloured
troops in Rome while thousands of Jews were being sent off to Auschwitz has every
chance of becoming a saint; someone people can pray to.
At the risk of sounding repetitious, I am bound to add that many of Cornwell’s points
are not news to Rationalists who have read Joseph McCabe. Naturally McCabe is not
mentioned in this book, but McCabe was making many of the same observations as
the events were unfolding. Using his unprecedented knowledge of the way the Roman
Catholic Church works, and reading closely the convoluted reports in the Vatican
media, McCabe kept his readers impeccably informed at the time. But of course, McCabe
and the Rationalists could be dismissed (when they were noticed at all) as anti-Catholic
fanatics. Nobody took any notice of silly old Rationalists. But now, half a century
later, the same points against this reactionary and miserable pope are finally made
by a Catholic scholar. Better late than never I suppose. But be warned: you will
finish this book with a very nasty taste in your mouth.
Bill Cooke
Amazing Conversions: Why some Turn to Faith and Others Abandon Religion
(Prometheus Books, 1997), by Bob Altemeyer and Bruce Hunsberger
ISBN 1-57392-147-5
This work could serve as an easy, enticing introduction to psychological research
into religion. Writing for the general reader, two psychologists describe their research
looking at converts to and from Christianity and consider results in the light of
broader research. The authors used self-report questionnaires completed by thousands
of university students to measure various characteristics including religious upbringing.The
most- and least-religiously trained were then given questionnaires about their current
religious beliefs. Through this the authors identified and interviewed those students
who had achieved the largest departure from their upbringing: 24 "Amazing Believers"
converted from a non-religious background to current devotion, and 46 "Amazing
Apostates" converted from a highly religious upbringing to current disbelief.
The differences between the groups were striking.For example, the Believers had a
higher incidence of serious personal problems and losses prior to their conversion,
and they mainly quoted as advantages the sense of security and special spiritual
protection they had gained, not the sense of intellectual integrity cited by the
Apostates. The Apostates had a harder time from their families and paid a much higher
price generally for their conversions. The Apostates tended to take a more moderate
position, verging on philosophical fence-sitting. Few called themselves atheists although
their reported beliefs were undoubtedly so, and they expressed reluctance to influence
others against religion including their own children. For me, this highlighted the
importance of the existence and work of groups such as the Rationalists.
Unfortunately, freed from their normal academic constraints the authors have offered
some questionable conclusions and explanations without justifying these on the basis
of solid science, for example making the age-old mistake of deducing causal relationships
from correlational findings. Such errors often appeared to serve an irritating protectiveness
towards religious believers, summed up in the authors' claim that "The challenge
is to increase its (religion's) good effects, which we sorely need, and lessen the
unfortunate ones." (page 238). I prefer to conclude that the tenets of most religions
render them largely incapable of producing good effects, the challenge being to stop
superstitious thinking. What's more, the authors did not disclose their own religious
positions or backgrounds which left me frequently trying to guess these, detracting
from the content. Other readers though might enjoy the challenge of inferring the
philosophical nature of the authors.
The authors' research findings were seen to be consistent with the broader body of
relevant research, a fascinating knowledge base. For example, did you know that there
is good statistical evidence that religious people on average score more highly on
tests measuring "authoritarianism" or "prejudice", high scores
in authoritarianism being consistently linked with such personality features as aggression,
supporting abuse of power by officials, hypocrisy, conformity and dogmatism? What
about the consistent tendency for women to be more religious than men, and for non-believers
to report themselves as being less happy than do believers? Then there is the range
of research strongly indicating that people's moral development is a process largely
independent from any religious development.
This worthwhile book shows that while science may be generally constrained to making
small, laborious steps in knowledge, each small increment can be of huge significance
and interest by dint of the solid evidence behind it.
Hans Laven-Butler is a psychologist and lives in Tauranga.
Book reviews from readers are welcomed. Reviews should not be longer than 500
words and the book should not be more than three years old. Always include the full
title, publisher, date of publication, and the ISBN number.
Return to Contents
Letters to the Editor
Dear Bill
Thank you for the magazine. I found it very interesting, especially the "Argument
to Design: The Debate". And I was most impressed by your address "The Triumphant
Vindication of the Argument to Design". It was superb presentation from a very
astonishing angle. My Congratulations.
Robert Nola was also very persuasive. "The Road to Kosovo" by Victor Boldt
was a very scholarly article, though he forgot to mention the role of The Holy Roman
German Empire of 956-1806; and of Holy Roman British Empire which followed it. It
would be interesting to construct the metamorphosis of Eastern Byzantine
Empire and Western Latin Empire, as religio-political entities: divided as modern
religio-political nations, yet united in their diversity of colonialism and resultant
religious, ethnic, national and civil wars.
Name Withheld
Dear Bill
Poor King Cnut! I'm sure he would have been a Rationalist if he had had time from
all that raping and pillaging, but he was never a "legendary King [who] tried
vainly to demand the tide...be held back" as you state in your editorial.
I quote from The History Today Companion to British History under Cnut (p.175):
"Cnut King of the English (1016-35). The younger son of Svein Forkbeard, King
of Denmark, Cnut acquired the English kingdom by conquest in 1016. The (possibly
apocryphal) story telling how he demonstrated to his courtiers that he could not
hold back the sea first appeared about a century after his death." (My
italics).
I have just formed the King Cnut Rehabilitation Group (KCRG) and the only
qualification for membership is to solemnly undertake to send a letter of protest
and correction to any writer publishing such a canard about this obviously worthy,
if violent, King.
Really the younger generation nowadays is so badly informed - I wonder where you
were dragged up. Dad sends his love.
Yours sorrowfully but affectionately
Patricia Cooke
Wellington
Editor’s response: Sorry mum.
Dear Bill
Victor Boldt is to be congratulated on his article "The road to Kosovo"
in the Summer 1999-2000 issue, detailing some of the inter-religious wars that have
made the past millennium so bloody. It will provide ammunition against proponents
of the "feel good" aspects of religion.
However Mr Boldt has omitted one religious claim which has produced an apparently
irreconcilable conflict. He refers rightly to the murders of Israeli civilians by
the Islamic Hizbollah and Hamas, but does not explain that these atrocities occur
only because of the existence of the state of Israel.
Turning the pages of the same issue we read in "Nostradamnonsense" that
God promised the land of Canaan to "Abraham and his seed forever". For
almost three thousand years Jews have maintained their claim, and although the Jewish
state was destroyed nearly two thousand years ago in Roman times, they never gave
up their dream of re-establishing it.
The spurs in recent times to this quite irrational turning back of the clock are
three, in my opinion: (1) the founding of the Zionist movement by Herzog in the nineteenth
century, and his spurious claim to "a land without people for a people without
a land". (The Palestinians were invisible?): (2) the duplicity of the British
government during World War One; they were prepared to promise anything to anybody
to win the war, including mutually exclusive promises to Arabs and Jews: (3) the
world-wide revulsion against the horrors of Nazi rule in Europe.
No matter how much we sympathise with the sufferings of the Jewish people over many
centuries, I do not see how any rationalist can see the creation of a Jewish state
in a place where there has not been one for nearly two thousand years as other than
highly irrational. The sufferings of the Palestinians resulting from this must surely
be added to Victor Boldt’s list.
Bernard Howard
Christchurch
Return to Contents
Oddities
Honorary Associates - Focus on...
Paul Hurtz, who received the International Rationalist Award at the Indian
Rationalist Association Jubilee Conference.
Fifty Years Ago
However retarded the work of an atheist may be by human gullibility, the walls of
entrenched superstition are not insurmountable. Man, in his brief span of existence,
is only a short time removed from his days in the jungle, and if he retains some
of jungle thinking, with its gods, its ghosts, and loin-cloth rituals, he is facing
a wealth of knowledge today that he cannot completely escape. Gradually, imperceptibly,
this mass of slowly accumulated knowledge is bearing down on him, like a huge moving
glacier whose existence he must recognise and acknowledge before his puny world of
illusion is crushed beneath the weight.
NZ Rationalist, Dec 1949-Jan 1950
The Last Word
We have uniformly rejected all letters and declined all discussion upon the question
of when the present century ends, as it is one of the most absurd that can engage
the public attention, and we are astonished to find it has been the subject of so
much dispute, since it appears plain. The present century will not terminate till
January 1, 1801, unless it can be made out that 99 are 100.
It is a silly, childish discussion, and only exposes the want of brains who maintain
a contrary opinion to that we have stated.
The Times, 26 December 1799
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